April Sailing #3

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The Blue Cloud is where we slept last weekend... and played last weekend as Jeremy taught Steve how to sail the thing. Ever been out on the Chesapeake Bay? We live just above it a few miles from the Susquehanna river that feeds the Bay. Still, with Friday night traffic it took about two hours to drive to Annapolis where they berth the yacht.

A stateroom bed sloshed gently by the water's a tonic for sleep. It took me three days to get rid of my sea legs though.

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For those who like to see the originals of these images... here's what the image above grew from. Pretty ordinary, no?

April Sailing #2

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My buddy Steve contracted with Jeremy Hopkins to teach him to handle the 36 foot sailing yacht he chartered. Jeremy learned his craft in the Royal Navy and he's got papers that will probably let him captain an aircraft carrier. He's charming, and more importantly he can teach. It's in his manner actually, he's one of those people who not only loves what he does, but shares the passion - y'know what I'm sayin' here? He teaches by letting the student do. Impressive.

I like this triptych ... it's nuanced to say a lot about the guy's seriousness, charm, and humor. Add in competence and well... character matters, eh? And it's that kind of strength that can turn a student's resolve into action. Which gets me back to the teaching point.

April Sailing #1

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Went sailing on the Chesapeake last weekend from Friday through Sunday. My friend Steve Cornibert chartered a 36 foot something or other yacht. He hired Jeremy, a master seaman, to teach him to master a boat of this size. So this was a training voyage for Steve, work for Jeremy, and for me... manly leisure.

Saturday was sunny and almost hot. Here I am on one of my few appearances above decks. Hmmmmm.... Actually Saturday I spent a lot of time up there mostly picture taking. Tried my hand at the wheel, and dropping anchor. Did my best to avoid pulling sheets and mucking with the sails. Mucking of course is a nautical term, along with luff, jib, and head. Speaking of heads... here are a couple of mine that I took myself with my wide angle lens. Behind me in the first is Jeremy and Steve in the second.

Bummer

Early last year I bought a 17" MacBook Pro. In October while in Italy, the Hard Drive spontaneously crashed and destroyed all of my stored data of that trip. Apple replaced the hard drive. In February that hard drive crashed, destroying all un-backed up data. Apple replaced the MacBook Pro. Last Tuesday the new machine's hard drive (All Seagates) crashed destroying all un-backed up data including all files pertaining to my last posting of Pigeon Point Lighthouse. These .jpgs then are the only remaining examples of this image. I am very bummed. Apple has the machine, they are apparently replacing the hard drive. Sigh. Thanks for your interest in these images, I like them, but they will never be printed. Darn.

A small footnote: According to the internet reports (simply Google +MacBook Pro +Seagate for a lot of examples of the crashes), when these Seagate drives crash they tear through the disks making data recovery impossible. I am now three for three, a terrible set of coincidences I guess.

I'M OFF SAILING THIS WEEKEND! Going out onto Chesapeake Bay for a couple of days. Hope the images will be cool and the days warm. We'll see next week, eh?

Pigeon

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Nothing deep tonight. Actually this is a touch of self defense. A friend said, "Ted, like the way you reveal your imagination through all of these enhancements. But come on... can you actually take a straight picture?" To tell the truth, it's been a long time since I've just pulled a naked image out of my camera, spanked its little bottom and sent it out into the world. It almost felt unnatural. But ... errrrg.... okay, okay. Suppose I... I did it, but really quickly slapped a couple of layers of stuff atop them? Huh? Huh? So... here are three sets of Pigeon Pt. Lighthouse. That's about as vanilla a site as possible, right?





<- Click here (Romantic) Let's crank up the volume, lather over glam filter, and diddle with the relative values so that everything enters that romantic dream world where we store memories of lighthouses in the sun.






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Nahhhhh... too gentle... too girly.... What I need are edges sharp enough to shave my beard. A sky that crackles in the clean air. Images harder than than a heavy metal guitar lick. Can't you feel the wind swipe across this point?

So see? I can kick the habit and do straight images, right? But, um, not for long. Hmmm.... you think I need rehab?

Fisherman Wharf Muscle Workers

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Master photographer Craig Tanner started this with an image he posted on February 14th. Click here to check Craig's image out and read the title closely. I posted a comment on that Tanner image and since then I've been on the lookout for sort of the same thing a continent away from Craig's Savannah morning.

So? Wuddaya think? Gotcha covered in San Francisco Craig... No need to travel 3,000 miles, right?

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And here's the as-usual original...

As Promised

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Penelope stopped struggling , perhaps because of the rope that held her snug to the mizzen… Or perhaps because of the scoop of her neckline that held her far less snugly with each new fidget. Regardless of her motives, the plucky lass froze and watched through bomb-bursted air as the mighty ships engaged.

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I found Penelope in a far back corner of a marine supply store along San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf. She seemed abandoned atop a heap of rigging and ship fittings. I suspect that she was carved from wood and may be an authentic masthead from an 18th century brigantine. I'm guessing that she is tied to that pole until a buyer gives her a new home. At any rate, I pictured the image and found the tiny cheap Tall Ship models at at a tacky tourist shop a couple of stores up from Penelope's present home. This images came together almost exactly as I'd envisioned. Hope you enjoy.

