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April 2024

from Nancy Ori and New Jersey Media Center

scotland
my candid Umesh

Dear Fellow Artists,


I am focused on getting some things done before spring when I will want to be outside. I am thinking we will have an early spring. Good to have my Nature book finished. Time to start the next one. Check it out: Nature as Inspiration for Art at www.amazon/author/nancyori. You can see the previous books there as well on a variety of topics.


Great photography exhibit up at Overlook right now by the NJ Photography Forum. Our color shows are always the happiest. The Auxiliary group is hosting a reception on April 12, 5-7pm with lite refreshments. Hope you can make it.


Mark your calendar for early April to go to Reeves Reed Arboretum in Summit to see their daffodils. It is amazing and free.


I encourage you to continue to find ways of being inspired and to keep doing your art. Do what ever brings a smile to your face. A smile can change everything. Celebrate the best of what is right with our world, acknowledge it to those around you, and be safe. This is time to take stock of all the positive and truly great things and especially important people in our lives. Spread the love!


All the best for a great new year,

Contact me with any questions.

Workshops make a great gift!


nance


nancyori@comcast.net

www.nancyoriworkshops.com

Give the gift of education or artwork.
Support your local artists or art organizations.

Continued Warning:


On Instagram, I am seeing a huge amount of video ads for the weight loss gummies that Shark Tank and Kelly Clarkson are promoting. I Googled it to find that they have nothing to do with the gummies nor for Kelly's success in dropping her weight. You can see that their mouths are moving a little awkwardly in the ads but they are totally believable. Evidently, you would get hooked up with auto payments that never stop, and my guess is that the gummies are just that, candy.


People need to be so aware now of what they are responding to on social media as well as in their own mailbox. I have been getting notices from my banks as well as my internet provider regarding the need to do updates with a simple button to push to get started. Actually, the hackers are just getting started and will use all your personal info to take your money and who knows what else. All the email logos look totally legitimate. I even got a similar letter in snail mail! So, the know where I live! 


Question everything. Do not give any info on the phone or click any buttons within emails or on Instagram. There are a lot of bad actors using AI to make false statements or to rob you. It is even getting more and more difficult to fact check things because of compromised sources like Google and Bing. Junk in Junk Out.

New Book Launch


Check it out. Great gift for any level photographer. In-depth discussion of all the elements involved in creating a great composition. The images are of nature but the content is about any type of image. Go to Amazon and check out my other book offerings:


www.amazon.com/author/nancyori

In-person & Zoom workshops at the Nancy Ori Studio:



All in-person workshops are at my studio and include a comprehensive handout that is yours to keep for future reference and to follow along with during the workshop. Sometimes if the group is small enough and everyone agrees, we can make a workshop happen on Zoom instead.


My groups are generally small so there is a lot of one-on-one time and I can tailor the info to your needs. Photo Encaustic and Hand-coloring Your Inkjets this spring and my 4 workshops with Heidi all include the use of my tools and necessary materials so you do not have to purchase anything else to attend. Contact me for workshop details. Payment is currently through PayPal with credit card or by snail mail with a check. You do not need to have a PayPal account to pay through them.


Private Tutoring: is ongoing with Personal Projects and Portfolio Development for photographers, critiques, and college prep applications for art students. 6 hours: $395 Makes a great Gift!

2024 Workshops with Nancy, Umesh and Heidi


April 7                 Photo Encaustic                                           11-4            $165

April 14               Garden and Flower Photography               11-4              $150

June 23               Mono Printing with Nancy Ori and

Heidi Sussman 10-1   $125

June 30               Lighting for Portraits, Products, Still Life and

Food Photography 11-4  $150     

July 7                  Designing a Composition for Painters and

Photographers 11-4  $150

July 21                How to Photograph Your Artwork and

Other Photography Tips for Artists 11-4 $150

July 28                How to Create Collages with Nancy & Heidi 10-1         $125

August 4             Framing and Tips for Artists                       11-4         $150     

August 11           Image Transfers with Nancy and Heidi  10-1        $125

August 18           How to Write an Artist Statement and

Other Important Documents for Artists 11-4 $150

August 25           Visual Journaling with Nancy and Heidi 10-1         $125

October 27        Using Mixed Media Techniques               11-4               $150

November 10    Seeing in Black and White                         11-4               $150

December 1     Developing Photographic Style                11-4               $150

AI Newsletter


If you want to get on board with AI and follow someone you can trust, you will want to subscribe to the newsletter that Umesh and I are putting out this year. You already received the free one. The rest is up to you to see how you can use it with your art or just keep up with what is happening.


