CCLaP

I know I've been bugging some of you a long time about this now, but the day is finally here: CCLaP is now ready to start featuring your creative work, in all media. To send something for consideration, simply email it to us; or point us to a place on the web where it already exists.

The main point of sending us work, of course, is because of our Fellowship program; anyone who gives us the right to publish three original pieces, in fact, automatically qualifies for free admission to all our live events, or free copies of our first ten books as an out-of-town alternative. We then use this material to not only drive more traffic to this website, and not only to promote you and your work, but also as the basis for our merchandise program, coming later this year, which is the way our for-profit center will end up paying most of our bills.

Remember, you are not giving up final rights to this work by becoming a Fellow; you are still free to do whatever you want with it, just that you're giving us the right to occasionally reprint it as well. Also keep in mind that your work is never edited without your permission, and that your name always appears when it's published. (If you do want us to edit your work, by the way, simply ask; it's a free service we offer all Fellows.) And don't forget, we also ask artists to consider publishing at least one of their pieces in our Sandbox as well, in that case under a more liberal Creative Commons license, so that other artists around the world can use that piece in their own "mash-ups."

We accept just about every type of artistic work out there, from poems to book reviews, photographs to scanned paintings, MP3s and videos as well. No level of expertise or experience required; we simply ask that it be something interesting, something you don't mind having your name associated with. We here at CCLaP look forward to seeing what you all have been working on, and with sharing that work with the rest of our global audience.

For those who are interested in tracking just the newest creative work here, by the way, we have a special HTML page that always shows the latest, as well as a special RSS feed just for those entries.

Today's photograph is the first one we've exhibited by new Fellow Brian Heiser (bio, category page, RSS feed). This is one of over 50 photographs that Brian has donated the publishing rights to, and I'm not sure why I picked this particular one as the first; perhaps because it combines so many of the things about Brian's work overall that I like...

--A great sense of formalism, not only in composition but in gray tones;
--A twist towards the surreal, with unique lighting effects that invoke the Victorian Age;
--And a tight focus on subject matter, concentrating mostly on images that are inherently interesting.

Plus, I love that he just candidly took this photo on a contemporary Chicago sidewalk one day, yet looks like it could be a still from a 50-year-old French New Wave flick. That says a lot not only about Chicago, I think, but of Brian's skills as a photographer; you can look forward to a lot more over the coming months.

Please note that this photo's title merely reflects CCLaP's numbering system for Brian's work, and was not deliberately chosen by Brian as this image's name. To see a larger (700-pixel) version, please click on the smaller image above.

By the way, I thought there was something fishy about Brian's original self-portrait! I thought maybe it was just a much older photo of himself, from before I knew him; but then after editing the rest of his submissions, realize that he'd simply mislabeled one of them as his pick for his bio. The one above is actually Brian, which as friends can attest looks much more like him than the last one; it's been replaced in his official bio here as well. As before, click on that smaller image if you'd like to see a larger one. Sorry for the confusion, Brian!