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RAAC’s Fall Art Tour receives Virginia Tourism Corporation grant for tourism marketing

By in Art World News

RAAC’s Fall Art Tour receives Virginia Tourism Corporation grant for tourism marketing







Art Tour 2022: Ruthie Windsor-Mann (copy)

Ruthie Windsor-Mann’s studio was one of the many artists’ venues welcoming visitors last fall.




Governor Glenn Youngkin announced that the Rappahannock Association for Arts and Community (RAAC) received a $10,000 grant for its Fall Art Tour from the Virginia Tourism Corporation (VTC) Special Events and Festivals Program. 

The VTC grant will make a significant difference to the Art Tour’s success this fall by providing additional funds to target new, and strengthen existing, markets, according to a news release from RAAC issued Saturday. The Art Tour partners with many local businesses, including artists, galleries, restaurants and stores, inns and B&Bs, wineries and breweries, schools and the visitor center. RAAC’s annual Art Tour, now in its 18th year, will take place on the first weekend in November. It is one of the largest weekend events in the county and helps to sustain the local artists’ community and hospitality economy. 

Windjammer Days Photography Cruise

By in Photography

Windjammer Days Photography Cruise

Wednesday, June 28

Cruise local waters with professional photographer Mike Leonard and learn techniques for that perfect image of, in this case, 17 windjammers, lighthouses, and did we mention the WINDJAMMERS?! Depart noon from Pier 8, Balmy Days Cruises.

What the Supreme Court’s Andy Warhol decision could mean for art

By in Art World News

What the Supreme Court’s Andy Warhol decision could mean for art

Just whiling away the hours ’til the next episode of “Succession” because there’s nothing like watching callow rich people subvert democracy. I’m Carolina A. Miranda, art and design columnist at the Los Angeles Times, with the week’s essential art news — and Japanese omelets:

Warhol vs. Goldsmith

In a 7-2 decision issued this week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of photographer Lynn Goldsmith in her copyright battle with the Andy Warhol Foundation. At the center of the case is a photographic portrait of Prince that Goldsmith made for Newsweek in 1981. The newsweekly never ran the photo, but three years later, Vanity Fair licensed the image so that Warhol could use it as source material for a purple silkscreen painting of Prince that ran in the magazine. Goldsmith was paid a $400 license fee and given a published credit.

At the time, Warhol also created 13 other silkscreens and two pencil drawings based on Goldsmith’s image (unbeknownst to Goldsmith). After the artist died in 1987, most of the works ended up in the hands of collectors, with a few going to the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.

A vintage photo from 1976 shows Andy Warhol smiling brightly and holding a camera.

Andy Warhol in New York City in 1976.

(Richard Drew / Associated Press)

The problems began in 2016, when Condé Nast (Vanity Fair’s parent company) approached the Andy Warhol Foundation about licensing the image of Prince for a standalone issue on the singer, who died in April of that year. Rather than using the purple portrait, they opted for another image in the series, which shows Prince rendered in orange. Condé Nast paid the Warhol Foundation $10,000 to license the image but did not remunerate or credit Goldsmith.

At that point, Goldsmith registered her image for copyright and the foundation filed a preemptive suit against her, arguing that Warhol’s use of “Orange Prince” qualified as fair use since the work is transformative. Since then, the case has ping-ponged through the courts, landing on the Supreme Court’s docket last year. (The last time the court heard a case related to fair use was in 1994.) In the majority ruling, the court stated that the two works share “substantially the same purpose and the use is commercial in nature” and that the Warhol Foundation had “no persuasive justification for its unauthorized use of the photograph.”

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How will this affect fair use?

Boston attorney Nicholas O’Donnell told my colleague David Savage that the decision may have a limited impact since the court’s opinion “carefully avoids many of the broader questions about the limits of fair use in visual art.”

New York University law professor Amy Adler, who filed an amicus brief in support of the Warhol Foundation on behalf of art law professors, saw it differently. “I think it’s a significant contraction of where the court was,” she tells Artnet’s Sarah Cascone. “I think it’s going to significantly limit the amount of borrowing and building on previous works that artists will engage in. The court seems less interested now in the artistic contribution of the second work and much more interested in commercial concerns.”

