Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Families

 As we get older, we come to realize how important families are to our lives.  Families do not always consist of those sharing one's genes.   Friends can become a family also.

As an artist, I come from a family with a long line of creative souls going back as far as great grandparents.  At least, that's as far back as I can go.  My mother was a painter, my brother was a kinetic sculptor, my father was a musician with artistic talents, my aunt (Mother's sister) painted and created water sculptures, two of my three cousins are in the arts (one makes jewelry and the other is a documentary film maker).   My grandmother had to work so when she created, it was through knitting.  My grandfather was an architect.  My great aunt painted and her son was a photographer who also invented the portable strobe and collaborated with Harold Edgerton.  Another great aunt dabbled in metals and her daughter has a wonderful ability to do illustrations with great detail but chooses to do other things.   Great grandfather was a woodworker.  There are others.   We would make a good case for creativity being genetic.

I have a very dear, dear friend whom I have known since our early years in grade school.  We attended high school and college together.  We even began to wear identical clothes with no intent to do so.  Bonny is also an artist.  She creates beautiful necklaces which she has had great success with and she paints.  Her family (husband, 3 daughters...Amy writes childrens' books and Sara is a pastry chef who can write and take beautiful photographs) means so much to me.  In my mind, they are family.

My new family is still developing.  It is my LUMA group....our collective.  We are 10 in number (4 women, 6 men), all photographers but each with a totally different style and approach to how and what we shoot.  Some of us in the group have grown closer to each other.  It's great to have a wonderful group of people that share your love for taking photos, that support you and share info, give honest critiques, and just have fun.  Most artists  spend so much time alone that it becomes important to have friends who share your world.  It's not the way the "normal" world operates and, in my opinion, the art world can be difficult for non-artists to understand.

My genetic family is not terribly close and, sadly, there aren't many of us left.  Maybe this is why friends are more like family to me.    I'm grateful to have them.




Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Protecting Your Website

Since my last entry, I have temporarily removed images from my website and talked to a few people about how to protect those images, if one can, in fact,  protect those images.  I have my images electronically watermarked by Digimarc, a very reputable company.  Having read some articles written by various people, it's apparent that even copyrighting one's images this way is not foolproof.  Adding your copyright  with Photoshop prior to electronically embedding a copyright can apparently create problems of its own.  Haven't tried this to see if it's true.

Two suggestions were mentioned regarding my fear of having my images stolen.  One was that perhaps whoever was visiting my site left the window open while checking out other sites.  The other suggestion was that "bots" often go to sites to gather information for the web...at least, I believe that's what they do.  Needless to say, neither of things had occurred to me.

Well, that leaves me with how I've decided to deal with my dilema (if in fact it is one).  It seems that in the long run, it is better to have your work up on the web.  I will continue to electronically copyright my work.  Today, I have begun to put images back up on the web which is never as easy to do as one remembers.  I've managed to make some mistake and am now having to wait until the gentleman who is the webmaster undoes my error.  He is one terrific person and is very patient when dealing with my mistakes.  I can only hope that Doug has very few like me.

For those who may have the same worries as I, I hope this helps a bit.  Or, perhaps, someone out there has additional ideas or solutions.   Time for positive thinking.

On another note, we are having bitter cold weather.  With the windchill factored in, it will be between -30 to -40 degrees tonight and tomorrow.  Schools will not be open tomorrow.  Many people will be dealing with dead car batteries.  Today, highways were filled with accidents, cars sliding off the road and road closures.  Happily, this awful weather should be over by Saturday.  Since Gallery Night is on Friday, it will be interesting to see who is brave enough to venture out.  Think warm thoughts for us!  Please!!!