The Beach Blog

'California Beach Trip':

On Amazon:

'Desert Trip'

On Amazon:

'Seeking the Vibe'

On Blurb:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/smarter-living/backing-up-your-photos.html

Cafe off the grid

noreply@blogger.com (CaliforniaSilverwizard) — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 19:22:00 +0000

No doubt you may have noticed that a lot of art photographers like shooting signposts, especially if they are old and reminiscent of past times. They also like abandoned buildings of any kind. Somehow they are very evocative, of times gone, of styles the world has passed by, and replaced with 100 ft poles beside the freeway, topped with a logo of a gas station or fast food joint, just get off at the next exit, your needs and wants will be satiated very quickly.

I got a few of my own:

This one is my all time favorite!

Of course the straight shots can blossom into something... 'completely different', to quote Monty Python.

Here's a link you ought to click on. You can never back up enough!

It's like Bo Diddley was quoted as saying: "Whenever you negotiate any contract/commitment take a lawyer along. And get a second lawyer to keep an eye on the first one."

On the NYT mission to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/01/opinion/Arthur-Gregg-Sulzberger-The-New-York-Times.html

Enuf said.
To 'The Donald?' ... eat shit....... and die.

Happy New year!

noreply@blogger.com (CaliforniaSilverwizard) — Sun, 31 Dec 2017 20:45:00 +0000

Another year has zipped past both of us, so glad we are both still right here, right now. With a number of not so good health conditions under control thanks to a fistful of prescriptions, i plan on continuing on.....to make photomontage digitally even though my bad back has forced an end to traditional darkroom.

My New Years wishes?

I hope i keep seeing things that tickle my creative nerves.
The verb to 'see' is an onion - many layers, literally the eye sends signals from the retina to the brain.
But that's only the beginning. After the seeing ends, the perception begins...

I hope i take the time to 'stop, look, listen'. Carefully.

Not just once, but often. And at great leisure.

I hope to apply whatever skills and wisdom
i have acquired to good use.

I hope my dreams remain sweet.

And i hope i always keep this saying, or prayer as it is called, close to heart.

The Serenity Prayer is the common name for a prayer written by the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971). The best-known form is:

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer

So right now you're thinking "uh-oh, is this guy some kind of evangelical religious ranter, standing on a soap box?"

No, only "sort of".

My parents made us say the Lord's prayer before bedtime, go to church and sunday school. Age 10, i was sent to a boarding school, mildly religious - a short (10 min.) chapel service every morning, a long one on sunday, complete w/ sermon.

Did it all sink in?
"Sort of".
The essence of the teachings is right on target, but i would delete any reference to an anthropomorphic 'God' or 'Lord'.

I think Buddhism gets closer to the truth = there's no 'higher power' but perhaps there is a deeper resonance in the universe.
And in us, all of us.

I'll end w/ a very short bit of wisdom, a Warren Zevon song lyric:

"We contemplate eternity under the vast indifference of heaven"

Enough said - Thank you Warren, you left us too soon.

It's that time of year again........

noreply@blogger.com (CaliforniaSilverwizard) — Mon, 25 Dec 2017 01:52:00 +0000

Hope you enjoy the above.

Come back next year for more!

Seven sisters

noreply@blogger.com (CaliforniaSilverwizard) — Sun, 19 Nov 2017 01:46:00 +0000

If i come upon a few negs months ago, and make a montage, ...and then come back to the same negs/montage months later, unknowingly and most circuitously, and do another somewhat different montage.... am i repeating myself, wandering in the woods?

Or rather recirculating, revising, updating, improving?

This collection of rocks is called 'seven sisters', there are of course,
seven of them, all 50 ft. tall.

Here's the contact sheet:

I'm not sure, not sure i care which is which.

The color version was first, the B and W was second.

Just switching the orientation of the octillo (?)(foreground) changed everything.

Now the highlighted upper branch extends into the rock at the left in a different way, it's the same image, sort of, but not the same.

Soooo... here's 'hats off' to a second time 'round.

In the 'whatever catches my eye' file:

On Stephen Shore, and Looking for America

Nov. 9, 2017

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/09/t-magazine/stephen-shore-photographs-annie-proulx.html

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Maybe it's time we Homo sapiens re-evaluated our relationship with the oceans of the world.

"Prehistoric, Dinosaur-Era Shark With Insane Teeth Found Swimming Off Coast of Portugal"

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Ancient-shark-with-a-snake-head-and-300-teeth-is-12351432.php

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Mystery 'Shadow Patch' in Pacific Hasn't Moved For 1,000 Years And Scientists Finally Know Why

https://www.yahoo.com/news/mystery-apos-shadow-patch-apos-182803369.html

Please take a few moments to check out my self published books:

'California Beach Trip':

On Amazon:

'Desert Trip'

On Amazon:

'Seeking the Vibe'

On Blurb:

Previews of all at:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/19/opinion/sunday/what-happens-to-creativity-as-we-age.html

Some Spooky stairs

noreply@blogger.com (CaliforniaSilverwizard) — Sat, 07 Oct 2017 18:37:00 +0000

This is one of the last two prints i will make in the darkroom - old age, in the form of a bad back (sciatica! Yeeoowch!) - has gotten the better of me, just can't bend over those trays or the enlarger easel and grain focuser.

There are two reasons why i am entranced by this print:

#1 - it goes to show something i have believed for a long time - montage isn't about lots of fancy darkroom tricks, at least not for me. It's about having the right negs, and finding/choosing them from amongst the thousands i have... and then composing very, very carefully. And then printing/exposing negs with some amount of care, but w/ some variation, improvisation. As an old song lyric goes 'hold on loosely, but don't let go'. Sometimes a mistake is a mistake, sometimes it's a blessing in disguise. Figuring out which is which, now that's the hard part.

The top part of this one is simply two monster sculpted rocky orbs w/ a space between them in Joshua Tree. The place is full of impossible jumbles of rock formations.

The frame at bottom right, some machinery at the Wall St. Mill:

The legacy of one William Keys, this was his ranch:

And one notation of his handiwork, the place was lawless.

Another thing? ...they didn't have triple A out here in the early 40's.

#2 - This is the perfect image to end my darkroom work with - the stairs lead up.. and disappear into... the rocks? ..the space between them? Will i find myself between a rock and a hard place, going digital w/ my montage??

The answer is ...NO! Since the aborted-on-account-of-sciatica darkroom session, i have done over a hundred new images. Yeah, i know, my old photog. friends are saying 'what took ya so long, dummy-dude?'.

I really like the limitations darkroom imposes, they make you 'shit or go blind'. Good training. And as I've been saying for decades 'it's the most fun you can have with your clothes on'.

I took a stab at digitally coloring this one, w/ mixed results:

Digital coloring has a 'fake' quality to it sometimes, this is a good example.

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In the occasional 'whatever catches my eye' file, as i cruise towards my 66th B'day, this one sure did:

What Happens to Creativity as We Age?

Gray Matter

By ALISON GOPNIK and TOM GRIFFITHS AUG. 19, 2017, New York Times

There's a lyric in a Jefferson Airplane (?) song, Grace Slick sings it:

'You're only as pretty as you feel'.

You're only as old as you feel, too.

Encryption machine

noreply@blogger.com (CaliforniaSilverwizard) — Mon, 04 Sep 2017 23:27:00 +0000

The basic/most important neg was shot at the 'Musee Mechanique' in SF/Cliff house,

which was situated below the classy restaurant level:

Yes, this is the montage, sand and sky:

Cliff House over the years.

Don't know where the idea for this one came from, after all i did it many years ago, in 2008.

The basic shot is of the guts of an old fashioned player piano, you wind it up somehow, the wheels start spinning, and the perforations in the paper roll in the middle strike the keys of the piano. The clouds and the sand, above and below? Which is being recorded?... or played back as the case may be? A tantalizing enigma, come to your own conclusions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_piano

"A player piano (also known as pianola) is a self-playing piano, containing a pneumatic or electro-mechanical mechanism that operates the piano action via pre-programmed music recorded on perforated paper, or in rare instances, metallic rolls,............"

