Whoa! They're... Like Tribbles!

A Couple Of Amsterdam's Bike Park Lots

There are other cities where bikes are like... well... cockroaches. They scurry everywhere in Amsterdam. And the inspire every visiting mayor from America to accomplish the same thing at home. The thing is that except for some humpy canal bridges - Holland is FLAT! Still it doesn't stop the hope-springs-eternal-crowd. There's a relentless effort here in Lancaster to duplicate Amsterdam's bike-friendliness. And I do bike around regularly, particularly in summer. 

Still, in Amsterdam people of all ages own bikes and they collectively congest every inch of the place. Lancaster's built on the rolling hills of Central Pennsylvania. These hills are not particularly friendly to people uninterested in serious exercise. So we're going through a lot of bike-path-on-existing-streets-construction to satisfy a really small percentage of the population. Today, Sunday, I watered the front flora and in the twenty or so minutes on a perfect summer early afternoon, a lone kid on a bike passed by. And we live on one of the city's main arteries. 

Not surprising I've got mixed feelings about Amsterdam's bikes. On the one hand, they fit the place so perfectly, and they are a faster way around that place than even a car or cab. But they infect the ambitions of American politicians to duplicate an unduplicatable phenomenon. In that latter case those burgeoning bike lots are just another threat to my pocketbook by the same well-meaning dreamers who tried to give everyone a mortgage back in the first decade of this century... A whim for which we are still paying ten years after.
Sigh!

GEEK STUFF: Used my Canon 7D from a river boat where the bright sun allowed me to hand hold its EF-S17-85mm at about 900 ISO. Post processed in PSCC-2018 implying Alien Skin's Snap Art 4 after I'd reworked the photo to bring out its ominous feelings with a starker palette. Fun stuff. 

Radical Chromectomy

Because we can. 

You know, fine art photography's a lot like Everest. Why climb it? Because we can. 

Once upon a time an amateur fine-art photographer lacked the budget to do much creative color work. It was not just expensive, it was tedious. And with the fumes, the process was even a tad dangerous. It was always unpredictable and it ended in unreproducible results. Today full jacket chrome is ordinary as a mini-skirt in Spring. No, that's even too rare... It's ordinary as boy with lust in his heart when he spots a mini-skirt in Spring, right? 

So we're challenged with the emotional goo that chrome pours all over every image. The challenge is multiplied by a zillion. Hence the allure of B&W image making. Here, look at this 1949 Ford Anglia Bristol van that a Killarney shop's got in the middle of its floorspace. It glows with colored feeling. 

OK, and now, instead of finding ways to add chrome to our B&W darkroom-world, we can perform radical chromectomy. Like this...

Okay, have I added by subtracting? Or have I subtracted by adding the chromectomy? How much emotion is ripped away in B&W? Or... are these dramatically different messages, each as complex? But how can something be made differently complex by taking a scalpel to it? Hmmmm... 

Gotta' think on this :-) Should the age of mono-chrome be over? Or is mono really a surrender to the complex challenge of the colors of life? A retreat? 

Thoughts? 

Paradise Panels

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What is the difference
Between picturing
A truck and
Pondering
Truckiness?

And if something
Is trucky yet just
Pieces of
Things that are
Trucky-like
Have we then
Merely pondered
Trucks?

The truck ruins sit garaged, or barned in a place nearby to Paradise, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. And since I found it in parts… it seemed best displayed… in panels, huh?

great big

Canon G10, PS4, Topaz Adjust 5, Custom photo-pop brushes and texture screens.

Antalya to Konya

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Somewhere in the hills
Of Turkey lies
The debris
Of wandering
Civilizations.

Turkey well on the road to Konya from Antalya. Canon 7D, PS4: custom textures, AlienSkin: SnapArt3: Crayon, custom brushes. My classic Ford truck.


Of course that's my cool desktop TOY1931 classic Ford Model Aclassic, right?

NOW FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT?



Here's my first experiment with the all new Topaz Adjustment5: Dusk. Whuddayaa think?

Turkey Notes - Istanbul Morning

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The morning call
Echoes from
Mosque to mosque.
A soprano melody
Along the city bustle
Melody line.

