THANK YOU!

Well, now that the dust (or snow in this case) has cleared, and the f/action launch party is now over... we at f/action would like to thank those of you who made the effort to come out and support our group! It's no fun navigating the first blizzard of the year, but some of you were real troupers... and we even had one guest drive all the way from Kenora for the show!

Thank you to all of you who came out. We can't say it enough. We really appreciate your presence and your support!

For those of you who are wondering - we did achieve our goals with the show! Despite the weather we still more than met our attendance goal and with a slight profit after expenses, we were able to fund our new website (http://www.fslashaction.com/) including set-up and hosting for one year, postage to send art to Calgary for the fundraising benefit for a Canadian journalist & photographer being held hostage in Somalia for a $1 million ransom, and finally the deposit for the rental of our next gallery exhibition in June 2010!

That's all we were hoping for - and so we thank you!

HOPE TO SEE YOU ALL AGAIN SOON!
f/action

PS. You made us feel this great...

My First Poster!

I don't know why writing that reminded me of "My Pet Monster", but it did. Maybe because I was a kid in the 80's... or maybe because when you are supposed to design a poster from scratch and you're looking at the big white photoshop canvas... it really does feel like a monster of a job!

Well, having no (and I mean zero) design experience, this was a daunting task. How do you make something eye-catching, interesting and informative... from scratch?! We knew that we wanted to include one image per artist - and that was it. So this is what I came up with:

I would LOVE get get some feedback (good, bad, super bad...!) on this, my first poster. Anyone with any design experience - lay it on me... I can take it! Even if you don't have a hot clue about design, let me know what you think! This won't be the last f/action poster... so we might as well get some pointers now!

Posted by f/action member, Dallas Ludwick

Solo Exhibition at Platform!

If you find yourself in the Exchange District over the next three weeks, please step into the lobby of the Artspace building and check out a mini solo exhibition that I have mounted there right now!

The Artspace building is located at 425-100 Arthur Street in Winnipeg. It is the huge character building that directly overlooks Old Market Square... it also has huge hollywood-style letters spelling A R T S P A C E on the roof. Basically, it's hard to miss if you're in the area.

The space where my series is showing is called the "P121" of Platform Centre For Photographic & Digital Arts. It is a wall where members of the gallery can show works that are finished, in progress, or anything that Platform deems is "wall-worthy"! I would like to thank Platform for giving me the opportunity to use the space - it is so great to see your work (finished or not) up in a public place! For more information on Platform, visit: http://www.platformgallery.org/

The work that I am showing is currently under the working title "Plastic Series" and is the initial phase of the project. This is an ongoing project during which I intend to carry through all four seasons and travel to more locations within Manitoba to complete. A few months ago, I blogged a few of the "winter plastic" images I created on a very cold day. With this exhibit, you can pretend it's spring again...

Posted by f/action member, Dallas Ludwick

My Name in Print!

I'm sure all of you can agree, there is something exciting about seeing your name in print... even cyber print. Just the other day, Ailsa posted "My Blog made the London Observer!" when her name (and status) were shown in an online story about facebook. It's a big day! For most of us, it doesn't happen all that often, and I admit to feeling just a little bit proud of myself - even when there is absolutely no reason to be - just for the sake that my name made it somewhere, somehow.

Well, a while back, I came across this photo competition for photojournalim / photoessay of series up to 12 images called the Leica Oskar Barnack Award. It's been going on for years, and like many contests, it now takes place online. The best part: ALL of the entries were posted ONLINE! (Ok, I'm not yelling... just excited!) I must have perused series posted by photographers from around the world for hours - days really. I was addicted. I absolutely LOVE series work. I wanted to enter.

Finally, I buckled down and worked for two days straight on putting together my series, trying to make it on par with the level shown online. Finally, I posted it. (To top it off, this contest is FREE!)

I'm not going to lie, I was a little nervous when my series didn't show up right away, or even within a few hours, or even the next morning! Did I get CUT??!!