Another great item to be experienced here:

Here's more from the Musee Mechanique:

'Pick a card, any card'

Secrets

A digital montage that looks like darkroom

noreply@blogger.com (CaliforniaSilverwizard) — Thu, 20 Jul 2017 06:45:00 +0000

I've been doing darkroom/film montage for 3+ decades, i've developed a sixth sense for what i shoot on film, and a similar gut-level compass for finding the right two or three negs to weave together.

For the last few weeks, i've been wallowing in digital montage, color pix & symmetry, i stopped and wondered - "i am losing my B and W bearings?".

So one Sat. AM i opened up a neg i'd made in Joshua Tree, and looked for it's 'companion', it didn't take long for one neg to step up to the plate, volunteer, and fit right in, nicely. It's sort of a sandwich in that the lower layer is 'normal' but the next layer up is on 'screen'. Yes, there are blending masks going on.

Here's the negs:

And here is the montage, it feels a whole lot like my analog darkroom work!

Making this confirmed my faith that some skills ( photomontage among them) are like riding a bike - once you learn, you never forget. Old muscles may be dormant, but only that - "dormant" - waiting to be used.

And those instincts lead me to make images that have some marvelous details - in this one, the rock formations at the top blend into the clouds on the bottom neg, most 'serendipitously' - if that is a word Webster's would accept.

Here's a screen shot of the PSD file:

The layers from the bottom up:

1 The Joshua tree 'window'

2 The Joshua tree 'window', cleaned up

3 A black gradient, making the bottom pretty much pure black

4 A levels layer, some contrast, the hi-lites got a kick in the ass

5 The Red Rock canyon landscape, with a mask layer blending out the bottom

6 One final levels adjust, that increases contrast on layer 5

This blog software won't show this at the size i loaded - if you'd like a larger view? - click on it, drag and drop it to your desktop, open that in a browser.

Several rules you should observe while building come thing like this:

• start at the bottom (obviously!) and add a layer at a time, don't change the order, that will affect the effect - yes, i am wording that correctly.

• good idea = to double click on the layer title, name it appropriately. I don't always follow my own rules if the layer palette tells me all i need to know.

* Third rule - TAKE YOUR TIME! Save... and return again, later.

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Finally, to tackle the big question 'what does it mean?'.....

Sometimes i have something resembling an answer, sometimes not. I don't like to try too hard on that one, it either happens or not.

There is a lot of tension in this one - at the bottom you are looking out from a cave, from under an overhang, of sorts. At the top you are looking up, at towering eroded cliffs. Maybe there isn't a simple answer, but something more complicated - a question - can radically different points of view coexist?

There is one spot in the center where the two images flow together.

And maybe that's what this means - there can be some unity, some confluence amidst the turbulence, the contrasts, the antagonisms of images, and landscapes before us.

Old muscles never need a tune up

noreply@blogger.com (CaliforniaSilverwizard) — Sat, 24 Jun 2017 18:05:00 +0000

Where do ideas/images like this one come from?

Where does inspiration for images like this reside?

Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies. Perhaps it comes from pondering our recent drought... which has now reversed itself, and may well become floods this spring/summer. The west has been shaped by water, you can't help but look at the desert and not see that no matter how dry it is now, it's sloping playas were formed by water, massive amounts of it.

In this image you are looking at Mono Lake, the horizon in the middle, and what's called tufa rising from it.

Just below the horizon, a few tumbled boulders leak a bit of the water into the foreground - the lake is ...drying...?

The tumbled boulders are from Tioga Pass (above Yosemite), at 8,000+ feet elevation. What and how does anything get tossed around at that elevation??

Don't ask me, ask a geologist.

Here's the contact sheets:

And here's a digitally colored version:

I've always liked this one frame, just one person, sitting... thinking, i suppose., or hope.

A tree grows behind him, several 'rolling stones' frame him.

From the 'whatever catches my eye' file, this one deserves your attention:

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/06/21/Report-Killer-whales-harass-fishermen-steal-fish/6011498022455/?utm_source=fp&utm_campaign=lh&utm_medium=7

Many of the other creatures we share the planet with are a lot smarter than previously given credit for.

And we are plundering the planet in more ways than you can imagine:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/29/the-world-is-running-out-of-sand

Symmetry - Let's go digital for a change!

noreply@blogger.com (CaliforniaSilverwizard) — Sun, 14 May 2017 19:23:00 +0000

I've loved mandalas since i first set eyes on one.

Incredibly detailed, psychedelically colorful, mind boggling, and entrancing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandala

"A mandala (Sanskrit: मण्डल, lit, circle) is a spiritual and ritual symbol in Hinduism and Buddhism, representing the universe.[1] In common use, "mandala" has become a generic term for any diagram, chart or geometric pattern that represents the cosmos metaphysically or symbolically; a microcosm of the universe.

The basic form of most mandalas is a square with four gates containing a circle with a center point. Each gate is in the general shape of a T.[2][3] Mandalas often exhibit radial balance.[4]

The term appears in the Rigveda as the name of the sections of the work, but is also used in other religions and philosophies, particularly Buddhism.

In various spiritual traditions, mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of practitioners and adepts, as a spiritual guidance tool, for establishing a sacred space, and as an aid to meditation and trance induction".

A few years ago i started doing symmetrical images in Photoshop:

I have loads of sky photos, that was the starting point. Then I continued adding things to the images:

And reshaping them any which way that occurred to me.

I quote Robert Rauschenberg in my artist statement:

(http://www.bobbennettphoto.net/statemnt.html)

"I think it was Robert Rauschenberg (correct me, someone/anyone, if my attribution is wrong) who said it best - "It starts by YOU telling the picture what it will be -- in the end, THE PICTURE tells you what IT will be...".

I also have several boxes of things I've collected thru the years, from walks on the beach - stones, bones, shells, these are a small part of my 'visual library' so to speak.

I guess maybe i could call them 'modern mandalas.'

This takes you to a portfolio page of images:

http://www.bobbennettphoto.net/Symmetry/index.html

http://www.bobbennettphoto.net/SymmetryHowTo/index.html

This goes to a 'how to' page, showing how i built this image:

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And now a few words about my books:

(Check 'em out - i doubt you will be disappointed.)

After many years of making darkroom photomontage (since the late 80's), and not being able to get arrested for it except for a few appearances in competitive group shows, and some assignment illustrations in various magazines ....I am designing & publishing books I make at Blurb with 'Bookify' - two of them are on Amazon, one is at Blurb.

'California Beach Trip':

On Amazon:

'Desert Trip'

On Amazon:

This includes an image i have recently posted, titled 'Desert Time'.

'Seeking the Vibe'

On Blurb:

Previews of all at:

As the Terminator most famously said: "Ah'll be back"

Window to soul

noreply@blogger.com (CaliforniaSilverwizard) — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 01:07:00 +0000

I've been wrestling w/ some nasty developments lately - my aging (65 YO) lower spine has gifted me w/ this thing called sciatica, which makes bending over the easel, especially to use the grain focuser, and bending over those smelly trays of chems. into a very painful experience. So it's time to go digital with montage. I never thought it would happen but now that it has? ....WTF, 'continue on, dude'.

Taking 'fun' drugs is a youthful pursuit.

The drugs i take now stave off several not so nice conditions.

This one was done painfully, refusing to take one of the 95 or so hydrocodone pills i have. They totally wack your system. I won't join the legions of people who are addicted to this shit.

It went thru quite a metamorphosis from beginning to end.

It's a sandwich, two negs together in the enlarger neg holder, exposed at the same time.

The P'shop sketch looked pretty interesting.

Here's the window neg:

And the sky:

It needed some serious photoshop help, and got it, 'cause i really like what's going on. The window was shot somewhere in the mojave desert; the totally weird cloud, shot off my rooftop deck in SF, both many years ago. How i managed to combine such disparate elements i have no idea.

There's a saying: 'shit happens'.

But serendipity happens too.

Is the cloud inside the room, or somewhere beyond?

Make up your own answer.

Mine is 'both'.

Windows are common and finite, the clouds are infinite, at 20,000... 30,000 feet.

First, the digital sketch that got me going.

