Mar 26 2025 - More Bad Portraits

 

How many selfies do you take each day?  Each week?  Supposedly, the world population takes 92 million selfies a day. There's a type of selfie named a .5 selfie.  That's the picture that is angled above one's head and the taker's arm uses up quite a lot of the space in the picture. It is a wide-angle lens picture so the photo will have distortions.  You could be very w-i-d-e.  Maybe it is previous generations who complain about how they look in photos and that they don't like getting their picture taken?  Looking at the headlines, it seems that if one has a "photogenic" face with symmetrical proportions, etc photography is a good thing.  And for the rest, too bad, lots of complaining. Besides the overall statistic, I wondered the "how many pictures could there really be" question.  Here are some answers from Pixsy.com - they looked at a getty Images data.    Donald Trump - 463,574 images Barack Obama - 336,823 images Queen Elizabeth II - 230,495 images Kate Middleton - 155,505 images Roger Federer - 149,576 images Prince William - 148,784 images Joe Biden - 143,412 images Hillary Clinton - 135,501 images Andy Murray - 132,295 images Prince Charles - 130,334 images Serena Williams - 125,257 images Elton John - 123,080 images Prince Harry - 119,379 images Jennifer Lopez - 107,997 images Paris Hilton - 101,438 images Jimmy Kimmel - 100,520 images Bill Murray - 92,194 images Rihanna - 86,247 images Jimmy Fallon - 82,464 images Camilla Parker-Bowles - 79,602 images Who would guess Donald Trump would show up as having the most photographs on Getty Images. Do a search for pictures of donald trump and click on the images view. The array is astonishingly awful.  His hair is prominently in all directions and then there's that orange makeup on his face. It seems uncanny how he seems to show up in so many places.

This is a close-up of a Gerbera flower - they always take wonderful pictures.    Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Sep 10 2022 - Official Portraits

 

The Obama official portraits were unveiled last week.  Little did I realize I would be looking at dozens of portraits of the Queen over the next few days.  This will be unrelenting for more than a week.  What Barak Obama said during the unveiling of his portrait was that he liked that McCurdy “paints people the way they are, for better or worse.”  “He captures every wrinkle on your face, every crease in your shirt. You’ll note that he refused to hide any of my gray hairs, refused my request to make my ears smaller. He also talked me out of wearing a tan suit, by the way,” Obama quipped. “His work is so precise that at first glance it looks like a photograph.” The official portrait of Trump is full of action and intrigue. Trump’s political action committee donated $650,000 to the Smithsonian Institution in July to help underwrite the portraits of the Trumps. On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to say whether Biden would extend an invitation to Trump should his portrait be completed during the Biden administration. Let us hope this does not occur.  It seems to me that there's all manner of scenarios possible.  He could even declare himself king once he sees the portrait.  There is the likelihood of ill-will being present: "While there’s no hard-and-fast rule for when a White House portrait ought to be unveiled, ceremonies have often been hosted by a former president’s immediate successor. And when in office, President Donald Trump never held a ceremony for the Obama portraits." What a contrast. The U.S. horizons are clouded by Donald Trump's psychotic behaviours in the security realm.  Britain and the Commonwealth (that's us) are engaged in the ritual of the "monarch's ascension to the throne".  What a lot is packed into the declaration of the king by the "lords spiritual and temporal of this realm."    A Shakespearean play is upon us: "By the grace of god of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of his other realms and territory, King, head of the commonwealth, defender of the faith, to whom we do acknowledge all faith and obedience with humble affection, beseeching God by whom kings and queens do reign to bless his majesty with long and happy years to reign over us." God Save the King is next played.

Glorious autumn is here soon - you can see it through the entrance way.  This is the University of Toronto - where the stone walls and buildings are so grand and connect us to the beautiful architecture of Great Britain. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Dahlia Season

Dahlia Season...It's here and the flowers are as big and beautiful as last year.  Here's the start of dahlia portraits.  Two very different dahlias with different treatments.  


The first is like an exquisite wedding dress.  Each petal in the centre is folded like some expensive silk handkerchief.  As the petals mature, these folds disappear into gorgeous curls that open up into beautiful spirally tubes.  I chose a colour treatment that would make this white dahlia look like an antique white silk.

This second portrait pays homage to water lily dahlias.  I haven't been able to shoot my own water lilies, as the racoons buzz the top of the flower petals each time one comes close to blooming, and it's not nice enough for a traditional floral portrait, nor funky enough for something on the pop art side.  So here's my water lily portrait, with a deep blue ocean in the background to this lovely pink and green water lily dahlia.

Ranunculus Studies

I was at Sunshine Express Nursery on Carlton Street in St. Catharines last week and they have lots of flowers in the greenhouses.  I was particularly attracted to the Ranunculus.  For the first 2 I desaturated the colours to bring out the centres.

On this third image, I've kept the brilliant orange colour of the original.

Spring Awakenings!

I see flowers everywhere I go and thought I'd give you 2 great examples.

On Saturday I was on Bloor Street West shopping.  I caught this Ranunculus out behind a fruit and vegetable store before they took the rack to the front for sales.

Then on Sunday I was in Plantworld.  It is a wonderful garden centre and nursery in my neighbourhood.  It's grown over the 25 years I've lived here in the Kingsway/Sunnylea area.  I  got this beautiful little Grape Hyacinth (Muscari) in the lovely afternoon light.

Floral Abstracts

Turning floral portraits into abstract images takes a lot of practice and patience. Yesterday I went on a neighbourhood jaunt taking floral portraits along the way. I will not report on the garbage event with the big truck picking up the business garbage (what an amazing smell!). This is due to the Toronto City workers strike.

The abstract image is created by making long exposures and moving the camera. The wavy lines and colours result. These Fringed Asters turned into waves of colour.