We're celebrities! Well, sort of...
Tonight was Chris Lee's gallery opening, at Village Grind, in downtown Long Beach. We had a good time... all the people there looked rich, so we were the resident freaky people, like always!
Our photo was up on the wall, sure enough, a 16" x 20" print of one of the shots he took last week at Joe Flash's gallery when we went to the Hard Wear closing reception. He also emailed us today that someone wants to use that photo in a movie, and asked if we would sign model releases to give permission for that. Which we will, of course. Chris is going to come by the studio Monday to check the place out, and to have us sign the releases.
Meanwhile, it was fun being "recognized" at the opening. As I told one viewer, "You feel like you've seen us somewhere, maybe not exactly 'before,' but... somewhere, hm?" The photo seems to be getting a lot of compliments. Actually, it was cool, because Chris talked to us about some of the darkroom techniques he used to make the print look the way he did... to smooth out our skin tones and lighten up the background color and so forth. That was interesting to hear, even though I know next to nothing about film developing/printing. Perhaps, time and money permitting, it is something I will get to learn and experiment with someday. It sounds like fun, if you have time and funds for lots of materials and trials. He said it took him 3 or 4 tries to get the print of us to come out how he wanted it, in the form we saw it.
Also, he was kind enough to print 8 x 10's of all 4 pictures he took of us, and give them to us. I guess that is "trade for prints!" A small, informal, impromptu shoot, and we now have 4 really nice photos of Gremlin and myself. We're going to scan the prints, so I'll be able to post them, plus they will be on the studio's page, too.
Of course we couldn't resist taking pictures of the picture on the wall (Gremlin and I would have thought that taking pictures at galleries would be disallowed, and maybe it is some places, but at the ones we've been to recently, the photographers don't seem to have a problem letting each other take pictures, which is neat). We got a shot of the photo hanging, then had Chris take a few with Gremlin's camera of us in front of the picture, then he took a couple for himself with his own camera. Maybe I'm being greedy to hope we'll get a print of one of those, too... that'd be neat. But at least we have the digitals from Gremlin's camera, and from the preview, at least one of those looked like it came out good already, so that's pretty cool. "Picture in a picture" or something like that.
After hanging out at the gallery/coffeeshop for a while, and eating really good but way too expensive ice cream, talking to Chris, and meeting a few other people, we walked down the street and around the corner and checked out a few other galleries along the artwalk. There was some good art, some terrible... to be expected, I suppose. Much of it was crowded on the walls in a jumble, unlike how the showings are done at Joe's place and how Chris' work is up at Village Grind. That doesn't help show off the work at all, and when we get a showing for Gremlin, we need to make sure it is the nicer kind, of course. We did see one perfectly awesome gargoyle statue/sculpture. He was probably close to 2' tall, with these big old gnarled hands, and kind of a Gollum-ish face. If I had an extra $600 to throw around, I would have brought him home with us for sure, and Gremlin seconded that. Ah well, neat to see, but can't bring everything home, I guess.
A fun night, and so meanwhile... we shall see how far into "celebrity" this picture takes us!
Tonight was Chris Lee's gallery opening, at Village Grind, in downtown Long Beach. We had a good time... all the people there looked rich, so we were the resident freaky people, like always!
Our photo was up on the wall, sure enough, a 16" x 20" print of one of the shots he took last week at Joe Flash's gallery when we went to the Hard Wear closing reception. He also emailed us today that someone wants to use that photo in a movie, and asked if we would sign model releases to give permission for that. Which we will, of course. Chris is going to come by the studio Monday to check the place out, and to have us sign the releases.
Meanwhile, it was fun being "recognized" at the opening. As I told one viewer, "You feel like you've seen us somewhere, maybe not exactly 'before,' but... somewhere, hm?" The photo seems to be getting a lot of compliments. Actually, it was cool, because Chris talked to us about some of the darkroom techniques he used to make the print look the way he did... to smooth out our skin tones and lighten up the background color and so forth. That was interesting to hear, even though I know next to nothing about film developing/printing. Perhaps, time and money permitting, it is something I will get to learn and experiment with someday. It sounds like fun, if you have time and funds for lots of materials and trials. He said it took him 3 or 4 tries to get the print of us to come out how he wanted it, in the form we saw it.
Also, he was kind enough to print 8 x 10's of all 4 pictures he took of us, and give them to us. I guess that is "trade for prints!" A small, informal, impromptu shoot, and we now have 4 really nice photos of Gremlin and myself. We're going to scan the prints, so I'll be able to post them, plus they will be on the studio's page, too.
Of course we couldn't resist taking pictures of the picture on the wall (Gremlin and I would have thought that taking pictures at galleries would be disallowed, and maybe it is some places, but at the ones we've been to recently, the photographers don't seem to have a problem letting each other take pictures, which is neat). We got a shot of the photo hanging, then had Chris take a few with Gremlin's camera of us in front of the picture, then he took a couple for himself with his own camera. Maybe I'm being greedy to hope we'll get a print of one of those, too... that'd be neat. But at least we have the digitals from Gremlin's camera, and from the preview, at least one of those looked like it came out good already, so that's pretty cool. "Picture in a picture" or something like that.
After hanging out at the gallery/coffeeshop for a while, and eating really good but way too expensive ice cream, talking to Chris, and meeting a few other people, we walked down the street and around the corner and checked out a few other galleries along the artwalk. There was some good art, some terrible... to be expected, I suppose. Much of it was crowded on the walls in a jumble, unlike how the showings are done at Joe's place and how Chris' work is up at Village Grind. That doesn't help show off the work at all, and when we get a showing for Gremlin, we need to make sure it is the nicer kind, of course. We did see one perfectly awesome gargoyle statue/sculpture. He was probably close to 2' tall, with these big old gnarled hands, and kind of a Gollum-ish face. If I had an extra $600 to throw around, I would have brought him home with us for sure, and Gremlin seconded that. Ah well, neat to see, but can't bring everything home, I guess.
A fun night, and so meanwhile... we shall see how far into "celebrity" this picture takes us!