Then a quick dig colorizing that had some interesting possibilities:

Then the darkroom print:

and finally the darkroom print w/ some digital color.

The key to making this work w/ the digital coloring is 'balance'.

There's a blue hue sat layer affecting the window, a selective color layer hitting up the background, and another SC layer wacking the details in the background. It's not really very complicated, you just have to have a plan that really addresses your ideas, and execute it, carefully and tastefully.

Yes, beyond 'balance'? - 'careful and tasteful' are the keywords. Always!

=============================

'California Beach Trip':

On Amazon:

'Desert Trip'

On Amazon:

This includes an image i have recently posted, titled 'Desert Time'.

'Seeking the Vibe'

On Blurb:

Previews of all at:

https://boomcalifornia.com/2016/05/31/the-code-of-the-desert/

Signing Off - the silverwizard ;-)

An old fashioned gas pump, a derelict arrow/sign

noreply@blogger.com (CaliforniaSilverwizard) — Tue, 07 Feb 2017 01:40:00 +0000

This gas pump no longer pumps, hasn't for a while. A symbol of....? I'm not sure what - power that was, but is no more, at least here at this station.

And a big blank arrow, pointing... but to where or what?

It all started when i came upon this abandoned store, if memory serves me halfway well, in a place called Death Valley Junction, Ca. Rtes 127 & 190. These frames were taken over 20 years ago, i have been by more recently, and 'progress' has caught up with it. The abandoned gas station was an active/open store of some sort catering to tourists. I didn't even go inside.

Here's the contact sheet from the first visit:

I got sooo much mileage out of this, it was one lucky prescient discovery.

As for the horse shoes on the antler? I'll get back to that later.

I did numerous 'sketches' & studies of what to do with the gas pump and the direction sign:

Ended up doing this darkroom print:

The dodging/blending is very simple on this one:

Dodge out both top and bottom, starting about 1/3 way from top or bottom, ending

beyond the halfway point.

I've always found that overlapping 2 images more than i might think would work actually works the best.

Then I hand colored it, and added a bit of digital saturation.

So maybe the image asks a question of the viewer - when you are out of gas, and got no clear direction, whaddaya do then? Punt? Give up and rollover dead?? I hope not - snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, turn a lemon into lemonade.

This not the obvious take away from this image = 'you are out of gas, and got no clear direction'.

But the best response is: Life hands you a lemon? Make lemonade!

In the very so often 'whatever catches my eye' file:

http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2017/01/27/week-one-of-go-to-hell-america/

http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2017/01/20/the-day-democracy-died-an-epitaph/

We live in times of 'alternate facts', a president that is IMHO spinning out disgraceful behavior on a daily basis. I keep replaying this track in my mind, regularly.

Orig. studio recording:

Gimme Shelter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phxNVx3Jyq0

"Oooo storm is threatenin' my very life today,

If i don't get some shelter yeah, i'm gonna fade away"

Time for another sandwich

noreply@blogger.com (CaliforniaSilverwizard) — Wed, 04 Jan 2017 02:06:00 +0000

A landscape from Joshua tree, Barker Dam Lake

(who'd think there would be a lake in a place a desolate and dry as Joshua Tree?):

...juxtaposed/sandwiched with two different frames of rolling stones, also Joshua Tree.

They make for an interesting vision. Questions abound - how did the rolling stones get there?? What has rounded them, and rolled them to this place? Here's the two sandwich prints:

The little details are intriguing:

There are many such conundrums to be found at Joshua Tree NP.

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Perhaps the two rolling stones are not solid rock, but lenses, allowing a view to geologic history, the shaping of this place by nothing else but water, vast quantities of it, over many millions of years, more fingers and toes than you can count on.

This one really screamed 'hand-color me!' So I did.

I must admit that after i scanned this, i hit the 'hue/saturation' buttons rather hard :-)

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In the occasional 'whatever catches my eye file':

I find this to be very depressing:

http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Want-to-sell-a-24-million-painting-fast-10827174.php

“Most of my top clients are on Instagram,” said Gorvy, who joined in March 2015 and has 54,000 followers. His daily posts are a mix of art images, artist quotes, personal musings, lyrics from David Bowie or Leonard Cohen. “That’s where the future is. It’s now, it’s happening.”

When i went into art directing in 1976, you could call up a creative director at an agency, get a few minutes of his/her time = some human contact, Same w/ fine art photo gallery people. I always thought it was about 'human contact'. Is instagram 'human contact'??
------------------------------

Obama names Utah, Nevada monuments despite GOP opposition

[Associated Press]

Brady Mccombs, Associated Press

Associated PressDecember 29, 2016

https://www.yahoo.com/news/obama-names-utah-nevada-monuments-221032843.html

FILE - This April 5, 2012 file photo shows rock formations in Gold Butte, located about 90 miles northeast of Las Vegas. President Barack Obama designated two national monuments Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2016, at sites in Utah and Nevada that have become key flashpoints over use of public land.

But Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye called it an exciting day for his tribe and people of all cultures.

"We have always looked to Bears Ears as a place of refuge," Begaye said. "The rocks, the winds, the land — they are living, breathing things that deserve timely and lasting protection."

Some westerners, the Clive-Bundy-type crowd, view their 'rights' ( to 'manage', mine, profit from the resources of the land) as superior to the larger 'rights' of those who would want it saved intact, or at least as intact as is possible at this point in time.

Let's back to a more basic concept - Who really 'owns' land?

Answer: No one. Not really.

Onward upward

noreply@blogger.com (CaliforniaSilverwizard) — Sun, 04 Dec 2016 20:45:00 +0000

This one is sort of an opposing throw back to the first montage print i made work:

I have called it 'The edge of the world' for obvious reasons.

It's very simple - just 2 negs, dodged to blend well. Took me about 25+ sheets of paper to get it right.

'Onward upward' is the opposite - the stairs at Alcatraz lead into... the forest of Muir woods, huge redwoods, an escape indeed, if there ever was one. I have titled it 'Onwards, Upwards'.

After 30+ years, i hear an echo in here somewhere. It is most welcome, i am glad i see/hear.. a thread, a method to my madness.

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The 'whatever catches my eye' file is really fat this month.

Craig Childs, a great writer:

"I believe the earth will survive us. It has survived far worse than us. Its 3.5-billion-year life history is a gauntlet of apocalypses. In every ancient crater and dinosaur fossil bed, you see a story of global endings.

Whether we survive ourselves is more the question.

And what of most other living things? Will they survive us?

I'm not willing - or even able - to wait the 6 to 10 million years it would take to return to current levels of biodiversity. That's how long global mass extinctions have taken to recover in the past. Key indicators point to us being in such an extinction right now. So, you have to ask, what comes next?

The most likely scenario, or at least the most hoped for, is that the planet remains generally supportive, and climates are stable enough we get to keep our pretty cities and bucolic countryside."

((This bloggers comment? - oh, no - i think it will get much worse, and take much longer to get better than we can imagine. Joni mitchell sang "we are stardust we are golden..."

No, we are poisonous cruel and thoughtless, we will get our comeuppance, our due, sometime soon ))

http://www.houseofrain.com/bookdetail.cfm?id=1344621970977

"I sit still listening to the many heartbeats of the forest. Summer has, fall has turned, and the world of animals moves ahead."

http://www.houseofrain.com/rantsandwritings.cfm?mode=detail&id=1479222002750&group=writings

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Narwhals, Tusked Whales of the Arctic, See With Sound. Really Well.

Trilobites

By JOANNA KLEIN NOV. 9, 2016

Wondering how climate change and the prospect of an ice-free Arctic might affect narwhal behavior in the future, scientists tracked these whales over the ice in helicopters. Knowing that whales use echolocation — sending out clicks of sound that bounce off objects in the environment around them — they placed microphones underwater and listened.

