Banner image by Myshra
It’s beginning to look a lot like… One More Blog’s latest post! This week, we have an eerie house, two holiday doggos, split film experimentation, a harsh landscape, and the mystery of the hung-up shoes. I’m the_abecedarian and I will once again be presenting to you some gems from our gallery, but all the while it is really you who are the gem, dear reader, for being here.
Gallery Gems
The quality of light can do so much to set the vibe of a shot. Something about bigg dogg’s processing here makes the side of the house almost look like a movie set, as if you could walk around it and see it was only a facade. Pair that with the heavy clouds, the fog, and odd yellow light coming in from off-camera, and I can’t shake the feeling that something eerie is going on, out in the middle of nowhere.
But wait, ’tis not the season for eerie!* We did that a couple months ago already. Luckily, AON gifts us this lovely portrait of two doggos in front of the tree. Pet portraiture is not easy and he managed a perfect moment in which one looks squarely into the camera while the other glances over to him. The black-and-white look gives the image a timeless quality and allows their gentle personalities to shine. Though I bet they immediately returned to being chaotic after this shot lol.
*’tis always the season for eerie don’t @ me
Davesunday teaches us to embrace the entirety of the film, spocket holes and all, while ignoring its limitations. Overlapping a strip of color 135 film with a strip of black and white 135 film, to get a double-wide image splits the resulting image vertically and places it in the context of the medium used to capture it. His choice of subject, a grave in memoriam of family pets, now split into half-color and half-monochrome, seems to me to say something about memory or our inability to hold onto permanence. Or maybe he just ran out of 120 film? Points for experimentation either way.
Usually cronched-up HP5 is something you see in street photography, but bingboys uses it to give this vertical landscape a touch of harshness that shows a side of autumn that is not sugary, seasonal coffee drinks; “rules for fall” signs; and apple picking — emphasizing the cold and making the land seem barren. Yet, the journey implied here by the path in the foreground, the small bits of land sticking into the river and the hint of distant mountains in the fog still feels doable, if only we have the heart for it.
There are many theories about what hanging shoes up (on power lines or elsewhere) means. Whether it is a memorial to locals who have passed away or just teens messing around, it definitely acts as a statement of presence, that we are here. I think the context of having that in a non-place like a rail bridge, paired with the harshness of the glowing, blown-out highlights, gives it a lot of punch.
Community Collaborations
OMS Winter Printers
Managed by Aidan
Look, maybe you do like your sugary, seasonal coffee drinks; put up your rules for fall signs; and are sitting on a load of apples you’ve already picked. We love it — being cozy in the winter is an absolute vibe! So why not stay in, put your favorite fuzzy slippers, and make some prints instead?
Join up anytime, hop into moderated biweekly discussions for feedback or appreciation, and most importantly make actual images you can hold in your hands and put in your portfolio.
Thanks for checking out some cool art with me! If you hunger for more, get over to their galleries, socials, and websites. Wishing you inspiration and creativity for the new year.
Yours always,
the_abecedarian
Please take a look at my website for more of my work!