So, I paid $30 and registered three picture in the LA digital art competition....the ones I had thought of submitting. Last minute too and luckily PhotoShop 7 allowed me to bring down the images to about 2 MB each with good images quality - what the website wanted.



Big pic of Saturday's rainbow at the beach - not a great picture, but nice to see,

"beach.blanket"

Saturday afternoon at the beach - windy then rain then a lovely evening with fireworks and much smaller crowds due to the rainfall. Kids had fun.

The beach is the one place I frequent where it is approved/accepted to lay there and completely relax for hours. You cannot do the same level of inactivity at a pool or lake.

"friday.late"

Back to good weed. Small version of fairly large file.

Same manipulation journey as resulted in image in post directly below.

"pop.cycle"

Debbi's incredible weed photograph is sampled here - hope she does not mind. Also a New York tabloid photo - the eighteen year old that broke up a super model's marriage. Lust in the Hamptons, forty miles and a world away from where I type.

Every six months I am a sucker for a lurid story - last one was the fall of our noble moral Governor. Life and lust goes on.

Saturday I hope to be able to go to the beach and then hang out with friends and neighbors for the annual Fourth of July fireworks display. The day we celebrate our freedom from the darn Brits (why would they want to tax for stamps or tea?).

Wimbledon is also on now - I listen to it on the Internet - tennis on the radio is a wonderful thing Try it....

"mari.ana.two.times"

Both images, smaller files for here, feature my daughter in a picture taken by my sister. The bottom one is the one excerpted in prior post - so there you see greater detail.

Struggling with larger compositions and also with the square.....working more than I ever want. Cannot help it.

"out.board.motor.loud"

"pitcher.this"

Sue sent me a photo of an amazing plot of pitcher plants - a fly's nightmare garden.

This one is shot from the hip - fast....

From follows function....

"sols.tice.2008"


"snip.it"

Compressed version of a draft larger file and a snippet from that file - a grab and paste, if you will.

I am more used to the rectangular composition - having grown up with 35 mm camera format and then my fine, Ms Paint. I am not square, but seem to be getting more so every day.

Longest day of the year - shortest night. "Getting lighter later." A friend's lyrics from a song entitled "Taking Risks in Spring." The early 80's.

"surf.up"

Two worn out coins in a fountain...another is lint.ed....

"shrimp.fry"


"tide.pool"


Three MS Paint made excerpts of attempts at large file compositions. These details show snippets of something I would like to execute well as sub part of larger composition.

I see a haunting beauty here - a bit off kilter - sort of like looking at a pre-conservation era butterfly collection, rare lepidoptera pinned in a glass covered side.


"pic.nic"

"w.word"

even.monkeys.need.to.evolve

sharpen.the.canines

the.w.word

typo.me

type.a.bummer

"et.al"

Another sampling of Sue's wisteria - large scale with layers, et al. I am also posting a small pic of her original photo - she maintains copyright right of that one.



A lovely image from Sue. Graceful and peaceful.

MS Paint clippings of "et.al" are in the damp basement. Anyone have a spare dehumidifier?

"not.there"

I am not sure how I made this (how I got here) but the image was a sidestep on the way here....pulled this out of the recycle bin and using since I have had no time to doodle.

The browner sections started from publicity shot I found of someone I heard on NPR. So it is sampled.

"lup.one"

"w.of.26"


"wisteria.vine"

Sue sent me a lovely pic of flowering wisteria - light purple lillac like blossoms.

I have always loved the vine although lately discovered in my own yard its invasive "qualities." I remember a few years ago the vines being in full perfect blossom one day and I thought to myself how many times in a life can one see this?

Florists disturb the natural cycle - tulips in August.

Not much time today - but go here - to see light and a clear vision. Sue's mandalas are exquisite and have an internal energy that simply, well, illuminate.

Tomorrow my twelve year old son goes to his first school dance. I remember when he was so small and would wave continuously goodbye to me as I walked down the street heading for the train. I can still hear the song sparrows, full of life and all that is good about morning light.

We live for those days.

My best.

