View allAll Photos Tagged cpap
When we went to Big Bend National Park, Jon had this tent for the top of his FJ Cruiser. It folds down to a square box about 1 foot high and it bolts onto his luggage rack. There is an aluminum ladder at back of tent. He also had a 2' x 4' solar panel that he would sit on the hood to charge a big lithium battery for his cpap machine. He enjoyed camping on top his truck while I camped in my little tent on the rocks....well, I did have a nice Klymit air mattress!!! This shot was taken at Elephant Tusk ET1 camp. :-)
Here I am, all tucked in for the night. It's not the most flattering picture in the world. (You can't really see just how many wires I'm hooked up to.)
Details here.
I spotted these model heads wearing CPAP masks on display in a doctor's office and thought they looked very futuristic/dystopic. I did adjust the lighting and color in post to reflect the mood, but otherwise, these heads are just as I found them. -- Garden City, L.I., NY -- June 19, 2023
I think someone parked in the wrong Lego Scene!
[I am making some fun props out of old junk to mess around with. The 'pipes' are old CPAP tubes cut up and painted.]
One of the minibots with a Battle Droid?
This may not bode well.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bitter cold and bitter wind chills are always a good thing for practicing indoor photography.
The items used were a cake topper toy, a Lego Battle Droid,
face mister, the items behind them are parts of CPAP tubing along with a pill bottle and some painted straws.
I like gather and using trash for dioramas.
I'm never going for filler — not to say that I could afford it — I still hate needles. This is the face I have, and I'm working with it.
CPAP marks are the worst.
Israel takes more than 80 percent of Palestinian water from the West Bank aquifers, accounting for 25 percent of Israel’s water needs. As a result of Israeli policies, Palestinians currently are utilizing 246 mcm annually to supply three million Palestinians in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza for their domestic, industrial, and agricultural needs. By comparison, Israel’s population, comprised of fewer than six million persons, is consuming 1,959 mcm annually.
For more info visit: www.palestinecenter.org/cpap/pubs/19990818ib.html
Woke up to this Monday morning. Power went out at 10:30am. Still no power, maybe days. VDOT not prepared, electric companies not prepared. Got enough wood for fire stove one more night. Got enough battery power for one more night with CPAP. Gas grill tank full, so we’ve got food. Great way to begin the New Year.
UPDATE: Tuesday……we now have had power since 11am and the house is warm. Made a big pot of soup and got hot showers. Hopefully, the power will stay on and tomorrow I can try to dig out the driveway.
Two different views of this really cool cascade from Glacier National Park.
I guess you can tell from my last upload that I have fully recovered. The last solo trip I took to the Black Hills completely cleared my head.
I am incredibly busy photographing babes. I have another shoot tomorrow.
I also have a commercial bikini shoot coming up in the next week or so.
You know I had to have been in a deep depression when I considered giving up shooting babes!
I sleep really well now, no more night mares, no more demons.
I'm returning the CPAP machine because I have never used it and have no need for it.
It feels great to wake up rested instead of tired.
Dmitri Alexander Wilhelm was born September 13th at 3:11am. He is 20in long and weighed 5lbs 2.9oz at birth. Despite being only 33 weeks along, he only needed a CPAP ventilator for a couple hours before breathing strongly on his own.
He's still in the NICU until he can eat without a feeding tube and gain some weight, but things look promising! He's a strong baby boy.
Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers over the past week. They've meant a lot to my wife and I, as it's been pretty stressful and tiring for both of us. Sadly, we'll have to miss BrickCon this year, as Dmitri will likely still be in the NICU, but we plan on bringing him along to meet everybody next year :-)
Naps aren’t only for toddlers. Approximately 1 in 3 American adults nap, according to previous Pew Research Center data.
Naps come in all shapes and sizes. “Some people take restorative daytime naps in order to compensate for insufficient nighttime sleep,” says Shanon Makekau, MD, chief of pulmonology and sleep medicine director at Kaiser Permanente in Honolulu. “Others may take ‘prophylactic’ naps to prepare for an overnight shift.”