They found that with clicks of sound, like a flashlight switching on and off, the narwhals scanned their underwater world to receive narrow snapshots and reconstructed them into a larger acoustic picture — one with more resolution than any other animal on the planet, with the possible exception of beluga whales.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/science/narwhals-echolocation.html

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You think Photoshop is some great software? You ain't seen nothin' yet, read this article, until you get to the part about how after all the information is loaded and the 'start' button is pushed, it takes several days to generate an image.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/12/science/shipwrecks-black-sea-archaeology.html

here's a depiction of the robot/drone that gathers:

and the product:

If you think humans are the only creatures that have smarts, feelings, empathy, perception beyond themselves, you are oh so wrong.

How a Donkey Became My Running Partner

We’d agreed to take this donkey because we figured he’d be fun and trouble-free. I didn’t know he’d set my life on an entirely new course.

Running With Sherman

By CHRISTOPHER McDOUGALL NOV. 17, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/17/well/move/how-a-donkey-became-my-running-partner.html

'Running With Sherman' is a weekly column exploring connections between humans and animals.

Next week: Training a Donkey

Looks like this could be a very interesting story...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/well/move/how-to-save-a-donkey-it-helps-to-have-a-goat.html

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A wild bottlenose dolphin, tangled in a fishing line, swims up to a diver in Hawaii and waits while the diver cuts the line free.

When a dolphin needed help off the coast of Hawaii, he was determined to let a scuba instructor know.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/23/16663801-diver-who-saved-dolphin-he-swam-right-up-to-me?lite

But yet slaughter of dolphins continues in Taiji, Japan:

Yes, the water is red - blood red. Humans aren't the smartest animals by any means.

We are however the meanest, greediest, we lack morality that animals have.

Have you read stories about dogs that will not leave their sick/dying friend's side?

Or dogs that find their way to their owners grave??

Hope i have given you a few things to ponder :-)

Bodie window, Nevada red rock cliff

noreply@blogger.com (CaliforniaSilverwizard) — Sat, 05 Nov 2016 23:39:00 +0000

I don't know where the inspiration for this one came from, but i know what i like about it, why it works. It's the juxtaposition of the solid rock wall hundreds of feet high (shot in Red Rock Canyon just east of Las Vegas, NV) against the window (a symbol of openness even though the window ain't open, shot in the ghost town SP of Bodie - every photog. who goes there shoots this window, it never fails.)

Composition is very important to me - i lined up the middle of the window panes with the top of the rocks, so there were 2 rows of panes above which have some good clouds superimposed and two below that blend into the rock cliff. I did 3 different prints, the difference being in how much the clouds were exposed.

Let alladin's lamp light the way, let the good times roll.

Darkroom technique-wise? it's really pretty simple - rocks at bottom, dodged out to center, window burned in thru the most incredibly simple darkroom tool of all time, a circular hole in a sheet of black construction paper, it's at the bottom left below.

Sky exposed at top, dodged out in center, and held back in the lower middle.

It works quite well as Black and white:

Hand-coloring poses a challenge - and an opportunity - what kind of a spin can i give this?

Be happy if and when inspiration strikes. It's like lightening - fierce, sometimes scary, but ultimately if you survive (or remember your dreams?) pretty good stuff.

I'm not sure how i came upon the color scheme i did, just glad i did, i like the one pane in the second row/center that has a bit of haphazard curtain that stands out. The hand coloring has become 2 steps lately, the first is water colors, the second is oils. One last step is to scan, and tweak the color a bit more in Photoshop. To tell you the truth, i am not sure which of the two color images here are which.

--------------------------------

In the "whatever catches my eye file" this month:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/23/magazine/the-anti-helicopter-parents-plea-let-kids-play.html

When i was growing up in a small town in Maine in the '50's, my parents always made us go to church & sunday school, plant, water and harvest the garden out back, rake the fall leaves etc etc etc. When that was done, if i were to ask my mom 'what is there to do?' she would point to the back door, as in 'you figure it out'. And we did, all the kids on the street were constantly getting together, football, baseball, sledding in winter, exploring the stretch of wooded land between the blocks, the cave carved in the land, the treehouse my dad built rather impromptu, it would be condemned and destroyed these days - no supervision whatsoever! And we all survived, with a few small injuries on the way. And we learned. Stuff no one can teach you.

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Review: These Short Stories Ask, How Does Technology Affect Us?

Books of The Times

By JENNIFER SENIOR OCT. 2, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/03/books/review-children-of-the-new-world-sees-a-future-of-bespoke-memories-and-more.html

“Should you plug into this machine for life,” he asked, “preprogramming your life’s experiences"?

This question reveals a terrible anxiety — that technology may rob us of authentic experience, that it may annihilate our very sense of self — and is central to “Children of the New World,” the seductive debut collection of short stories from Alexander Weinstein.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/magazine/an-american-in-a-strange-land.html

About an american who comes home after a long time, and finds his homeland is/has been ... rather changed since he left. A Very good read, highly recommended.

The Walls in Our Heads

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/opinion/sunday/the-walls-in-our-heads.html

No 'wall' will ever work - forget about it.

----------------------------

How the Internet Is Loosening Our Grip on the Truth

Whether navigating Facebook, Google or The New York Times’s smartphone app, you are given ultimate control — if you see something you don’t like, you can easily tap away to something more pleasing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/03/technology/how-the-internet-is-loosening-our-grip-on-the-truth.html

http://www.hcn.org/issues/48.14/william-henry-jacksons-history-making-photos

Some really gorgeous photos!

On U.S. Geological Survey expeditions through the American West in the 1870s, William Henry Jackson took the first photographs of the Yellowstone region’s thermal springs, craters and geysers. Those images helped persuade Congress to protect Yellowstone as a national park — America’s first — in 1872.

He used the photochromic process to colorize his prints.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photochromism

Merriam Webster:

Definition of photochromic:

• capable of changing color on exposure to radiant energy (as light)

• of or relating to or utilizing the change of color shown by a photo chromic substance

I've read the above link, and a few others - i still have no idea how this works. Let's just be happy it does, or did, as the case may be.

Two last links:

http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/early-landscape-photography-of-the-american-west

This one is really depressing and a bit scary, why haven't we heard about it more??

http://www.triplepundit.com/2016/10/fukushima-radiation-now-covers-pacific-ocean/

Nevada fortune wheel

noreply@blogger.com (CaliforniaSilverwizard) — Tue, 04 Oct 2016 01:21:00 +0000

Another sandwich - two negs aligned together in the neg carrier. Just one exposure.

Coming up with these is really difficult, i don't know where this came from, i went thru all my 'psd sketches' folders, couldn't find a thing. Oh, well / c'est la vie.

The thing about sandwiches that seems to work for me? Something distant contrasting against something close up. Plenty of tension and contrast going on, it makes the image interesting / arresting.

The landscape is Nevada which is mostly the most barren desolate high desert you could ever encounter.

The fortune wheel is an old-timey amusement, before TV or anything digital.

This one screamed 'handcolor me!'... so i did, just watercolors, no subsequent oils. Then i did some icing on the cake w/ Photoshop, levels, & Hue/Sat layer.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

In the whatever catches my eye file this month?

"......for most of its history, cinema was medium-specific — it was shot, processed and distributed on film. The movies we watch today, by contrast, are rarely made through mechanical and photochemical processes, but with computer code, with strings of zeros and ones: bits. Each medium has its advantages, although for many lovers of film the crucial difference is its vivid, alive look."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/28/movies/the-race-to-save-the-films-we-love.html

'Ah'll be back' to quote Ah-nold, the terminator

'The Pass' - lots of improvisation

noreply@blogger.com (CaliforniaSilverwizard) — Sat, 03 Sep 2016 20:32:00 +0000

Yes, improvisation, 'darkroom printing, without a net' so to speak is a really nice thing. And Photoshop has a way subverting that. Here's the P'shop sketch that got it started:

I like the white space/hi-lite in the notch of the rocks, it draws the viewer in. There's nothing there... but what is 'beyond' nothing?

(Above, the 1 frame/negative.)

(And the stark stormy Joshua Tree)

That's an interesting question in and of itself - what is beyond nothing, white space, an opening?

This one was all improvisation, first i exposed the rocky landscape at the bottom, then burned in 3 variations of the Joshua Tree at the top.

I am OK w/ the white space between the rocks in the first three... but for #4 it was time for something 'different' - which was another Joshua Tree, and a last and final one, much smaller, in the notch in the rocks.

Here's the neg:

And the print:

Which is 'better'? Viewers choice.

In the 'whatever catches my eye' file, all worth your time:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/07/the-last-known-roll-of-kodak-film-from-1888/490787/

http://www.pdnonline.com/features/The-Surprising-Fate-of-Film-16660.shtml

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/magazine/the-mystery-at-the-heart-of-great-photographs.html

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Local-photographer-Engel-Ching-captures-beauty-of-6641670.php

After many years of making darkroom photomontage ( since the late 80's), and not being able to get arrested for it except for a few appearances in competitive group shows, and some assignment illustrations in various magazines ....I am designing & publishing books I make at Blurb with 'Bookify' - two of them are on Amazon, one is at Blurb.

'California Beach Trip':

On Amazon:

'Desert Trip'

On Amazon:

'Seeking the Vibe'

On Blurb:

Previews of all at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/fashion/internet-technology-phones-introspection.html

Dreamer

noreply@blogger.com (CaliforniaSilverwizard) — Sat, 30 Jul 2016 20:50:00 +0000

Here's the dreamer:

I found this face carved in soft sandstone on Ocean Beach, San Francisco, some years ago. I will hope he is dreaming, and not dead.

The landscape - the horizon, the two trees, is at Sunset Crater in Arizona.

The ragged rocks above it - tufa at Mono Lake in Ca.

The lighthouse superimposed at the top is at Pt. Bonita in the Marin headlands, just north of SF.

What does it all mean? Perhaps dreams foster thoughts ( = the trees, which grow) ...which then beget difficulties of whatever kind ( the ragged tufa rocks)... but there is light at the end of this tunnel, the lighthouse shines on. Perhaps this is about the power of thought, mind over matter?

Technically, it's not hard. First exposure, the sunset crater trees and shadow, with a good bit of the shadow dodged back to accommodate the face. Then, i burned in the face, then added the tufa, and the lighthouse.

The same simple tools accomplish everything.

this one deserved some hand coloring:

Many years ago, i wrote a statement of sorts.

(Alotta things in the world change in a heartbeat these days.

I don't mind being slooooow. It comes with age ( 64 YO) I am OK with it.)

I collect negatives by taking myself, and simple camera, to places I love - the California coast, and desert - and start walking.

I spend a lot of time with my proof sheets, and in a small room, under a dim red bulb. I'm obviously interested in things metaphysical - beyond that, it's up to the viewer to decide what's going on.

If I haven't figured them out yet, (and I haven't, not really), why should I presume to explain them to anyone else? Many of the pictures just seem to 'happen', because the individual negatives are 'looking for each other'. I'm just a chaperone, and a really loose one at that. But those were always the best kind of parties, right?

"I'm just a chaperone, and a really loose one at that..."

After all these years, this rings truer than ever.

I don't remember where the idea for this one came from, i think i linked the face with the huge shadow in the landscape first. I regularly sift thru PSD sketches, add subtract to them, print them out quickly letter size, leave a pile of them on my floor, and look thru them once in a while, maybe take a fistful in my bag, and look thru them during my bus commute to work. A 20 minute bus ride is a nice time to let the mind wander as the landscape rolls by. Rumination is a good way to describe it.

Which brings me to the 'whatever catches my eye' file:

The End of Reflection - Future Tense

By TEDDY WAYNE JUNE 11, 2016 - for the New York Times

“Finding moments to engage in contemplative thinking has always been a challenge, since we’re distractible,” said Nicholas Carr, author of “The Shallows.” “But now that we’re carrying these powerful media devices around with us all day long, those opportunities become even less frequent, for the simple reason that we have this ability to distract ourselves constantly.”

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'Think Less, Think Better'

'Gray Matter' New York Times - By MOSHE BAR JUNE 17, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/19/opinion/sunday/think-less-think-better.html

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http://www.pdnonline.com/features/The-Surprising-Fate-of-Film-16660.shtml

(It ain't dead yet folks, get used to it!)

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/07/07/how-photography-helped-build-the-statue-of-liberty/

Not a week goes by that i don't read about some new discovery in the ocean:

http://www.deepseanews.com/2016/07/rare-mass-sighting-of-pyrosomes-in-the-azores/

-------------------

It's the oddballs & wierdos that make the real progress. See a movie called 'the imitation game' about the gay british guy who invented a rudimentary computer to crack Nazi code.

"When he wasn't blackmailing lords and being sued for libel, William Playfair invented the pie chart, the bar graph, and the line graph." By Cara Giaimo June 28, 2016

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-scottish-scoundrel-who-changed-how-we-see-data

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Review: Hieronymus Bosch, for Whom the Devil Was Always in the Details

Hieronymus Bosch: Touched by the Devil * Directed by Pieter van Huystee * Documentary * 1h 26m

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/movies/hieronymus-bosch-touched-by-the-devil-review.html

I'm definitely going to get this one, if it ever shows up on Netflix!

How 'bout a sandwich or two?

noreply@blogger.com (CaliforniaSilverwizard) — Sat, 02 Jul 2016 20:41:00 +0000

Not the kind you get at a deli, but a negative sandwich, two frames in the neg carrier, in pretty much perfect alignment. They are hard to come up with, to say the least.

Here are two such sandwiches, all negs done in Nevada some 8 years ago.

Very rough ragged and forbidding mountains:

And two agave plants, very tough survivors, very tender and juicy leaves inside -

their exterior, the thorns, is a deception.

I especially like the one with the close-up on the plant, above - it has lots of tension between near and far.

I thought these were good candidates for hand coloring, so i partied down with that.

( I do a blog about just hand coloring if you're interested:

https://handcoloring.wordpress.com )

In the 'whatever catches my eye' file this month:

http://monovisions.com/interview-with-ben-nixon/

Marvelous wet plate collodion images:

"Nixon prefers older technologies so that he can slow down and respond to the subject in front of him. While shooting in the field, Nixon’s car becomes the darkroom, because in the collodion process, glass-plate negatives have to be prepared, exposed, and developed on-site while the materials are moist. If the plates dry, they are no longer light sensitive. Although Nixon is a master technician, he sets aside academic ideas of what constitutes a perfect print, preferring to show his hand as an artist."

--------------------

Remember Polaroid? I sure do.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/21/arts/design/champion-of-a-polaroid-behemoth-yields-to-the-digital-world.html

It's called the Beach Blog, so we can talk 'sand' can't we?

"Sand is the essential ingredient that makes modern life possible. And we are starting to run out. Believe it or not, we use more of this natural resource than any other except water and air."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/23/opinion/the-worlds-disappearing-sand.html

I'll be back next month w/ a dreamer - no, not the kind Pres. Obama is talkin' about...

Oh, BTW... i have 2 books published on Amazon:

'California Beach Trip':

And 'Desert Trip'

https://handcoloring.wordpress.com

Check them out, please. You just might like them enough to buy a copy.

The 'whatever catches my eye' file got really fat in the last month...

noreply@blogger.com (CaliforniaSilverwizard) — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 07:22:00 +0000

So that's going to be the bulk of this post.

But to make sure I keep photography the #1 priority, here are the three indispensable tools i have for doing darkroom photomontage, i made them over 30 years ago:

Click on the image, hold/drag/and drop this one onto your desktop, print it out.
(It will open up to be larger than what you see here) You'll be glad you did :-)

On another note, I do a lot of hand coloring on my montage prints, here's a recent example of a B+W:

Phoenix

Been on a bit of a hand coloring binge lately, doing some watercolors first, then some oils.

Even taking a few into photoshop and seeing what i can do digitally vs. by hand/cotton balls, q-tips.

Here's what i've done with watercolors (for the details in the flames) then scan and add color to the top - blue gradient, yellow/orange gradient. + Hue/Sat to all.

Here's the progression:

Watercolors to flames at bottom

A digitally colored version

The final hand colored version

...totally smokes anything digital.

If you'd like to learn more, I do a blog about it all:

In fact, I invite you to all my other blogs:

http://californiasilverwizard-westernskies.blogspot.com/

http://westcoastphotomontage.blogspot.com/

https://roadtripsamericanwest.wordpress.com/

Here's that 'whatever catches my eye' file.

