Big Fish, Little Ponds

In the early 80s I was an intern for Procter & Gamble one summer. While here, I heard about a juggling contest being held at the Union Terminal building. I had only been juggling a couple years then, but I thought I'd go and maybe learn something from the other jugglers. The building was a mess back then -- not the beautiful art deco building it is today. The organizers divided the jugglers into groups by decade. I ended up winning first prize in my age group. That sounds pretty good until you know there were only three people competing in that group.

In the late 80s I was in graduate school, on a pretty tight budget, always looking for something free to help out. At that time, the intramural athletics folks must have had a pretty good budget because they ran competitions and gave nice prizes for the top three places in many, many sports. After talking about it one day, we decided to look at the previous year's results to see which sports had the lowest participation. If we could find something that was do-able, we might be able to pull off a win. It didn't take long to stumble on co-ed horseshoes as our sport. I partnered with a gal in our research group, got registered, and practiced once before the competition. Another pair from our department registered too. When the big day came, there were only three teams registered and the one team we didn't know never showed up. We played one match against our friends and won. I think we each received a nice gift certificate at a local restaurant.

Fast forward to a couple months ago when the Cincinnati Fine Arts Fund started their fund drive. Many employers, including mine, help with the drive and ask employees to contribute. This year, to create some buzz, there was a photo contest associated with the fund drive. I thought it would be fun to participate and maybe win something. See this post about our arts adventure.

There was a pitiful amount of participation in the photo contest. At my site that probably has a couple thousand people, there were only two of us that submitted photos. There were more folks participating that worked downtown. The contest ended several weeks ago and I hadn't heard a peep. Today I found out I won a $50 prize and a limited edition print. I'm not sure for which photo or category, but Dianne and I think it is the one below of the lobby at the Contemporary Arts Center. However, because it was more challenging technically to balance the light in the photo at the upper right, I'm kinda hoping it was that one. We'll see in a few days when they post the winners. Nevertheless, score another victory for at least participating.

Contemporary Arts Center

Today we ventured to downtown Cincinnati to visit the Contemporary Arts Center. We've lived here 15+ years and had never been. Funny, but generally we don't take advantage of things in our own backyard. Part of the impetus for going was a photo contest at work in conjunction with the local Fine Arts Fund drive. The photos are supposed to show people enjoying the arts at one of the places supported by the fund. It's been going on for several weeks, and unfortunately participation in the contest is minimal. I thought I'd enter a few photos.

Aside from the lobby (the HDR image at right -- click to see a larger version in Flickr), there is only one area in the CAC where you can take photos (which is pretty annoying -- why can't you take non-flash photos?) and that is the UnMuseum gallery on the 6th floor. That gallery has several interactive exhibits.

This is Dianne peeking in the drawers of "Sight Unseen: The Sensory Elephant" by Eric Brass and a host of other artists. Click on the link to read a detailed description of the work.



This is me in the work "Above and Below: The Hypar Room" by Allan Wexler. For a math geek, the floor in this work was really cool. The perspective in the photo looks odd, but that's because the floor was a steep curve in this part and the tables and chairs were tilted where I was sitting.



My favorite shot was Dianne at "Zeloso Paavo's Hands" by Anthony Luensman. She's a good sport to serve as a model. Sensors in the frame recognize your hand movements and cause orchestral music to play. The camera exposure was set for the sunlight coming through the skylight in the stairwell behind the glass. To get Dianne exposed properly, I used two flashes (one low and left and one held at shoulder level to the right. The light is balanced nicely and you can see the neon sign light at the top of the exhibit. The only thing I'd change is to raise the left flash much higher to get rid of the shadow behind the neon sign. So much to think about, but all the reading on the Strobist Blog is helping out.



Overall, we weren't too impressed with the museum. There wasn't a lot to see, and aside from a couple of the works in the Space Is The Place exhibit, I wasn't wowed. Nevertheless, got some OK shots.