Recent Excursions Into Foreign Climes

We took a brief vacation, long overdue, and drove up to Pittsburgh where reside our good friends, Tim and Bernadette.  We hadn’t been up there in several years and this trip in no wise made up for the gap, but it was much needed stress release.  Of course, this is a strange land with exotic fauna and we had to be careful in our wanderings.

Pennsylvania Dino, July 2015

But the monsters were docile, the scenery beautiful, and the sojourn eventfully uneventful.  We spent a lot of time doing not much and enjoying it thoroughly.  I’ll write more about it later, but for now I thought I’d leave you with one of the more pleasant vistas from the trip.

 

Pennsylvania Farmland, July 2015

I’m Back (and you didn’t even know I’d gone, I bet)

So, yes, we took a long weekend and went to Pittsburgh to see some friends we haven’t seen to relax with in too damn long.  I didn’t tell anyone here because.  I will tell you about the trip soon but not now.  Meanwhile, here’s a placeholder, the last (official) picture I shot from the trip, at our last stop before driving into St. Louis.  Enigmatic, striking, possibly confusing as hell, but interesting (perhaps) for all that.  Hey, I don’t have to make sense allI the time, do I?

Factory at Night, July 2015

Digital Painting

I’m procrastinating this morning, distracting myself from a stubborn short story I want very badly to finish but only if it’s finished right.  So I decided to do something else until the solution to the problem presented itself.

This is a sketch. I intend to go back in at some point and do a better job, for now this is the result of about 40 minutes of adding color to an image to get a new effect.  I’m calling it Enchanted Forest for now, but given how easy it is to lose oneself in this process I could just as well call it The Forest of No Return.

Anyway, enjoy.

Enchanted Glade, colorized

At Play With Landscape

This started out as a fairly straightforward image in need of some attention. I scanned it from a negative this morning, a shot taken back in 2002 or ’03 in New Mexico when we were visiting a friend. Difficult conditions at the best of times, shooting more or less directly into the sun, with the consequent flares and subdued contrast and obscured detail.  So I started playing.  It went some places I didn’t expect and pretty soon became less a photograph than a painting, and a not bad one, if I do say so myself.  I like it, anyway.  I think I’ll put this one in the Archon art show next October.  A bit Maxfield Parrish going on in this.  In any event, enjoy.

New Mexican Sun and Mountain as Maxfield Parish, April 2002

 

As a comparison, here’s an unmodified shot from the same day, in good old black & white”

 

Crags, New Mexico, b&w, 2002

It’s March 9th. Time For Another Photograph

This one was taken on the campus of MSU, East Lansing, Michigan, in the summer of 1988. When needing a break from the workshopping and writing that was Clarion, I’d go for walks with my cameras and find things.

 

Down the Shallow River, b&w, July 1988

 

Okay, make that two photographs.

 

Ducks Against the Fall, b&w, July 1988

Three…

 

Ducks-Go-Round, b&w, July 1988

Okay, I’m done for now.  It really was a lovely campus in places.  Speaking of writing, I’m going to do more now.  Enjoy.