Dead end road...?

(Above is one of my 'photoshop sketches' of this one.)

I don't know... is this a dead end, or isn't it?
I'm not sure. I'm not sure it's the right title for the image, but I don't have a better one.
I guess it could be a dead end... or... you could drive right on thru the opening, couldn't you?
(But you better not be yakking on a cell phone, or texting, if you are gonna negotiate this road!)

And if you did drive thru the opening, where would you be then?
Too many questions, too few answers. I like it that way.
You're not gonna find too many hard and fast answers in a place where rocks turn into clouds, are you?
Sometimes my prints are a riddle, even to me.
I wrote a statement of sorts, 25+ years ago, which remains true, and that's surprising to me.
I don't whether it means I am on a 'steady and true course'... or whether I am stuck in the mud.
Whatever it is, it is.
(Fortunately, I have a 'better than part-time' day job, and some inheritance income, I don't have to worry about paying the bills w/ my photo work, I can do as I please, & follow my muse. I didn't plan it that way, but am glad it has worked out the way it has.
You won't catch me driving a Jaguar...but you won't stumble over me begging for a change on the streets of SF, either. :-) )

The statement goes like this:

"I think it was Robert Rauschenberg (correct me, someone/anyone, if my attribution is wrong) who said it best - " It starts by YOU telling the picture what it will be -- in the end, THE PICTURE tells you what IT will be...".
I feel like I take that approach..... Not through any 'great design', or dogmatic adherence, ... it's just the way that comes 'naturally'.... and that is all I am interested in.

I collect negatives by taking myself, and simple camera, to places I love - the California coast, and desert - and start walking.....and .. "things happen" ....
I spend a lot of time with my proof sheets, and in a small room, under a dim red bulb. I'm obviously interested in things metaphysical - beyond that, it's up to the viewer to decide what's going on.
( If I haven't figured them out yet, (and I haven't, not *really*), why should I presume to explain them to anyone else?)
Many of the pictures just seem to 'happen', because the individual negatives are 'looking' for each other.
I'm just a chaperone, and a really loose one at that......
...But those were always the best kind of parties, right? "

As usual, more/larger images on a page at my website:
www.bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_2009/DeadEnd/index.html

'Nomads' - some travel links...and a good bit more.

We are all nomads, of one sort or another.
The image above was taken on X-mas day, at 4600 ft elevation, in Red Rock Canyon, outside Las Vegas, NV.
I guess none of these people cared about a turkey dinner, or a football game - I didn't either.
I heard many languages (besides english) being spoken: french, spanish, german, japanese, chinese, and a few others I couldn't figure out/recognize - suffice it to say, it was a 'very international crowd' who braved this very fierce weather.

One of my favorite books of all time is "The Songlines" by Bruce Chatwin. It is constructed in two (or maybe three?) parts, the first a narrative, of his travels in Australia. The second part is titled 'From the notebooks' - it is a collection of various thoughts that he seems to have been intending to turn into something else, something larger... but the topic was just too large, even for his great talents.
Eventually, part two merges w/ part one, and becomes Part three, about the end of his Australian travel.
Two great quotes from 'The Notebooks':

"Our nature lies in movement; complete calm is death"
- Pascal, Pensées
(in French, 'penser' means 'to think', so 'pensées' means: 'thoughts')

"Life is a bridge. Cross over it, but build no house on it"
- Indian proverb


If you haven't already done so, you really should bookmark the L.A. Times and the N.Y. Times, & their Travel sections - Here's some recent offerings:

Oregon to Washington road trip completes a West Coast journey:
http://travel.latimes.com/articles/la-trw-orwa9-2009aug09

ULTIMATE GUIDE TO CALIFORNIA
Driving California's coast in 10 days
http://travel.latimes.com/articles/la-tr-ultimatecoast1-2009feb01


67 beauty spots along the Pacific
Land meets water -- now there's an irresistible story.
http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-westcoastspots,0,2354917.htmlstory