To her point, the justices were less focused on whether Warhol’s work was transformative than on the way it was used.

Bruce Ewing, an attorney specializing in intellectual property cases at Dorsey & Whitney in Minneapolis, has a thorough analysis of the case (blessedly written in plain English) over at JD Supra. He notes that the court specifically zeroed in on the commercial use of both works. (In its decision, the court cites the first fair-use factor, which is “the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes.”)

“The Court emphasized that a use of the ‘Orange Prince’ for non-commercial purposes might qualify as fair,” he writes, “but that Condé Nast’s use of that work was not fair insofar as the first factor was concerned, in part because the work was used for commercial purposes.”

What does this mean for the other editions of the Prince works that are floating around the art world? It could put them out of circulation. In an analysis written before the court reached its verdict, Bruce E. Boyden, a law professor specializing in intellectual property at Marquette University, writes, “Anyone holding one of the Prince series works would have to feel nervous about publicly displaying it, or selling it, if Goldsmith wins.”

A woman and a man stand on either side of a large self-portrait by Andy Warhol with his face against a black background.

Sotheby’s staff adjust a self-portrait by Andy Warhol in London last year.

(Alberto Pezzali / Associated Press)

Need more reading?

I recommend hitting Greg Allen‘s Artnews dispatch from October, when he attended oral arguments in the case. (Worth it for the weirdo sidebar by Clarence Thomas.)

Also peep the Supreme Court’s decision, which is illustrated — in color! — and features a discussion about, among other things, Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Can series. Take that, art critics!

In and out of the galleries

Christopher Knight has been poking through LACMA‘s records and noted an interesting trend: The West’s biggest encyclopedic museum is not so encyclopedic. “Most of the museum’s program of exhibitions and installations is limited to art made between the mid-19th century, when the rambunctious emergence of Modernism in Europe began to upend everything, and the present day. And most of that has been dedicated to art since 1945. LACMA has transitioned into a de facto museum of contemporary art.” (Don’t miss the amazing graphic on this story.)

At the Cheech in Riverside, the fifth installment of the MexiCali Biennial, “Land of Milk and Honey,” brings together 40 mostly U.S. and Mexican artists. Curated by Ed Gomez, April Lillard-Gomez and Rosalía Romero, the show’s theme is California agriculture. Christopher Knight writes that its biblical title frames “the Golden State as part fertile and utopian paradise, part huckster marketing dystopia.” Also, check out that Hot Cheetos floor sculpture.

“No one expected me to survive as an artist,” painter Virginia Jaramillo tells Times contributor Eva Recinos. Well, she not only survived, she thrived. The painter is now the subject of a solo show at Pace in Los Angeles and is about to open a retrospective at the Kemper Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo., in June. For the artist, the Pace show — “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” — represents a homecoming: Jaramillo grew up in East L.A. and showed one of her earliest paintings at LACMA in the late 1950s.

Virginia Jaramillo, dressed in black with scarf tied around her neck, stands before a tricolor abstract painting.

Virginia Jaramillo’s solo show, “East of the Sun, West of the Moon,” is on view at Pace Gallery in L.A.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Photographer Dawoud Bey is having an L.A. moment. The artist is part of “Dawoud Bey & Carrie Mae Weems: In Dialogue” at the Getty Center and “Dawoud Bey: Pictures 1976-2019” at Sean Kelly. “When I started out photographing in Harlem in the 1970s, I was very conscious of the fact that I was not only making work in order to shape perceptions about that community and the Black people that lived in it, I was also making work in response to my sense of the history of Black representation in photography,” he tells Times contributor Leigh-Ann Jackson. “I am now working to include a Black voice within the history of the landscape tradition in photography.”

On and off the stage

Ben Platt already has one Tony Award under his belt for his performance in “Dear Evan Hansen” and is now up for another for his role in “Parade” as Leo Frank, a Jewish businessman who faces violent injustice. “I’ve played characters who would feel isolated wherever they were,” he tells Times theater critic Charles McNulty. “With Leo, there’s a bit of indignation and the frustration of ‘It’s not me, it’s them,’ which is an aggression that I’ve not gotten to play before.”

A man in beige tank top looks into the mirror, a neon Star of David illuminated behind him

Actor, singer and songwriter Ben Platt at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre in New York.