Nah, with the contest closing date quickly approaching (March 1st), I realized that over 50 new series were posted the morning that mine wasn't. I guess they are a little back-logged on uploading! The next morning... there it was:

Dallas Ludwick, Canada

How exciting is that? (For me, very!)

I'm actually NOT going to post any photographs here, because I really think you should check out this site and the awesome series work from all around the world!

http://www.leica-oskar-barnack-award.com/#/en/contest/oskar-barnack-award-2009-entries/

Happy looking!

Posted by Dallas Ludwick, f/action member

Getting back to Something Different

Well, here I am... the lone delinquent member... the last of the mohicans to post! I wouldn't say that I'm generally tardy with my work - in fact, I think most people would say the opposite!

And now that I'm here, I'm going to continue on with what Duncan was saying in an earlier post: "And Now for Something Completely Different". I too, recently found that I needed a little mix-it-up in the photography world. And for me, it had to be something FUN. See, I think I am a little too "particluar" at times. I don't like the word anal to describe my attention to detail! (In school we had to do a metaphorical self-portrait, and I submitted an image of my sock drawer - 4 rows of socks sorted by type, colour and preference. Yep, I needed a little more fun in my life!) Just kidding, I like my socks like that. And I think I am pretty fun. But I needed creative outlet to make some of my shooting especially fun!

In the fall I got two new toys: a lomo diana and fisheye. Oh yes, it was so very exciting. But I found that after the first roll on each toy, I didn't shoot any more. Was it that I didn't know what I was doing, or the fact that only half of my shots came out halfway decent (actually only 4 out of 12 negatives on my diana were even exposed!)... I don't know. But I recently re-loaded both cameras and headed out with them. My new method was to experiment, expect nothing and laugh at the results. Well, laugh I did!

See, part of my renewed enthusiasm was due to my new idea to use my on-camera flash (off my camera and in my hand) to get a better exposure with my fisheye. I thought this was genius and wanted to try out a whole roll of exerimental shots...

Here we have a series of hilarious attempts to use my flash as a main light (synched to the very low powered flash on my fisheye)...

We see my model - nicely lit - and my flash and entire arm clearly in the frame!

Whoops! I forgot just how exremely wide angle that fisheye lens is!







Of course you don't realize your errors right away when working with film, so...

When my model (the lovely Ailsa) offered to hold the flash and dump all that light into her own face, I took her up on it!

Low and behold, now she is clearly holding the flash within the frame! Haahaha...





I was pretty confident that my flash would adequately light the model from a close distance as above. But, I wanted to experiment with the range of the flash and the subsequent exposure with my fisheye.

Here you see me - backed up quite a bit... clearly shining the flash right into the barrel of my lens, rather than on the model! Yet again - whoops!






Apparently my second attept was much better, in that I actually lit the scene... and got a good exposure on my model.

Of course, there is my nemisis... the hand again!

So much for keeping lighting techniques a secret!









Hey, look at this... no arm! Well, not mine anyway!

I guess I got so excited about getting that flash to fire, that I clearly did not wait for my model to be ready.

Wow, there is just way too much to think about when holding a toy camera in one hand and a flash in the other!





Alright, enough with this single model stuff... I was ready for the big times.

Here you see me trying to capture a scene: Gabrielle working her magic with studio lights. What I was trying to find out was if the little flash on my fisheye would trigger the studio lights - and yes, it worked!!

Too bad about... the hand!






No hand!!! Yes!!!

Cool scene too... I love the fisheye effect on this one!









Now I'm getting confident... surpising my new unsuspecting model, Duncan, with a huge flash in the eyes - and a neat play on perspective with the tiny girl beside his face.

Plus, no hand!

No, I didn't get the best images... but I definately laughed my butt off when I saw the negatives!

So in sum... the heck with knowing what you are doing!

Think up something to experiment with and go for it!


Go LOMO!



Posted by Dallas Ludwick, f/action member