Move There!

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The world stays the same even when we move it in our minds. Um, let me try that again... The world moves, even when we will it to stay the same. Er...

Okay, once more. Suppose you're five years old and standing in the deep grass just beyond a field of fresh brown rows. And suppose you love everything about it but that farm, you figure, ought to be about fifteen feet to the right. You know that if you tell your dog, or your parents to move - well they do it. So you decide to try your awesome powers to reconfigure the world to your whim on the barn.

"Move there!" you command. eyes closed. And... remember now, you're sixty months old, give or take a couple of weeks, and... and... you open your eyes and... ??

When you're five years old... Is there anything you don't believe in? When you haven't tried so very much... Everything you do try is magic. I'm going to figure that when you open your eyes you can believe that the barn is somewhere new. And you can smile, and maybe sit in the tall grass: and watch the sun set golden on the world you've just rearranged.

And the world should move that way. It really, really should. When we're five years old - the world moves, because we will it to stay - different.

GEEK STUFF: Canon EOS 20D, Canon EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6),1/125 at f9, Exposure Bias value: 1.67, ISO: 100, Focal Length: 30mm, Time: 7/1/07 - 7:06 pm, Flash: Off, Metering Mode: Average, Camera Raw.

Outside In July

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Listened to a couple of kids today at a chi-chi coffee shop moaning about how their riding mowers were so uncomfortable in the sun when their parents forced them to cut the lawns. Heard a woman holler at child this weekend: her boy wouldn't get into the car fast enough so she could crank up the air conditioning. Saturday a nearby family cancelled a picnic: said it was way too humid and sticky.

Took a picture with a point and shoot camera last thursday on an afternoon when it wasn't just hot... it was diabolical.

Here it is.

Fondle X Three

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Each year at the Fourth of July picnic, the Ranck Brothers fondle a tree. You know why? Um, neither do I. Hey.... who am I to judge, eh?

Half A Friendship

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Stu VanOrmer met me years ago by listening to my radio shows. And he was flattering enough to remember when he heard my name at the Ranck’s picnic last week in Strasburg.

Odd thing about what I once did, you try to be honest, genuine and authentic. And if you really succeed – people grow to know you: one way. Whether it’s through reading your writing, seeing you on video, listening to the radio – whatever – a one way friendship is struck. You become trusted by delightful strangers who you rarely meet.

This web has changed that. Now I can throw my stuff onto the virtual byways, and people will respond. Friendships can become two way.

On the Fourth Of July, Steve and I reminisced over times when though we never met - we shared thoughts. And I learned that he is one of America’s finest designers of fine art furniture. And his wife Roberta is an engaging jewelry designer. Don’t believe me? Click here.


And they let me take their picture – as if I’d known them as well as he knew me - which was flattering beyond his ability to understand.

As I processed their portrait I recalled some great artist arguing that the hands were the hardest things to draw. And I realized that Stu’s is the hand of a man who makes precious and very large things out of rare woods. And that’s maybe why, when a hand can reveal so much, that they are so hard to draw.

Even more importantly, I realized as I looked at this image of Stu and Roberta, how thrilled I am that he allowed my ideas into his inventory – all those years ago.

Vicarious

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Got rocked today by a posting at Passion N' Frames. Click here to see it. PNF has cranked the power-art dial beyond 10.

And it left me wondering how to-do-dat? How to take an image from the Fourth Of July picnic I'm working on this week - and ramp up the pep. And I also wondered if you would find the image - accessible? If it would leave you going "Wow!" and "Hmmmmm...." - thinking AND feeling what I enjoyed as this image revealed itself.

Background: A momentary downpour submerged the party for some minutes. At first the children raced with the adults toward the trees, when abruptly one screeched, "KICKBALL!" And everyone under 15 scampered back to the softball diamond - playing again like... like kids on the Fourth of July. And I got a chance to picture their wonderfulness, and feel my legs, arms, and body happy like... like... a cavorting boy in the rain.

Sunset Memory

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Spoke with my buddy Mick Ranck today. He was, um, startled by the portrait quartet I posted on Sunday. I'm glad that some of you are giving me cover on this week's postings. I kind of hope that there's an artistic thread that sews my week of Fourth of July postings together. Heck, I know that this stuff is art, I just hope it's seen as my art. That somewhere here in all of this that You can sense an authentic-voice-of-Ted, a style, a life-view which makes it a tad unique? Which communicates what I think and feel in a way that's got some value. After all, that's what art is about, right?

Which brings me to today's post. I know from Google Diagnostics how many hundreds upon hundreds of visitors come by here each week and that an astonishing large portion are from way beyond our American borders. And I know that you know that we celebrate our independence each year on July 4th. So I wanted to let you visit pieces of The Rancks' annual party. But instead of showing crowds, flags, and grills loaded up ... I find instead I'm showing dogs, girls, and now today... at twilight a boy of summer.

