Hello all! Can't believe it has been 3 months since my last post to the blog. It has been a crazy time. The bulk of the time was spent in Florida at art shows. I did get to mix in some landscape and astronomical photography as well.
I did pick the right winter to be in Florida, huh? It was certainly a rough one in my home state of West Virginia. While some Floridians were complaining about some cool temps early in the winter, the weather was really spectacular during my stay.
My fine art photography was on display at a total of 8 shows over that time period and we met many new collectors and admirers of our beautiful landscapes and astronomical wonders. The art show locations were mostly on the Atlantic coast line in the Miami region with one show on the Gulf coast in Sarasota.
The amount of work involved in putting on a display at the country's finest art shows is really quite overwhelming at times. I admire those who can do this by themselves on a regular basis. Most artists have either a spouse or paid help to assist with the logistics of the show. For me it was a lone endeavor and at times was quite overwhelming. I hope to do a few select shows over the coming months, but will not be doing a huge schedule of shows. In spite of the very hard work, the shows provide many great benefits. Thousands of eyes catch my interpretation of the beauty of earth and sky. What is most important is that they see the prints as intended and not on a computer monitor that may or may not be calibrated and producting accurate colors and brightness/contrast. That is one of the most rewarding parts of the display for me is knowing that the viewer is taking in the image as intended.
Image capture Brent Mayard, enhanced by Jeff BallIt is always a great time under the stars with friends taking astrophotographs. The last week of February I joined fellow astrophotographers Brent Maynard and Byron Bergert for some astrophotography from Big Pine Key in the Florida Keys. We had 3 wonderful nights of imaging under the dark southern skies. I am currently preparing all of the deep sky images for presentation and hope to be presenting them over the next few months. The above image was captured by Brent and I enhanced it in LightRoom. We are looking in the direction of Cuba over the open water where skies are very dark. At this lattitude we gain access to numerous deep sky objects that we simply cannot see from West Virginia.
Sunset over Florida Bay from Flamingo. Copyright Jeff Ball 2011
While in Florida I had an opportunity to image in the Everglades. I fell in love with sunsets over Florida Bay from Flamingo. I will have a 3 image series from my evenings at Flamingo in the next few weeks.
So "hello" again and stay tuned for many new images coming from both earth and sky. Take care.