(Justin Jun Lee / For The Times)

Speaking of the Tony Awards: The ongoing Writers Guild strike is affecting their presentation. Late last week, it was announced that the live telecast would be canceled over concerns that performers would be unwilling to cross picket lines to attend the ceremony. But on Monday, the guild announced that the telecast would proceed — “albeit in an altered form,” reports The Times’ Ashley Lee. The changes have not been disclosed, but an anonymous source tells the New York Times that awards presentations and performances would proceed, albeit without “any scripted material by screenwriters.”

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On a nightly basis, Michael Shayan transforms into his mother in the one-man show “Avaaz” at South Coast Repertory. Shayan says the act is “every gay man’s dream or nightmare, depending on how you feel about your mother.” The play, which was written by Shayan and directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel, emerged from a fellowship at the Lambda Literary Writer’s Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices in 2017. My colleague Steven Vargas reports on how it came together.

California’s performing arts sector lost a decade’s worth of jobs within a two-year period during the pandemic, according to a new report produced by CVL Economics. “When I saw the report, I just started weeping, because it validated the suffering of the community that I care about and represent,” Martha Demson, president of the Theatre Producers of Southern California and artistic director of Open Fist Theatre Company, told Jessica Gelt.

Classical notes

L.A. Opera has opened its last production of the season: Verdi’s “Otello,” with tenor Russell Thomas in the title role, as well as Igor Golovatenko as Iago and soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen as Desdemona. Thomas’ voice doesn’t always fill the hall, writes Times classical music critic Mark Swed, but “what he does reveal in the Chandler is impressive. He dominates not by having the loudest voice onstage but by the far great power of expressivity.”

Russell Thomas, wearing red pants and a white shirt, kneels as he sings on a red stage set.

Russell Thomas in the title role of L.A. Opera’s “Otello.”

(Cory Weaver / L.A. Opera)

Design time

Jessica Gelt has a delicious report on the reopening of the Huntington’s 1911 tea room. The space has received a thorough renovation courtesy of Architectural Resources Group, a multicity firm that specializes in historic sites. “Our marching orders were to preserve the building but then to develop additional dining spaces,” says founding principal Stephen J. Farneth. “And we really wanted some outdoor dining because the pandemic made it clear that was the direction of the future.”

An overhead image shows deviled egg salad in phyllo cups topped by micro greens.

The Huntington Library’s 1911 Tea Room is back after a three-year closure with deviled egg salad in phyllo cups, among other morsels.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

Essential happenings

Steven Vargas rounds up the must-sees in his weekly L.A. Goes Out newsletter, including three shows at Jeffrey Deitch featuring work by Karon Davis, Judith F. Baca and Faith Ringgold.

On Saturday afternoon, arts org L.A. Freewaves is presenting “Heal Hear Here,” at Los Angeles State Historic Park, which will bring together 30 artist groups for an event centered on healing. This includes performances, an ancestral walking tour and a soundscape labyrinth presented by organizations such as Metabolic Studio, GYOPO and the Armory Center for the Arts, among many others.

Moves

Edgar Miramontes has been named the new director of CAP UCLA. Miramontes, who previously served as deputy director at REDCAT, is the first person of color to lead the organization. “I think the challenge is to think about how we connect with immigrants in a city that has over 200 languages spoken,” he tells Jessica Gelt.

Edgar Miramontes, wearing a light blue shirt and dark jacket, sits in the auditorium of an empty theater.

Edgar Miramontes, seen here in 2020, has organized numerous performance festivals around Los Angeles.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

Another big move: The L.A. Phil’s Chad Smith is leaving to take over the Boston Symphony as president and chief executive. Mark Swed reports that Smith “has played an outsize role in the progressive ambition of the orchestra, which now has the largest budget, the broadest range of musical and educational activities and the most extensive community engagement of any orchestra in the world.” But, as Smith tells Swed, he is ready for a new challenge.

David Ellenstein has been named artistic director of the Laguna Playhouse, while Bill Kerlin assumes the role of managing director. Ellenstein had been interim artistic director since last August.

Jonathan Fox is departing Santa Barbara’s Ensemble Theatre Company after holding the position of artistic director for 17 years.

