B R Woodland

I’ve been to two arts festivals in my life.

That’s actually a pretty sad statement considering I’m approaching my 41st birthday.

Michelle and I thought we would check out Arts Festival Oklahoma on Saturday, held each year on the Oklahoma City Community College (OCCC) campus.  This is its 32nd year, which is a pretty impressive run.

The artists showing their work were impressive.  It must be hard to put your work on display like that, and not knowing whether anyone will stop and look at it, or – even better – buy something.  I know it’s hard enough for me to put some of my photos on a blog.  Putting your work on display for sale in a face-to-face must be intimidating.

I saw two photographers that I mentally noted so I could look them up later:

Randy Napier – The red-eyed frog shown in this link was on display in his booth.  He had the 28″ x 40″ canvas hanging and it just pulled me into his booth to look around.  His photography is impressive.

Laughing Bear Photography – Patrick Hayes wins my award (if I had one to give) for best business identity.  I love the name of his business and the photo from which the name comes was prominent in his booth (check the link).

There were too many others to name, but these two stood out for me.

The other arts festival that I have to compare this one to is the Gum Tree Arts Festival held in Tupelo, Mississippi.  We attended that one a few years ago while living in Tupelo.

OCCC is well-prepared to host this arts festival.  There’s plenty of parking and plenty of room for the tents, booths, and food.  But, I have to say that in terms of the size and diversity of arts on display, I was under-whelmed.

Oklahoma City is a pretty metropolitan city.

Tupelo is a small town of 40,000 people.

Both festivals are about the same size and have comparable food and music.  I guess I was expecting something on a grander scale.  After talking that over we realized that we had missed the larger Oklahoma City Festival of the Arts that happens each April/May.  We’ll check that one out in 2011.

Speaking of Michelle, here’s my current favorite photo of her.  Our eldest child took this pic with his mom’s 7D and strict instructions to not drop the camera.  He did good:

No.  No.  No.  No.  No…  That’s what I thought to myself as I scanned through the photos just downloaded.

Then I was de-motivated.  I didn’t want to edit these photos.

They didn’t look anything like I thought they would when I pushed the button.

My wife, Michelle, was ignoring my heavy sighs, so I finally complained to her:  ”I think something is wrong with this camera.”

She looked through my photos and gave me some advice:  Quit.

Just kidding.  Michelle wouldn’t say that.  She actually said:  Download your photos, look through them, wait a day, then pick the one you like the best and try a couple of edits on it.

This is the one I started with from last Sunday’s family photo walk:  My two older kids taking photos of the boats docked at Lake Hefner.

I actually waited about five days to edit this one photo.  Actually, my struggle isn’t really with the editing.  It’s really with the composition.  I would rather not have to edit any of my photos.  It would be great if they just came out of the camera the way I think I see them.

Lots to learn.  - Brian

At the end of my MBA program (June 2001) about half of our graduating class traveled to Europe for two weeks while the other half traveled to Asia.  The reason for the trip was to get some education about international business.  For example, in Europe we visited technology consulting firm EDS in Vienna, the BMW engineering facility in Munich, Germany, the Jaguar assembly plant in Coventry, England, and several other businesses.

We also had many opportunities to see some important historic and cultural places.  I was smitten with Vienna on so many levels – the music, the food, and … the architecture.  Even in 2001, before I even knew that “point-and-shoot” cameras weren’t the only option, I was fascinated with the architecture.

Here are nine photos I want to take again.

I’m thinking another three-to-five years of practice and I want to go back and try these over again.  My camera was a point-and-shoot 35mm.  No idea what brand.  My knowledge of my camera was: 1. Point and 2. Shoot.

Hofburg Palace, Vienna.  Vienna’s architecture is so important that when an older building is renovated, the façade is preserved regardless of the additional cost.  It is a gorgeous city.

Mathausen Concentration Camp, Mathausen.  This stop was terrible and moving.  It changed my life… this visit and reading Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.”

Palace of Mirabell, Salzburg.  Yep: Sound of Music.

New Town Hall, Munich.  The city hall (still in use) built in the Gothic Revival style.

Lion Monument, Lucerne.  Monument to the Swiss mercenaries that were killed while protecting the King Louis XVI during the French Revolution.

Palace of Versailles, Versailles.  Paris obviously has a lot of sights to choose from.  Versailles was my favorite stop.  It is impressive in both scope and grandeur.

Notre Dame de Paris.  All of these photos bug me now that I look at them again, but this photo really bothers me.  I tried to get too much in the frame – the reverse side of Notre Dame, the artist in the wheelchair, the river.  Ugh.

Straford-Upon-Avon.  Birthplace of William Shakespeare.  Not to mention, it’s only 20 miles from the Jaguar Heritage Museum in Coventry.  Priorities, people.

Buckingham Palace, London.  London is another city where I fell in love with the architecture.  I have too many photos to post here.  I want to try them all again.  We watched the full pageantry of the Changing of the Guard on this day.

[Brian Woodland . June 2001 . Unknown point-and-shoot . No post processing]