Snow Angel

New Piece: "Snow Angel"
Portia St. Luke,
Mixed Media on Paper
January, 2014

Imagine Finding Me

Above: Otsuka, Chino "1982 and 2005, Paris, France," photo manipulation from her series titled Imagine Finding Me.

This photo collection is such an interesting take on time, perspective, even age... or maybe it's really just about how much fun one photographer can have with Photoshop and I'm over-analyzing things.

Tokyo-born, London-based photographer Chino Otsuka takes the past and present photo project to a new level of expert photo manipulation with her series titled Imagine Finding Me. Rather than simply recreating old photographs as an adult, she inserts her present-day self into photos from her childhood. The result is an incredibly believable image that features photos of Otsuka as a little girl in the 70s and 80s standing side by side with herself as a modern-day woman.

Essentially, the series presents a double portrait of Otsuka and the many places she's visited as a kid. With the advantages of using digital software and technology to merge her past and present self, the photographer is able to create these unique self-portraits. She says, "The digital process becomes a tool, almost like a time machine as I'm embarking on the journey to where I once belonged and at the same time becoming a tourist in my own history." -From mymodernmet.com


Photography is not the same as illustration.  A world is not created: it's already there. the lens captures light and shadow in a very scientific way, and this requires all photographers to be realists, on some level. Photographers are not afforded the luxury of pure fantasy or pure abstract the way that painters are, so to make us think, they have to bend things, but just a little.  How is that best accomplished through a lens? Great photographers ask this all the time, and the ones that achieve it make us ask questions of ourselves and the world around us that we might otherwise have never asked.  This is the power of that little box when held in the hands of such a magician.

I love presenting "artists to watch out for," but see no reason why photographers shouldn't be counted as artists, especially when they make us think, feel, or remember we're alive and essentially human in some way. Whether it's digital photo-manipulation, oil on panel, or a really good blues solo, isn't that the entire point of art?

Firearms: Yes, it's a women's issue (I have opinions.)

Above: Lyudmila Mykhailivna Pavlichenko (July 12, 1916 – October 10, 1974), 

a Soviet sniper during WWII. She is credited with 309 kills, 

and regarded as the most successful female sniper in history. 

(Photo courtesy of wikimedia commons.)

Russian Female Snipers in WWII
were feared by 

combat trained German troops. 

(So much for guns being a macho-man only sport!) 

In fact, there were approximately 2,000 female snipers in the Red Army, of whom about 500 survived the war. Lyudmila Pavlichenko (pictured above), Nina Lobkovskaya, and Klavdiya Kalugina (who was only 17 at the start of her military service in 1943) were among the thousands of women who put themselves in the line of fire for Mother Russia.  They were armed with slightly more accurate but less-rugged sniper rifles (German: Scharfschützengewehr or SSG), than their conscripted brothers: an upgrade from the cheaper assault rifle.

While I have openly said that we, as a culture, really ought to consider just how "universal" that "right" to own a firearm really is (Hey, we do have a licencing process to drive cars, showing that we're not going to act like a damned fool when behind the wheel, correct? Most NRA members that I've talked to understand gun safety and the rules of firearms so well that they could teach a gun safety course themselves, and agree this is reasonable.) ...guns are also a women's right's issue, in that they truly become the great equalizer.  I am not a small woman (or a woman who should ever own a firearm) but I understand the fear that my petite friends feel when at risk of being beaten, abused, or raped.  Cornered and out-massed by 200 lbs. of angry pot-roast is no place to be.

...but one bullet is one bullet.  Nothing says "I'm not getting raped (mugged/ beaten) today!" like a large-caliber round to the center chest.  Simple, eloquent, and to-the-point.  The vast majority of rape cases will never go to trial, the majority of those that do will never be convicted, and, if you grew up in the United States, you probably know the rest. Dead men can't become repeat offenders.  If she is fighting for her life, no further argument is necessary.