Google Doodle inspired by Zarina Harshmi’s works was published to commemorate her 86th birthday.
Google Doodle today celebrates Zarina Hashmi, Indian-American artist’s 86th birthday, know all about her
Local photography club meetings to resume
MARINETTE — The Marinette & Menominee Area Photography Club will resume life meetings.
The club was started in March 2017 by Brian Hartnell, retired professional photographer for over 55 years. Meetings were held in classrooms at multiple locations until the coronavirus closed everything down. Participation in the club requires an interest in learning how to use your digital camera or cell phone camera to take better images.
Edwardsville artist drawing national acclaim
New York museum to exhibit Indian sculpture
New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is hosting an exhibition of early Indian sculptures containing Buddhist stone exhibits curated by John Guy. The exhibition, which runs from 21 July to 13 November, will include a catalogue named Tree and Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India 200 BCE-400 BCE, and seeks to demonstrate the Deccan region’s central role in the spread of art across early India and beyond.
French War Photographer Marie-Laure De Decker Dead At 75
Marie-Laure de Decker photgraphed celebrities at home and conflicts abroad: seen here in 2006 in front of a self-portrait
ERIC CABANIS
Marie-Laure de Decker, the French model who stepped behind the camera to become an internationally recognised war photographer, has died at the age of 75, her family said Saturday.
She died in hospital on Saturday following a long illness, her family said.
Born in Algeria — when it was still a French colony — she started her career as a model before deciding to branch out into photography.
In the late 1960s, she took memorable shots of the artists Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp and the writer Philippe Soupault.
She covered the Vietnam War early in her career and met with success despite her relative lack of experience.
“I said to myself: people are going to see that I’m not a real photographer,” she wrote in a 1985 memoir. She only had an old Leica camera with her, she recalled.
“In fact, I realised afterwards, this old Leica was a marvel.”
She faced particular challenges working as a female war photographer, she said. “If you’re a woman, you’re never taken seriously.”
On the other hand, she added: “There is an advantage to being a woman, as was the case in South Africa — they don’t kill you right away, they give you a chance.”
Chad Moussa Faki, current chair of the African Union Commission, paid tribute to her Saturday, speaking of his “great sadness” at the news of her death.
Her images, he wrote on Twitter, “immortalised part of the history of Chad”.
De Decker spent much of her career at the Gamma photo agency: from 1971 until it closed down in 2009.
Their association ended on bad terms. When she asked to get her photos back, she only got the black-and-white shots and not the colour ones and she lost a subsequent legal bid to recover them and have her copyright recognised for their digital versions of the photos.
Marie-Laure de Decker is also known for her photos of celebrities such as French singer Serge Gainsbourg, Caroline of Monaco and France’s former president, Valery Giscard d’Estaing.
She had two sons with lawyer Thierry Levy.
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Estes Park Studio Tour Returns
The 7th annual Studio Tour invites the creative curious, shoppers and talkers (who love to learn) into the studios of professional artists in Estes. Thirteen local artists with five additional guest artists will open their home studios to demonstrate their fine art and craft process including: woodturning, sculpture, furniture, ceramics, oil painting, photography, handmade clothing, stained glass, mosaic, sacred garden sculptures and more. The Estes Park Studio Tour is Saturday and Sunday, July 29-30, 2023, from 10 until 5. Prices range from $10 handmade items to one of a kind fine art. There is something for everyone!
How do you “do the tour?” Fill the car with your most fun family members and friends and a bottle of water. Find our interactive map on our web site or pick up a paper copy of the tour (see locations below). Choose the route that best serves you; visit one studio or thirteen. Make a weekend out of it and enjoy the tour all weekend. Some locations are right off the highway; others are up a dirt road. The best part about our tour is that everything is within a 10 mile radius. Two weeks before the event, printed maps will be available at Kind Coffee, Elements of Touch Wellness Spa, Bird & Jim Restaurant, Richardson Realty and the Visitors Center. Information on each artist, examples of their work, and an interactive map can be found at www.epstudiotour.com.
Our 2nd of our four week series: meet your local artists
Deedee Hampton
Studio #3
Deedee Hampton is a multi-faceted artist. She paints Spirit Animals & Intuitive Paintings, creates mosaics on garden rocks, does idiom inspired mixed media and makes small clay totems. On the tour, she will have both original paintings and prints on canvas, tea towels, puzzles, hot pads and cards. Her garden rocks will feature hearts, flowers, birds and spirit animals. Lots of fun surprise art will be available too! Collectors have described her pieces as unique and happy art. Deedee (stop #3) will have two guest artists this year: Leah Simmons DeCapio with her beautiful ceramics and Charlotte Zink with her unique, figurative metal garden sculptures.
Leah Simmons DeCapio
Guest artist- Studio #3
Leah lives in Nederland where she and her husband work together to make pottery.