Passages

Slava Zaitsev, a Soviet-era fashion designer once dubbed “Red Dior” by Western media, has died at 85.

In the news

— Francisco Cantú reviews Héctor Tobar‘s new book, “Our Migrant Souls,” and what it means to be Latino.
— Digging these lamps by Julie Jackson.
— A good profile of Jibz Cameron (otherwise known as Dynasty Handbag) and her surreal take on the Titanic.
— Greg.org has me obsessing over Pompon, the dog that may have belonged to Marie Antoinette.
— How architect Juan José Santibañez designs buildings that speak to Oaxaca’s traditional practices.
— Workers at architecture firm Snøhetta (which designed the expansion at SFMOMA) have announced their intention to form a union.
— Speaking of SFMOMA: The museum has a new membership program that offers discounts to working artists. Nice, but what about some free admission, which would make the museum more accessible to everyone?
— Ghanaian workers who contributed to the Venice Architecture Biennale have been denied visas by the Italian government to attend the opening and related events.
— The San Francisco-bashing continues on CNN and the Financial Times.

And last but not least …

Omurice, amirite?

Aura Photography: The Complete Guide to Aura Portraits

By in Photography

Aura Photography: The Complete Guide to Aura Portraits

Aura Photography Guide

According to some spiritual beliefs, an aura, sometimes called an energy field, is an atmosphere or quality surrounding something, often a person or other living thing.

Some people, primarily psychics, mediums, and other paranormal practitioners, claim that they can see a person’s aura, including its color, size, and “vibration.” These qualities of an aura hold some significance for certain people.

Beyond people who claim to be able to see and read auras, a company, Aura Imaging, makes a camera called the AuraCam that claims to be able to capture a “representation” of a person’s aura.

This guide will mostly sidestep the discussion surrounding the lack of scientific backing for auras, aura photography, and aura cameras. The focus will instead be on the history of aura photography, outline what aura photography is today, and discuss what different auras mean to people who believe in aura photography.

For the many people who are entertained by, interested in, or outright convinced by horoscopes, astrology, tarot cards, mediums, and ghost hunting, aura photography may be right up their alley. People are interested in aura photography for a wide range of reasons, so this guide will help shed light on the topic.

Table of Contents

The Origins and History of Aura Photography

While the modern aura camera, AuraCam, is the result of work started by Guy Coggins in the 1970s, its roots are traced back much further.

Paranormalism experienced a massive uptick in popularity in the 18th and 19th centuries, leading to people making (and selling) a wide range of products and experiences to capitalize on the paranormal craze. Hypnotism, spiritualism, occultism, Mesmerism, and many other “ism’s” were everywhere.

Documented attempts to photograph energy fields surrounding a person began in the late 1800s. However, a breakthrough occurred in 1939 when Semyon Davidovich Kirlian discovered that by placing an object, or body part, on photographic paper and passing voltage through it, he could capture an image with a glowing edge surrounding the subject. This is “Kirlian photography.”

Aura Photography Guide
Kirlian photograph of a fingertip, 1989. Captured by Sergio Valle Duarte. Used via CC BY-SA 4.0.

Regardless of Kirlian’s intentions, this photographic technique has been adopted by various parapsychologists to showcase people’s bioenergies and psychic powers. Studies have since shown that electricity produces gas ionization around an object depending upon the presence of moisture.

Fast forward to 1992, when Guy Coggins introduced Aura Imaging cameras and software that allegedly relies upon biofeedback data to create a color around a subject.

As of now, there’s no scientific evidence, at least none that stands up to rigorous peer review, that supports the notion that “auras” are psychic in origin. Study after study has concluded that the ability to see auras doesn’t exist.

Aura Photography Today

Despite lacking supporting evidence, many people find aura photography compelling and exciting in the modern age.

For example, Sarah Potter of Cosmopolitan writes that she “treats” herself to an aura portrait every year on her birthday. “It helps me reflect on my past year and set the stage for my next journey around the Sun. If I am home in NYC, then that means a trek downtown to my fave metaphysical store, Magic Jewelry in Chinatown, for an aura photo and analysis,” Potter writes.