I took notes – with my Canon. Jotting onto FlashCards: my feelings. And of course in Istanbul, you feel the morning pull you awake. Is the city always sunny? dunno... but we never saw rainy clouds in July anywhere in the country. Of course it was mid summer and it was hot. Surprisingly there were palm trees in Istanbul. Since it sits at about the same latitude as Lancaster, we were told that the weather was comparable. But a palm tree would freeze its coconuts off here in the Red Rose city. Maybe it's because Istanbul pokes into both the Black Sea and the Med that it's warmer in winter? Anyone know?

Notice the buses in this scene. Istanbul has a spectacular public transit grid of mixed buses trolleys and light rail together with a bustling taxi and limo industry. The things are crowded at all hours. SRO... But with maybe 19 million people living in the city, a tad of crowding is expected, huh?

Last point... I tried to make this, at least in part, about the neighborhood mosque where the Imam chants/sings the morning call to prayer. And that is an interesting point. It was explained that while Turkey is a secular nation without a state church, the government does erect mosques and hires the imams who I suppose are sensitive to the um... sensitivities... of the interests of the place from which their checks come? Dunno, but it's an interesting arrangement.Actually the prayer call coming from the loud speakers on most minarets is a peaceful background sound, much like the peeling of church bells.

Istanbul, Turkey – Monday morning
Canon 7D, PS4: pano stitch, custom brushes, filters, Topaz, Alien Skin: SnapArt: Impasto, Custom textures.

The Line's End

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She still stands there waiting
A whistle or smoke,
She still stands there waiting
Her lines thronged with folk.

But her tracks now are rusting
With weeds grown to choke
Off the chance to leave searching
For dreams that aren’t broke.
*
New Columbia, PA
Canon 40D/Canon EF-S 10-22mm (f3.5-4.5): PS4/Topaz, AlienSkin:SnapArt2, Watercolor, Custom brushes/textures (Thanks, Distressed Jewel)

Martini - Shaken

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I stood above
Chris’s Lotus.
And I
Realized
How heat…
Rises.
Canon 7D: PS4, Tabletop, Topaz, AlienSkin: SnapArt, Colored Pencils, Custom: Textures & Brushes

FWOOOOM...

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Chris loaned me his 2007 Corvette.
It's very ... very ... quick.


Especially atop a table.

Canon 20D: PS4, Topaz, AlienSkin: Bokeh2 & SnapArt: Water Color

Roman Time

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Time exists so that
Everything doesn't
Seem to happen at
Once.

In Rome I noticed that different things seem to change by different clocks. Change needs time, but time is an oddly capricious engine. I wonder though if that big... big... window, unlike the nail-chewing lad, has figured out how to waste its time? Hmmm.... maybe that's what makes us different from everything else that exists?

••••

Took this in Rome with my Canon 20 at about 20mm and processed it with PS4, Topaz, Alien Skin's SnapArt: oil paint. The brushes and texture screens are customized for this image.

History's End

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There’s only one track now
Coming to or
Going from?
Castel Gandolpho.

Where once the Popes
Ruled the West
In summer heat
That hasn’t cooled.

Though history
Has…

I wonder if this track is there to fill the now tiny town or to empty it out? I wonder if the devil lies, as they say, in the details? That is to say that the devil dares to lie anywhere near a papal palace.

Geek Stuff
Cannon 20D, Post Processing in PS:CS4: Topaz, Alien Skin: SnapArt – Colored Pencils, custom textures and brushes.

SIZZZZZLE!

<- Borrowed my friend Chris's Bugatti last Sunday and took it to Musser Park nearby to my home here in Lancaster. Wanted to pop this beast out of the rich lighting. I'm not a MotorHead. But the art of design makes me twitch. And the Veyron ... well now this is one manly beast! And probably a chick magnet, huh?


GEEK STUFF Here's Chris's Bugatti Veyron shot with my Canon 70D through the Canon EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6) in macro mode. Post processing happened with CS/PS4 • Topaz • AlienSkin Bokeh, AlienSkin SnapArt/Water Color • Custom Brushes • Custom Textures all upon a background captured one night in Intercourse, PA.

Nostalgic Or Historic Or Fabled?

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Does nostalgia belong only to the living? Are fables only as real as an imagination? And where does history fit between the two? I'm just sayin'....

***

Geek stuff: Canon 7D, texture, Topaz, AlienSkin SnapArt Oil, Table Top Art.