Each piece is first shaped on a potter’s wheel or by hand by Scott. Leah then paints the entire piece black and carves the designs into the clay. Each piece is an original – no stencils are used. From here, the piece goes through a series of firings (and some are adorned with metal work and handmade glass beads). Their studio is very “green” too: electricity is powered by wind and water!
All of their functional work is food-safe. They do not recommend putting them in the microwave and prefer that they be hand-washed.
Leah Simmons DeCapio has made art all of her life. She received a Studio Arts Degree (with an emphasis in Ceramics) and an Anthropology Degree from the University of Colorado.
Charlotte Zink
Guest Artist Studio #3-
Drawing has been an essential part of my life for as long as I can remember. I think creative expression is a human characteristic every bit as vital as speaking or writing. For me, making art objects is a way of translating inner visions and thought processes into a tangible outer reality, something to look at, touch, appreciate and share with others. Creativity has been a lifelong friend and teacher for me. As time goes by I find myself really giving into art more, accepting both the challenges and the incredible grace it brings. Ben, my partner of 34 years works with me to fabricate our sculptures and painting and sewing keeps me close to the fireplace in the winter. We look forward to sharing some of our recent works and welcome you to visit our studio and sculpture garden the next time you are in Berthoud.
Cynthia Price Reedy
Studio #4
I am a native Colorado artist who finds that creating gives my life richness. I do realistic watercolor paintings and abstract acrylics. I also make art journals and folios. When I am creating, I am happy. My formal training was as a clinical psychologist but I have always made time for art. Now that I am retired, it is my main passion. I have learned by taking workshops and painting with artist friends and family.
Victoria Endsley
Studio #5
Victoria Endsley is the owner of Bear & Bee Inspired Arts & Crafts Store (behind Reel Mountain movie theater), offering a creative workspace, classes and so much more. She is a multimedia artist with an extensive background in stained glass, pyrography, linocut, block printing and acrylic painting. With a deep passion for functional art, Victoria believes art should be a part of every aspect of life. Inspired by the natural world, her works often reflect the calming peace we seek in a stroll through the forest, always celebrating the joy we find along the way.
Her focus in the last few years has been on teaching therapeutic art, marrying the ideas of creative endeavor with purposeful expression, emphasizing the process as much as the product. Victoria has recently taken to leather working, yet another way in which she can touch nature as she works.
30-year-old spent $0 launching a food photography side hustle—now he brings in $134,000 a year
Sean Audet stumbled into photography as a career by accident, and nearly for free.
It was 2016, and the trained fine-dining chef was running a pop-up restaurant two nights per week and working in culinary research at Red River College in Winnipeg, Canada. While developing new recipes for the college’s clients, small- and medium-sized restaurants, he had an idea: He and his students could stage and photograph food to help those clients advertise their businesses.
Audet quickly realized he had a knack for the work and started taking on his own clients for a food photography side hustle two years later. He used the school’s cameras, lights and backdrops to cut costs.
By 2020, he garnered enough business to invest roughly $20,000 in CAD, or about $15,200 U.S., in new equipment. He quit his jobs and become a full-time photographer.
Last year, Audet brought in roughly $133,900 U.S., according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It — more than he ever earned in higher education or as a sous chef, he says. A majority of that business came from clients on freelance platform Fiverr, he adds.
Leaving a steady 9-to-5 job to become a freelancer was risky, but Audet says he had to give it a try.
“Every once in a while, I’ll stumble upon something that gets me super excited,” Audet, 30, tells CNBC Make It. “With no prompting, I’ll just start working an extra 12 to 14 hours a day on something that interests me. When that happens, I feel like you have to pay attention.”
Here’s how Audet scaled his side hustle into a full-time job, and how he plans to use his interest in A.I. to make more money.
Prioritizing passion over fear, and doubling his income
Audet studied biochemistry at The University of Winnipeg. His post-graduation plan was medical school, until he took a job at a nearby restaurant during college and fell in love with the kitchen.
So, after graduating in 2013, Audet went to culinary school instead. He became a sous chef and started the pop-up restaurant, which had a seven-course tasting menu, with a friend in Winnipeg.
His friend-turned-business partner also had a connection at Red River College, and suggested Audet fill in teaching “Pastry Arts” in 2016. Juggling both the teaching job and the pop-up, he was earning roughly $56,500 U.S. per year, he says.
Audet at Red River College, where he learned he had a knack for food photography, in 2017.
Sean Audet
He loved teaching and got involved in the school’s research department, where he first learned to “marry cooking and photography.”
“Spending almost a decade in fine dining, plating beautiful food, helped me segue into this niche,” he says. “It really gave me a leg up, and I started booking bigger clients almost immediately.”
Those bigger clients didn’t result in a bigger paycheck, or at least not at first. Audet estimates he only brought in $19,000 U.S. in his first year, not nearly enough to leave his full-time job.
In 2019, he raised his prices and his reputation got him more work, largely from returning customers who offered him regular projects. As a result, his income doubled.