Road trips from SoCal: The West
To help you tap the region's cache of getaways, we've compiled this list of out-of-state road trip spots.
http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-trw-outofstateroadtrips-pg,0,510944.photogallery

Three different US road trips:
http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-trw-roadtrip2,0,7836642.htmlstory

36 Hours at the Grand Canyon:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/travel/31hours.html?8dpc


America’s Outback: Southern Utah:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/travel/12outback.html?8dpc


On Rock Walls, Painted Prayers to Rain Gods:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/09/19/travel/escapes/19Pict.html

Devil's slide
( I know this place myself, rather well, since i lived in SF for 10 years, this is just a few miles south)
http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/travel/04explorer.html?ref=travel


Know the rules of the road trip - It's pretty basic: Vehicle. Road. Go:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/02/CMA519LI3L.DTL&type=travel

Some photo & digital links/thoughts/ discussions??.......

Leica Tour: Inside a Camera Company at a Crossroads
By Matthew Shechmeister
October 12, 2009
http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2009/10/leica-gallery/

Does the Brain Like E-Books?
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/does-the-brain-like-e-books/

http://joyharjo.blogspot.com/
"Through the Dark"
'When I attempt to over reach with human reason, I cannot hear.
When I remember that I am a spirit then I have access to eternity.'


The Moral of the Story - The Ethicist's take on the news
October 20, 2009 , 12:01 am
Should Photos Come With Warning Labels?
By Randy Cohen
http://ethicist.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/should-photos-come-with-warning-labels/


Photo manipulation (of one sort or another) is nothing new:

October 19, 2009 , 9:30 pm
The Case of the Inappropriate Alarm Clock (Part 2)
By Errol Morris

"James Curtis, a professor emeritus at the University of Delaware, in 1991 published a revisionist history of F.S.A. photography, “Mind’s Eye, Mind’s Truth: F.S.A. Photography Reconsidered.” Curtis’s thesis was simple. “The bitter reality” of the Farm Security Administration (F.S.A.) photographs was not the result of clinical, photographic field work: “The realism was deliberate, calculated, and highly stylized.”

http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/the-case-of-the-inappropriate-alarm-clock-part-2/
Check out this entire series: "the-case-of-the-inappropriate-alarm-clock..."

'The Restless Medium'
Jed Perl - 'Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before'
By Michael Fried (Yale University Press, 409 pp., $55)
A very good review and discussion....
http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/the-restless-medium


And, if you will permit, one last thought about the transitory, and ever-changing, nature of all our lives:
The Eagles - 'In a New York minute'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA_gIhCcYVk&feature=related

Oh, make that *two* thoughts about the transitory, and ever-changing, nature of all our lives:
"Enjoy every sandwich" - Warren Zevon

'When Johnny (or maybe 'Jose'?) strikes up the band'

(Yes, I've borrowed a Warren Zevon song title - Thanks so much for your work, Warren - RIP.)

Here I am, banging the 'improvisation' drum, once again.
(Don't hope I will stop anytime soon, forget about that one, it just won't happen.)

I've had 4 negatives of these crazy 'mariachi monkeys', for over a decade.
They were shot at the 'Musee Mechanique' at Cliff House in S.F., and at certain times of year, the light coming thru the west-facing windows did lots of interesting things to the MM's contents.

I did this one at the end of a darkroom session when I had a few hours left, and the developer wasn't 'coffee brown', yet.
The proof sheets of monkeys, and the landscape/clouds, landed on my work table next to each other... and.. well, that was all the license I needed, it just popped into my head.
I didn't know how it would turn out, I just knew I had to do it - what could I lose (or waste) but a few sheets of paper, and an hour or so?
I did four prints of this image, exposing the landscape/clouds the same, on four sheets... & then adding the mariachi monkeys, differently for each of them.