Over at goop, Gwyneth Paltrow’s wellness and lifestyle brand, goop’s editors invited well-known aura photographer Christina Lonsdale of Radiant Human to visit their office and capture the team’s aura portraits.

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Goop writes of aura photography, “The portraits are stunning, strange, and so cool — thanks to a double exposure that first takes a portrait and then the aura — and they happen thanks to silver-laced hand sensors that sit in your lap, sending a charge through the body.”

Some are more skeptical, even if they participate in aura photography. Marisa Meltzer of The New York Times had an aura portrait session with Ms. Lonsdale of Radiant Photo as well. She writes of aura portraits, “And perhaps they are best understood visually. One could interpret virtually anything from the colors, but taken as a series, it’s possible that I might be able to identify real patterns or change. At least I finally have a decent picture of myself.”

Whether for entertainment or insight, each year, many thousands of people get aura portraits done.

Lonsdale is far from the only aura photographer who has a studio and goes on tours around the country, capturing people’s aura portraits. Another is Detroit-based conceptual artist and energetics researcher Eileen Lee of Aura Aura. She’s captured tens of thousands of aura portraits around the United States since 2017.

And, of course, there’s the camera behind it all, AuraCam. Coggins’s latest version is the AuraCam 6000. “As a holistic health practitioner, yoga teacher, or energy worker, you know the value of being able to accurately interpret your client’s spiritual state of being. With the AuraCam 6000, you can do just that. This unique device uses a human-computer interface composed of both hardware and software to capture a representation of your aura thanks to our innovative technology,” explains AuraCam.

How Does an AuraCam Work?

Goop’s article about aura photography briefly explains how an aura camera works. There’s a double exposure that captures a portrait of a person and then their aura. Hand sensors on the subject’s lap send a charge through the body, which then changes depending on their aura or spirit.

“Our aura reading machine uses a hand sensor. A person would put their left (or right) hand onto the hand sensors. This, in turn, would allow a particular product to measure physiological parameters. The hand sensor itself has various contact points on them designed to maximize reading accuracy. The hand sensor is also sensitive to deviations in temperature, humidity, and static electricity in the environment and the person, allowing for greater precision in data gathering. These data parameters are then projected as a radiant, colored aura field around the body on an instant film photo or a computer monitor. In rapid time thereafter, a brilliant color photo or computer printout can be presented to the user to help them understand their own personal aura color interpretation,” explains AuraCam.

[embedded content]

What’s happening is that a sensing device sends an electrical charge through a person, and that charge is then read by an aura camera, along with a more traditional portrait of the individual. Colors correlating in some way to the sensory readings are then exposed around the person, and some people believe these colors hold significance.

All About Colors: What Do the Colors in an Aura Portrait Represent?

The colors are at the heart of aura photography’s appeal and, for some, its value. What do the colors mean to the people who believe in the significance of auras?

Lee describes aura colors as follows: “Our aura colors can (and do) change with our life stories, emotions, and situations. This experience looks to capture and document these moments, empowering participants to understand their auric states, fostering deeper awareness as universal beings — all while expanding the individual and collective consciousness.”

[embedded content]

Lonsdale of Radiant Human explains that there are eight colors: red, orange, tan, yellow, green, blue, purple, and white. Aura Aura says there are additional colors like pink, magenta, and indigo. Magic Jewelry NYC claims that there are red, orange, yellow, pink, green, indigo, blue, purple, and white auras.

Each color has its own meaning, and the location of colors is also essential. Aura Aura explains that “aura anomalies,” such as streaks, beams, channels, rays of light, and orbs, can further expand an aura’s significance.

Red

A red aura indicates strength, intensity, willpower, new beginnings, leadership, action, practicality, and passion. People with red auras are typically unafraid of birth, death, sensuality, and adventure.

As for the chakra, red is the color of the root chakra. This relates to the connection of an individual to the tangible world.

Aura Photography Guide

People with red auras are encouraged to be active and spend time in nature.

If a person’s red aura is heavy or dark, it’s believed they have low energy.

Orange

Orange is the color of the sacral chakra, which relates to creativity, sensuality, and subtle emotions. People with an orange aura are said to be creative, confident, independent, social, and enjoy challenges.

It’s important for people with orange auras to get into water or visit a river or ocean, as they can be aloof and must have their energies regularly revived.

