One Light Workshop / New York City!

I'm back from New York, and it was just an incredible trip. First of all, I have to say that the train ride was amazing. I had never taken the train before, but it beats flying hands down. Seats are bigger, more leg room, no waiting in lines to board the plane, and when all is said and done, it takes about the same amount of time to get from DC to NYC. Plus, you end up in the middle of the city as opposed to out in the middle of nowhere at the airport.

Day one was the Photo Plus Expo. There was really just too much to take in and it was a bit overwhelming, but I did pick up a few samples from my lab and from some other vendors that I plan to check out this week. I also got to meet some photographers who I have known in the world of cyberspace but had never met in person. That's always fun, and so it was a good day :)

Day two was the One Light Workshop given by Zack Arias. I really don't do workshops much because I got two degrees in photography and already have a strong foundation, but this one was really good for all levels. We had a very long day of learning and shooting, and I would highly recommend it. Zack even let me hook up my Holga to the strobe system to see if it would work (I'll post results once they are developed!). You can see a few of the images I took of our model Madison with my more "high tech" camera here:



And Zack taking some sample images to show us:


Day three was just me hanging out with my friends Matt and John, who were wonderful enough to let me crash at their place and then take me all over town to sightsee and hang out. We went to a flea market where we found some interesting things and I got to take some fun photos that you can see here:





Then we walked around Manhattan and went shopping and I got to touch the $5,000 coats and $3,000 sweaters that Matt designed. Normally I would be scared to even set foot in stores like that let alone touch everything, but it's ok if the designer is with you! Then I was more in my element when we stopped into a few pet shops to look at the puppies. I'm all for adopting rescue dogs myself, but I never pass up a chance to pet a puppy!


Then we headed back to the apartment where I was accosted by the cats who are all competing for my attention. It was pretty funny... animals have such personalities. And I thought my dog was bad about needing so much attention!




So that sums up my trip! I had a lot of fun, and hope to visit again soon!

Out of the Office and into NYC!

This is just a quick post to inform current or future clients that I will not be in the office until Monday because I am going to be attending the One Light Workshop in New York City! I'm really looking forward to it, and will definitely be posting some photos from the trip when I am through.

What does this mean for you? I will not be around to answer e-mails or voicemails until next week. Andy and the Sasquatch will be here to hold down the fort, but if Maurice were to respond to your e-mails, it would probably look something like this:
alfjwpohfglsnjglsgtlsjgohwodlsghlsdhglsjglsdhglskhjglgs woof.

So I think I'll just stick to taking care of that myself when I return.
:)

My Shiny New Web Site

For a long time, I've been hatching a plan to get my web site to better reflect who I am and the work that I do. And now the day has finally come. Behold, my new web site!

[dr. evil voice] Well, this is actually just a screen grab of my web site, but the real web site looks a lot like like this... yeah. [/dr. evil voice] Go to my main site at Halo Photographic to see the real thing. The link is also at the side of this blog page under "Home Base - Halo Photographic"

There are photos... lots of photos. Photos of my wedding work, my kids' portraits, my artwork... and if you go to the "About Me" page, run the mouse over my photo. Cool things will happen ;)

If you notice anything odd, or that doesn't quite work right, drop me a line, cause I'd like to know about it so I can get it fixed. And if you have positive feedback, I'd love to know that as well. I like comments :)

edited to add: Thank you to Dan Schmidt for designing this site as well as putting the finishing touches on my current logo for me!

Crafty Bastards!

On Sunday I attended the Crafty Bastards! arts and crafts fair in Adams Morgan. It was really great to be able to go, since I am usually photographing a wedding on the same day(s) that these events happen in the spring and autumn. It was a bit overwhelming, actually, and I saw a lot of cool wares for sale, but I will list a few of my favorites.

This will officially be the "If I had more than $20 in my pocket, I would have bought everything in their booth" list.

1. Rebound Designs - Artist Caitlin Phillips (craftpunk on ArtDC.org) takes old books and makes bags out of them. I soooo wanted one, and someday may get one. There were quite a few that I really liked, but I couldn't make a decision. Fortunately, she has a website, so I can decide that one at a later date! To make matters even more difficult for someone as indecisive as I am, you can also ask her to customize a book bag for you, with the book of your choice. You can catch her at Eastern Market in DC if you want to see the goods in person.

2. Lindsay Bishop - Lindsay had some really incredible jewelry at her booth. I mean, really, REALLY cool. I could have walked out with all of it and been happy. Some of it was so unusual that it bordered on not being functional... in a cool way, of course. I see so much jewelry at these types of events that it all tends to blend together to me, but this work really stood out. There are no photos on her blog, unfortunately, so you'll have to take my word for how cool her jewelry really is. You trust me, right? There's some info in her bio section though that's quite entertaining...