I recently saw a video clip of the Grateful Dead, playing live, circa 1971 or '72 - it was all improvisation... working 'without a net', of any kind - Garcia, Weir, Lesh, Kreutzman - that was it, all *blowin* at the same time.
And I read an interview w/ Francis Ford Coppolla, who said that 'asking a question you don't know the answer to...' is at the heart of creativity.
As I was working my way through writing this, wouldn't ya just know it, something popped up in the media that took all the words outta my mouth:

http://correspondents.theatlantic.com/david_shenk/2009/09/a_visit_with_keith_jarrett_and_a_musical_treat.php

This is impossible to capsulize in any way, I'd be an idiot to try - click on the link, and play the music file.
If you don't already know Keith Jarrett's work, you should get to know it,
he is a master of improvisation on the piano, & has been so for decades.

Several quotes that struck me?

'Jarrett emphasizes, paradoxically, how critical it is to clear his mind and set himself free from his own knowledge and habit's...

"Risk-taking is central"

"How do you get past your own [understanding]? Those are barriers."

'This is an astonishing notion: that, in order to tap into your most provocative creative possibilities, you need to not do what comes natural, not do what is most instinctive and habitual.'
'I just move my hand [away] and say: "Do something." '

Yeah, exactly, ... "just do something" :-)

Let it rip!!

Amen!!

As always, larger images of all four prints at my web page:

http://www.bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_2009/MariachiMonkeys/index.html

Does 'planning in advance' become too much of a good thing?

Over 25+ years of doing montage work, I've been 'up, down, and all around' on this one.
Many times, I make tracings from my proof sheets, like the one at left, above..
and then take that into the darkroom.
Sometimes, I just 'see it' in my mind's eye, no tracing or drawing, and that's all I need.
Recently, I've started doing what I've been calling 'photoshop sketches' - I make really fast and dirty digital shots of my proof sheet frames, and working w/ them digitally, like the image at right, above.
But I've quickly become to wonder if this is perhaps 'planning too much'.
As it turns out, it isn't - how it works out in the darkroom is never the same as any planning I can do.
That's relief to me - I thought maybe 'digital' was rotting my brain, my sense of adventure and improvisation. Glad that hasn't happened yet. Though I am going to be very vigilant to see that doesn't happen.

At the bottom is what's known as a cairn - a mound of stones, embellished in some way, serving as a marker, for fellow travelers. This one was found in Joshua Tree NP, directing me, the finder and viewer to... I'm not sure where.
I photographed it, anyway...figuring that I'd figure it out... sometime in the future.
The flames were shot at a campfire, a decade ago - it was rather tightly framed, which is why I had to add some sky around it, to keep it from completely dominating the image.

When I printed the image, even w/ this sketch at my elbow, it still turned out different ! :-)
As usual, too many images to post here, including a final print w/ one more thing added ('frosting on the cake' so to speak)...so check the page at my website:

www.bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_2009/Explorer2009

"Hit the road, jack!...."

This entry is just 'fun', OK?... no photoshop or darkroom yak...

It's late August, and a lot of people are 'hittin' the road/ vacationing'... in anyway they can.
As long as there's still some oil (and gas) around, let's do it.
You may be traveling who knows where... and see something along the way...
don't just keep driving - stop!....and take a few frames!
You'll be glad you did!

Here's a few of mine, to (hopefully) inspire you, if I might be so bold as to suggest...
It's just 'the road'... somewhere....
Enjoy!! :-)
"Life" is a road, isn't it? And a 'one way' road, for sure.

More images, at the link below :-)

www.bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_2009/TheRoad/index.html

"To Photoshop, or not to photoshop.."