"jean.s"

"an.other.one"

"skinny.dip"

skinny love

"c'mon skinny love just last the year
pour a littl salt we were never here
my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer

i tell my love to wreck it all
cut out all the ropes and let me fall
my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
right in the moment this order's tall

i told you to be patient
i told you to be fine
i told you to be balanced
i told you to be kind
in the morning i'll be with you
but it will be a different "kind"
ill be holding all the tickets
and you'll be owning all the fines

c'mon skinny love what happened here
suckle on the hope in lite brazziere
my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
sullen load is full; so slow on the split

i told you to be patient
i told you to be fine
i told you to be balanced
i told you to be kind
now all your love is wasted?
then who the hell was I?
now im breaking at the britches
and at the end of all your lines

who will love you?
who will fight?
who will fall far behind?"

bon iver

BTW, Sue was kind enough to refer me to entering this digital art contest in Southern California. Thinking about doing it....possibly uising the last three April entries since they are larger file size. They also are not sampled, to my poor minded memory.

Have a great Sunday.

When I was in high school Abercrombie & Fitch was this amazing store for which there were branches in New York, San Francisco and I think London. When you walked in you saw polo saddles and mallets and other merchandise invisible to most gentry. My best friend and I went there because for two months all we wanted to do was learn about fly fishing and even how to take hook and feather and fur and make flies - feathery lures to tempt mostly trout.

Where there are trout are among the most interestedly beautiful places in the world. Not a Kodak moment, unless you are there. Meaning, your photos will likely not be as good as the experience.

Photographs are very different from the gestalt. Most photographers get hooked on the eye scanned topography, the warmth of the breeze, etc and do not quite understand how to effectively convert that into a photograph. For me it has always been better to construct a good landscape by going wide angle to get in the most, or going telephoto for a close up of a symbolic detail.

It is also very manic how Tony and I would dive head first into a hobby - breeding tropical fish, gardening, stamp collecting, collecting tobacco pipes, hiking, body surfing.

Getting back on point the Abercrombie franchise today is a marketing spun gold mine for anyone under 30 trying to buy fashion identity at double the value. I recall that the chain created much buzz by creating discriminatory T-shirts making fun of Asians - The Long Island store was sixty percent Asian, and seventy percent of those buying.

I am completely alien to those who enjoy spending their weekends shopping - as if it were the equivalent of hooking a golden trout. And to truly belong to this subspecies you need to also have one's ear to a headphone or text messaging.

Greg got cargo shorts, Mariana a PJ, and I bought herbs of Provence at Williams Sonoma. The opulence there was undermined by the general economy - I thought i I bought these skewers I can bar-b-q better...more often. Williams Sonoma is a great store, but who needs a two thousand dollar espresso maker?

Today was the spring's first french kiss of summer.....ninety five degrees and makes men long to smell charcoal and the cologne that is lighter fluid.

Debbie is posting great photos this week and Trijnie posted a photograph of her amazing glass. Simply inspiring and I hope they remain.

We also all have a lot of other needs and duties, but there is something to be said for creating and sharing. Better than spending time at an over priced trendy store where the music is loud to even me - slightly deaf older one timer.

No.(s).art.(urday)

"lisa.canvas"

This one belongs to Lisa. I take no credit....her canvas shows great, great promise.

There are also traces of Bev's portrait here....so a little bit belongs to Bev.

"pax.redux"

Bev pic tossed and turned and taste of mascara added from NZ sky and NZ trees.

Lunch today at MOMA - overall unispired drawing exhibit with some nice pieces, including collages. Excellent photographic exhibit from museum's collection - many masters - Brasai, Weston, Adams, Steichen, et al. Gorgeous black and white prints with details in light and shadow.

Bev sampled here,again, as she leaves blogsville, bummed - blogging is sort like a tour of duty - bloggers (new recruits) come, you befriend them and make art along side them and then they leave (disappear)....maybe me too someday a casualty of internet banditos or burn out

What do you do when half the blogs you list are inactive for more than a few months? And some are from the bloggers who first welcomed you? Hang on, because....then, suddenly you get surprised....

Oh, well. Ephemeral flowers. Are there any other kind? Annuals, perennials, biennials.

"pax.brita"

Bev's delightful portrait sampled. Hope she does not mind.....

"green.piece"

"sea.coal.emb.ers"

Andrea tide pool inspiration. I remember the most amazing tide pool fauna along the Northern California shoreline. Sea palm and snails and sea stars and fearless tiny surf line fish, all and so many more in niche that affords statistical adequate level of survival.

Nature is tougher than most humans who now destroys it. Mankind is stronger, not tougher.

What I like about the basement is that it is a place I can just post images and let them simmer. So on Saturday I placed one version here and a cousin downstairs in the drier and the drier won out - I think I prefer this version.

Saturday's images are a blueprint towards how I can work with larger files - creating building blocks with which to manufacture a composition.

The image below is a snippet via MS Paint of larger fils that was retired from further use. Put out to pasture....


"light.box"