One more from yesterday morning’s sculpture shoot. This is looking straight up from inside the structure but I like how it also looks like an alien tree-creature walking into a root-y cave.
Maybe it’s just me.
Have a happy and safe New Year’s everyone!
Ever since moving back to Lawrence, I’ve been meaning to take some photos of this sculpture on the KU campus. It’s a structure built of woven branches that surrounds a tree so that the living branches grow through its walls (I’ll have to get the name of it and the artist after the big pile of snow melts that’s currently covering the plaque). I have some ideas for a night shot but just haven’t managed to make the 2 mile trek over some evening to do it. The local shots are always the hardest, aren’t they? I suppose it’s because you can do them anytime so why bother now. Maybe the light will be better tomorrow night, etc. etc.
Another light snow last night — maybe two or three inches — and I decided to check out my sculpture and see if the snow added anything. As it turned out, it didn’t stick as well to the branches as I’d hoped, but it was still a good opportunity to scope the site out for my later return for a night shot. What I’d had in mind isn’t exactly going to work, but I now have some new ideas. The night shot doesn’t require snow, though, so I think I’ll wait for it to warm up a bit.
Here’s a shot I did like from this morning, though. It’s taken from inside the sculpture (yes — it’s big enough to have a small party in there) looking out at the Natural History Museum. I toned it with a color overlay layer in Photoshop to give it a little eerie coolness. It’s a shame that I’m limited to 500 pixels in width here because it has a great texture when you see it really large.
The Blizzard of 2009 pretty much shut things down around here and we were basically house-bound for four days. The good side is that I made an incredible amount of progress on my image files – a DVD full of Mexico sent off to one stock agency, almost 900 shots of Egypt uploaded to Alamy (that alone took most of three days) and another 650 or so images of China prepped for submission.
While processing the China shots, I ran across this one that I’ve intended to blog about for awhile now. It’s a basket of trash that had just been swept up at the Master of Nets Garden in Suzhou. What strikes me about this is that I was compelled to photograph someone’s trash. Had I shot this in the US, you’d most likely be looking at a bulging plastic bag sitting on some cracked concrete. But there’s something beautiful about this trash. Sure, it’s just leaves and not discarded paper and junk, but it’s also being kept in an honest basket with a useful but colorful handle. The pavement is rough and stained but it’s real materials and carefully laid. I don’t know. It just says something to me. Makes me wish for less plastic and paper in the world and that all of our trash could be this beautiful.
I’ve made a long overdue update to my website by changing the home page photo to a couple from my Feb ’09 Egypt trip. It’s something I’ve always intended to do on a monthly basis at least. This time it went for over a year.
This winter I made plans to make lots of updates to the site, this blog, and especially to my other Shade of the Cottonwood site. I usually have a lull in travel over the holidays and winter months so I thought it would be a good catch-up period.
Well… that was the plan. Reality often bears little resemblance to my plans and, so far, this winter is no exception. It is becoming one of those “one step forward, two steps back” periods. When I returned from Mexico in October, I planned to get through the processing of images from that trip and then I’d be free to dig into my “winter projects”. Then the cat fell from the balcony and broke his leg resulting in 8 weeks of heavily supervised recovery. While hanging out with him in his cushy rehab pad (actually Sally’s sewing room) we noticed the carpet was damp. After some exploration, it was discovered that the hot water heater was leaking and, although there is a floor drain less than three feet away it’s apparently uphill from the water heater. Plumber called, new water heater installed and now we are in the middle of the carpet drying process — pulling the carpet and pad up, fans everywhere, etc.
I won’t go on with my entire list of distractions (and there are a lot more), but you get the picture. Today I decided to ignore everything else (except the cat duties, of course) and make a dent in the web site updates. Much progress has been made but it will be a while before you begin to see it online. Hopefully not too long.
To help me get down to work, I used up some remaining credits I had in the iTunes store and added Ceu’s “Cangote” EP and Minipop’s “A New Hope” album to my library. I find it really helpful to crank up some new tunes when working at the desk. It’s a trick I use when post-processing a shoot, too. I usually buy some local music while I’m on the road and then I listen to it while processing the images. Listening to Chinese pop while processing Shanghai images or a Desert Beat compilation while going through an Egypt take keeps me connected to the place. Plus, music makes a great souvenir that’s easy to pack.
Saturday morning was the Lawrence Old-Fashioned Christmas Parade. Lawrence’s parade is a bit unique in that it is all horses — until the very end when the street sweepers make a pass, of course. It was a great morning: blue sky and not too cold. We met friends and followed them back to their house for lunch and conversation. A great day all around.