And if you do 'photoshop' (that has become a verb hasn't it), when does it become too much?
This is a topic that gets constant press, and will inspire discussion that is interesting, amusing... all the way to ridiculous, for a very long time.
It would seem to be pretty easy to spot 'over-the-top ridiculous' work, which would fool no one, but that doesn't stop some people:

"Photoshop jobs gone very, very wrong"
Betsy Schiffman, SF Gate, 07/31/09
"Some real estate agents and home owners go a little too far in their attempts to spruce up a listing. Take for example...."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/ontheblock/detail?entry_id=44647

But sometimes it's harder to spot manipulation, and to decide where to draw the line.
A recent brouhaha at the NY Times is a good example, they have a great photo blog, check it out:
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/

The brouhaha I am referring to is this one:

Lens - Photography, Video, and Visual Journalism
July 8, 2009, 8:04 pm
Behind the Scenes: Digital Manipulation
By David W. Dunlap
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/behind-5/


A reply by the photographer followed on 7/31:

July 31, 2009, 4:43 pm
Behind the Scenes: Edgar Martins Speaks
By David W. Dunlap

Edgar Martins is a photographer whose picture essay in The Times Magazine on July 5 and an accompanying slide show on NYTimes.com, “Ruins of the Second Gilded Age,” were found to include digital alterations — contrary to the stipulations of his contract and his stated, repeated assertions to the writer, editors and fact checker at the magazine. This week, Mr. Martins released an essay, “How Can I See What I See, Until I Know What I Know?” It constitutes his response to the controversy that has arisen.

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/behind-10/


"How Can I See What I See, Until I Know What I Know?" you say?
Personally, I think the writer (and photographer) has either spent too much time in some fancy art/photo school, or maybe he just found the wrong calling, and should do creative writing instead.
This question implies that one must 'know' before one can 'see' - exactly backwards.
The 'seeing' must come BEFORE the knowing, the 'seeing' informs the knowing.
Anyone who thinks differently, has their priorities mixed up.
At least, I think so.
I can't possibly know much of anything, until I see it.

Fortunately, there is more sensible ( and more easily understood than Mr. Martins) discussion being had:

"Photoshopped images: the good, the bad and the ugly
The graphics editing tool is praised for making people look their best and dissed for setting the bar too high."
By Jeannine Stein
August 2, 2009
http://www.latimes.com/features/lifestyle/la-ig-photoshop2-2009aug02,0,3129812.story

Even as I was in the process of writing/compiling this, for this August 9th or so entry, yet another instance of 'hey, too much photoshop?' was in the news:

The Buzz Log: Kelly Clarkson Cover Controversy Rocks The Web
Posted Fri Aug 7, 2009 1:15pm PDT by Claudine Zap in Stop The Presses!
http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/stopthepresses/87112/the-buzz-log-kelly-clarkson-cover-controversy-rocks-the-web/

I am no Kelly C. fan, but from the pix I've seen, she looks just fine.
Her fans, judged by the comments posted after the above web page, don't care how she looks...
and they are not as easily fooled as one might think - here's one comment:

11. Maggie - Fri Aug 7, 2009 4:59pm PDT
Does anyone else see the irony with Self magazine airbrushing the Total Body Confidence issue of their magazine?

Maggie is probably not alone.
You know where I stand on this one, photoshop is 'neutral', it's just a tool - it's the brain & heart behind the hand on the mouse that counts.


Another thought, amidst all the constant tweaking done to the images in magazines, & in show-biz, etc, & the 'American Idol' crapola?....
(All of this is, of course, a matter of 'looks count' (too often, more than substance..))
Have you ever seen the album cover for the U.S. release of the Who's first album, with the four band members posed w/ an iconic London tower in the background?
None of these guys would make it far past square one on American Idol ("waay too ugly!") - Keith Moon might make it past square one on 'looks', but as soon as he opened his mouth, or sat down at a drum kit, you knew he was anything but normal.
The rest of the band?.. all look like guys you would never, ever, want to meet in a dark London alley after a few pints.

Sooo... what's happened to them, since this album cover photo?

