Me, Myself and Eye
ONLINE PRESENTATION
Me, Myself and Eye Home // Leslie Elsasser - Introduction // Selina Roman - Mind Currents // Michael Ball // TC Bryant // Larry Busby // David Canaday // Michael Congdon // Brandie Dziegiel // Loretta Fields // Jeaniel Image // Douglas Eric Jordan // Valerie Larson // John Leduc // Jason Lind // Mikko Maki // Alex Martinez // Matias // Noemys McConnell // Megan O’Connell // Robert Ortega // Adaina Plaza // Pat Randall // Heather Rivera // RaeAnne Swanson // Michael Webb
MICHAEL BALL - US MARINES & US AIR FORCE
Lake Ann
I have always been interested in photography, especially images of architecture and landscapes. I traveled a lot in the military and continue to travel with my family. Travel offers opportunities to discover and photograph architectural and natural wonders. When our family returns from a trip, my wife, myself, and two stepsons have a friendly competition. We compete for the “best photograph” as a memory of our trip. The winner of this familial competition prints their enlarged image on canvas and the photograph is proudly placed on our travelogue wall.
I took Breaking Barriers to learn new techniques, hoping to improve my travel photographs. However, the theme of this year’s workshop was self portraiture. Self-portraiture was completely out of my comfort zone. Consequently, I experimented with ways of taking self-portraits in which I was not the apparent subject.
One steamy hot summer day in northern Virginia, I visited Lake Ann. While crossing a footbridge, I leaned over the banister and saw my image fused with the images of the clouds and the trees reflected on the water’s surface. The color of the lake created a monochromatic image that unified the land, sky, and an echo of myself. Suddenly, a droplet of water fell onto the lake and created a ripple of concentric circles that distorted the image. Lake Ann is my distorted self-portrait. Although the photograph looks monochromatic, there is a barely perceivable fluctuation of color that I left as a hint to myself and the clothes that I wore. I hardly edited the photograph. I lightened it slightly to reveal the nuances that almost imperceptibly distinguished one image from another.
MICHAEL BALL
US MARINES 89-93 & US AIR FORCE 00-13
For more information:
Email Leslie Elsasser at lelsasse@usf.edu
or Ashley Jablonski at danyele@usf.edu
Breaking Barriers 2020 is supported by the James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital, Love IV Lawrence, Hillsborough Arts Council, and the Florida Department of State.
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