My camera stopped focusing well after the last photoshoot when it fell off of the tripod mount and dropped about a foot onto the carpet.
However, I put it back on the dock, let it sit for a week or two and turned it on and off again a few times, and it seems to be working better. I still think its time to augment the tools with a new one though, so that’s coming up soon (note to Santa!).
I did get a shot of the mounted framed set of masks we have from the 1997-2003 Internet Miniature Mask swaps. There are around 80 masks in this one set! Each mask is intended to fit inside a three inch square–the ones seen here are a little bit larger than actual size.
The frame itself is 3’x3′, and the mask are mounted on billiard table felt. I took some images from it, like the Noh Monkeyking mask that I made, and my son Ian Helm’s digital interpretation–he’s a real chip off the old motherboard, that one! I love having a creative family, and creative friends.
In the course of going through the new photos, I realized that many of my favorites are from the first few years of the swaps, and I don’t have the contact information of the artist or their permissions to feature them in the book, so I won’t be using the individual shots of those masks.
I do feel comfortable showing the picture of the framed collection, as that is of my own making. Technically speaking in terms of copyright law, I have the copyrights to any photographs I take, but I prefer to be respectful of other artists and get their permission when I am shooting things I own but others have made.
These masks and many others are featured in the upcoming book A Collection Of Polymer Clay Masks, being readied for release October 31 of 2010. I just put together a page for it here at this website, and will be putting up a paypal button for taking pre-orders of signed copies next week.