Pete Townshend has become one of rock's most revered and respected writers...
John Entwhistle has been recognized as a bass player with few peers...
Roger Daltrey is one of the few rock vocalists who can actually *sing* ( and the only one who could ever do justice to Townshend's writing...)
Keith Moon?.......just broke the mold, any mold, anywhere, at least in 'rock' music, there has been no replacement since - listen to the drumming in "Won't get fooled again".)
Enuf said.
Oh, sorry, not quite enough yet, just one more thought - what do you think American idol would have done w/ Jimi Hendrix???

I'll be back, soon, w/ some 'darkroom', including, at some point in the future, this one, still just a photoshop sketch...

Digital vs Darkroom - The 'Desert Ride'

So I did a darkroom (B&W) version of this image...
And recently I did a digital (color) version of roughly the same image.
(Both are above.)
In this case, it was kind of a no-brainer to try a digital version of something 'darkroom' - I had both film and pixels of the same situations, a carousel, and some very nice skies taken in Nevada last December, at the end of the day when the sun was close to sinking behind some mountains - it was a very fast moving situation, and the pixels and film were different - color vs B&W, and 'normal' lense length vs. a very wide Pentax 6x7 55mm lense.


Comparing the two images & techniques seemed definitely worth doing.
It is ALWAYS a good idea to review what you have done in the past.
'Could it be different? Could it be better'? ( whatever 'better' is!..)
"Critique yourself", ya know?
It's a habit you should try out - that was the 'lesson' part of this entry.
No one (but you) will be kinder... and no one could be harsher, it all depends.

For years now, photo friends of mine have been asking, in so many words, "how long you gonna keep being a (darkroom) dinosaur, dude?".
The answer is "always!".... and "shut up, **** you!".
(Just tryin' to keep things 'PG' rated, OK?)

When I first worked w/ Photoshop ( V4, in 1992) all you could do montage-wise was "float" a selection, move it around/etc, but you couldn't save any layers ( that capability didn't exist yet), and you had to 'merge all' before you could save anything. And 'saving' anything substansial?... You could go see a movie, have dinner, and when you came back, it might possibly be saved. How times have changed.
My first hard drive, in '97, was all of 1 GB/1000 MB's.
Now?... the chip in my digital camera saves over 4 *Gigabytes*!, and it's about as big as my thumbnail.

Back to the difference between the two images...
To tell ya truth, I like both of them, for different reasons.
I will always like B&W darkroom - the severity it imposes forces you to deal w/ *just* composition, and values...
And film, at least the film I shoot on a Pentax 6x7, is soooo much sharper than anything digital I have seen, there just ain't no comparison, at least not w/ anything that is within my price range, and you could add a '0' to the price? and it still wouldn't compare.
I will never stop loving the process, of seeing a B&W image develop in Dektol, & rocking it slowly back and forth, in the tray...
The burning/dodging I can do takes less than a minute...way easier and faster done than anything digital.

The digital version of this image?.... well, 'color' makes everything different, naturally.
I chose a different foreground, just because I could - I really liked the rolling hills, the way they were lit, and the color they are.
I used a different sky, because it was color - the B&W version wasn't the same, I had no 'equivalent' to work with.
And the color of the land kind of matched the color in the sky (a different relationship - 'color' as opposed to 'design'(B&W))
And the digital version became vertical, as opposed to the darkroom version, horizontal.
Why? it just felt right, it 'worked' - what more reason do ya need?
I always try and stay open to what is going on in the image, no rules, no 'given's.
Kind of like golf - wherever your ball lands? that's where your next swing starts.
Unless you cheat, and who would want to do that?... it destroys the integrity of the game/match!
Same goes for images - 'stay true'... you'll be glad you did...

If you have any interest in Carousels?
Check these links out:

Carousels in the SF Bay Area:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/12/PKHJ18HB7S.DTL

National Carousel Association:
http://www.nca-usa.org/

As usual, larger images are at a page on my site, including a download of the digital version at much smaller size, if you want to see how it's done:

www.bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_2009/Dig_v_Dkrm