Every country's annual patriotic celebration is at heart wonderfully romantic. And it's about boys, girls, and dogs. Because it's about a legacy. It's about an idea that we are passing off in celebration to our youth. Just as self preservation is the primary direction to a species... so too is it primary to a culture. In celebration and ceremony we communicate group memories. And maybe some are as simple as a handsome boy, with a great big ball, basking on a carpet of grass that's a-sparkle in the dazzle of a memorable sunset. Maybe it's as simple as the hope that the kids will have many more of these feelings that our celebrations are all about. Eh?

Puddled

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Here's beautiful girl standing in a puddle at the Ranck's Fourth of July picnic. She jumped about in the thing until her mom called. And for a moment it occurred to her that she might stop. See! See the thought flit across her face.

But it only happened for this precise moment, and then SPLAAAAASH! SPLAAAAASH! SPLAAAAASH! SPLAAAAASH! SPLAAAAASH! SPLAAAAASH! ...SPLAAAAASH!

This is an authentic moment. The only one where manners, and propriety overcame her. It was an instant when grown-up rules interrupted the child. Didn't last long.

As we mature, those moments lengthen. We pause longer between our puddle leaps. Until we stop splashing around, and call to the child who we see... her feet in the puddle. And it's our turn to inject a crack of adult-ness between - SPLAAAAASH! SPLAAAAASH! SPLAAAAASH! SPLAAAAASH! ...SPLAAAAASH!

Bubba

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As you can see below, I'd not expected to post tonight. But I hate to break a tradition just because of some silly excuse like... THE INTERNET!!! GRUMBLE....

Um, anywayzzzz... Last night I posted an image, actually multiple images, of Bubba's master. If Mick Ranck was host of his annual family Fourth of July picnic to which hundreds are invited in Strasburg, then Bubba is the host dog. Everyone knows him. Has for years. His long time grizzled presence is a sign that something important about the world has been revealed. So... in this week of portraits in the Ranck Fourth of July Gallery rooms, it seems important to include this guy and his personality. Frankly, he was easier to capture in one image than Mick was last night.


NOTE: Below this line -------------- is a rant. It was all I expected to post tonight. I call it...

WITCHCRAFT

"A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from witchcraft!" Those are the words of sci fi writer Ray Bradbury.

In the past two weeks I have spent almost eleven hours on the phone with either Verizon or with Apple attempting to make my Airport Express/Airport Extreme wireless WiFi network work throughout the house. It operated perfectly for about two years. Then abruptly last week my wife found she could not send email. Nine hours later... after an early misdirection from a Verizon cretin... everything appeared fixed. By everything, the various tinkerings by a parade of telephone technicians resulted in not only the wireless system crashing, but also my hard wired interconnect here in my office.

Then tonight at dinner, my wife said, "I can't get my mail." What I uttered was one, smelly, expletive.

Now three hours later, after Apple again disabling everything and rebuilding it... we are partially working. However, until I trash some of Rita's preference files, and reboot her machine... all will not be stable. Unfortunately she has lost her sys admin password for her machine... and if I trash those preference files we will be polled for that PW upon reboot.

There is a workaround. It involves reloading certain elements of the system for her iMac from the original discs. Okay... except, she has this odd notion that all of this should act like a utility. You know, you set it up, pay your money, and use it from that point on. Like telephones, electricity, water, gas... a utility. How quaint. She expects that it is supposed to just work!!!!

So of course she does not carefully file her sys discs like the rest of us who are geeky enough to understand that ... well this is witchcraft. In order to make this thing operate we need to know exactly how far to leap off of the ground while twisting in the air and spitting...

What all of this means is that I am off to find the sys discs (along with incense,crystals, and an Asian guy with long needles)... then to get the instructions which Apple promised to send to my email account... then to print them out... then to go into Rita's office and follow those instructions to reboot in a manner that allows me to change the password. Which I shall etch into her desk with an X-acto blade.

It also means that there will be no image posted tonight since I have been otherwise occupied. Life should not intrude upon my hobbies. But even worse... neither should the internet. At the moment we seem to be gridlocked on the internet highway. And all I can do is honk. Check back tomorrow... okay?

Thanks for visiting...

Grumble &^&%$$$!!

Ted

Independence

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You know, new ideas occur to me a lot less frequently than practical ones. E-mailers have asked to see more of my portraits, which are among the funnest things to do. So, at his Fourth Of July picnic in Strasburg last Wednesday I portrait-ed my friend Mick Rank. Unfortunatley, I over portrait-ed him... took a bundle... multi-angled him... Had a good time.

