I do have some new work to show you, after I upload the pictures, but for now you get another one of my old favorites. This is from a series I did as a final project in my Photographic Styles course in college. The series was inspired by Anne Brigman, one of the early pioneers of 'photographic art' and the 'pictorial' style of photography. She has had a greater influence on my personal style than any other photographer thus far.

Brigman used herself as a model in many of her images, so I chose to use myself as a model here. The series was shot in December, so the images were all composites: I shot myself in my apartment, and pasted myself into the landscape using Photoshop.

This is only one of the images. I will post other ones when I drag my old computer up from the garage.

Two days ago, I decided to paint a picture just for the heck of it. As I've been out of the habit the past several years, I have little in the way of painting supplies...just some paint brushes and a handful of acrylic paints that I've used for craft projects. But I wanted to paint a picture.

I found a chunk of homemade paper hiding in a drawer so I decided to use it.  I wasn't sure what it was going to be at first. I've been enjoying my little boy's obsession over the sun in his picture books, so I thought I would paint one. I love the sun, too.

I created this image during my first quarter of photography school, as my final project for a design class. We were supposed to create our own scene and then photograph it. Being a lover of natural scenes, I scouted out the beautiful Oregon parks for the perfect scene. I already had the image in my head, more or less: I just needed to find the right place. Obviously, my idea of "creating" a scene was loosely interpreted.

It's really something when the answers start pouring in, like when a weary hiker discovers a beautiful waterfall. Well, I wish this were that refreshing. I've been suffering from terrible brain fog the last few days. I've long suspected that dairy isn't good for me, and as I made a lasagna earlier this week and have had the leftovers for several meals...I've been feeling quite horrible. The word dairy kept coming to my mind. It's the dairy! It's the dairy! this little inaudible voice would say. I've eaten quite horribly today but no dairy, and my brain already seems to be clearing a bit. Enough for me to have the sense to do a little research online.

I searched for information on brain fog and found a somewhat helpful article. As I read it, I thought, yes that could be a cause for me...maybe not that...but yes, this, too, and maybe that also. One of the possible causes is electromagnetic toxicity. I have suspected for a while that I may be sensitive to electrical fields, including my computer screen, which I keep choosing to ignore despite the way it drains me. I'm not so sure I should be ignoring that. As of late, I've even been having less desire to go to my computer, source of so much enjoyment. But the desire to connect keeps pulling me to it--I can't let go. But maybe I do need to let go. Maybe take a vacation from it. Or severely limit my time on it.

The article also mentioned copper toxicity as a possible culprit for brain fog. I was intrigued, so I clicked over to this article. If the first article was a little stream, this one was the waterfall. I think I may have hit the goldmine, er, coppermine. Did you know that there is a "copper personality"? These people who accumulate copper easily tend to have a "warm, caring, sensitive, emotional nature, often with artistic orientation and a child-like quality" and also young-looking and intuitive.

"When the personality is not fully integrated or the copper becomes too high, negative traits show up.  These include spaciness, racing thoughts, living in a dream world and naiveté.  Other qualities include childishness, excessive emotions, sentimentality, a tendency to depression, fearfulness, hidden anger and resentments, phobias, psychosis and violence.  Artists, inventors and other high-copper types often "live on the edge", in part due to their high copper level."

The works we create say something about us. That is especially true when we do self-portraits. Here are two of my "alter egos." What does each one say about me?