The AI Newsletter is a great way to start slowly and build on the info the same way we did when digital first appeared. We will definitely do the workshop again so stay tuned. Things are changing every day. Contact me if you are interested in getting the newsletter or signing up for a workshop. nancyori@comcast.net

image by Umesh

Photo Encaustic Workshop

April 7, 11-4pm


Join Nancy in person for a fun day of learning how to work in this creative and forgiving medium. Students are invited to layer their photographs with exciting and simple mixed media techniques to create new work with incredible diversity from your current portfolio. There will be a presentation demonstrating several key techniques, a discussion with examples from contemporary artists, and a look at how abstraction, composition and wax can create amazing new pieces with your photographs.  

Fee: $165, includes all the materials and use of all tools necessary

Contact Nancy to register

flower

Garden and Flower Workshop

April 14. 11-4pm


Have fun and learn the art of composition, close-up photography, lighting, white balance, and metering techniques in regards to garden and flower photography. Includes a lecture and time for shooting and practice in the field with Ori.

This workshop is open to beginner or intermediate photographers and any other artist using photography in their art with cell phone or larger digital camera.

Fee: $150

Contact Nancy to register

Scotland Orkney Islands, Inverness and Cairngorms National Park Tour

September 8-19, 2024


 Tour through the less traveled parts of the Northern Scotland

• Photograph and explore the diverse landscape of the islands, friendly people, prehistoric forts, spectacular cliffs, beautiful sandy beaches,

Ring of Brodgar and the Standing Stones of Stenness.

• Inverness, the Capital of the Highlands with castles, mountains, and the River Ness. (and maybe even Jamie Fraser!)

• Cairngorms National Park offers awesome landscapes in the mountains, valleys and streams of Northern Scotland.

• All accommodations are central to photographic locations.

• Flexible itinerary to take advantage of opportunities along our route.

• Maximum of twelve participants. Private van with guide.


Contact Nancy for a brochure: nancyori@comcast.net. A deposit will be required to hold your place.


For more info and to register: https://phototc.com/tours/scotland-orkney-islands-inverness-cairngorms-national-park/

Norway Tour & Northern Lights

September 20-28, 2024


• Eight days with accomplished photographer and tour leader Nancy Ori.

• Tour limited to 11 passengers.

• Experience the diverse landscape of Norway.

• Jagged mountains, grand vistas, colorful fjords, and soaring eagles.

And a chance of experiencing the greatest show on earth, the Aurora Borealis, aka Northern Lights.

Editorial: Time Flys


Your parents always told you that time would start flying by when you got older. When you were young and the summers seemed endless, this was hard to believe for sure. But I suspect you might be able to relate to this concept of time speeding up at this point though along with me.

 

I truly do not know where the past 10 years went. We know Covid and the shutdowns messed us up for about 4 years but it is still difficult for my brain to calculate it all. Of course, marking the time slots and events between each colonoscopy might help.... lol. But seriously, how does the brain measure time? For many of us goal setters, we can mark time with our achievements along the way but when there is lack of achievement, we tend to compress time back to when we set those goals because it seems that nothing happened since then. The passing of time can be very different for different people depending on what you think about and the activities that you are engaged in.

 

The summer is coming fast and furious, a time when we might want to reflect back to our New Years resolutions. I for one am trying to catch up on words that were not spoken, relationships that need reconnecting and habits that need to be changed for the better. I am making time to work some of this stuff out. Tops on my list is to try to be healthier, eat right and lose some weight. I can see how I mark the time it takes to lose a pound, so that has actually been helpful in the process to be able to forecast my results and get back on track if I don’t meet my calendar deadlines. I can see the progress right on my calendar.

 

Scientists are not sure how the brain tracks time. Are there brain cells with the job of counting off the hours and days like an internal clock? What they do agree on is that the brain has difficulty with longer periods of time. We have all heard that time flies when you are having fun. It also seems to drag on forever when you have a boring or dreaded task. Emotional events, even when months or years past, seem like only yesterday when you lose a pet or someone close to you, or experience some other family, personal or news event. The brain might even be using a variable impression of time because the event was so powerful and memorable. It is helping us make sense out of the fact that it will take longer for us to heal from this event.

 

Researchers seem to boil it all down to what they refer to as intervening memories. The number of memories that you have between events helps us to mark the time. Parents can relate to this when watching their children grow and experiencing all the nose bleeds, winning soccer games, new and larger shoe purchases, etc. vs maybe a friend's kid who's life you were not really involved with and who seemed to grow up so fast. 

 

So, did the time fly by because you never took that yoga class or failed to start writing your life story? The completed resolutions that should have marked your accomplishments for the year did not happen so now suddenly it feels like the door for the year or decade is slamming shut. Whether or not you label them as resolutions, if you met your goals or challenges throughout the year, the brain could mark the time with those memories and accomplishments within your perceived time.

 

The takeaway here for me is to set some attainable goals, get them done, and then have some fun. I would rather be happy that I accomplished some goals along the way. It takes just as long!


 

AI images by Umesh

"You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.” ~Ansel Adams