Pursuing photography while still co-running the pop-up and working at the college was taxing, and cost Audet virtually all of his free time, he says. He regularly worked 12-hour days seven days a week, juggling three roles and pushing himself to pick up new photography skills along the way.
In 2020, he left his pop-up business and research position at the college. At the time, he was bringing in roughly $76,000 U.S. through photography.
As his business has grown, so have the costs. Now, Audet estimates he spends up to $23,000 U.S. to hire lighting specialists, models, makeup artists and other contract workers for photoshoots. But, even with those expenses, Audet is still bringing in six-figures, and nearly double what he made working two jobs.
Automation ‘is the key to reducing your workload’
Audet doesn’t have plans to change careers again, though he is already learning new skills to keep his interest piqued. He uses artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT to craft emails to clients and build individual business plans.
“Automation, I think, is the key to reducing your workload,” Audet says. “When a client first reaches out to me, I need to be able to quickly deliver a bunch of information about services and costs, but I need to be able to do that in a nice, succinct and personalized way. I think that’s how you get and keep really great clients.”
He can’t yet rely on these tools to do higher-level work, Audet says. He’s tried out editing images in other AI programs, like Midjourney, but the tech isn’t to the point where he feels comfortable using it on professional projects.
“If the technology can do like 90% of the job, that’s not good enough when you’re working with clients paying a lot of money,” he says. “So the impact of it on my business is still relatively low.”
Conversions from CAD to USD were done using the OANDA conversion rate of 1 CAD to 0.75422 USD on July 14, 2023. All amounts are rounded up to the nearest dollar.
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West Michigan Tourist Association shares unique events to cap off July
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — With summer in full swing, what’s a better way to get outside and enjoy what our state has to offer then hitting up some events going on in the area this month.
Paige Bodine, the Marketing Manager at the West Michigan Tourist Association, joined FOX 17’s Weekend Morning News to share some ideas of what you could do.
Murder Mystery Train in Coopersville
Calling all crime sleuths! You can join the Coopersville Marne Railway and solve crime with their Murder Mystery train. Dust off your bell bottoms and flower power attire and step back in time with a hippie themed murder mystery. Ride the vintage coaches while actors present the clues as you chug down the tracks. Pick up clues along the ride and determine who the culprit is before returning to Coopersville on July 15th, 21st, or 22nd. Soft drinks and light snacks served. Don’t miss your chance to be part of this unique crime-solving adventure, advance reservations are required.
ART-ful Evening Sushi-Making Workshop in Kalamazoo
Discover the art of sushi-making at the Kalamazoo Institute of Art’s hands-on workshop led by Michiko Yoshimoto, Program Manager at Western Michigan University’s Soga Japan Center. Learn the secrets and techniques behind creating delicious sushi, whether you’re a beginner or seeking to refine your skills. This event is in conjunction with the captivating exhibit, Sugoi! 200 Years of Japanese Art, and offers a unique opportunity to immerse yourself in Japanese culture while exploring the culinary realm. Don’t miss out on this enriching experience that combines the best of art and sushi-making.
Venetian Festival in Charlevoix
Get ready for the Charlevoix Venetian Festival, a long-standing tradition in Michigan that’s happening from July 15th to July 23rd. It’s a full 8 days of non-stop fun and excitement, perfect for the summer season. Sports lovers, you’re in for a treat with tournaments in tennis, soccer, volleyball, and disc golf (most events require pre-registration). If you’re all about the water, there’s plenty for you too, like thrilling sailing regattas, pool parties, beach and boating parties, and even a block party. And guess what? The festival also offers a fantastic shopping and food experience! But that’s not all – prepare for a packed schedule with activities like a carnival, tiki tent, kids’ day, and a car show. And when it comes to live music, they’ve got you covered with amazing performances from big-name artists spanning genres like jazz and dueling pianos. Of course, there’s a parade and an air show with an incredible flag drop. To wrap it all up, on the evening of the 23rd, enjoy a breathtaking boat parade followed by a spectacular fireworks display on Round Lake.
West Michigan Tourist Association shares unique events to cap off July
3 Things That Hold Back Photographers
Photography can be a pursuit marked by slow growth, and as such, insidious things can creep in and derail our journey, and it can be years before we even realize they have done so. If you would like to continue to grow as a photographer and creative, check out this fantastic video essay that discusses three mistakes that will hold you back and how to avoid them.
Coming to you from Kyle McDougall, this insightful video essay discusses three common mistakes that hold photographers back. One that I found particularly salient is the importance of not wasting time and energy on unproductive things that do nothing to move you forward. We can be guilty of this in so many ways: it can be spending too much time poring over camera specs, arguing with others online, or looking for shortcuts like presets. It can be also come about in less obvious ways, such as spending too much time editing small details of an image that really do not contribute to its overall impression and quality or that are unlikely to be noticed entirely. It is so important that we not only practice our craft, but practice it in a purposeful way. Check out the video above for the full rundown from McDougall.
