Jason Michael Dunnington

Tag: photography

  • Late Winter/early March

    My class schedule is really grinding on me. I finally have some schedule openings in the next month with Spring Break around the corner. Next week Daylight Savings TIme begins also. With all the drastic temperature changes this month brings I am looking forward to getting back to some macro photography. Flowers, insects and textures of all kinds. It reminds me of a good friend I lost years ago named Rocky. He was a painter. Not just like a house painter, he painted signs and murals. He was twenty-two years older than me and I met him in the 90’s as a teenager through some friend’s parents. I played guitar and a lot of the older folks in the town where I lived really liked me a lot. They included me in bars to drink and carry on like a regular customer when I was 18 years old because I was a known musician. I played in a lot of different bands back then. I played Country, Blues, Rock, Jazz, Synth Pop and typical music from the 90’s we all associate with that time period. I also got into played Reggae and Punk Rock in this time and my most successful bands were more original and had Punk roots with some Ska or Reggae mixed in. When I was 18 (1996) I was playing in 3 different bands as either a guitar player, singer or drummer. I needed work and Rocky offered me a job painting with him. I did that with him for every Summer for about 10 years. I really enjoyed doing murals on the sides of businesses. I really need to look for some of our old photos if I even still have them. The years haven’t been too kind for me keeping track of things like that unfortunately. Rocky, passed in late 2012. I miss him a lot. That’s where I get my painting techniques on canvas. I translated the skills I learned with him into an artform that is absolutely an essential part of who I am. My easel is in my kitchen right now with two stretched canvases on it.

    Anyway.. I have a few images to share this time.

    Our Lady Of Sorrows backdropped by The Sheraton Hotel. Kansas City

    Arp 2600 clone en macro Canon RF nifty fifty lens

    Late Winter cityscape KCMO Canon RF 35mm

    Collage created on Photoshop March 1 2026

    Variations on a theme. Collage created in Photoshop with a concept I previously incorporated. March 1, 2026

  • February

    This month has gone fast for me with this 15 credit hours I am working on completing this semester. Programmable Logic Controllers, Commercial Refrigeration and a few other classes. I have had a couple of opportunities to get some photos and I have been working on some music. I have been maintaining balance in my life. By Spring Break in 3-4 weeks I will be working on some more paintings. I may try to find some sort of band situation starting Spring Break with hopes to have something interesting lines up before this semester wraps up in early May. Soon (Spring) there will be more opportunity to get some nice macro photography. Here is some of my recent photography from the last month. Definitely some Winter vibes.

    The city in light. Feb 2026

    Lake Jacamo frozen over in early February 2026

    Mural at the location of the former Isis Theater at 31st and Troost in Kansas City, Mo. Walt Disney worked here and showed some of his first animations here.

    Kansas City downtown area glowing from the sun on an early February afternoon.

    This photo was clearly a found opportunity. early Feb 2026 at the WW1 Memorial KCMO

    I shared a similar photo last Summer. This one taken in early February 2026 had some interesting color combinations to work with.

    Winter time view of the city from the Troost overpass. early Feb 2026

  • early January

    In the past I had a real problem with deciding I wasn’t good at something. Maybe I tried something once or twice and had bad results or lost intrest. Among the things I thought I wasn’t good at were web design, graphic design, managing fianances and writing lyrics for songs. There are some other things that I considedered myself having a basic understanding and I lacked the discipline necessary to do anything really of merit with it. Like painting pictures and photography. Over the last few years I have reopened the door to trying those things. Except this time, with structure and discipline. I love to read so I bought a lot of different books on subjects and set aside time each day to read. Then I set aside time to try building my own web page, along with watching tutorials on YouTube to learn Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom to give me some sort of real world reference for what I was reading in books. That’s another big part of taking on learning something new. Not just reading the literature but finding real world applications of those processes.

    What I have learned from all this is to do my best to not ever say I can’t do something and instead say “I haven’t tried that yet.” Because I know full well with a little understanding and practice I can do just about anything. Most limitations are mental constructs that can be easily avoided or countered with genuine curosity. I am sharing some images I created in photoshop and lightroom with my own personal photography. I guess you could call this graphic design. This is artwork I have created over the last few weeks.

    This stray cat was so photogenic and I really love how this image lent itself well to this effect.

    On a foggy early Winter evening I got some interesting light trail photos.

    This is a photo I took back in September and I had a photo of a painting I made back in August. During some down time over Christmas break I was stacking these images in Photoshop and trying different things. This happy accident really gave me a lot of ideas for future renderings.

    Some of the photo impressionist ideas I love to work with in negative.

    Photo impressionism is kind of becoming my niche.

    This stack was more intentional after the aforementioned happy accident.

    Photo impressionist design with key esoteric symbolic elements.