3. Damned Dollies - Dana De Kuyper makes some really awesome t-shirts. Very cute, kind of twisted, and very much my style. I pondered quite a bit about buying one, and am now regretting that I didn't. But there's always online ordering... She also apparently has some of these tees for sale at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, among other places around North America if you want to see them in person.

4. Sticky Fingers Bakery - Owners Doron and Kirsten have a wonderful vegan bakery that produces edibles that are both animal friendly and extremely tasty. They make special order sweets including wedding cakes (for all those brides who might be reading this!). I plan to check them out when they move to their new store in November and to redeem my free cookie - fair-goers got a coupon for a free cookie for visiting their new location! Mmmmmm.... cookie.


5. GoshDarnKnit - Artist Rania Hassan has some really cool fiber and mixed media pieces that range from "connected" paintings of women knitting across time (literally connected by their knitting), to colorful hand knitted catnip toys, to gocco printed illustrations, journals, ornaments, etc...., to lots of other little odds and ends that are all just beautiful. She shows a lot of the work that was at the fair on her blog, so check it out!

6. Rob Ullman - This is probably the most amazing story of my fair visit. Rob and I attended Kent State University at the same time in the 90's, and he drew a daily comic for the Daily Kent Stater that was entitled "My Noise". It was one of my two favorite strips of my entire Kent career. I still have a few that I cut out and pasted on numerous college dorm walls before they finally came down and ended up in my journal (see images to the right). I know several other KSU students who clipped Rob's comic as well. Schmidt, you out there? I know we clipped a few of the same ones! So I knew I recognized his name from somewhere, I walked around a bit, and then it hit me who he was. I had never met Rob at Kent, so I asked if he was the same guy who created "My Noise," confirming that I had the right person. We talked a while about Kent, comics, and other stuff, and I bought one of Rob's newer comic books (Lunch Hour Comix), and hope to have it read soon... but the best part of all was that he signed it for me!

There was just so much to see at Crafty Bastards that I'm sure I'm missing some great vendors. But these were the ones that stood out to me, and therefore, the ones that make my blog!

And then, to top off this day, I was given a gift by my great friend Devlan who accompanied me to the fair. What was it? This:

My very own garden gnome! And before anyone asks, that's a Finnish flag he's holding. Why? It's a really long story...
(Oh, and Devlan, you totally rule!)

East Meets West

This is something a little different for me, but I decided to try a mixed media piece with a focus on watercolor. The drawings are based on photos I took while in India, and that's a torn up Indian newspaper in the background. I just can't figure out if I should add more black paint or not... I'll have to keep looking at it for a little while and see if any ideas come to me. It's really easy to overdo a piece, and I don't want that to happen!

I've been working on a few mixed media pieces lately, though none are finished yet. I'm still deciding whether I want to exhibit mixed media or holga work for Artomatic this year. Why do I have to make so many decisions? Don't they have robots for that sort of thing?

Yawn of the Sasquatch

When 5 PM rolled around today, this was what I found in my office: Both of my boys, strewn out across the floor so that I could barely move. Maurice gets his dinner at 5 PM, and once that's done, he's ready for another nap. So I figured I'd take a few photos because they were so cute. Except Maurice doesn't like to have his photo taken, so he got up and was ready to leave, and just started yawning uncontrollably. I don't know if these photos are quite blurry enough to sell to Weekly World News, but I think it's kind of funny...





Yes, Maurice's teeth need to be cleaned pretty badly...

My Other Half

My wonderful and talented husband Andy just put up his gallery of digitally manipulated photographs based on photos he took while on our trip to India this past December. Check out the images here.

The Family Antognoli

On Sunday, I attended my annual family reunion in Ohio. My father's father had something like 16 brothers and sisters, and as you can imagine, that produced a ton of relatives! The group photo above isn't even a fraction of them, for scale. I try and make it back for as many of these reunions as I can, because if you miss even one, there are so many new faces or growing up faces that you don't recognize, like these ones:







My grandmother was there, and she is always fun to see. She seems so much younger than she is, and I can only hope that I look that good when I'm her age!


My mother has been in charge of the games for the kids for years. They do all sorts of fun things, and then cap it off with a whirl at the pinata. We had to instate the rule that the pinatas would not resemble anything living though, because one year my mother brought a rabbit pinata, and the kids went all lord of the flies on us and were fighting over the body and head, which had become separated. So now only shapes, and colorful streamers are allowed!



My brother brought his guitar and was playing with a few other family members. I think I left when they went into a rendition of "Freebird" though. That's my limit, I'm afraid...


I have absolutely no idea what is going on here, and I took the photo!


Even family puppies gather for the reunion. I wanted to take this one home with me. He kind of looks like Maurice, only 75 pounds lighter : )


So thus ends another reunion, and thank you again to my second cousin Holly for hosting all of us crazy relatives!

I can see clearly now...

As I mentioned in a previous entry here, I had pretty big news that I would elaborate on later. Well, now is later. I didn't want to jinx myself by talking about it too much beforehand, so only a few people knew it would be happening... but I finally broke down and got lasik surgery! Yes, that's right, I can now see 20/20 without any vision enhancing apparatus. No contact lenses, no glasses... I can practically see through walls, that's how well this has worked!

So why would I go and do this after 18 years of wearing contacts well, you might ask? I suddenly became allergic to my contact lenses in June. They say when you live in DC long enough, it's bound to happen sooner or later. Wearing glasses was ok, but I found it difficult to be a photographer with them on. My career ultimately spurred my decision to go to the same doctor that performed the surgery on my father and younger brother, so I traveled to Niagara Falls to seek him out.

My family has a lot of great traits, but one bad one is our horrible eyesight. The reason my brother went to Canada a few years back is because they offered a type of lasik, Zyoptic, that was not offered here in the states. It is better for those of us hovering around -5 and worse. It also cuts way down on the risk of night halos, regression of correction, and is more accurate for the heavier prescriptions. So that's why the travel...

The day before the surgery, Andy and I wandered around the Falls, and I "found" this written on one of the nearby pillars:


No, I did not put it there. I FOUND it that way. I know some of you still don't believe me... you know who you are.

In case you are wondering, Niagara Falls is big. How big? THIS BIG:


So now it's DAY 4, and my eyes will be a bit swollen for a few more days. I have to wear these special shades outdoors, both to protect my eyes from UV rays, and also to hide my bloodshot eyes. Next week I should look pretty normal, I think. So if you see me around, I will look like this:


This photo was taken by Andy at my family reunion, which happened on Sunday (this was less than 48 hours after the surgery, btw). I will post some photos from that in a separate entry once I get through editing and am able to pull a few photos to share.

I might also post photos of some of my Canadian socks. Most people go on vacations and come back with souvenirs resembling something remotely normal, but not me. All I came back with were really cool, knee high, multicolored socks. You should have seen the customs officer at the Peace Bridge - he asked what we were bringing into the States, and Andy just paused and said, "socks". The guy got this puzzled look and then waved us on our way. I managed not to laugh until the window was rolled back up and we were a safe distance away.

Ah, yes, when I say "my adventures or lack thereof," you really don't know what you're going to get, do you? : )

With Great Power Comes Great Something Something...

I was joking the other week with a photographer friend from North Carolina that I could levitate a book because I had such awesome powers of mind control. Well, she asked me how it was going, and of course, I can't NOT respond to that. So I figured I'd do even better than levitating a book - I would levitate a person! Myself, to be specific. So I set up a camera on a tripod and recorded my telekinetic ability for all posterity.


^^^ Hmmm... the kitchen looks like as good a place as any to start with this. I ponder my strategy...


^^^ Whoa! It's working! I'm off the ground! Wait 'til Charo sees this!!!


^^^ I am so totally awesome! I can FLY! No more dealing with rush hour traffic for me... I'll be above all that! Suckers!


^^^ But wait... my powers were too great! It seems I not only levitated myself, but all the furniture and appliances as well. What was that quote from Spider Man? "With great power comes great something something..." . I'll have to reconsider this whole levitation deal until I have a better grasp on it.


^^^ Oh... so THAT's where all the furniture went. Great. Just great. I always wanted to do my laundry in the middle of the dining room... -

(To be continued...)

I'm Baaaaaaack!

Yeah, I know it's been forever since I last posted in my blog. I really hate to let it go so long without entering something, but I've just been really busy!

So what's new with me?

I've been spending a lot of time printing my holga work in the hopes of getting a show of that collection in the future. I forgot to bring up a lot of music to listen to, so had to listen to whatever was in Andy's car for the duration of my 8 hour print session. That's not entirely a bad thing, because I discovered a really cool band - Cloud Cult. I must have listened to the Advice From the Happy Hippopotamus album about 3 times during that time, and it still hasn't gotten old. If you check out my LastFM playlist (look to the right) and like a lot of the other music I listen to, you should give this one a try. Also on the playlist during my print session was NIN, Cibo Matto and Modest Mouse. LIkewise, I'm always looking for new music, so if you have any to suggest, I'm all 1's and 0's.

We got a new floor in the kitchen this week. Between having knocked out an old counter and Maurice biting the old linoleum floor when we first got him, it really needed to be replaced. Now we have cool ceramic tile, and it just makes the kitchen look 10 times better. I will post photos soon... but I have a plan for them, and I'm not finished yet (insert diabolical laugh here).

I've been working with some other area artists on a project that I will tell more about later once it is up and running. It should be pretty cool though, and there's a lot of talent involved.

I have another big "to do" on the horizon, but I don't want to mention what it is until after it is done... it's a pretty big deal for me though.

So, in a nutshell, I am not dead, I am just busy. And I will try to update with some images of various kinds soon : )

Busy Weekend

This weekend was a busy one for me. I celebrated my birthday, my wedding anniversary, and my parents made a trip out from Western Pennsylvania to come and visit and do a little sight seeing. My in-laws joined us on Saturday when we all went down to the Mall to see some of the memorials, as my mother had never seen any of them before. It was incredibly hot, but was still enjoyable. We then headed over to the Folger Shakespeare museum, since my parents are both Literature teachers, and they enjoyed that as well. The photo above is a quick one I took of myself, my father and the Lincoln Memorial reflecting in my mother's sunglasses. I took plenty of plain old touristy pictures (read - boring) so I won't be posting those ones... they are mainly just for my parents!

So I had a lot of fun this weekend, but now it's back to work for me!

Artists Interview Artists

Hey everyone! Check out my interview on J.T. Kirkland's blog "Thinking About Art", where artists submit 5 questions to be put into a pool and eventually answered by another artist. It's a cool thing J.T. has going there, and I really enjoyed participating.

Here's the link: Artists Interview Artists - Erin Antognoli

GOYA Friday - Believe

I'm posting my GOYA Friday a day early because I will be working all weekend on various photo related things and don't know if I'll have time to post it tomorrow...

Baltimore is still considered DC territory... at least as far as arts and commuting go, at least : ) So this week's photos come from Fells Point in the Inner Harbor. I was a bit puzzled by all the "Believe" signs everywhere. They were on all of the trash cans, for one thing. I do believe in trash, so I decided to take a somewhat self portrait there with my shadow and the cans.

There was a big debate on a photography forum I frequent a while back about "objective" photography, and really, I don't think such a thing exists. Yeah, in most cases something has to actually be in front of us in order for us to capture its likeness on film. The expression "the camera never lies" comes from this nature of the medium. But composition, vantage point, lighting, and in my case, multiple exposing can mean that the exact same subject can be portrayed countless ways depending on how each individual photographer is reacting to it. I think by looking at this Holga series I'm making, it's very easy to see a personality coming through, and so I thought it would be fun to actually include myself in one of them somehow.

Anyway, I've narrowed down my Holga project to 36 photos that I think are fit to print large. But I'm still shooting, so I don't know where that number will end up when it comes time for me to actually hang a show...

In other news, Andy is going to be hanging some of his digital photos that he created from photos he took while we were in India this past December. For the record, EVERYTHING looks 10 times better when it's matted and framed, and these images looked great to begin with, which means a lot considering I don't really care for most heavily digitally-manipulated art. They are incredible, and I'll try to see if I can nab a shot or two of some of them before they head off to be displayed.

Happy 4th of July!

This was supposed to be for a GOYA a while back, but didn't get developed until this past weekend. But, it is appropriate, no? So have a good one!

GOYA Friday - Chinatown

On Sunday I was in Chinatown again to attend a seminar hosted by the Fraser Gallery entitled "Success as an Artist", and I figured while I was there, I could use the opportunity to make some more Holga photos of that general part of DC. I just love the textures that I find down there, and have a few rolls from that adventure. One of those is not yet developed, so I'll have to wait to see what else I have when I have a chance to process it.

The seminar was quite good, by the way, so if any of you are thinking about attending in the future, I'd highly recommend it. I saw quite a few ArtDC.org people there like Alexandra Silverthorne, Matt Achhammer, and Angela Kleis, so that was cool too.

GOYA Friday - Aliyah

The other day, I was out in the yard watching the neighbor kids play. Well, the youngest of these is Aliyah, who is just growing so fast. It seems like yesterday that she was born. Now she has teeth, is trying to talk, and is running and trying to keep up with her older brother and sister! And she's only 1. This is a close up of Aliyah just after she ate a cracker (hence the crumbs on her chin). Such a cutie, I thought that she would be a good substitute for my Holga work for this week's GOYA.