Anniversary Today

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On September 10, 2006 I launched ImageFiction. And I am not home today... nowhere near my images. So... so... since Apple managed to lose my original, first-ever, post... (See Rotten Apple Explained over there on the right)... I thought you might like, as much as I liked, "Heavy On Metal". Y'know, I'm still reeeeeely proud of this. Happy anniversary to me.. Tah-Dah!

Power Points

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Two in the AM
Sax snarl from speakers
Neon blares power
Careening it back
From designer points
Onto hot summer
Blur.
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Adamstown, Lancaster County, PA
Canon 7D: PS4, Topaz, AlienSkin: Bokeh2, Snap Art – Custom designed brushes.

Geek Stuff: Visited Adamstown last weekend. It's about ten minutes north of Lancaster. AND... it's the antique capital of the Northeast. There are scores of dealers. Two of the largest are in-door walk throughs with vendors renting stalls. One is a monstrous glade with vendors in tents planted beneath huge shade trees. Some are box stores filled with crystal cases, each leased to a different merchant. And others are traditional antique shops.

Which means tens of thousands of things are all out there for my lens. So... I collect the items which let me tell the stories bouncing about inside my head. Or the stories that those things set a-abouncing. Or both.

Adamstown is about inspiration.

Cheep Phone & Bokeh2

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Okay, I am psyched over the cheeeeeepo camera and lens inside of my bottom of the line Verizon - LG - Clamshell phone camera. It's always in my pocket, right? And now I've got this Bokeh2 thing to test. So when I saw a classic red 57 Corvette convertible sitting on a grassy field as the late afternoon sun was setting.... well "Hmmmmmm...." I says to myself.... "Hmmmmmm...."

And this is what happened. Izzit hot or not?

GEEK STUFF:

Well, the cool thing about the camera phone is that there isn't any geek stuff. No ISO, no f/stop, no speed, no focal length. NADA! I'm guessing that the aperture smallish so that the thing's always set to infinity. I'm guessing that there's some sort of electronic enhancement to the processor that tries to find a preset dynamic range throughout the frame. The idea is ... I don't care. Point and shoot. So here's the virgin image from my FlashCard. The rest is PS4 and Bokeh2. Wheeeee!

Boys Dream Of Angels

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There's a myth about Victoria's Secret angels. They're supposed to be the fantasy of healthy young boys. When in fact the angelic dreams of the healthiest boys I knew had nothing to do with jiggling women in sparkly underwear. YUCH!

Nope, we dreamt at a time when things like cars were made NOT to feed the nightmares of grim governments obsessed with sanding away anything powerful, dangerous, wasteful, or romantic about them. Uh-uh. Then they were sleek, muscular, responsive, and melodic angels gleaming squint-bright through our boyhood night-times.

They let us drive a glowing enthusiasm that's somehow dimmed.

Ahh… but those were childish times when leaders preached optimism and its reward was angels that glimmered in a boy’s sleep.

The Photograph Is A Fact

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It's not the difficulty of technique that makes something into art. Nope... nope... it's the challenge of what an image expresses, you know what I'm saying? Hmmm.. Lemme try that differently. The greatest thoughts have been expressed by the simplest technique... writing.

A photograph is a fact... well it is a couple of facts. What it is about is factual. And the thing itself... you can see it, examine it - its very existence is factual.

An image on the other hand. This thing here... It is not about something factual. But you can see it, consider it. It exists. And its existence is a fact, right?

So... so.... What it is is NOT a manipulated photograph. What it is is a feeling that I've enhanced. And how was I feeling? Um, well... just like that image there. Right?

And that's a fact!

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By the way, the feeling I mentioned was all about what's going on in America right now. Urban ideologies are pouring over the countryside. The liberal has broken through the conservative. The taxis are swirling through the covered bridges. How will they be received? Are the country roads two-way? Will they? Can they - ever go back? Are urban feelings way out of place in a foreign country? Or are they the ones that we have been waiting for?

Allegory 2:

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Hmm.... so in the rear view mirror, what do you see back there? And is it getting closer? Are you careening ahead of it? Who's at the wheel? Huh? Huh?

Merry Everyone

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Wishing you a warm and balmy Christmas... Blessed, of course with all of the joy that we imagine can happen and dream about over these days. Christmas is a feeling to believe in. Hope you do... tenaciously.

A Child Is A Future Probe

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Buried deep within our children: a time capsule. To be opened... When?


***

At Andreas request.... Here's the virgin image from my FlashCard. Comments?