The Great Hunger: 1845-52

Once upon a time, England ruled a conquered Ireland. It's native Irish people labored as tenants – forbidden by British law to vote or own land – paid in the potato crop they raised on a quarter acre of marginal land allotted to each tenant family. The rest of the rich earth produced corn, grain, vegetables, and livestock as rent for the British – frequently absentee – landlords. Between 1845 and 1852 a virus annihilated only potatoes, while the majority of remaining land produced rich yields for export. There was abundant food, but none made available to the Irish tenants who farmed it. They starved by the millions suffering not in a great famine but a Great Hunger. Other millions emigrated, many to America, Canada, and Australia. The country has never regained that mid 19th century population.

In Dublin stand these specters of The Great Hunger's victims.

Canon 7D, Canon EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6), PP in PS4 Paint and custom textures created with AlienSkin: SnapArt4, Impasto. Custom brushes.

Invited Up To See His Etchings

At Waterford he sits
Digging into sparkles
Peering from the outside in
To a crystal ball
Filled with
Tomorrow.







We went wandering last week in Ireland (4/28-5/5/13), PP in PS4 to enhance the dynamic range of this etcher's magical aura. AlienSkin Bokeh 3 masked in to create depth.

Bosporus Sun

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Squint in the glare
Of summer.
Not though from
The sun's searing light.

Squint at Turkey's
Deep color.
Un-bleached from
The day's blasting bright.

Along Istanbul's Bosporus • July 2011 • Canon EOS 7D • Canon EF-S10-22mm @ f/3.8, 1/320, ISO200 • 4 panel pano • custom dynamic enhancements in PS4:AlienSkin: Various textures created in SnapArt3, Custom brushes. Sky imagined in PS4.

The Grubb Mansion, Lancaster

<- Click here Almost next to my home sits the Lancaster Museum of Art inside of the restored 18th century Grubb Mansion. Behind the museums Musser Park occupies a city block. The park’s bordered on all sides by largely single family homes which also pre-date the Civil War by fifty to a hundred years. The Museum’s recently announced the appointment of a new Executive Director. My wife and I will hold a reception next month to introduce her to the Musser Park and Historic District neighbors. We need an illustration for the front of the invitation…. Here it is. I’m anxious to capture the dignity of the old building, and its haunting personality. Moreover, it seemed correct to present it at dawn… together with the mood of a new day for the director and this grand old lady of urban art. Canon G10, 6 panels merged in PS4: Topaz Adjust5 (custom settings), Original textures designed in Alien Skin: Exposure 4 (custom settings). dynamic range spot layered in PS4.

Ike Spake...

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"Things are more like they are now than they ever were before."

- Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th president of the United States


During the 50s, the Technicolor order of the time irritated intellectuals who detested the glue that held the cultural moment together.

Daddies worked in grey flannel or denim so that mommies could raise kids in families that drove to Dairy Queen for a weekend after-church treat. One job was good enough to handle all of that with health care, and pension dreams... During the 50s, when there was too much sun.

Things are less like that now than they ever ware before... Eh? And intellectuals have bleached away the Technicolor sheen from memories snap-shot... during the 50s.

Biking just out of Lancaster I stalked Ike's thoughts in the squint-glare of mid-day. Canon G10, ISO 200, 30.5mm at f/3.2. PP in PS4 w/AlienSkin: Exposure 4: high contrast enhanced AnscoChrome faded. Filter custom designed w/SnapArt3 - tailored layering of impasto rendered as cellphone strokes.

Christmas 2012 (1)

Went to visit the grand nieces... Hard to imagine of the holiday without kids lurking somewhere, eh?

1. Here's the eldest... Katelyn, she's three with the specter of 10 month Samantha growing in the background. First born's first Christmas with the baby crawling about in Samantha's wake.... Heh... heh... heh...

2. Katelyn though is old enough to glow from the Christmas moment...

3.Tiny Samantha though's getting the idea about glowing lights and sparkly packages... and the attention that baby's attract...

4. And off in the corner sit the gang from Katelyn's Christmases past...

Merry and happy everyone... I'll mine these flash card throughout the winter. Funny how we squirrel away these hundreds of nuts to feed us into the darkest and coldest months... eh?

Just Like The Ones....

Merry, blessed, holy, happy, loving... And all of the other joys of whatever you Enjoy with those around you And those you recall. All my best everyone...

Ted

That's my own little blue Ford.

Canon 7D: Canon EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6): Macro mode, PS-4: Filtered through Alien Skin's Bokeh 2.