There's a lot of total junk on the web.

Then again, there's some really meaty stuff, best of all, it's free.

here's where my 'surfboard' has taken me lately:

Books - MARCH 9, 2015 ISSUE

New Yorker magazine

"Rapt - Grieving with your goshawk." BY KATHRYN SCHULZ

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/09/rapt

"Writing last winter about the challenges of training raptors, the goshawk in particular, Schulz introduces us to a creature she describes as “a mixture of a Labrador retriever, an F-16, and Houdini,” and the piece itself spreads its wings, soars, and pounces. A piece about death certificates deepens, with a grave robber’s stealth, into a meditation on classification and causation—on the meaning of “because.” Even when she writes about death, her pages swarm with life.

A larger theme runs through Schulz’s work. It’s about the unruly interplay between the natural world and our efforts to understand it—whether with a yardstick, a theory, or a tale. In her mind, cultural history shares an intimate berth with the history of the natural sciences. A sometimes quarrelsome couple, they fight each other for the bedsheets, but they can’t quite ever be separated. They keep up an ongoing point-counterpoint of observation and interpretation.

If Schulz’s pieces are conversational, this is often the conversation they’re having. Let’s join it."

—Henry Finder, Editorial Director

I concur, 110%. That's why i posted this.

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Annals of Seismology

JULY 20, 2015 ISSUE - 'New Yorker' Magazine

'The Really Big One'

An earthquake will destroy a sizable portion of the coastal Northwest.

The question is (not 'if' ...but) when.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one

"The best New Yorker pieces work on different scales, big and little. They have sections that build into stories, but they also live and breathe in their sentences. Take the piece for which Kathryn Schulz just won a Pulitzer Prize, about the seismic significance of a certain subduction zone in the Pacific Northwest.

Although she’s justly praised as a “conversational” writer, the prospect of a devastating earthquake was evoked with such immediacy that it scared the bejeezus out of people. But line by line—at the level not of gross anatomy but of cellular intricacy—she took readers’ breath away, too.

Here’s how she wrote about Washington’s “ghost forest,” a stand of cedars killed by an earthquake three centuries ago: “They are reduced to their trunks and worn to a smooth silver-gray, as if they had always carried their own tombstones inside them.” As for the nonchalance that led people in the subduction zone not to build quake-resistant homes, and what will happen when the shaking begins: “That nonchalance will shatter instantly. So will everything made of glass.” Meanwhile, “refrigerators will walk out of kitchens, unplugging themselves and toppling over.” The piece is a cascade of such small, sharp, glittering shards. When they lodge in your skin, or your head, it’s for good.

You see the same craft on the larger scale."

-----------------------------

A sad story, for sure:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/30/business/media/whats-in-a-name-just-ask-frank-zappas-feuding-heirs.html

Were Frank to come back from the dead?

I am sure he would kick them all in the ass. Many times.

Famous artist Georgia O'Keeffe:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_O%27Keeffe

I think i read somewhere that she said after she died, she wanted the wind to blow all her work away, scatter it wherever, destroy it, as if she had never been alive at all.

I've known a few people who inherited $ome rather $ignificant thing$ - what they really inherited was *mi$fortune*.

I inherited a small ($400/mo.) income from a trust my dad set up. I share the income w/ my sister and step-mother. Not nearly enough to argue over, it is pretty much carved in stone anyway.

Enough to help us all a bit, and remind us that he loved us all.

The most important things i 'inherited' from him?

A great education at a most prestigious and respected New England boarding school, a curiousity about the world - we watched flocks of migrating geese in Maine, climbed mountains, tended a garden from seed to harvest that fed us all, watched birds and learned their names, and stars and constellations too. We went to many places in the NE, mostly historical places, forts and landmarks, and learned their significance.

My Mom was the one who took us three kids to museums and art galleries. I was taking in Winslow Homer and all the Wyeth's before i was ten YO.

My mom grew up poor in Boston, was determined to give her kids 'culture' ...and she succeeded.

What a great 'inheritance'.

Oh, no monetary value whatsoever. But much value nonetheless.

So i ask you to ponder what 'inheritance' really means... really.

It's not about dollars - it's probably more about 'sense'.

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http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/04/16/opinion/sunday/conversation-with-whales.html

---------------------------

"All photographs are historical photographs. Conventionally, photographs qualify as historical only as artifacts; their content is irrelevant. Their age—the temporal distance from us—is what matters. Historical photographs need to originate in a distant past and travel through time, surviving its vicissitudes. They arrive in the present carrying their baggage of images of places gone or altered. Only then do we consider what they contain to be history."

http://www.boomcalifornia.com/2015/07/instant-insistent-history/

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/opinion/sunday/how-facebook-warps-our-worlds.html

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So you think you are smart?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/opinion/fishes-have-feelings-too.html

"As the oceanographer Sylvia Earle, who, like me, no longer eats fish, says: “The ocean has given us so much for so long; it’s time for us to return the favor.”

I went to Jack London's place in Nor. Cal., one very nice place he built himself, it includes a Koi pond. As i approached, the fish all gathered 'round, they could see a human figure, and that's what they associate with food.

-------------------------------------------------------------

FROM SHERYL SANDBERG'S UC COMENCEMENT SPEECH:

(she's Yahoo's CEO, talking about her husband's recent untimely death)

"I have a huge reservoir of sadness that is with me always — right here where I can touch it," she said. "I never knew I could cry so often — or so much. But I am also aware that I am walking without pain. For the first time, I am grateful for each breath in and out — grateful for the gift of life itself. I used to celebrate my birthday every five years and friends’ birthdays sometimes. Now I celebrate always. I used to go to sleep worrying about all the things I messed up that day — and trust me, that list was often quite long. Now I try really hard to focus on each day’s moments of joy."

Finally, she told the audience, appreciate your own capacity for resilience when you're sad or disappointed. Expand that resilience beyond yourself to the companies and communities you create.

"When the challenges come, I hope you remember that anchored deep within you is the ability to learn and grow. You are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. Like a muscle, you can build it up, draw on it when you need it. In that process you will figure out who you really are — and you just might become the very best version of yourself."

----------------------

As for my home state (California)?

http://thefederalist.com/2016/05/05/california-is-an-authoritarian-hellhole/

'Nanny State: How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists, and other Boneheaded Bureaucrats are Turning America into a Nation of Children'

Someone even wrote a book about it all!

http://www.amazon.com/Nanny-State-Teetotaling-Do-Gooders-Bureaucrats/dp/0767924320

I am now prohibited from smoking in my apt. What a stupid, unenforceable crock of shit.

Hasn't government learned anything since prohibition?? I guess not.

is marijuana legal? The feds say no... otherwise, it's as good as a done deal = yes.

'Prohibition' in any form is a stupid, unenforceable idea.

----------------------

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/03/travel/how-to-plan-a-gap-year.html

“A gap year is about taking a time out after being in school for so long to do something different, usually in another country,” said David Stitt, a founder of Gap 360, a gap-year trip planning company based in Britain."

A "Gap 360 - a gap-year trip planning company"???

This is exactly wrong - a gap year should be... *a gap = you figure it out = try anything = try everything*. Leave no stone unturned. You don't/shouldn't need a company to guide you!

I had several of those (gap years), they were among the most formative part of my life.

I did, in no particular order:

• Worked at Children's Hospital, in downtown Wash DC to fulfill 'conscientious objector' requirements to the military draft in 1969. I went from being stoned alotta the time at American University, to making it in to a morning shift, 7:30 AM in the admissions dept. All the while sharing an apt w/ a bunch of deadheads, who rocked out until 4 AM.

• dug holes for plants,

• painted houses, inside and out,

• worked at a newspaper printing place,

• messenger for a law firm...

...and a few others others i have forgotten.

It was an education in the *REAL WORLD* - what makes it tick, what it takes to make a buck or two. And what employers expect of you. What it takes to survive and pay the rent and buy food, in this world.

