I have my first gallery showing this evening, and it's my intention to have many more!

I am participating in the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust's Gallery Crawl and will be the featured artist at Salon Christine, 954 Penn Avenue.  Stop by to see some of my wedding art - I'll be there from 5 to 9 PM!

Christine decided to have artists who were all active in the wedding community, and they are:
Wedding Photographer: Joanne Bartone
Wedding DJ:                     Kelli Burns DJ Entertainment
Wedding Officiant:           Barbara Schwarck
Wedding Florist:              Fragile Paradise
Wedding Invitations:       Elizabeth Ryder

Here are a couple of the images I'll have on display:

It has been quite a while since I've made an entry in my blog, but I'm not inclined to be beating myself up over it any time soon as my philosophies towards myself are a-changing!  :-)

Here in Pittsburgh, PA, wedding season began last month and will be in full swing until the end of November.  It actually seems as if it has been extending longer and longer the past few years; it's starting earlier and ending later which is really quite wonderful.  The extension offers creative possibilities that are truly endless on so many levels!

As one of the top creative wedding photographers in Pittsburgh, I'm super excited to be providing some of the best wedding photography imaginable locally for my clients.  Wedding photography is such a passion for me - I get to create beautiful images and capture emotions and moments with new perspectives and fresh creative vision all as a result of the love that I get to witness! I LOVE my career - yes, "career!"  This is not a job, it's not a-part-time-for-extra-cash-thingy {nor has it ever been}, and it's not work.  Being an established and highly-regarded wedding photographer for over fourteen years is a delight, an adventure, and both a blessing and a gift!

Every season I enjoy challenging myself creatively!  One of my top goals each year is to NOT repeat poses so that each couple's wedding photography is created with a uniquely artistic bent.  I do this by tailoring my wedding photography to the subtle nuances of my couple's personalities that make them so special.  In the end, I delight in making them happy for years and years after their wedding through both my unobtrusive editorial {story telling} and artistic wedding photography.  I am clear; that day, that oh-so most important day is about my couples; it is not about me.  My heart and soul is spent creating and capturing and when I'm done, so is my body and brain!  All that creative energy that I expend is delicious delirium and great fun from which I get to create spectacular one-of-a-kind heirloom art pieces from, like this one:


Here's to the 2010 wedding season for ALL the couples getting married!  May it be filled with fun, wedded bliss and may all your dreams come true always, but especially on your wedding day!

T H E   I M A G E   W I T H I N  : :  A   C R E A T I V E   L E S S O N   F O R   P H O T O G R A P H E R S  : :   I N S P I R A T I O N   B Y   J O A N N E   B A R T O N E

This is the first of many ideas I have in mind that are meant to present this concept. It is a joy for me to finally be actualizing this Art Photography project after having conceptualized it for at least four years now!  I was INSPIRED to embark on this journey in composition and creativity as a means to broaden my ability to view an original image differently, and in many different ways.  My hopes are that the photographers that visit my blog will consider integrating this idea for themselves. I would suspect this creative concept is not new, but I've not seen it or previously done it myself, so here is my version...

THE IMAGE WITHIN:
A visual enigma of many photographic compositions extracted from the whole.

The Original Image:

T H E   1 0 0 0   W O R D S   P R O J E C T   v1 ::

I'm transferring this Art Project from FaceBook to my blogsite with hopes it will be accessed and contributed to more here. PLEASE CONTRIBUTE and encourage others to contribute too!

There is a saying: "A picture is worth a thousand words."

Let's see if it's true!

I refer to pictures as images, because the word "image" seems to suggest a deeper meaning to the subject captured.  Images are, or can become, stories.  Stories often evoke emotions and that is what I'd like to try to get at with all of you who choose to participate in the inaugural Joanne Bartone Photography Collaborative Art Projects with me.


Art Project #1: The 1000 Words Project v1:
I'd like to collect 1000 words to describe your thoughts and feelings when you look at the image in this note.  Feel free to contribute your thoughts and feelings under Comments beneath this note as words, either in sentence form, or as one word, or as a number of single words, or even as a poem if you so choose.  The most important thing is that you describe your thoughts and feelings that the image evokes in you when you look at it.

Please encourage everyone, young, old and in-between to participate in this project.  If you are a teacher, share it with your class.  If you are a student, share it with your teacher.

I have some great ideas for where the collection of the Art Projects I have planned will end up - and this is just one of many Art Projects I do have planned.  Perhaps the end result will be a book with all of the projects in it, or perhaps they'll just stay here, virtually.  But either way, it'll be OUR collaborative effort and I am very interested to see how we all relate to the same image as individuals and collectively!

Fun, yes?  Enjoy!  Be INSPIRED and try to inspire others with your goodness every day!

THIS PROJECT WILL REMAIN OPEN until we reach 1000 words!


Contributions so far via FaceBook:

A   V I S U A L   R E S P I T E :

I so rarely get to indulge myself in my Art Photography and it's something that I so badly want to do.  It calls to me daily, constantly even, so I've been paying more and more attention to those callings and have begun to nurture the art side of my photography more.

I was fortunate to have a couple of long weekends away from Pittsburgh a few weeks ago.  Combining a little business with pleasure, we traveled to both Washington, D.C. and Boston, MA.  I was grateful for blue skies and the opportunity to be outside, walking and walking, on what were two gloriously sunny and warm weekends.  I always take a camera with me when I go away so I can photograph the local flavors, no matter what they may be.

I left my Social Work career of seventeen years when I was the Director of an Inpatient Treatment Facility.  Returning to school for photography and embarking on my new career as an adult, I was drawn to Abstract and Exterior Architectural Photography, and I still am.  I love the disconnect from people in Architectural imagery. I so enjoy the angles, colors, lines and the organic visuals of how earth and building meet, or how building meets sky, sometimes making sense and many times making no sense.  I love how huge buildings that seem invasive, constricting and suffocating to us on the ground appear so free in the sky.  Reflections, abstractions; so different from documenting people.  So beautiful in its own right.

One of my Architectural Photography images won an International Photography Award in 2005 in the Beauty: Camera Eye of the Beholder: Architecture category of a WIPI competition.  I was thrilled - I still am! 

Needless to say, I'll be presenting a lot more of my Art Photography here on the blog.  I must remind myself more often that my Art is a visual respite that refuels my spirit and helps my soul soar!

Here are a few of the  images from my adventures a few weeks ago. ENJOY!  And don't forget to comment about the images here on the blog; I'd love to know your thoughts!

Moral of the story: look up!



PS: very little Photoshop-ing was done on these images. Blame it on the sun...and a good photographer!  :-)

BIG love, Joanne Bartone Photographer  ::  www.joannebartone.com  ::  tele: 412.418.8075