Pastoral

Artists stalk
The unexpected feeling…
To wall mount.

Canon G10: PS4 – Custom textures, AlienSkin: SnapArt•OilPaint – Custom settings & layer brushes. AlienSkin: Exposure4: Custom lighting. AlienSkin: BlowUp3 (500%)

Settings: Bargers: Chevy Chase, MD • Woods: Lancaster County, PA, Sky: Custom textures

Summer Brideg

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"What''ll it be when I grow up?"

The boy wondered as he hugged to the bridge.

"What's over there waiting?" he thought.

"What's on that side of the life's oddly shaped ridge?"

Did he want to go, he wondered?

Did he need to leave this summer place?

"Can't I stay here feeling a while?

Can't I just hold onto this glowing-soft space?"

Summer sprays its indelible inks

Upon memories of the moments we clung

To our first sense of the coming span of time

and the soft-warm moment of feeling so young.

Sunset On Middle Street

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“Just once,” the old worker muttered,

“Just once in anyone’s lifetime I’d like to see…”

(Was that a tear? Or did the sun make him squint?)

“Just once I’d like to see…

a recession start in Washington. Or at least…”

(Yeah, it was a tear…)

“Finally hit the hundreds of thousands of bastards down there gettin’ fat…”

He shrugged toward his mailbox hung on crumbling bricks

“Off the bills they cram into that!
Winter’s comin’,” He whispered. 

“We gotta’ make ’em STOP!”

Late August’s sun lowered over Middle Street.

Sunday evening. Canon G10, Topaz custom enhancements, spot masked dynamic range adjustments, OnOne Hollywood Glow.

Ambition's Peak

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The big reach up from

A small town’s dreams

Ended at the peak

Of it’s tallest

Building…

Back then.

Do you hear talk of RECOVERY? How nations and states and cities and towns will rebound? Have you ever looked around to wonder how many never recovered the roar of the 1920s? Has Argentina? Has Moscow? Has Cincinnati? How much ambition and hope expired eleven, twelve, or thirteen stories up… up there at the roofline of a town’s tallest building? When the Roaring Twenties went… mute.

The Griest Building, Lancaster, PA.

Canon 20D, Canon EF-S 10-22mm (f3.5-4.5), PS 4: Custom cloud textures, Topaz Adjustment, AlienSkin Exposure 4 (custom settings), SnapArt3: custom watercolor, custom wet brushes, spot-added color shifting adjustment layers.Created to be printed 5’ on vertical edge

Just Off Nantucket

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From boat-deck.

August, Summer, Hot, Night.

Canon, 7D, Canon EFS 17-85 (f4-5.6), PS4: AlienSkin: SnapArt3, Impasto, custom brushes.

NYC: 5th Ave. At Central Park

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Consensus disciplines perception

Perception focuses judgment

Judgment triggers conviction

Conviction colors streets nasty.

Found on July 12th 2012 as I walked along 5th Avenue.

Canon 7D, Canon EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6), PS4: Topaz Adjustment, Custom texture, AlienSkinExposure 4: Color Films – Polaroid/faded-darkened, Snap Art Blow Up 3 (300% enlargement). Custom spot-applied color shift adjustment layers, original created to be printed at 27" X 36".

Crayon New York City °1

In high July color

Bubbles and melts.

Like flamed-plastic toys.

Like feeling-seared film.

I walked through New York’s mid-day tropics… Storing stuff in my memory-bin that’s marked Summer In The City. I found new image puddles – left out in the noon-day sun – that melted right over those I’d stored in that bin before. These new ones were like casings to harden around stacked feelings that burble and glow when I poke around for memories of city summer.

Crayoned Impressionism: Canon 7D, Canon EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6), PS4: Two square details carved from a 3 panel vertical pano, Topaz Adjustment, AlienSkinExposure 4: Color Films - Polaroid/faded-darkened, Snap Art3: Crayon. Custom spot-applied color shift adjustment layers, original created to be printed at 30" X 60".

Epiphany or Serendipity

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As you swirl your

Stew of meaning

With a spoon of craft...

Do you discover

That epiphany is

Serendipity?

Here's a runner preparing for Lancaster's Race Against Racism on a cool April morning. The thing about the Race Against Racism is that.... Nobody loses... Y'know what I'm saying'?

Canon 7D, Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM lens, PS4: Custom texture screen, Alien Skin: Exposure 4/Color Films - vintage/Autochrome