----------------------

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/opinion/sunday/congratulations-youve-been-fired.html

"At HubSpot, the software company where I worked for almost two years, when you got fired, it was called “graduation.” We all would get a cheery email from the boss saying, “Team, just letting you know that X has graduated and we’re all excited to see how she uses his/her superpowers in her next big adventure.”

(what a bunch of 'blowing smoke up yer ass' bullshit! 'big adventure'? *You've been fired*!!)

----------------------------

Somehow, this one led me to some wild and crazy thoughts and web wanderings on the topic on language:

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/preserving-irelands-ancient-mysterious-treebased-alphabet

(Is this a wee bit like 1's and 0's in a computer?)

---------------------------

Humans have this capacity to communicate, to pass on knowledge, called 'language' - a collection of symbols, and/or sounds, that we collectively as a society/culture/tribe agree on.

We think most presumptively we are alone with this skill - a narrow and arrogant opinion.

?Because we publish books, magazines, etc, do twitter, instagram, blogs, internet blather??

Many other creatures talk to each other, in tongues we do not understand, and probably won't for a long time, hard as we try.

Whales are recognized as having a sophisticated kind of 'singing' - but 'singing' is just our human way of describing their way of sonic communication - to us, it sounds like song. To them? ...it is talking.

I live on the 4th floor of a large apt complex, my north facing windows look out over three lanes that turn into four lanes, headed to a freeway. Pretty gritty and uninspiring to many, but there is a streetlight outside my window, eye level, which is a more than a occasional perch for crows.

Crows are *really smart suckers*, do some reading/research.

They know how to make and use tools of various sorts, they cry *caw, caw, caw*!!!

They also make sounds that are a series of 'clicks'

But then again there are so many computer languages based on 1's and 0's ( on and off clicks?):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_language

"The modern age is ruled by computers. The penetration is to such an extent that the age is called The Digital Age.

Computer Science as a branch not only attracts the most brilliant minds in the world today but is also the most popular ladder towards a prosperous and delightful career. As a freelancer too, Programmers and Coders are very much in demand all across the world. This is because knowing the basics of how a computer operates is something everybody does not know.

Mobiles, Smartphones, Laptops, Tablet and Desktops are all versions of the device we know as computer. The software and websites which run on these devices require expert knowledge of programming languages. These are languages which the computer understands as a machine.

They are a combination of binary signals in the form of on and off series.

http://www.truelancer.com/blog/7-top-programming-languages-coders/

and it all becomes:

Forgive me if this is all a bit fractured, but there are many interesting thoughts/ideas here - hope you appreciate that. No way to tie this all up into a neat tidy bundle.

If you need an 'escape hatch', this is it:

Bob Seger - Katmandu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG-wuWNIyzI

Next month, i'll definitely get back to photography, darkroom and digital.

Beach Bones

noreply@blogger.com (CaliforniaSilverwizard) — Sun, 01 May 2016 00:50:00 +0000

This one uses a technique i have only used once before, to my recollection.

The background (the rippling sand and distant horizon) was done simply, quickly, as a 14x18" print, just the bottom dodged out close to middle, and the top dodged out close to the middle - for me - simple stuff.

The 'bones' (human skeleton) was shot on a beach at Patrick's point SP in Nor. Cal.

I printed it out at the size i wanted it to be on the 14x18" print. The neg includes all the many footprints of the sculptures makers, it's a noisy cacophony i don't want to include.

So I don't - i trim out the bones, very VERY carefully w/ an exacto blade. I spray-glue the back of that, and paste it onto the 'beach' background. Yes you have to be very very good w/ an exacto.

Then did the same as i have done w/ many 16x20 montage prints, 'one of a kind' - shot a 4x5 copy neg.

The print i make from this is the finish/ final print.

"Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, we all fall down"

I've got 2 Books for sale on amazon, if you like what you see here, check 'em out.

Desert trip:

California beach trip:

On Amazon:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/fashion/monotasking-drop-everything-and-read-this-story.html

In the 'whatever catches my eye' file, this one definitely did, and it deserves EVERYone's attention:

'Monotasking Gets a Makeover'

By VERENA von PFETTENAPRIL 29, 2016 - NY Times

"Stop what you’re doing.

Well, keep reading. Just stop everything else that you’re doing.

Mute your music. Turn off your television. Put down your sandwich and ignore that text message. While you’re at it, put your phone away entirely. (Unless you’re reading this on your phone. In which case, don’t. But the other rules still apply.)

Just read.

You are now monotasking."

Yes... drop everything and read this article!!!

Let's get back to the darkroom!

noreply@blogger.com (CaliforniaSilverwizard) — Fri, 01 Apr 2016 19:11:00 +0000

But first, a little self promotion - my first book is up for sale on Amazon:

www.amazon.com/dp/1364579138

There is a 'see inside the book' link, so you can preview it.

Here's the cover:

------------------------------------------------

OK, enough self-promotion.

I read a recent article in 'High Country News':

https://www.hcn.org/articles/a-call-for-an-end-to-cairns-leave-the-stones-alone

I quote an excerpt:

"A stack of rocks left by someone who preceded us on the trail does nothing more than remind us that other people were there before us. It is an unnecessary marker of humanity, like leaving graffiti –– no different than finding a tissue bleached and decaying against the earth that a previous traveler didn't pack out, or a forgotten water bottle. Pointless cairns are simply pointless reminders of the human ego."

It inspired the choice of this montage image, for this post:

It's rather mysterious, isn't it? It makes one wonder what is going on. You could ask a few questions, and perhaps not come up w/ any answers. Are the rocks somehow suspended in space, making the vibration in the water,

...or is the vibration in the water supporting the rocks?

Any answer will do, and could well be correct.

"Viewers choice" here.

Technically, it's very simple, just two negs, the first, these stacked ocean and tide smoothed stones:

The second, the 'vibration' in the water. I actually created this by throwing a rock into a tide pool at the beach, and very quickly photographing it's effects, the circular ripples. Shot most of a roll to get a few that were good. I simply exposed each neg, dodged them out to blend w/ each other in the center. You've got to overlap the exposures to some degree so you won't get a lighter strip in the middle. My rule of thumb is: when in doubt, overlap more rather than less. I think you'll be glad you did :-)

To get back to the link from HCN at the beginning of the post?

Puh-leeze, dude! Lighten up, get some perspective. Humans have been altering the enviroment since prehistoric times. We won't stop now, in fact our effects are increasing daily. A few improvised sculptures are the least of our problems!

Yes, this is a very simple image, and yes, i have seen all the outrageous new imagery being done w/ newly released software, google stuff i think. And many of the images i see draw one question to my mind - how much of this is the original shot, and how much is digital?

Can you make a straight/unaltered shot that is worth looking at?

That's the question photographers had to answer not too long ago, but i guess it's irrelevant now.

Perhaps i am a dinosaur?... but happily so.

Here's another cairn i photographed, i think somewhere in Joshua Tree NP.

Needless to say the cairn has offered someone a new direction -

perhaps he is tipping his hat to his good fortune?

-----------------------------

In the 'whatever catches my eye' file this month:

The Impious Delights of Hieronymus Bosch

A new exhibition celebrating the artist's 500th anniversary oddly presents him as a religious moralist.

BY ELLEN HANDLER SPITZ

March 25, 2016

https://newrepublic.com/article/132024/impious-delights-hieronymus-bosch

---------------------

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/hieronymus-boschs-five-hundredth-anniversary-homecoming?mbid=nl_160325_Daily%20remainder&CNDID=41014877&spMailingID=8712806&spUserID=MTI2MzM2MTI2NzkyS0&spJobID=882862303&spReportId=ODgyODYyMzAzS0

I've taking in art since i was growing up in Maine, my mom wanted to give us 'culture', took us to see Winslow Homer, Andrew Wyeth, etc. I lived in/around Wash DC for 20+ years, home to many great museums.

Bosch blew me away immediately... still does. No one else like him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronymus_Bosch

-----------------

This is a bit of a tangent, but since there's a by the wind sailor here, maybe it's not so off the wall.

