lori vrba photog blog

Good Day

I was going to title this post "That's a Wrap"...cuz this being the last day of January...Art Camp is supposed to be officially over and done with. 

Aaaah, Art Camp.  My big idea, born while we were up to our eyeballs in client work with everyone expecting their order delivered by Christmas.  We were swamped.  I decided then that we would dedicate the entire month of January to our own Art.  We would take the pictures we had always wanted to take.  We would explore our photographic projects and print like crazy.  We would pause only to take in that which inspired us.  We would dive head first into Art for the sake of Art.  Whoa did we ever.  It became a true collaboration. 

I can now see the value in carving out time for my own work.  The work that fuels me.  And so Art Camp lives on.  I'll keep the business alive but not in lieu of what matters most to me photographically.  We campers are refusing to go back.  Everyone else has gone home and we are making a bonfire. Break out the marshmallows.

On a different note, the twins turn 8 today.  I'm writing this from the lobby of our hotel in Boone, NC.  My family is upstairs sawin' logs and I am down here loading up on coffee.  We will spend the day tubing, find some cake somewhere and sing Happy Birthday not once but twice.  My last babies aren't babies anymore.  Not even.  They are funny little people who are growing up and away at lightning speed.  Like I guess all kids do...in the mother's eyes anyway.  It has been fascinating to see who they are, as they become these little people with their own humor, ideas, ways of moving thru the world.  But as always, I miss the sight of two sweet babies conspiring in private code...working out a way to get to the top shelf of the pantry.  Or the way Grayson would lay his forehead against Olivia's shoulder before he could say the words "I love you."  Twinship is a beautiful thing.  And I've always said that God should have given everyone a twin.  It is perfection.

Grayson and Oliva are 8 and Art is alive and well.  Its a good day.

three eggs

A long time ago, when I was newly married and grappling for an identity, I signed up for a drawing class at the community college.  I remember the teacher moving around the room behind us as we focused on the still life assignment for the day...three white eggs resting in a mound of white cloth.  She spoke quietly as she moved from student  to student and I remember these words..."Drawing is really about observation.  How closely can you look?  What subtleties do you see?  What nuances can you use to tell the story of white eggs on white cloth?"

I've been thinking about those eggs and her words a lot lately.  Because photography is really about observation as well.  There are photographers who watch and wait for that "decisive moment" and those who orchestrate a picture and I guess some who do a little of both.  I started out in photography just watching and waiting.  I like working that way...letting the picture unfold organically.  But here in Art Camp, given that the goal of us campers is to stretch, be brave, experiment...I've been trying my hand at the orchestration.  Tweaking the moment just a hair so that the picture says what I need it to.  So that its hopefully more than a record of a moment in time but rather, an idea born into life...seen first in my head and eventually held in my hands as a print.  

But I suppose it all still starts with observation.  And hey, I don't miss much.  I am a freakishly sensitive, very aware, sensory overloaded kinda girl.  There are ways that this serves me well and others, not so much.  But I know for sure that I would not have chosen photography had I not been so keenly aware of the light bouncing off my sleeping baby's shoulder, the blonde curls at the nape of my son's neck, the graceful hands of my tiny daughter.  Of course I chose photography.  Or it chose me.  Which ever, I'm just grateful I have it.

ha...and funny enough...I have three white eggs on the kitchen counter right this second.  I was going to use them in a picture today and never got to it.  That'll be first thing on my list for tomorrow.  It all comes full circle doesn't it?

Chapter One

If I were writing a book about Art Camp, a memoir, the story of our journey into the unknown world of unbridled creativity...yesterday's entry would go somethin' like this here...

"It was a day like any other, where domesticity and art got all jumbled up together like a collage of seemingly mismatched ideas working perfectly together.  The elementary school nurse called to inform me that my twins were once again infected with head lice.  I retrieved them and began the tedious but familiar process of nit-picking...stopping every half hour or so to check on my assistant who was in the next room stringing up a plucked owl from my chandelier...dangling the once majestic bird from a noose...attempting to make a photograph that would match the twisted picture in his twisted mind."  

You couldn't make that stuff up if ya tried.  It really happened just that way.  Here, in this ridiculous, tortuous, invigorating, unpredictable Art Camp of Vrba and Donnor. 

The Handicapped Camper

I'm not sure exactly how long I've been a blogger.  Guess I could easily access that information here but I'm too lazy.  Maybe a couple of years.  Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time would know that I swing wildly between enthusiasm and ambivalence when it comes to photography.  It could be that pesky schizophrenia/bi-polar/ADD/OCD messing me up or it could be the same challenge that all artists have to push through.  Either way....mental instability or classic artistic torture...I constantly have to get to the other side.  And the road blocks always catch me off guard.  Like when you are hauling ass down a back road and then BAM...a speed bump nearly sends you face down in the asphalt.

So of course the self doubt has snuck up on me in my much anticipated personal Art Camp.  Having spent so many years with the great majority of my photographic time being dedicated to commissioned portraiture...I'm flailing now that I have the freedom to shoot whatever the hell I want.  I'm trying new things and in doing so, can see where I am weak and where I am consistently successful.  I suppose this should please me...knowing where my strengths lie...but instead, I question all of it.  What do I want to do with photography?  What do I want photography to do for me?  What am I trying to say with my pictures?  Does anybody care?  If a girl takes a picture in the woods and nobody sees it....well ya get the gist...

But I keep loading up the camera.  I keep pressing the shutter whether I'm feelin' it or not.  Only because I keep hearing the words of a friend in my head..."Inspiration doesn't come to ya when you're sittin' around waitin' for it.  Inspiration comes in the world of action."  

Art Camp, with all its joy, with all its despair, with all its lessons....continues. 

Ride Sally Ride

Good Lord we are already four whole days into January and it is HOPPIN' over here 

First, you should know that I did indeed go back for the miniature pistachio green Vespa on Christmas Eve, placed it next to the tree and it was well received by all three Vrba children.  I felt it was my maternal duty to be the first to test it out and so by 7AM on Christmas morning, I was circling the cul-de-sac in my pajamas at the top speed of 15mph.  I declared then and there that my time had come...I was buying the grown up version.  Jim shot my big idea down in flames, reminding me again about the recession.    I then proceeded to find a used one on Craig's list, ponied up some of my own hard earned cash...and TA DAAAAA!!!!

It's parked in my driveway now.  She's a beauty and can move.  There won't be a line of traffic behind me on the road.  Eat my Vespa dust people.

Next, Donnor finally showed up after a hefty holiday break.  We dove right into what we have declared to be "Art Camp."  And we are some productive, inspired campers.  We've kicked off with a project we've been planning since August...our first big collaboration.  Its looking GOOOD...and I'll keep you posted on the big reveal.

I've already started worrying about January flying by and Art Camp ending before I'm finished.  And then it dawned on me that this little gig I've got goin' is actually called Lori Vrba Photography and I AM lori vrba and can declare my whole life one big Art Camp if I so choose.  Whoa...how fun does THAT sound?  I turn 45 this year (that sounding not so fun)...but ya know, a new bike, art camp, freedom to choose who I am as a photographer...one could look at me and call me a woman in a mid-life crisis.  Well maybe I am.  (said like Joaquin Phoenix in the Johnny Cash movie, dressed in black, when they told him he looked like he was goin' to a funeral..."Well maybe I Am.")...

Or maybe I'm just a girl finally coming into her own.  

Clear the roads people.  I've got power and I'm not afraid to use it.  (did I mention the Vespa can go really fast?)