And some good news this morning — I ran across this article on The Independent’s site reporting that the UK police are to ease their sometimes confrontational approach to photographers. Let’s hope there are more changes in attitude like this to come.
And some less-than-good news — I checked some flight options for an upcoming trip and found the estimated flight times to be around 30 hours. That’s a long time to amuse one’s self in a cramped seat that barely reclines. Guess I’d better dig out my external iPod batteries and find a good paperback or two…
I’ve mentioned before that one of the benefits I enjoy from belonging to an organization like SATW is access. While at the annual convention in Guadalajara, Mexico last month, I had another opportunity to take advantage of that perk of membership. A limited number of us were given special access to the Basilica of Our Lady of Zapopan to witness the pilgrimage known as the Romeria, where a statue of the Virgin Mary is carried from the Cathedral in Guadalajara to the Basilica.
As we were waiting to be let into the grounds of the Basilica, streams of dancers made their way past us in the street. Honestly, I could have spent the day there photographing these colorfully dressed folks but we only had a few minutes before passing through the gate.
Inside the Basilica, we were allowed to go up into the bell towers for a view of the assembling crowds. Some estimates said that there were as many as 3,000,000 people in attendance.
Some days I’m really glad that I haven’t brought my entire backpack full of gear with me. On this day, I had assembled a small shoulder bag with a few essential pieces. Even so, it was a tight squeeze in this narrow spiral stair within the bell tower. Once at the top, I had to nearly crawl under the large bell to get to the tiny ledge.
We couldn’t stay on the tower long because they would be ringing the bells at the end of the procession. Looking at the size of the bells, I was fine with that decision. Back to the street level to get some shots…
I made my way back to the rooftop flanking the bell towers before the statue of the Virgin Mary was brought down the street toward the Basilica so that I could take advantage of another high vantage point. It was a great morning and I thank those who gave our small band of journalists this amazing opportunity. This is one more thing I can say that I never would have seen if it weren’t for this crazy career of mine.
One last shot as the statue is being carried past the platform where commentators were describing every moment:
Meet our cat, Caper. He doesn’t always wear the hat — he was posing for a Christmas card a few years ago. The image on the right is him, too. His right hind leg, to be exact. Busted.
Caper loves to race up the stairs, jump onto the railing and jump again *over* the stairs onto the roof of our living room wet bar (the house was built in the early ’70s — didn’t everyone have a wet bar?). Three times now, that we know of, he hasn’t made the second jump. When that happens, gravity does its thing and Caper goes down, a little over 1 full floor, to the downstairs hallway floor.
Normally he’s springy like Tigger in Winnie the Pooh. Today he was less Tigger-ish and broke his leg. We took him to one vet 30 minutes to our west who recommended that we take him to another, 30 minutes to our east. That’s where he is now, awaiting surgery in the morning.
Sure, we had plans for today. I’m sure Caper had plans for today, too. My day might not have gone according to plan but at least it was better than Caper’s. And yes, we’re already making plans for a minor renovation of the stairwell to try and prevent a repeat performance.
UPDATE: After having a steel plate surgically attached to his broken bone, Caper came home yesterday. After less than 45 minutes in a room we had “cat-proofed” to keep him from jumping, he bent the plate and had to go back in for a second surgery. We hear he’ll be coming home again today and I plan on bubble-wrapping him to prevent any more re-injuries. I should also mention that the vet techs are calling him “Houdini” due to his ability to escape splints and bandages. It’s going to be a long recovery period…
Really — I’ll get back to the subject of photography soon. I promise.
I’ll make up for a few days absent of posts by posting a few thousand portraits in one shot (anyone care to count them?). On my last full day in Guadalajara, I had the great opportunity to photograph the Romeria pilgrimage at the Basilica of Our Lady of Zapopan. Needless to say, they get a very good turnout. More photos to come.
I’ll toss a black and white in here to give your eyes a rest after that last post.
While we in the United States paint little beige and light beige sample swatches on our walls to make sure we get that just-perfect vanilla, people in many other parts of the world are embracing color. I love it. I know it’s been done to death, but I am compelled to shoot doors and windows and brightly colored walls. I’ve not found it to be a lucrative field for stock, but I do get the occasional print sale. Probably someone wanting something bright to hang on their vanilla wall.
But I don’t really shoot these colorscapes for profit. I just need to make a record of the uninhibited audacity and joy that shines from these walls. They make me happy.
I mean, can I even get that red at Home Depot? These were shot in the lovely little town of Ajijic on the shores of Lake Chapala about 30 miles south of Guadalajara, Mexico. The town is home to many US and Canadian retirees who flock there for the great climate. They bring their own local color, too. I was told that this fellow — spotted enjoying a drink at an open air cafe — was a former New Yorker:
