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".

Hope Hardens

Angels pardon
Until they’re staid
Then hope hardens
Then dreams fade.

Have you noticed that regardless of its profundity, an idea clearly – unambiguously – rendered is likely to be dismissed as a banal cliché? Critics cherish ambiguity…

Images… Backyard fantasy light, Lancaster, Pa. 2011

Canon 7D, PS4: Custom textures, AlienSkin Bokeh2 to simulate Canon 50mm f/1.2 @f/1.2, AlienSkin: Exposure 4, Agfachrome 1000 RS, Custom watercolor soft bristle brushes & point-pop texture sharpening,

In Konya There's An Emerald

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The sky was lit by the splendor of the moon
So powerful I fell to the ground
Your love has made me sure
I am ready to forsake this worldly life
and surrender to the magnificence of your Being.
– Mowlana Jalaluddin Rumi

In Konya there’s a museum
Its emerald glow
Remembers its poet.
Its poet remembers
The moon…

Open the love window.
The moon won’t use the door,
only the window.

– Mowlana Jalaluddin Rumi

Here’s The Rumi Museum
Looking over Konya, Turkey




Canon 7D: PS4: Custom filters & brushes, Topaz, AlienSkin: SnapArt – Impasto: Custom texture.

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!

We've Been Walloped!

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Watched the vital signs today. Saw the world's financial markets wobbling. Watched the Euro's value reflect the astonishing amount of sovereign debt that EU countries will have to refinance over the next three months (who's left to buy?). Winced when the May US employment figures came in at disastrous levels and the unemployment rates declined only because large lumps of the American workers became so discouraged that they abandoned seeking work. Yeah, the way BP keeps pissing into the Gulf, and how Obama's "taking charge" by talking tough about that company's advertising and dividend payments - tough about things that will do nothing about the gunk vomiting up under the sea. Yeah, that's melancholic static.

But this is small stuff. The reeeely scary news came earlier in the week and the word's only just digesting the kernel of universal instability it revealed. Forget the trembling Middle East, pirates off of Africa, or the sabers rattling in Iran and North Korea. No... no... ultimately the most unsettling announcement... The one that makes us wonder if we can believe in any human decision... That news hit us with real wallop when we learned of the breakup between Al and Tipper.

Is there nothing solid left? Is it all dissolving?

Outted

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Of course the house is out. What house isn't.... out? So, why do they name this one out? As opposed to what? An in house? Unless an in house is one imagined by a hot designer. Like... like a painter, director, actor, or singer who is... in. On the other hand... in is an anachronism. Nothing is older than old slang. Well, yeah. There is something older.

Something that no one wants any part of anymore.

"What?" you ask? "What will no one have anything to do with?"

Why... an out house, Right?

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40D - 17-85mm: f16@1/500sec ISO 400; Topaz & SnapArt2 all enhanced in PS: CS4

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This image got lost when Mac took down my website. I thought I'd post it again here, because I like. Is that reason enough?

Tyranny

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In his temple, President Jefferson is stood to stare at his motivation... at the concept which ignited him to explode through history with a republic answer to the arbitrary collection of power into few hands. And now as it's being recollected at the direction of the legislature and executive offices his pen imagined... recollected into the pens of nine court justices, one wonders at the irony of Jefferson's enforced gaze. Or how his legacy has come loose from his idea.

Societies are made up of people. People age and die. Why not their cultures? I wonder if Jefferson's temple will survive his ideas? By how long? In Rome I saw churches and buildings built from stone that was quarried from the marble of the ancients' buildings. How do you think they will repurpose Jefferson's stones after they realize that his image and that word are no longer joined, even in memory?

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In the 1960s I remember that black and white was considered to be the most faithful way to present reality. And that was accepted even though black and white is inherently abstract, stealing away as it does an entire dimension of reality. Then came the 90s and the color dams exploded allowing the deeply felt component of its hues to add an emotional dimension to photographed reality that b&W just couldn't tap.

And now the digital artist can drop away the reaity almost entirely to distill out the underlying layer of feeling itself. It is a wonderful time to have photographic skills.

Up There

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Still no time to take my new 7D out for a spin. Finally tried this afternoon, but it poured rain. Didn't have the time to work out a rain shield... so, still haven't checked myself out on the new machine. Since we fly away on February 5... I can hear the stopwatch ticking... y'know? I may have made a BIG mistake by purchasing the new camera before the Peru trip. Maybe after my deadline hurdles are leapt by Wednesday... maybe... maybe... maybe...

Here's a pretty girl riding on her daddy's shoulders I captured with my Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens, on the 40D which is no more with us. Again, city living provides so many spontaneous opportunities for street portraits, Still, it'd be good to get out into the countryside again.... The term "cabin fever" is resonating strongly inside of me.

Am I alone with a winter malaise?

What Are You Doing New Year's?

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Here's a variation.... a touch of New Year's fun while I'm awaiting ordering my new camera. Some of you might recall the original of this babe I posted some time back. Here she is again, all dressed up... and ready to PARTY.....

BEST WISHES EVERYONE!!! Happy 2010, and thanks for all of your support, suggestions, and comments both here and the passle who continue to lemme know what you think exclusively by email. That's why I've posted an email address over there in the colun on the right. You're my buddies... and you've made 2009 a nice year. In Angel's lingo.... MIL GRACIAS!

Only

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It is what it is.





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And here is the magician's secret revealed.... Enjoy.

Eureka!

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Ever noticed how scientists are ashamed of epiphany? Read a scientific paper and you will never find the words, "And at this point in the procedure we abruptly realized that Dr. Skinny had accidentally spit into the solution and that his saliva added a stimulus to the precipitate that overcame the impasse resulting in the miracle hair restoration break through."

Nope, read their stuff and Point A results eventually in Point Z through a well planned process that never veers from the genius of the scientific team. Of course Point Q was probably Dr. Skinny's spittle, but the report fails to account for epiphany that emerges during the process.

Visual artists are not scientists. See this first image? I wanted to apply my new interest in AlienSkin's SnapArt to some images I'd taken at Pigeon Point Light on the California Coast. And I thought it'd be cool to create an illustration featuring my feelings about the light.

And then a funny thing happened along the way to creating that image up there.... This happened! BOING! I discovered that SnapArt's oil painting options allowed me to swirl thick strokes to compliment an idea I had when I dramatized the original photograph with Topaz3. I'm thinking of it as Doctor Skinny's spittle...


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And the virgin image that started, or startled, my imagination? Here's what my Canon 20D saw through its EF-S 10-22mm (f3.5-4.5).

Suzy

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My niece is seven months pregnant. Seemed to be a nice milestone to mark.

After The Times Square

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I'm re-studying expressionism. It demands complex, well planned images with parts that are worked by the artist to the point of distortion in order to communicate the feelings of the moment.

Here's Broadway, an explosion at night. Blasting color over every part of you... Throbbing with shocking energy. Noisy, fast, a cacophony of sheen. Too much to compute.. Too big to focus. Too massive to step back far enough. Neck hurting high and needling its way into the black curtain up there.... Puncturing it.

Broadway's a vertical thing at Times Square after the Times stupidly left the party.