Aura Photography Guide

People with orange auras are often entrepreneurs or those who are successful salespeople. Those with orange auras are said to work well with many other people.

Tan

Individuals with tan auras are detail-oriented, cautious, logical, strategic, and often intelligent.

Aura Photography Guide

These people work well within structured environments and can be meticulous planners.

Those with tan auras should be sure to expand their horizons often, as they can become mired in rigid thought patterns.

Yellow

Yellow auras indicate optimism, enthusiasm, open-mindedness, and generosity. People with yellow auras are often playful and whimsical.

These people foster an environment where others feel comfortable.

Aura Photography Guide

A yellow aura also indicates that a person has power and influence over others. It’s the color of the solar plexus chakra, which is the chakra responsible for self-esteem and personal power.

People with a yellow aura have a strong sense of self and radiate like the Sun.

Green

Green is the heart chakra’s color, which is essential for self-improvement and self-healing.

People with green auras emanate unconditional love and support for others, and anyone who encounters a person with a green aura feels empowered.

Aura Photography Guide

Individuals with green auras are often drawn to nature and animals. They are said to be the most balanced of all people across the spectrum and feel a strong sense of responsibility to themselves and others.

However, if a green aura is dark or murky, it may indicate that the person is “green with envy.” Sometimes people with a green aura perceive themselves as victims.

Blue

Blue comes in various shades, including cyan, turquoise, and royal blue. These different shades mean slightly different things. However, a blue aura is often associated with the ability to live authentically. Blue is the throat chakra’s color, which controls communication and expressiveness.

Aura Photography Guide

People with blue auras are often considered dreamers and place high significance on personal relationships. Honesty is vital to people with blue auras.

People with blue auras make great philosophers. The lighter the shade of blue a person has, the more peaceful they are.

If a blue aura individual feels left wanting, they should consider joining a choir, participating in theater, or doing a water-based activity.

Indigo

Indigo is the color of the third eye chakra, which correlates to inner knowledge and the ability to intuit.

Aura Photography Guide

An indigo aura indicates sensitivity and empathy. A brighter indigo shade relates to clarity, willpower, and the ability to help others.

People with this aura often operate more based on emotion than logic and enjoy thinking of themselves as a small part of a bigger whole.

Despite relying on emotional thinking, indigo auras indicate an ability to discern fact from fiction. However, a darker indigo aura, such as a navy blue, can mean that a person is experiencing self-doubt and a disconnect from their intuitive abilities.

Purple

The color of the crown chakra, purple relates to dreams. People with this aura are allegedly dynamic and charismatic. They have powerful personalities and often aim to inspire and lead others.

Aura Photography Guide

“Purples” are said to be visionaries and very idealistic. They are also described as empaths with the skills to be progressive and original.

A purple aura can emanate from unconventional, playful, and non-judgmental people.

Such original thinkers can feel overwhelmed, so they should share their vision with others or a journal to ensure they don’t hold too much inside themselves.

Pink

A pink aura is considered to be gentle and representative of loving energy. People with pink auras are considered tender, kind, and compassionate.

A brighter pink corresponds to curiosity and a strong desire for love and peace.

Aura Photography Guide

A lighter pink is apparently a rare color of aura; the more “bubblegum” a pink aura, the more gentle an individual is.

The heart chakra is represented by pink, and it’s often associated with feminine energy. People with a pink aura are said to be able to heal others with a simple smile or even just their presence.

Magenta

Someone with a magenta aura is said to be a very original individual. Magenta combines blue and red energies, so they have a strong understanding of the physical world, like a person with a red aura, while also being intuitive, like people with blue and indigo auras.

Aura Photography Guide

Someone with a magenta aura is well-suited to creative work and is said to march to the beat of their own drum.

They are independent and rarely swayed by outside influence and peer pressure. A person with a magenta aura often uses humor to diffuse situations and confront life’s challenges.

White

Connected to the soul chakra, a white aura is the mark of a person transcending the physical realm. It’s believed there are only a handful of people with pure white auras on the planet, and they are entirely free from personal issues and health problems.

A strong white frequency surrounding a person indicates unfettered receptiveness to the universe. A person with a white aura doesn’t have ambitions for their corporeal existence and is focused on objective truth and purity.