And then there’s the power nap.
“A power nap is a nap that's short — less than 30 minutes long,” says Safia Khan, MD, a specialist in sleep disorders and an assistant professor in the department of family and community medicine and the department of neurology at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
It provides the restorative benefits of sleep without adversely affecting one’s ability to fall asleep at night, Dr. Makekau adds.
Is It Healthy to Nap?
Yes, but follow these tips from Alex Dimitriu, MD, a Menlo Park, California–based psychiatrist and sleep medicine physician, so they don’t mess with sleep at night!
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department offers comprehensive services in the diagnosing and treatment of people with sleep disorders, including breathing-related sleep disorders (e.g., obstructive sleep apnea, OSA), insomnia, hypersomnia(e.g., narcolepsy, Kleine-Levine Syndrome), circadian rhythm disorders, parasomnia, and sleep disturbance caused by psychiatric and medical conditions.
We provide integrated and multi-discipline medical services comprising of physicians specializing in various disciplines (e.g. Psychiatry, Neurology, ENT, Pulmonary Medicine , Rehabilitation) as well as other health and well-being professionals (e.g. sleep psychologists and nurse practitioners).
Conditions We Treat
Insomnia
Difficult to fall asleep at night
Nocturnal spontaneous waking
Early morning awakening
Don’t feel refresh after waking in the morning
Feeling tired, fatigue, or sleepiness during the day
Irritable, or depressed during the day
Sleep related breathing disorders
Snore loudly.
Have morning headaches.
Snort or choke while asleep.
Have pauses in breathing or irregular breathing while asleep.
Excessive sleepiness during the day (watching TV, work, driving).
Wake up groggy or tired in the morning, no matter how many hours you've slept.
Parasomnia
Sleepwalking
Nightmares
Sleep enuresis
Sleep terrors
REM sleep behavior disorder
Bruxism
Services & Treatments
■ Out patient Clinic
■ Polysomnography (PSG)
■ Continuous Positive Airway Pressure titration (CPAP titration)
■ Multiple Sleep Latency Test (MSLT)
■ Actigraphy
■ Light therapy
■ Cognitive behavioral therapy
english.tmuh.org.tw/Department/57
What Counts as a Power Nap?
Some experts say the power nap should be even shorter — 20 minutes max. But all agree it shouldn’t exceed 30 minutes. That’s because the body enters a deep sleep around that time, and waking up from a deep sleep can lead to grogginess, according to the Sleep Foundation.
This state of grogginess or drowsiness is also called “sleep inertia.” It’s when your body feels like you need to sleep more because your brain has already started to get into a deeper state of sleep, Dr. Khan explains.
Sticking to the shorter time frame keeps the body from dealing with sleep inertia so you wake up feeling recovered rather than sleepy. “With a power nap, you stay in the lighter stages of sleep,” Khan says. “When you’ve been sleeping longer than 30 minutes, it’s more difficult to wake up and you wake up feeling groggy versus when waking up from lighter sleep.”
Power naps are the most beneficial type of nap for most adults, according to the American Sleep Association.
What Are the Benefits of a Power Nap?
The main benefit of a power nap is to help you feel refreshed, so you feel more awake through the rest of the day. “When you take a power nap, it energizes you and makes you more alert for the next four to six hours,” Khan says. “You feel like you can get a lot more accomplished.”
According to Mayo Clinic, napping can help you feel relaxed, reduce fatigue, increase alertness, and improve your mood as well as your performance, such as by increasing your reaction time and memory. “Power naps can help people with jobs requiring high vigilance (for example, drivers and pilots) to recharge, thus reducing the risk of accidents and errors due to drowsiness,” Makekau says.
Napping can also boost the immune system and reduce stress. A small study published in February 2015 in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism found short, 30-minute naps had stress relieving and immune benefits for a group of healthy young adult men.
And if you needed another excuse for a midday break: Naps may keep your heart healthy. A study published in December 2019 in Heart found that participants who napped once or twice a week had a lower risk of experiencing a cardiovascular event.
Just remember that 30-minute limit to ensure the nap doesn’t interfere with nighttime sleep, Khan says. “It's easier to wake up from a power nap, and it does not significantly affect your nighttime sleep,” she says. “A longer nap will affect your ability to fall asleep at night.”
RELATED: Are You Sleeping Too Much?
Does a Caffeine Nap Actually Work?
Some people take the power nap to the next level by consuming coffee (or other source of caffeine) immediately before falling asleep.
“By the time coffee gets absorbed into the system, the effect of the caffeine will start working and will help wake you up,” Khan says.
A study published in the September–October 2020 issue of Chronobiology International had participants drink 200 milligrams of caffeine right before a 30-minute nap. (For reference, that’s about two cups of coffee, according to Mayo Clinic.) Those individuals tested higher on careful attention and fatigue in the 45 minutes after waking up from the nap compared with those who did not consume caffeine before sleeping.
Whether or not it’ll work for you depends on how you respond to caffeine. “There are some people who get wired immediately as they drink their coffee,” Khan says.
If you decide to give it a try, do it in the early afternoon. “We don't recommend drinking coffee past 3 or 4 p.m. because it can disrupt your nighttime sleep,” Khan says.
Who Are Power Naps Best for and How Do I Know I’m Doing It Right?
If you get the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep at night (per guidelines from National Sleep Foundation published in March 2015 in Sleep Health), wake up feeling rested, and have plenty of energy throughout the day, you probably don’t need to worry about power napping. But, if you tend to feel drowsy in the afternoon or you’ve had a poor night sleep, a power nap could indeed be beneficial, Khan says.
Power naps may be especially helpful for shift workers, especially those who need to avoid drowsiness for safety reasons, such as truck drivers or doctors prepping for surgery. “This reduces risks of errors in judgment,” Khan says.
Khan says it’s okay to power nap regularly. “However, if you need to take a power nap daily, then you may benefit from increasing total sleep time at night,” she says.
RELATED: How Much Sleep You Really Need
Here are a few tips from the Sleep Foundation on how to get the most out of your power nap:
Don’t nap too close to nighttime sleep. A good rule of thumb is to nap at the midpoint between the time you wake up and the time you go to bed.
Set an alarm for 10 to 20 minutes to ensure you wake up feeling alert instead of groggy.
Find the right spot to rest. The best sleep environment for napping is the same one for nighttime: You want a cool, dark, quiet, and comfortable place. Your bedroom is ideal, and ear plugs and an eye mask may help, Makekau says.
Power naps aren’t for everyone. You may not be able to make it work schedule-wise or you may be the type who wakes up feeling disoriented or even more tired than you were before, regardless of the duration of the nap.
But, Khan adds that she’s personally a big fan. “Most people do benefit from taking a power nap,” she says.
www.everydayhealth.com/sleep/power-naps-the-benefits-how-...
A nap is a short period of sleep that usually occurs during the day. For many adults, naps can help to maintain alertness or overcome daytime fatigue.
Nap needs and the benefits of napping can vary among individuals. Knowing the facts about napping can help determine whether to take naps, and tips for better naps can enable healthier napping habits.Benefits of Naps
Naps can deliver a number of benefits. Brief naps can be restorative and reduce fatigue during the day. After a night of insufficient sleep, a nap may counteract daytime drowsiness
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More than 2 million healthcare providers around the world choose UpToDate to help make appropriate care decisions and drive better health outcomes. UpToDate delivers evidence-based clinical decision support that is clear, actionable, and rich with real-world insights.
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. Naps can be particularly beneficial for shift workers who struggle to get enough sleep and have to be alert at irregular times.
A short daytime snooze may also boost workplace performance
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National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
The NHLBI is the nation's leader in the prevention and treatment of heart, lung, blood and sleep disorders.
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. A nap can improve cognitive functions such as memory, logical reasoning, and the ability to complete complex tasks.
Some studies have found that physical performance can also improve after napping
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National Center for Biotechnology Information
The National Center for Biotechnology Information advances science and health by providing access to biomedical and genomic information.
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. Athletes may experience improved endurance, reaction times, and cognitive performance if they take a daytime nap.
Napping may provide other health benefits. One observational study found that napping one or two times a week was associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular problems
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National Center for Biotechnology Information
The National Center for Biotechnology Information advances science and health by providing access to biomedical and genomic information.
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, such as heart attack, stroke, or heart disease. However, more research is needed to understand the complex ways that the frequency and duration of naps affect heart health.
Napping may also reduce the impacts of insufficient sleep. For example, a small trial found evidence that naps relieved stress
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National Center for Biotechnology Information
The National Center for Biotechnology Information advances science and health by providing access to biomedical and genomic information.
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and supported the immune system in people whose sleep was limited the night before.
Additionally, naps may contribute to the well-being of specific groups of people. For instance, a study of people diagnosed with intracranial aneurysms found that regularly napping was associated with a lowered risk of a rupture
Trusted Source
National Center for Biotechnology Information
The National Center for Biotechnology Information advances science and health by providing access to biomedical and genomic information.
View Source
of the aneurysm.How Sleep Works During Nap Time
Whether at night or during the day, sleep unfolds in a series of stages that make up a sleep cycle.
Stage 1: Stage 1 is the lightest and briefest stage of sleep, lasting only one to seven minutes.
Stage 2: Stage 2 follows stage 1 and lasts about 10 to 25 minutes. During stage 2 sleep, the muscles relax, and body functions slow. However, sleep in this stage is still relatively light.
Stage 3: Stage 3 is a deeper, more restorative stage of sleep, and it can be difficult to wake up while in this stage. Stage 3 usually lasts between 20 and 40 minutes.
Rapid eye movement (REM): During REM sleep, the body’s muscles are temporarily paralyzed, and the eyes move quickly under closed eyelids. Dreaming tends to take place during REM sleep.
When sleep periods last several hours, the body cycles through these stages several times. During a nap, though, there is not enough time to go through multiple sleep cycles.
In fact, during a short nap, a person may not be asleep long enough to spend much, if any, time in stage 3 or REM sleep. This can actually make it easier to wake up refreshed from a quick nap.
Longer naps, such as those lasting more than 30 minutes, can cause the sleeper to enter deep sleep, and deep sleep may start even sooner in people who are sleep deprived. Grogginess often results from being woken up during deep sleep.
I really really hope I do not have moderate sleep apnea, but that is what my doctor suspects. Will know more by morning. Wish me luck. 257/365
Using his remote control gizmo, Arnie starts sorting through a junk pile.
Shot among old farm machinery on our farm.
Freedom is strangely ephemeral. It is something like breathing; one only becomes acutely aware of its importance when one is choking. ~William E. Simon
I was diagnosed with Obstructive Sleep Apnea 10years ago. I sleep with a CPAP. This is the air tube of the machine that helps me live when I sleep. A lot of people I know with the same ailment has had a hard time adjusting to this ritual. On the contrary, it has done wonders for me as the quality of my sleep has tremendously improved. I do 6 to 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. I cant sleep now without it..
Dreamcatcher36 though is right. We who use this contraption sound like Darth Vader when we sleep.. LOL :)
127/365
"I wish I had cancer so maybe then people would show some sort of care for me..."
This secret broke my heart. When I first received it [over two months ago] I automatically decided against doing it. I mean I've done dark stuff before but this was uncomfortably unfamiliar territory. But then this and that happened and I kinda thought about how big of a secret this is. It's not really just one thing, it's a couple, all harnessed into one objective. But I'd like the sender to know that I've prayed for them every night since I read this because I'm pretty sure I care about you. :)
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
If you have a secret you would like me to use, send me an anonymous message here.
If you want a personal response you can email me at thesecretsproject@gmail.com
I will be completely prejudice free. I promise.
I created this composite from three layers. The background is simply a black fill layer on which I brushed in some dust particles. The comet is a real photo I took of the "Green Comet" (C/2022 E3 ZTF), which passed by planet earth January 27, 2023. This was the first time in a thousand years the comet crossed paths with earth. The foreground layer is of an elbow bend from a CPAP machine. All photos used in this composite are my own.
Ref: 90D2_5501
A Lego Alien searches through the rubble of a shipwreck for anything he can find useful.
Made with a digital background and CPAP Tubing.
See comment for a photo of the set up.
From my Mud images Dec 7 2016
Rise… You need no starships you have no fees to pay. Sit back close your eyes and dream away. The places you travel to are beautiful and incredible. New colors and sounds you can touch and feel. You have no rules for how far form home you can go. Emotions are deep and vast. Let doors open to a world only you can see. Be free as any child who pass beyond imagination. No more gravity holding you down. Dream at the speed of light like a great ship on a celestial flight. Lets go and fly into a would of a thousand sunsets. Be alive and awake to the new dreams you can have. See rainbows through fresh new eyes.
I began this Mud set about 17 years ago. I have made over 50 to date. Last night I was looking at them and said to my self can I do more. I do enjoy the place they take me to. It is a world far form here. What if a dreamer could explore any place for real by the dreams they have. So after about 16 hours now this is what I found in front of me. I hope you enjoy it.
Mike
MUD SET:
www.flickr.com/photos/patnode-rainbowman/albums/721576455...
The Mud
Images and Commentary
By Michael E. Patnode
Introduction
The “MUD” project began several months after my son Albert J. Patnode was born. A.J. came in to my life to change every thing I understand about life. born Dec. 17, 1998 at 36 weeks gestation. He weighed 3.7lbs. He is a kid of special needs. He was born with broken femurs although he was born by cecearian. He has scoliosis of the back. His legs do not move and his right arm is flaccid, the left arm has limited range of motion. He eats by a gastronomy tube in his tummy and cant swallow. He has a tracheostimy in his neck to breath threw CPAP, a ventilation device although AJ breathes on his own, this gives him a fuller breath so he can maintain his oxygen saturation. He’s extremely nearsighted and what he truly sees we just don’t really know. We have 16 hours of nursing care a day to help us with his many cares. AJ is a wonderful inspiration to my wife and I and we are very honored and thankful to be his parents.
It was on a spring night 1999 that I was pawing over some old zip disks to see if I could find unusual looking images to entertain and stimulate my young sons mind. I rediscovered this image file of the old dried mud bed. During college I scanned the original 3x5 photograph at 100 DPI. At that time was all I needed but consequently; I never did use it in a project. Its data stayed on the zip disk until that spring night. I thought it might make a nice visual picture for A.J. to investigate. I began to play with it by adjusting the color and contrast and after some time, I flipped the image over in a mirror reflection of it’s self, I saw for the first time more than textures. I started to flip-flop the image over and over on itself like a kaleidoscope. I began to see more interesting looking shapes, patterns and faces, jump out at me. I didn’t really think too much of it. I’ve seen lots of kaleidoscope images before. Other than something fun to hang on my little sons mobile it was not something I thought I would continue working with.
Strangely a few days later a college friend of mine Susan Spong a photographer wanted me to show some recent work of mine at S.P.E.- the society for photographic education North West conference in Bellingham Washington. I told her I hadn’t been making any serious photographs or art since my son’s birth. She told me to get busy and make some because she was signing me up to be a guest speaker. I would be part of a panel of alumni students from Central Washington University. She was determined not to let me back out. I only had a few weeks to be ready for the conference. I decided to continue to explore with this mud image. As I did I found I could make a few more pieces before the conference. I only showed four mud images and my thesis project from 1998. To my pleasant surprise many of the people I talked to really enjoyed what they could see in the images. One of my professors, John Agars who was there enjoyed it so much he suggested that, I should make an entire show of this work. Although I knew deep inside myself that at the low DPI resolution the work wouldn’t be able to become large prints as I would have like to have. The worst part was that somehow over the years I had lost the original negatives. I knew I could not restart this project. I decided to work with what I had and consider the work to be about small images and then see where it would take me. I also remembered that the photographer Jerry Uelsmann once said at a conference I had attended. “That many artists never study one image long enough”.
I started having all sorts of interesting dreams and fantasies about what this new mud imagery could be. The work kept pulling me in further to a different kind of world. I began to wonder how many things could come from this one image? I continually kept getting the feeling of carved stone from an ancient time or futuristic alien world. Some of what I’ve developed seems familiar although, most of the imagery is oddly unique and the possibilities are entirely open-ended in each image. Every time that I look at one of the mud images I find new faces, shapes and elements. I have never seen before and this has given me the drive to make more. Sometimes I have felt like someone combing a beach to find interesting sticks rocks and shells.
Some shapes became the framework to hold other more complex images into place. Those images would be made from many layers piled upon each other that eventually became. (Depending on how close or faraway I would get to the image). Objects or faces. Most of the images have images inside images inside images and so on. Some days I have thought maybe I was building the world’s biggest Rorschach inkblot tests. Often I would forget where I was working at in the image itself, if I would put something away and not get back to it for a length of time. I decided to make more images after my initial first four. I gave myself a few small but flexible rules to follow. I thought working in a cautious and conservative way by planning to only use what I could find confined within the original mud image. I would build a new image from only this one palate and no other. I have pasted pieces and parts I liked into a given place. I then would erase parts to revel hidden things that would then be come the new part or image. At one point or another I decided that letting a little bit of foreign color sneak into some of the images might be okay if I only used it minimally. This can be seen in a stranger’s relic, commitment to vision, white moth, and the Wall.
I hope that my son A.J. has enjoyed viewing my mud manipulation images. I also hope that others can find great curiosity, fantasy, enjoyment and a small escaped from reality from my collection of mud.
In this collection of artwork I have been making new altered images from one parent photograph of a dried mud bed. It has become the pallet in which I have explored and manipulated over 40 images into a new vision of my own unique tapestry. To manipulate the images I have used Adobe Photoshop 4.0 On a Macintosh Performa Power PC 6400/200. my old Macintosh. 2.5 GIG and 100 MG of Ram. so small unlike my new Mac.
I originally photographed the mud in 1988 on the border of Arizona and New Mexico from an Indian Cliff dwelling site.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means-electronic or photocopying without written permission from Michael Patnode
For information and questions write to me at Flickrmail. thanks so much.
It has been a year from the last Mud image I posted. I was looking at some of the images and they looked to new. So this one that was never finished was mad to be so to day. Unfinished for good and all time... The mud seems to me old and new at the same time or Pasts and futures collide. What is the act of art to give way to but dreams or fantiscy. I really do like my mud set. it was a place to hide my mind in at a time I was lost and broken. But I keep finding my self looking back trying to find what it all is about. But it is really just abstract and is not any thing but that. there is no code to read to unadresand it. So I now hope that I can just smash this one and move on. Im hoppeing that here in 2016 that I can find a new project that can be deep and fun to work on that is new.
This is the biggest one almost full size. This is 67% of the real size.
Mike Jan 2016
The MUD album:
www.flickr.com/photos/patnode-rainbowman/albums/721576455...
....................
The Mud
Images and Commentary
By Michael E. Patnode
Introduction
The “MUD” project began several months after my son Albert J. Patnode was born. A.J. came in to my life to change every thing I understand about life. Born Dec. 17, 1998 at 36 weeks gestation. He weighed 3.7lbs. He is a kid of special needs. He was born with broken femurs although he was born by cecearian. He has scoliosis of the back. His legs do not move and his right arm is flaccid, the left arm has limited range of motion. He eats by a gastronomy tube in his tummy and cant swallow. He has a tracheostomy in his neck to breath threw CPAP, a ventilation device although AJ breathes on his own, this gives him a fuller breath so he can maintain his oxygen saturation. He’s extremely nearsighted and what he truly sees we just don’t really know. We have 16 hours of nursing care a day to help us with his many cares. AJ is a wonderful inspiration to my wife and I and we are very honored and thankful to be his parents.
It was on a spring night 1999 that I was pawing over some old zip disks to see if I could find unusual looking images to entertain and stimulate my young sons mind. I rediscovered this image file of the old dried mud bed. During college I scanned the original 3x5 photograph at 100 DPI. At that time was all I needed but consequently; I never did use it in a project. Its data stayed on the zip disk until that spring night. I thought it might make a nice visual picture for A.J. to investigate. I began to play with it by adjusting the color and contrast and after some time, I flipped the image over in a mirror reflection of it’s self, I saw for the first time more than textures. I started to flip-flop the image over and over on itself like a kaleidoscope. I began to see more interesting looking shapes, patterns and faces, jump out at me. I didn’t really think too much of it. I’ve seen lots of kaleidoscope images before. Other than something fun to hang on my little sons mobile it was not something I thought I would continue working with.
Strangely a few days later a college friend of mine Susan Spong a photographer wanted me to show some recent work of mine at S.P.E.- the society for photographic education North west conference in Bellingham Washington. I told her I hadn’t been making any serious photographs or art since my son’s birth. She told me to get busy and make some because she was signing me up to be a guest speaker. I would be part of a panel of alumni students from Central Washington University. She was determined not to let me back out. I only had a few weeks to be ready for the conference. I decided to continue to explore with this mud image. As I did I found I could make a few more pieces before the conference. I only showed four mud images and my thesis project from 1998. To my pleasant surprise many of the people I talked to really enjoyed what they could see in the images. One of my professors, John Agars who was there enjoyed it so much he suggested that, I should make an entire show of this work. Although I knew deep inside myself that at the low DPI resolution the work wouldn’t be able to become large prints as I would have like to have. The worst part was that somehow over the years I had lost the original negatives. I knew I could not restart this project. I decided to work with what I had and consider the work to be about small images and then see where it would take me. I also remembered that the photographer Jerry Uelsmann once said at a conference I had attended. “That many artists never study one image long enough”.
I started having all sorts of interesting dreams and fantasies about what this new mud imagery could be. The work kept pulling me in further to a different kind of world. I began to wonder how many things could come from this one image? I continually kept getting the feeling of carved stone from an ancient time or futuristic alien world. Some of what I’ve developed seems familiar although, most of the imagery is oddly unique and the possibilities are entirely open-ended in each image. Every time that I look at one of the mud images I find new faces, shapes and elements. I have never seen before and this has given me the drive to make more. Sometimes I have felt like someone combing a beach to find interesting sticks rocks and shells.
Some shapes became the framework to hold other more complex images into place. Those images would be made from many layers piled upon each other that eventually became. (Depending on how close or faraway I would get to the image). Objects or faces. Most of the images have images inside images inside images and so on. Some days I have thought maybe I was building the world’s biggest Rorschach inkblot tests. Often I would forget where I was working at in the image itself, if I would put something away and not get back to it for a length of time. I decided to make more images after my initial first four. I gave myself a few small but flexible rules to follow. I thought working in a cautious and conservative way by planning to only use what I could find confined within the original mud image. I would build a new image from only this one palate and no other. I have pasted pieces and parts I liked into a given place. I then would erase parts to revel hidden things that would then be come the new part or image. At one point or another I decided that letting a little bit of foreign color sneak into some of the images might be okay if I only used it minimally. This can be seen in a stranger’s relic, commitment to vision, white moth, and the Wall.
I hope that my son A.J. has enjoyed viewing my mud manipulation images. I also hope that others can find great curiosity, fantasy, enjoyment and a small escaped from reality from my collection of mud.
In this collection of artwork I have been making new altered images from one parent photograph of a dried mud bed. It has become the pallet in which I have explored and manipulated over 40 images into a new vision of my own unique tapestry. To manipulate the images I have used Adobe Photoshop 4.0 On a Macintosh Performa Power PC 6400/200. My old Macintosh. 2.5 GIG and 100 MG of Ram. So small unlike my new Mac.
I originally photographed the mud in 1988 on the border of Arizona and New Mexico from an Indian Cliff dwelling site.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means-electronic or photocopying without written permission from Michael Patnode
For information and questions write to me at Flickrmail. thanks so much.