From my pre-digital days. Christo and Jean Claude's Reichstag Wrapping in June of 1995. I was visiting a friend in Berlin and did not know of their art-work in Berlin although i was very familiar with their public art works. So, it was a delight when my friend took me to see the wrapped Reichstag ... i fell in love with it and visited it a variety of times while i was there and someone even gave me a bit of the cloth that was used to wrap the building. It was an amazing sight and the photo turned out the same way.

I have decided that for the month of November i shall not shoot any  photographs, rather,  work my way thru the images i currently have in my computer and hope to throw out 20% or so as they now number over 110K, most of which i've never looked at past the inputing stage. Also, i didn't know about much about key wording i've not been doing it for the past 8-9 years so you can image ... maybe best not to.

And i'm hopin' to put photos here from over the years as i come across ones i like and didn't do anything with ... drop back by every so often to see what's here.

I was in Tucson a couple of weeks ago and now that i'm about to post a few photos from there i'm reminded about my lack of foresight when it comes to displaying photos from a particular place of city. I have no photos of Tucson per se; it never occurs to me to photograph a city so that i can show the setting of the shoot. Just gotta remember that!

The second morning there a friend directed us to a parking lot in the hills outside of Tucson from which we could look across the city and plains to a raising sun. It was a spectral sunrise:

It was interesting to see the sky go from relatively dark to amazing colors of red, orange and yellows back to a somewhat subdued grey and white clouds as the sun rose higher and higher.

Eventually the sun's rays began to appear:

Part of the difficulties of presenting a series of a sunrise is to keep the changes consistent to their original appearance and not boast the colors, contrast, etc., or they lose their original value ... leastwise, they do to me. 

And eventually we have the, more or less, daytime grey and white clouds of full daylight

As you can see i didn't really think this series though before shooting. Once the sunrise begins so does the shooting and if i've not thought it though (which i hadn't) then capturing a coherent story falls to the wayside and i end up with some nice sunrise photos but not really a sunrise story.

SOoooo, that is somewhat the purpose of this blog ... to allow me to see how i'm progressing along the spectrum of "shooting to show" which is a title i just made up and rather like. Yes, i want to lear to "Shoot to Show" and will work towards that particular goal in and with this photo blog.

The area around Tucson is known for its Saguaro Cactus and even has a park dedicated to them: Saguaro Park.

 And this is how they end up ... all the outer skin falls off after a couple hundred years and they become 'Ghost Saguaro Cactus' and become very skeleton looking. Eventually even the dark skin falls off and the cactus looks like bamboo poles sticking into the air.

Sadly, i neglected to photograph any of those (which are rather rare for reasons i don't quite understand).

Manjushri

GGF Altar

One of my favorite images of Manjushri; the bamboo is around her for the Thanksgiving Day set-up which is when this photo was taken, Nov '05.

Sunday we used our Groupon to spend the midday at Filoli Gardens, an estate given to the American Heritage Society in the mid 70's. http://filoli.org  I have know about it since it became open to the public in the 70's but have never visited. It is an amazing place and if you live in the Bay Area i recommend a week day visit as its fairly crowded on weekends. Built by a very wealthy couple it was designed based upon an old castle in Ireland:

Muckross House which they also owned and gave to the Irish Trust at the end of their use.

The house was amazing with 24 rooms and a living space for a household staff of 10. 

Dining Room

Ladies Sitting Room

Everywhere were beautiful flower setting, all from their gardens - even in October. 

While beautiful gardens surrounded the house, they too were suffering from the drought in CA.  And except for low-level watering, most of the surrounding area was brown and dry. Still, the reflection pool was cooling just to look at as it was in the mid 90's by noon.

This was their apple harvest, 3-4 dozen different apples. Were were a couple weeks late for their harvest and plan to return next year in early Sep to see the laden trees and perhaps purchase some-yum!


This weeks Creative Photography homework is about relationships and i have some ideas for that - more in the coming days.

http://www.spiritualage.org/zen-living.aspx

The above line is a 20 min talk by Norman Fisher, a friend and buddhist teacher from my time at SFZC. If you have any interest in buddhist practice, meditation or just grounded living, this is an excellent presentation of that possibility.

This is today's home assignment for the Creative Photography Class. The subject was to photograph sound. Of course, sound is not visible so the images has to evoke a sense of sound. This was, and still is, a challenge. Initially i had the images in the opposite order starting with the sound graph, then the song id followed by the speakers. When i reversed them i like the sense of movement better and think it gives a more compact image of sound. Of course, now that i'm thinking about it again, i'm not so sure of the order. I had many other images in mind but this was immediate to my camera's location, so i went with this ... i'm fairly happy with it.

This image:

taken last week is of the Australian Walking Stick's egg. It is exceptionally small and using a macro set-up, i was able to get this shot. Yesterday i worked at getting a closer shot of that strange horse shoe shaped appendage; alas, it was mostly a failure. Oh, the set up was fine but i live on the second floor of an apartment bldg and there is just too much movement going on to get such a detail photographed without movement. I'm looking for a venus that is stable - i'll post the photos when that happens.

Yesterday i spend a few hours at Becky's home photographing the eggs of the Australian Walking Stick (that is pictured in the first post). Trixie, the AWS's name, literally drops eggs 5-6 times a day as she moves around the house. They are about pin-head size and very hard. Brown and white striped, they initially appear slightly oblong like a football. However, we found a variety of parts and protrusions that are not visible without magnification.

