Evolution of a C list blogger and his growth as a visual artist

Anyone reading this blog, please note, I do not refer to myself in the third person often, I never liked it when Bob Dole did it or any other famous person (well, maybe Hulk Hogan but that is it!). The picture above does tell a story. All the pictures are layed out on the image that I used to order my best book to date to be published (there are a number of website that allow you to create and then print your own book). The model in the lower left hand corner is Jaye Santi and I used one of her quotes from her Myspace page to motivate me in creating my book and I titled the book Embrace your dreams, to recognized that fact. A young woman whose beautiful spirit matches her physical attractiveness. I just started using a website called Picnik which allows me to play with images. The iconic Chi was the first image that I created yesterday. The two images between Elvis and Chi are techniques that I am trying to master, taking a black and while image and coloring it in and tinting images in tones for an artistic, uconveniental look. The picture of the President and the helicopter in Iraq represent the themes of the book, Iraq from 2007 to 2010, reflecting the concurring Presidential elections of 2008, my last tour in Iraq consisted of most of 2008. The Elvis image is a screen saver on my computer at the moment and the Tarot card is the Tower, a card one gets during a period of ones life when changes are taking place. The lighting represents the truth being exposed due to the light of the lightening.

There is this conversation that takes place mostly offline mostly among self-identified B and C list bloggers, and for years there has been this tension between them and who they see as the A list bloggers, and why can't the traffic or notoriety be spread around a little more?

After reading this, I have considered myself a C list blogger, I do not have the aforementioned conversation with fellow bloggers (I only know one, an Internet friend on Facebook who doesn’t blog anymore!), nor do I crave “traffic” to my blog or even notoriety. I do this as a hobby, I like to write and manipulate images. I just created a book capturing images since about 2007 to present, most of them having to do with family photos and images from Iraq and the election of 2009. This is part of what I wrote to everyone how I sent the book to…

The beauty of a creative project like this, a book in a certain time structured chronologically, that captures a certain period of time, records it and brings a degree of closure to it. It is very similar to a traditional journal that I did in the eighties with glue, scissors and a bookbinding class to keep it from falling apart. Modern technology and the computer software of Picaboo has allowed me to create a book that is something I did foresee in the eighties with the introduction of the Mac. I really enjoyed making this book as it is an out pouring of my artistic expression. For me, making books and blogging is a natural evolution of keeping my journals.

The journal that I mentioned from the eighties was strictly pictures like the book that I just made on my computer. It took a long time to make but I was real happy with it when I was finished. That is when I hit my next level. With the help of the emerging technologies like my I phone has helped me find music that I really enjoy, new technology that is cutting edge and has become a gateway into things on the web that I didn't even know existed. I am coming into my own as I have always known that I would: I am embracing my dream!