The Light Inside
Posted on November 21, 2013
A couple of years ago, I was playing with my point and shoot camera, bored with the shots I’d been taking. I was looking around in the yard for another possibility when I saw the heat pump and heard it whirring away.
What if I put my camera up to the air grille?
What resulted is still one of my favorite unexpected outcomes in my own journey as a photographer. Black and white versions of some of the photos from that day are in a post at Creative Thresholds.
Recently I revisited that same heat pump, this time with my iPhone. I wanted to play and see what resulted. It was just as much fun as before….
I used Snapseed for post-processing.
Interview with Nicola Ayoub, international choreographer and dancer
Posted on November 14, 2013
Every week on the Facebook Creative Thresholds page we feature one post from the archives. This week’s is my interview with Nicola Ayoub, one of the most inspiring creatives I know who has found a way to live her dream, albeit through much faith and perseverance. Be inspired by her story at Creative Thresholds.
The Latest Creative Thresholds
Posted on November 4, 2013
I’m excited about the latest Creative Thresholds. Screenwriter and graphic novelist G.A. Gallas shares pages from her graphic novel The Poet and the Flea, an ode to William Blake. My nerd self totally swoons over this.
Michi Meko. Flux 2013. Atlanta. One heck of a performance. Christopher Hutchinson discusses why it’s so good in “Postcolonial thoughts: Michi Meko’s The job of the resurrectors is to wake up the dead.” 
“A sound theater of Negro prison work songs will be played to wake up the souls of Negro men that were forced to lay the tracks in and around Atlanta as the re-enslavement of Black Americans increased during the Civil War up to World War II. Most of these free men were imprisoned on bogus charges enforced by Penal Labor/Servitude laws allowing the cycle of supremacy to continue….”
The first chapter from Jillian Schedneck’s book Abu Dhabi Days, Dubai Nights recounts her two years teaching English in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. “I longed to be pulled and pushed, to journey to places that seemed unknown and less travelled, whose names held some kind of mystery and magic to my ears.” Definitely worth the journey.
It’s no secret I love mobile photography. If I ever wondered what some of the creative possibilities were for its apps, Maarten Oortwijn gives more than enough of an idea…and plenty of inspiration in “the digital painter.”
Letters to You by Daniel Boscaljon (with images by me) continues with my “best for your worst.” “some words have power….”
Phoneography Challenge: Nature. Tropical Storm Karen and the Cornfields
Posted on October 7, 2013
I hadn’t planned to participate in the Phoneography challenge this week, but as I was driving home today the remnants of Tropical Storm Karen drifting over harvested cornfields was too tempting not to try and capture.
The Latest Creative Thresholds
Posted on October 6, 2013
Photography, flash fiction, experimental writing, critique, and iPad drawings: the latest Creative Thresholds.
Go behind the scenes of photographer J. Christopher Matyjasik’s latest project: dixie’s s-bahn.
See the continuation of Daniel Boscaljon’s and my collaboration in confession: the nature of my crime.
Read our new columnist Christopher Hutchinson’s look at Rashid Johnson’s work in Postcolonial Thoughts: Afrofuturist Rashid Johnson’s Message To Our Folks.
Hang with Rachel Troutman as she sketches her iPad drawings in Sofa Drawings.
Check out Maria Protopapadaki-Smith’s mysterious flash piece Dreamhealer.
Creative Thresholds looks forward to your visit!
iPhoneography Monday: Black and White (in a Fog)
Posted on September 16, 2013
A couple of weeks ago I played hooky from all my early morning responsibilities by taking my iPhone out for a leisurely (and beautiful) walk in the fog. I posted a couple of the photos from that day in What I Did Instead….. What I’d forgotten is how many photos I’d taken with Camera + that I’d not moved to my camera roll. I discovered them last Wednesday when I’d stopped to take a photo of a rainbow on my way home from work and opened the app.
I probably would’ve left the photos a bit longer had I not learned about iPhoneography Monday at the end of last week and thought they’d be perfect for the black and white challenge this week. I took a few, processed them in Dramatic Black & White, and added frames (frame: Shadow II) in Photo Toaster.
These were shot in color and processed into black and white. When I first picked up a camera, a photographer friend, whose monochrome photography I adore, told me that all he ever did was shoot in color. He learned how to see a color scene in terms of the possibilities of black and white. (As a young photographer, he actually started by shooting in black and white–film–but came to enjoy the challenge of shooting in color for black and white.) For the most part, that’s what I do with all my cameras. But I’m beginning to dabble in shooting with various monochrome camera apps , especially MPro. I plan to post some of those explorations as well. Do you have a favorite app you use for black and white mobile photography?
Even if you can barely see it…
Posted on September 13, 2013
Yesterday I was driving home from teaching a Pilates class and this is what appeared in the sky as I neared home. Faint, but full of hope.
What I Did Instead….
Posted on September 8, 2013
One morning last week I got up and didn’t write. I didn’t read. I didn’t exercise. I took my antsy self outside into the fog with my iPhone(‘s camera) and leisurely walked the road.
August Creative Thresholds is here!
Posted on September 3, 2013
The online magazine I curate/edit/sometimes contribute to, Creative Thresholds, came out last Thursday with the August issue. (It comes out the last Thursday of every month). It’s a great issue with work by Peter Ciccariello, Seana Reilly, Pascal Gault, and Daniel Boscaljon (with an image from my In and Out of the Frame project). We’ve also added a new Twitter page to join our fairly new Facebook page.
Peter Ciccariello: TEXTUAL·ARTIFACTS·SERIES
Seana Reilly: Natural Inclinations
Pascal Gault: Uncertainty in Photography and Interstitial Space
Daniel Boscaljon: Characters: X and I (and you)
Melissa D. Johnston Art 