The images below don't have anything in the photo to compare them with such as a penny or dime, etc., so there is not reference but i'll add some when i do additional shooting today or tomorrow.

The assumption is that the brown band is sealing the egg; we don't know what the lighter color protrusion on the left is nor what the horse-shoe shaped relief is on the band. One theory for the horse-shoe is that that is where the egg is attached to the Walking Stick which allows it to hang out of the birthing canal (that is not the correct terminology) and when ready, it can be pushed off allowing it to drop. Please know that is just an idea of the use of the horse-shoe and may have nothing to do with that idea in reality.

Pretty neat photos and about 4-5 times the actually size of the egg.

* * * * * * *

Pt. Reyes 

Most of Friday i spent at Pt Reyes heading from the main office towards the ocean. It was a bit over a six mile walk to get there and my friend, a fellow photographer, and i turned around at about the 4.5 mi point. Mostly 'cause that was far enough for the day for me and we still had to return to Richmond and traffic was building as we decided. We went for the photographic opportunities. And there were many. The best was the series of the bobcat who sorta put himself on display for the camera.

At a distance, he seemed maybe a house cat:

And there was a longish discussion with a passerby and my friend about it being a house cat that lived in the woods. But taking photos and looking at the in the viewfinder up close soon showed its heritage:

And then as it walked across the field it found a small log that it proceeded to scratch it chin on and then mark it as it left:

And then he walked off into the long grass:

I don't know how this looks to you, the viewer, as its rather small on my monitor taking only about a third of the screen. I'd like some feedback from whom ever may be seeing this blog as to the size and view ability (seems that should be one word but not according to this computer's dictionary) of the images.

It had rained earlier in the morning giving a light glistening to the shrubs and trees and leaving puddles waiting to be walked in.

Seeing the clouds reflected in the puddle reminded me of the line in Carly Simon's "You're So Vain", ...clouds in my coffee ...

I like earthy tones with reminders of recently fallen rain ... there's a kinda of richness that gives me a fresh and renewing feeling.

It is Saturday morning here and the sounds in the kitchen following on the heels of the coffee grinder and the subsequent aroma remind me that it is time to put together the market list for the shopping we will do in another hour or so.

May your day be mindfully peaceful.

* * * * * * *

Am taking a photography class with Becky Jaffe (http://beckyjaffephotography.com) which is about basics, a form i can certainly return to as that is what these images grow out of. Below are some images from yesterday's class on light:

Tilted Keyboard

Peppers

Tilted lens

Well, its probably not possible but the image above has a sharp G and a soft J as the lens was not flat when the shot was done and i rather liked that - that's part of what i'm learning about this blog ... the image needs to be 12-15" across on your monitor to see that detail, oh well.

Insects, brrrrr

In many ways i'm not really a fan of bugs and insects (they may be the same) and once took a good photograph of a relatively large spider in its web which gave me such creeps that once i looked at the image i immediately closed it and have never gone back to it. And, as a photographer and fairly inquisitive person, i find that pretty strange. So, when my Creative Photographer teacher brought her pet Australian walking stick (Extatosoma tiaratum) to class, i shivered a bit as i looked at it and decided i wasn't going to take any photos of it. Still, that was the assignment later in the class and so i ended up with this shot which is a fairly good portrait of Trixie (because she is tricky, says the teacher).

This is my first post in this new blog and about which i know almost nothing in terms of how to use it but assume that as i use it more often, i'll become adept at the different possibilities.

I think that for the time being i shall limited its use and posting to photographs and how i may or may not be struggling within that area called "art." And no, i don't know what art is ... isn't everything a kind of art? Or at least can be view as art?

Some years ago i was working on some macros of String of Pearls when this very small spider jumped up the side and quickly made its way to the top of the blooms. I tried, many times, to chase it away but to no avail and then i realized what an opportunity was being presented to me. This was the resulting portrait of this very tenacious small spider. 

Wed, Sep 24th, '14

On Sunday, i spent the day at GGF going 'tween listening to a on-site talk about the changing creek bed to accommodate the possible growth of salmon over the coming years (fingerlings had been found in the creek over the past decade) and visiting with a friend at Muir Beach who was having a 'Parting Party' for her friends as she prepared to take a different path in her life and was moving to N Arizona to begin work as a women's health worker to the Navaho. This was the fire in the firepit they were cooking over.

It was a wonderful gathering of family and friends and while there was some sadness at the parting of ways, there was much greater happiness for her as she began a new journey into a newer life. I wished her well on her journey and hope to visit her in Arizona some day.

The creek bed changes were awesome. In very raw form, the land had been dug, the channel taking shape and redwood logs were being placed strategically to allow shade and shelter for the fish. This is the form it currently is taking:

  

The photos seem awfully small and i'm very much still learning how to work this blog ... just a minute ago i clicked on a photo to see if it'd appear larger and the whole blog disappeared and i couldn't find how to get back to it - sigh, i'm sure its all very simple, just gotta learn how.

The top creek photo's blue line shows the path of the future creek bed and the two photos of the redwood logs show both how they are arranged and how they are bolted (you mean they bolt logs into a creek bed??) together which seems to be an art unto itself. Much more work is to be done on the creek but the speaker thought they would be through by the end of Oct in time for whatever rains we may get this year. Regardless, there is water running in the creek now although it is sidelined so the work can be done in the dry. I'm looking forward to see the water flow and spent sometime looking for a place to take photographs.