CLADONIA PHOTOGRAPHY JOE O'ROURKE McGraw, NY
cladonia@live.com http://www.modelmayhem.com/1617965
Cat Hedlund
Photography is always a challenge. Now that I am retired and can pursue it to a much greater depth than I could before, I am exploring angles and ideas that were far too time-consuming for me to do before.
One thing nice about photogaphy, and art in general, is the struggle to find the next unique way to express your vision. As a youth I experimented in various ways (no details enclosed herein) to
find my vision. I failed repeatedly but was occasionally rewarded and always amazed and happy to see that my artistic horizon kept expanding. I always encountered the 'end of everything has already been done before' syndrome and then realized that the horizon kept unraveling new ideas. Time healed all photography wounds and thoughts kept coming afresh.
After my very environmentally nasty chemical darkroom work in the '60s it is a real joy to embrace digital photography today. I gave my old Minolta SR-70 and SRT-101 to my daughter-in-law and bought some neat Canon gear. I'll always miss the weight, quality and feel of the old Minolta's and their great Rikkor lenses.
My experimentation goes on today. I've learned a lot more about photography since the sixties but my vision has not changed. I look back at the pictures I took then and think about what I should have done differently. I see a ton of lighting problems, some composition changes, defects (w/o photoshop this was VERY time consuming), and others. But... subject matter, artistic style, interest, still grab my attention and I'm proud of what I did.
Today I work with the latest technology help from Adobe, Canon and Intuit. These tools are neat but I hope
my images still reflect the work I did back in the '60s when art in America really florished.
I look forward to continuing my vision and sharing it. I live in McGraw, NY, with Ann, my childhood bride.
We have two boys together.
MC