For thousands of years, sailors in the Marshall Islands have navigated vast distances of open ocean without instruments. Can science explain their method before it’s lost forever?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/magazine/the-secrets-of-the-wave-pilots.html

------------------------

A Too-Perfect Picture

On Photography

By TEJU COLE MARCH 30, 2016

You know a Steve McCurry picture when you see one. His portrait of an Afghan girl with vivid green eyes, printed on the cover of National Geographic in June 1985, is one of the iconic images of the 20th century. McCurry’s work is stark and direct, with strong colors, a clear emotional appeal and crisp composition. His most recent volume of photographs, “India,” is a compendium of the pictures he took in that country between 1978 and 2014, and it also gives us the essential McCurry. There are Hindu festivals, men in turbans, women in saris, red-robed monks, long mustaches, large beards, preternaturally soulful children and people in rudimentary canoes against dramatic landscapes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/03/magazine/a-too-perfect-picture.html?mabReward=A3&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&region=CColumn&module=Recommendation&src=rechp&WT.nav=RecEngine

I'll be back again next month, probably to the desert.

Sand... & Beach Pebbles

noreply@blogger.com (CaliforniaSilverwizard) — Sat, 05 Mar 2016 19:18:00 +0000

I have always thought that the beach is a marvelous place to think. Not just about your boss, wife, or kids, and however good or bad they are, but also about all the natural processes going on in the real world. Creatures and plants grow and die, rocks seem immutable, but are in a slow motion state of transformation, always being sanded, shifted, and remade, redacted, and different just slightly with every wash of the waves.

This is how geology works too - tectonic plates are always moving ever so slowly.

Until they quake.

As John McPhee has written - 'the rocks on top of Mt Everest are marine shale'.

Marine shale - at 29,000 feet elevation.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

So here's a look at what's under your feet at the beach sometimes - a lotta pebbles.

Small, but their story is not insignificant.

All sanded, tumbled, washed by the ocean. Glistening before you.

Windblown, patterned, then eroded by unidentified forces.

A canvas for the travels of some little critter.

This is also about much wider, wilder topics -

Why the hell are we here?

Tumbling around like the pebbles on the beach...?

Here's what i do with sand in the darkroom:

"Matter of time"

(hand colored)

"Maze walker"

(B&W darkroom photomontage, circa 1994)

((There's a guy who comes to Ocean Beach in SF every once in a while, uses a rake

to carve designs in the sand, at low tide. That's his 'canvas'.

His work is short lived. Aren't we all? My negs will keep a bit longer than that.

I combined a shot of that with a ladder and the top of an old military ruin in Marin Headlands.

Reminds me of Jimi Hendrix version of a Bob Dylan song:

"There must be some some way outta here, said the joker to thief....."

If you haven't heard that track, you owe it to yourself to find it...

and play it really REALLY loud.))

And what did i do 'digitally'?

We don't know how good we have it!

Digital photography is so, soooo easy.

Read this:

"Carlton Watkins often used the wet-plate process to make his pictures. It was a laborious, expensive technique that with time, patience, and luck could yield exquisitely detailed images on glass plates. His famed mammoth-plate photographs, made with a custom-built camera that accommodated plates as large as 18 by 22 inches, were materially and financially exhausting. Making them required thousands of pounds of cameras, lenses, glass plates, plate holders, tripods, a dark tent for developing, and a mobile laboratory of volatile chemicals. Watkins often traveled by railcar, but just as often by steamer or mule train, as he did to photograph Yosemite Valley beginning in the late 1850s. It was worth the effort. His iconic panoramas of Yosemite and San Francisco would ensure his lasting fame. As historian Martha Sandweiss argues, the glass-plate pictures made by Watkins and his peers made California and the West “a familiar place to millions of Americans."

http://www.boomcalifornia.com/2015/08/river-glass/

I have been entranced by petroglyphs for a long time, anything about that catches my eye, gets read.

"Jonathan Bailey’s haunting photographs of Western pictographs join essays by Lawrence Baca, Greg Child, Lorran Meares and others to tell the larger story of a disappearing cultural heritage and the need for its conservation. Rock Art: A Vision of a Vanishing Cultural Landscape brings an ancient people to life through their stone-etched images, many of which are threatened by development and vandalism. “What will the future be for these images?” Bailey asks."

http://www.hcn.org/issues/48.1/rock-art-and-the-struggle-for-preservation

There are the two sides of human behavior visible below.

The beauty of the petroglyph, made by people with little technology but great spirit,

to want to record something in the stone,

speak out to whoever passed by for a long time.

And the ugliness of whoever defaced and desecrated their efforts.

Here's my favorite one:

"Dancing Man"

This reminds me of the high wire walker who went from one World Trade center tower to the other.

Did the creator of this glyph take into account it's positioning, standing on one crack,

seeming to 'hold' another? No one will ever know.

----------------

Last but not least? wouldn't ya just know it, from the NY Times!

"GPS is just one more way for us to strip-map the world, receding into our automotive cocoons as we run the maze."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/opinion/sunday/ignore-the-gps-that-ocean-is-not-a-road.html

Read this, an excellent way to spend a few minutes!

As always, quoting the terminator, "Ah'll be back".

A Coffee Shop - Far, far from Starbucks

noreply@blogger.com (CaliforniaSilverwizard) — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 00:28:00 +0000

I've heard many photographers say much the same thing about photoshop - it's a schizophrenic beast - you can do anything - which is simultaneously liberating... and suffocating. Easy to get lost in possibilities. VERY easy. But sometimes it's not so bad to get a bit lost.

I have one image that has been a few changes. It started with a shot made in Blythe CA, after dark, of a neon sign. 'Coffee shop - cocktails - lounge'.

Here's the quick digital sketch that kick-started the darkroom work:

I really like this one, here's the darkroom montage:

And a hand colored version:

It reminds me of many late night stops for food at who knows how many places in the Wash DC area I lived around for many years - '70 thru '92. A place on Wilson Blvd in Arlington Va suburbs...

Big fat meaty subs at 2 AM.

And a street-side shack in Alexandria Va, before it was yuppified, BBQ, hot dogs w/ all the fixin's, i was the only white person there. No problem. The racist crapola that goes on now just didn't seem to exist back then, at least at this place, just few years after riots in DC. I guess they figured if i was brave enough to be there, i was.. well... brave enough to be there, and was OK/'cool'.

Signs like this one are for some reason really a magnet.

I've come across a few, and they all sigh and moan of someplace that was, once, but is gone. Hopefully not forgotten.

Nowadays you drive down a freeway/interstate and see 100 foot tall poles, with 'Burger King' logos, and the like. They scream, they yell - don't need to. Any damn fool knows that taking any exit will lead you to food in no time short, so why all the fucking 100 ft tall noise? It obscures the view to a most beautiful never ending cinema - our skies.

In Edward Abbey's most marvelous book, Desert Solitaire, he describes his tenure as a park ranger at Arches Nat'l park many years ago. He was once visited by gov't folks who told him the park was going to be 'improved', new roads built to accomodate visitors. They left a trail of stakes w/ orange flags on them, marking the way the new road would come. In his infinite wisdom, Abbey proceded to pull up all the stakes, and fling them into the desert, erasing the 'gummint' boys work.

I'd like to do that to 100 ft tall logos, but it would probably require dynamite, and i would get in deep trouble.

I will hope that the rising El Nino will bring super fierce winds, and knock them all down, save my sorry ass for being carted off to jail.

So... to get back to the darkroom print - it's technically pretty easy.

The sign at the top, dodged out quickly in the middle.

Overlaid w/ some seriously cirrus clouds, also dodged out quickly in the middle.

The shot at the bottom was made in the Marin Headlands, north of SF, a display of some sort of military stuff, also dodged out quickly in the middle.

I love the plates, cups, and silverware, all laid out just so.

Ready for pancakes? Bacon and eggs? Maybe some hash browns?

The 'whatever catches my eye' file has been making few appearances lately.

Here's one that's worth it:

http://www.deepseanews.com/2015/10/malacology-monthly-inside-out/

And a bookstore!

http://www.deepseanews.com/resources/the-essential-dsn-library/

They even a book on sale that caught my eye, seeing as how in my recently published book, 'California Beach Trip: