Posted by Gregg Kemp on September 24th, 2007 — Posted in Art, Life and Cancer, Diary, Pinhole Photography
This week is a big one for me. I finally get my radioiodine coctail. If all goes well, this will begin the destruction of the tumor on my spine. Last time I came within 24 hours of getting the juice, but in the last few hours the tumor began growing like crazy and I had to opt for emergency surgery to allow the surgeon to pare it down. That resulted in another 3 month wait while my body cleansed itself of the iodine used in the surgery. Its all pretty complicated, but now I have another go at destroying the tumor. I’ll be admitted into the hospital on Friday, Sept. 28 where I’ll get the radioiodine and will remain there a couple of days until the NRC Safety guys says its safe for me to be among the public again.
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Posted by Gregg Kemp on August 7th, 2007 — Posted in Art, Life and Cancer, Diary, Pinhole Photography
I finally got around to scanning the solar print that started this series of blog entries. This is the pinhole camera that I placed on a Holly tree stump in December of 2006. I left it there until we returned to Roanoke Island in May of 2007. We were in the process of packing up and moving to Durham during the two short weeks we were there, so there was no time to develop or even take a look at the paper negative. I finally got around to taking a look at it this month, and it looked pretty interesting to me. But I wasn’t sure how to scan it without destroying it.
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Posted by Gregg Kemp on July 4th, 2007 — Posted in Art, Life and Cancer, Diary, Pinhole Photography
During all of my hospital stays this year, I never slept alone. Carmela has stayed each night, sleeping in a nearby chair or on at least one occasion, sleeping in the waiting room. I never asked her to stay, but I don’t think she ever considered not staying. We often talked into the late evening and even woke up to talk in the middle of some nights. Looking back on it now, I can’t imagine going through it all without her there each night, enjoying each others company. Later on, out of the hospital, we spent many late nights and early mornings just lying in bed, listening to the radio and talking about whatever. Those have become some of the most favorite times of my life. I also now realize what a lost opportunity it was not to have captured some pinhole images of our sleeping in the hospital. Sleep can be a really interesting subject for pinhole photography, especially if you take images of yourself sleeping. You don’t know what you’re going to look like, how much you’ll move around, what the overall effect will be.
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Posted by Gregg Kemp on July 2nd, 2007 — Posted in Art, Life and Cancer, Diary, Pinhole Photography
I partly began writing this series of blog entries to explore and share how my art interests would be affected by learning that I have cancer. There were other reasons, like the influence of the medicines I was being given kept be awake all night and gave me lots of energy. But I always seem to rework things to death, and now that I’ve had a chance to reflect on some of my own postings I’ve decided to rename this series to “Art, Life and Cancer” in the interest of a clearer communication. I will continue to post both images and writings. The images are not intended to illustrate the writings in any directl way, but are simply the pinhole images I make during this same time. I hope you will find something of interest or that you relate to in same way. Your comments are encouraged and appreciated.