Aura Photography Guide

People with a cloudy or murky white aura may seek answers and feel confused instead.

If someone has a pure white aura, it’s said that they’ve reached a higher plane of existence.

Location of Colors and Aura Anomalies

Any aura above a person’s ears represents an individual’s consciousness.

Colors on the left-hand side of an aura portrait relate to the energy entering an individual and how a person perceives the world.

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On the right-hand side, these auras represent the energy someone is pushing out or how the world perceives that individual.

An aura arch reflects a person’s goals or aspirations or something that they value greatly.

If a person’s aura portrait includes streaks, beams, channels, or rays of light, these can indicate a direct connection to the universe or a spiritual relationship.

Want an Aura Portrait?

Individuals that want an aura portrait of their own can seek out professional photographers with aura cameras, including Radiant Human, Aura Aura, and Magic Jewelry NYC.

A quick Google query for “aura photography near me” or “where to get an aura portrait” will also yield results for people with aura cameras in different locations.

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People could also purchase an AuraCam 6000 or rent one. Prices vary, although a daily rental can cost more than $500.

An AuraCam 6000 also requires consumable “modules,” which cost $450 for 200 or $1,050 for $500.

Image credits: Illustrative images generated using artificial intelligence.

If You Don’t Care About Your Photography, Why Should Anyone Else?

By in Photography

If You Don’t Care About Your Photography, Why Should Anyone Else?

Voting with your wallet means buying products you believe in, supporting companies you want to see more of as well as products/practices you approve of. Buying one brand over another, buying locally rather than from a chain, or choosing not to buy from a certain industry at all would all be examples of voting with your wallet.

The other side of this is something I am very conscious of when deciding the direction I want to be taking with my output – in the same way I don’t buy products that don’t match up with my views and lifestyle, I don’t want to produce or sell a product that isn’t in line with the same.

It maybe sounds obvious; make something based on self-reflection instead of chasing trends, or copying what others are doing, but I understand how persuasive it can be to see others succeeding and want to just template their actions.

This is why even within a print-oriented workflow I am focused more towards books than individual wall pieces. This is because I personally find more value and enjoyment in sequenced books than in single frames.

I can fervently advocate for my work because my enthusiasm doesn’t begin at the point at which I want to make a sale; instead, I have the momentum from commitment and involvement at every step, which carries through into genuine passion when talking about what I’ve made, why I made, how I made it, and what someone else will gain from it.

How can anyone sell a product they don’t believe in? How can you sell a product you don’t personally value or find useful? These are the questions that inform where I draw a line in what mediums I can make sense of to sell my work. I have not spent money on purchasing digital photographs, and do not think I am the target audience of such work. I understand selling JPGs as part of a wider service when I make those files specifically for a client like when photographing a corporate event.

However, selling a JPG of a photograph I have not made specifically for that purpose does not feel like it offers much value. I doubt someone would buy a digitized photograph from me to place in a digital picture frame, so what is the use case? Desktop or mobile wallpaper? A profile picture? Background decoration? I simply can’t get excited about selling something I wouldn’t buy myself.

I’m working on my first prose book on photography theory/philosophy, and am more than comfortable offering it as an ebook because I have one myself and appreciate what it offers. An ebook has value as a digital file because I can actively use that file to derive the content. I just can’t say the same about a digital photograph image file.

Instead, I can focus my attention towards marketing towards those who are aligned with what I am working on, even if it means a slightly smaller audience than those who want to live and enjoy everything digitally.

Being fully behind your work and product in every sense means that some questions start to answer themselves. What makes your work actually special? What makes the medium or format or material you use special? What makes anything you’re offering appealing for someone to want to own? What do you offer that no one else does, or can? What is it about your photograph or book that will connect with someone to the extent that they need to have it on their wall, or bookshelf?

If you don’t have an answer to these, why would anyone else? If you wouldn’t be your own customer, why would anyone else?

About the author: Simon King is a London-based photographer and photojournalist, currently working on a number of long-term documentary and street photography projects. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. You can follow his work through his documentary collective, The New Exit Photography Group, and on Instagram.

Image credits: Photographs by Simon King

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