Damsel At Sea

Coming here VERY soon.... Damsel In Distress.... Wheeeee!

Artifact

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It didn't so much sit as it squatted there in front of the 10AM sun forcing everyone to squint. And I wonder, does squinting cause reality to scrunch into your imagination? I'm just sayin' that when you squint way down upon something, are you only letting enough in through your eyes to see it as it is, or as your imagination wants it to be? Hmmmmm?

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And if you're wondering what the camera saw without squinting... Here's the original.

Giant Camera

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Scientists say that writing was originally pictures of visual events. These were symbols designed to release information that the reader already had. You know, the bull getting pierced with arrows. You see the stick figures, you understand it's a hunt, right? But suppose someone who'd never heard of bulls or arrows came upon the thing. The information the symbols were supposed to release would be forever lost.

All images are like that. Here the Giant Camera looms against the sky in a starkly impersonal alleyway seared by a noon-day sun. How much do I need to tell you to have these symbols make sense? How much sense do you suck from information which you bring to the viewing? Do you need to know that this is Seal Rocks, at the edge of San Francisco? Does ithe name of the place settle your questions? Or is there still a massive amount of mystery here? Hmmmm?

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Should you be interested, here's the original of the image above. Enjoy...

Collage Panorama

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Last Saturday I posted the first in this very short series. Frank Fico has a gallery on West Queen Street in downtown Lancaster in the art district. It's principally a hair salon that's been designed to showcase fine art. Last Friday night, my friend Ron Etteman's one-man show opened there. That's Ron lurking behind the palm on the right. You can see the steady stream of visitors gave him a lot of support . That's a good thing, eh? It's interesting how shops all around Gallery Row are re-hab-ing to create more gallery space as Lancaster's fine art market explodes. With an exquisite regional symphony, an excellent professional theatre company and now dozens of galleries displaying original art, the city's entered a renaissance. This could be an outstanding summer.

BTW: Sorry, this panorama was created from three pictures so I cannot easily show you the originals.I can tell you though that it was an interesting exercise in color balancing since Ron's picture used flash fill as did the sculpture on the left.

Quarry

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Susan Sontag gave me an idea. In her provocative book, "On Photography" she writes that some photographers and collectors consider that the world is well on its way to becoming one vast quarry, and that we are in the pious work of salvage.

"Hmmmm...." I thought. "Let me go see if I can salvage something that soon won't be anyplace but in an image. And let me see if i can do an image that excavates some juicy fragment of a past that's just outside of the memories of most of us." That's when I saw this ghost up there on that wall. How long since John Henry Mills stopped selling drugs and Coca Cola? And how long until the morning sun finally sucks the last memory of John Henry Mills from those bricks?

Sontag is right, I think. If we really look we can show a new beauty in what is vanishing. And in not too long, this image may be the only record that John Henry Mills ever sold drugs and coke. It's a new thing and an old one simultaneously quarried out of a small piece of the fading world. Cool.

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If you'd like to study it, here's the original high up above West Orange street in Lancaster's center city.

Pennsylvania Primary #1

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Some 150 years ago on this corner they may have heard cannon fire rolling in from Gettysburg to the west. Or perhaps an odd calvary troop or supply train meandered along these streets. Four score and seven years before that the British were garrisoned all about keeping their horses in private homes just up that street to the left there. A year or so before that the Continental Congress of the United States declared this place the nation's capital and held session about two blocks off to the right of this spot.

History has a way of passing through the city of Lancaster, stopping for a chat and a meal, then swirling on its way.

It's garrisoned in store fronts today. Here's one just across North Queen Street. Fitting this one's on Queen Street, eh? I tried to walk my dog Rocco past the other as well this afternoon but couldn't find it. Maybe next weekend.

The thing is, Lancaster has a way of putting history into perspective... Calming it down. Then sending if off to do whatever it's going to do... Usually somewhere else.

Um, yeah I know that's the Clinton HQ and yes I know which way the sign is pointing. Y'godda problem widdat? :)

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Here for those of you who are interested, let me plunk the picture from my camera.

Urban Art Float

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A friend opened a show last night... his first. I went to do my own idiosyncratic image take on the opening. You know, like this...

The gallery is also a sizzling city beauty salon. Very chi-chi... very trendy... very IN! They've installed excellent track lighting and the art work is well lit on walls that are broken with large panes so the inside plays peek-a-boo with the city just beyond the windows.

It's as if the art's afloat in an urban attitude.

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For those who want to see... here are the originals out of the camera.

Image Fiction

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Once upon a time there was something called, The Short Story, which was printed in weekly and monthly magazines. And it came to pass that those long gone magazines hired people whose imaginations created images from those fictional tales. And those illustrations became inseparable from those stories... defining as much for the readers as the author's own words. Perhaps more?

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And my original picture? Here it be...

Quality Of Presence

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I did not take this picture.... I made it.

You understand the difference?

Hmmmm?


Early March, 2008: Seal Rocks Beach
San Francisco, CA.

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Here's the original for ya...