Special Photography Effects

My current creative project is represented by this photo. Using a variety of filters and functions, I create special effects such as the tones of old cameras and films such as Lomo and Agfa and Ilford. A variegated effect function creates the simulacrum of age and dirt. Color photos can be transformed into Sepia and black & white. Here you have my first effort. The picture was shot by Maman; I manipulated the image.

Are any of you, my faithful friends and fans, interested in photography? The art form, originally seen as in opposition to high art, then became identified with high culture, both art and industrial. Now, especially with the advent of smart phones, anyone can be a photographic artist, everyone if free to express and explore the individuality and, through social media, their connections to others as well.

Don't you agree: we live in terrible and wonderful times?

Photography & Multi-media

As promised, the medium I've selected for my first creative endeavor: photography with a kind of collage of special effects.

In photo one, I've re-engineered this picture of Maman to evoke a variety of mental images: possessed borg, oil slick on city street, Soylent Green.

Photo 2 [below] highlights the changing focus over human history from body to mind, but without judgment as to whether this is a positive or negative trend. It also suggests travel through time and space, posing the question: is such travel actual or is it a mental/chemical process? Notice the rays that extend from head and lips, from front & back and perhaps especially from the eye. Are those eyes, the physical Eye, the mind's eye, perhaps a metaphorical I?

I hope you enjoy this first evidence of my talents as a photographer and multi-media artist. Check back soon for other efforts. And feel free to share your reactions, interpretations or even your own art work by clicking the comments link.

Hiatus

As all my actor friends know, we describe our time between gigs as resting. And resting is what I've been doing since my last blog entry.

Attribute it to the hot & humid weather, the absence of 30,000+ college students, or merely a general malaise, I've not felt the energy nor the desire to update my blog.

But as the fall weather blew into Athens (and all those students rematerialized turning my street into a parking lot once more), I realized how terribly selfish I've been.

To you, my faithful fans & friends, I offer a humble apology. I'm sorry that I've let you down. To my grandparents, who are probably my least critical readers, a special word of thanks for your patience.

This fall I shall be exploring the world of creative arts, mine and others. Look for my first project, coming soon: a collage the subject of which is humans in a dog's world. My 2nd project, also in the works, dovetails nicely with the collage since it explores the same topic through the genre of poetry.

I hope this long hiatus will not deter you from checking back from time to time. I promise to share my newly rediscovered creative productivity throughout the fall season & culminating with my very favorite holiday. Christmas! When once again Santa will read my letter & grace my home with his presence. And presents.

I am a Miniature!

Self reflection has the potential for positive and negative outcomes. On the one hand, self reflection leads to personal and spiritual growth. But it can also enmesh one in a tangled web of doubt and even despair.

My own contemplation has led to a surprising result: physical growth.

Yes, I exaggerate. However, I've discovered that far from the toy poodle tag with which I was branded by the American Kennel Association and contrary to my lineage which runs to the toy category, I am a Miniature!

Physical size tends to be the qualifier forthe toy, miniature and standard poodle descriptor. My first suspicions were aroused when I learned that my breeder told Maman et Papa that my top weight was expected to be 8.5 pounds. Patently ridiculous for I am now at a comfortable 12. I searched the AKC official poodle book for qualifying measurements and rechecked the information on the AKC web site . Honesty compels me to note that according to the measurements taken at my doctor's office, I seem to be on the toy-miniature cusp. At first this seemed an insurmountable barrier to true self knowledge.

Further contemplation suggested that proper assessment comprises qualitative as well as quantitative values. Among the qualitative values: strength, self-possession, tough demeanor with a heart of gold, a light and springy gait, willingness to help the little chap and challenge the oppressor, large intellect and a sizable girth, etc.

As most of you already know, I possess all these qualities in abundance.

In the end, self reflection was a highly positive experience leading from restricted self knowledge through an identity crisis to a fully realized sense of the true me.

Now no longer under the false impression that I'm a toy poodle, I proclaim my newly acquired knowledge to the multitudes (and to my faithful fans & friends): I am a Miniature!

Note: Strangely & despite what I regard as the fruits of my self reflection, Papa still thinks I'm a toy poodle with the bark of a standard, and Grandpere advises that I wear a Western hat rather than a pink polka-dotted one.

Many Happy Returns of the Day

Today is my 5th birthday. According to my birth certificate, which lists my parents, grandparents, etc. back to the fourth generation, I am the last in a long, prestigious line of red & apricot toy poodles.

However, documents may be forged, no? Mama informs me that I'm too tall and too portly to be considered a toy poodle. So, from this day forward, just call me Miniature Mercury Murphy Roushanzamir.

Surely each birthday evokes a certain amount of self examination along with concerns about identity: toy/miniature, nurture/nature, culture of origin/adopted culture, and so on.

But equally if not more importantly, birthdays bring Gifts & Presents. I love gifts & presents. And I appreciate them, each and every one. Presents should be wrapped in tissue paper, preferably tied up with a pretty ribbon. I love gift wrapping and I appreciate each gift and present wrapping (and unwrapping). It is so sweet that my friends and fans, my Maman et Papa, grandmere et granpere are thinking of me on my birthday; and should you need just a bit of assistance in the gifts & presents department, read on.

My birthday list:

Handmade doggie IQ-test toy (real wood)

Doggie Casino Brainy Board Game

ARFgyle Dog sweater (for celebration when the hideous heat & humidity ends)

Eco dog personalized place mat

Dream Dog toy

Meteorite LED ball dog toy

May your day on this, my birthday, be as happy as mine is and continues to be. Cheers from your friend on my special day with many happy returns of this day for us all.

Tender is the Night

Meet my close personal friend, Sophie, who recently joined her jet-set friend on the Cote d'Azur where she is attending and reporting on the Cannes Film Festival.

If you click on her name in the previous paragraph, you'll be directed to her Chicago Sun-Times blog which she keys at the request of noted film critic Roger Ebert [read his own Cannes journal].

Of course, the Riviera is a particularly lovely part of my native France, about which people simply gush, "Location, Location, Location." Human beings are spell bound by the colors, the climate, the beaches, the water, the "picturesque natives," and the glitterati. The Riviera forms the background of many famous films--To Catch a Thief--and novels--Tender is the Night. Even George Simenon could not resist sending his hero, the incomparable Maigret, to noodle out the cause of death of a former French resistance worker in Maigret on the Rivera.

Ah, the Cote d'Azur nights, balmy, gently breezy, the frequent sightings of both the quirkily dramatic and the utterly simple haute couture, dazzling diamonds and moonlight, the food, wine, the tender trembling moments when life seems to hang in balance between the earthly and the sublime-- but perhaps these are subjects for my own future blogs.

Dear friends and fans, I hope you will check Sophie's blog regularly. She is an excellent writer, a keen observer, and a practiced participant at the Cannes film festival with a broad and deep knowledge of films both classic and contemporary. Equally important, she is a young woman for whom I have a deep affection, respect, and admiration. Indeed, I love her very much.

Although she asked me to accompany her on this great adventure, I was unable to comply. For much as I miss my international and Hollywood film friends and know that my presence would be of great service to Sophie, Maman and Papa need me more. Without me, their simple Athens lives would doubtless fall into chaos and that is something that duty no less than affection will not permit. So I must be satisfied with these Chicago Sun-Times images of the Cote d'Azur and my darling Sophie, and the "Sophie Kohn from Cannes blog." Read her first entry, A Market Badge of One's Own [such a clever title], now and return frequently for updates [to her blog & to mine!].

Lullaby and Good Night

Bed time is always a special time. Although not for the reasons you may think. The first challenge is to avoid PJs, a trick performed only through practice and repetition. Here, for example, you see one of my failures.

On the bright side, I watch pre-bed time television. And stay up for as late as Maman et Papa will allow. The trick with television is to commandeer the remote. This photo shows a successful attempt. From there on it's clear sailing (so to speak). I choose the channel, I choose the shows. Saturday night's English comedy night; my favorite, Keeping Up Appearances. Law & Order is on some channel on almost every night. As for "reality television" I choose What Not to Wear and Millionaire Matchmaker.

All good things must end (again, so to speak). Eventually Maman et Papa insist on putting me to bed. They expect me to cuddle & lick, they croon and talk baby talk, and finally through sheer exasperation if nothing else I fall asleep.

Of course I don't know what I'm missing, but I'm convinced wild and wonderful things occur.