And what I got were a number of images which TOGETHER showed more about him than any one capture. So... how to get the idea of Independence day picnic and a sufficient selection of closeups to do justice to his personality? Hmmmmm.... Howzabout a practical compilation... a great big artifact sitting in the center of his own gallery room?

Okay... now how to pull that off? Hmmmm?

Rails Scraped White

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The sons of Pullman porters ride their father’s magic carpet
And the rhythm of the rails is a gentle heal….
The Warren F. Bennet sways along a metal highway that once lashed America together with a tenacity tighter than politics, entertainment, revivalism, and the greenback dollar all mixed together and baked in a Bessemer oven. There are still patches of glimmering steel scraped white by the Warrem F. Bennet’s wheels. And inside there’s still the air they breathed when Lincoln rocked along toward Gettysburg to tell about forefathers, nations, Liberty and equality – and to remember how some short distance to the west from Lancaster a great cause – caused so many to bleed. When the Warren F. Bennet rode a younger magic carpet made of steel.

Ticket To Ride

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So it seems that my litte ride over to Strasburg last weekend resulted in a some posts here and visits to my website, where they're saved under the "Lancaster County" tab.
Which got me to wondering what sort of poster a gallery about that visit ought to look like. Since I don't do that kind of graphic art, but really admire artists who do, I thought I'd give it a try... To create an introductory image that would both identify the collection while encouraging visitors to explore them.
How's this work?

Got Him, See!

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Out of the corner of my eye I saw him. But I'd snap my head around and he'd pop back to normal. The guy was goofing on me. So what I did was casually drape my camera down at my side and turn away, snapping the shutter when he thought I wasn't looking. You know what I'm saying here?
And I caught him, all puffed up, playing his game. I guess I fixed him, eh?

Function, Or Just Form?

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That fence, why is it? I mean a fence has a function right? And if it doesn't have a function, well what is it? Let me try that again. Is a fence which doesn't fence anything - a fence? And if it isn't that, well, 'the hell is it?
The thing's so alone there. So I wanted to emphasize both its loneliness and its fence-less-ness. Things always seem lonelier to me at night. So here, with moonlight bathing the scene is this lonely thing, splat in the center of a vast universe, that I guess I have to call a fence. Even though it doesn't do that.
They say that form follows function. Here's an exception to that rule, huh? Unless its function is to be just a form. Hey! I know people like that.

And We Left, Why?

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If you squinch your eyes down to slits you'll really get this image. You'll smell the fresh morning air, hear the chugs and bells, and maybe a conductor's song. And you'll see women in long full skirts, and men in bowlers. Perhaps the breeze would carry pipe or cigar smoke (this was way before a man would be caught with a girly cigarette). We're so comfortable in our changes, our progress. We feel almost like differtent animals from folks long dead. And yet, there in that spot, as you look down that track, you can see the craftsmanship, sense the jaunty vivid optimism, and over all notice just how clean and mannerly everyone is. And then you wonder... is this a moment you really want to leave? And maybe you wonder why we all did? Hmmmm..... It was pretty in Strasburg, huh? But now, looking at those antiques, I wonder if it was just last Saturday?

Cigar Is A Cigar

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Everyone knows that Freud figured that no matter what sort of erotic connotation it might seem to have in dreams, well, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
I'm usually trying to communicate an idea or emotion in my images. But sometimes craft is enough. This pair of renderings are what they seem and no more. I saw this old dining car at Strasburg Rail Road last Saturday. In the sun, it gleamed like a rare gem. And look at the workmanship, wow. I wanted to make it pop. Sometimes visitors ask me if I can take a straight picture. Well, you judge. At first I was tempted to go sepia to capture the warmth of age. But people at the turn of the last century didn't see in sepia. So here's what I think they saw when this great work of rail road craft pulled into their station. It made them feel good, right?

2006 Award Winner: Past Power

Note: Accepted as one of the world's finest Transportation Images of 2006 for Canon POTN Book published in the Fall of 2007.

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Some fifty years ago when The Pennsylvania Rail Road built Engine #9331, everything seemed like... like they seemed to every youngster. The rest of the world was in war-worn shambles. And America looked forward with all the power of this guy. Colors were more brilliant then. Scents stronger. Noises warmer and with this sort of muscle we could do it all. And everyone else paid us to do it. Sent us their wealth: built up our seed corn.
Today, the nation's mightiest railroad, The Pennsylvania, is a fast fading memory. The rest of the world's rebuilt both their stuff and their dreams. And now, as we mature, we look at the muscles on Engine #9331 and wonder how, when we weren't paying attention, their mass and color faded. Except in the memories of those few who yet remember a time when we could do everything. Before we fattened on fast-fried seed corn.