Onward upward

This one is sort of an opposing throw back to the first montage print i made work:

I have called it 'The edge of the world' for obvious reasons.

It's very simple - just 2 negs, dodged to blend well. Took me about 25+ sheets of paper to get it right.

'Onward upward' is the opposite - the stairs at Alcatraz lead into... the forest of Muir woods, huge redwoods, an escape indeed, if there ever was one. I have titled it 'Onwards, Upwards'.

After 30+ years, i hear an echo in here somewhere. It is most welcome, i am glad i see/hear.. a thread, a method to my madness.

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The 'whatever catches my eye' file is really fat this month.

Craig Childs, a great writer:

"I believe the earth will survive us. It has survived far worse than us. Its 3.5-billion-year life history is a gauntlet of apocalypses. In every ancient crater and dinosaur fossil bed, you see a story of global endings.

Whether we survive ourselves is more the question.

And what of most other living things? Will they survive us?

I'm not willing - or even able - to wait the 6 to 10 million years it would take to return to current levels of biodiversity. That's how long global mass extinctions have taken to recover in the past. Key indicators point to us being in such an extinction right now. So, you have to ask, what comes next?

The most likely scenario, or at least the most hoped for, is that the planet remains generally supportive, and climates are stable enough we get to keep our pretty cities and bucolic countryside."

((This bloggers comment? - oh, no - i think it will get much worse, and take much longer to get better than we can imagine. Joni mitchell sang "we are stardust we are golden..."

No, we are poisonous cruel and thoughtless, we will get our comeuppance, our due, sometime soon ))

http://www.houseofrain.com/bookdetail.cfm?id=1344621970977

"I sit still listening to the many heartbeats of the forest. Summer has, fall has turned, and the world of animals moves ahead."

http://www.houseofrain.com/rantsandwritings.cfm?mode=detail&id=1479222002750&group=writings

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Narwhals, Tusked Whales of the Arctic, See With Sound. Really Well.

Trilobites

By JOANNA KLEIN NOV. 9, 2016

Wondering how climate change and the prospect of an ice-free Arctic might affect narwhal behavior in the future, scientists tracked these whales over the ice in helicopters. Knowing that whales use echolocation — sending out clicks of sound that bounce off objects in the environment around them — they placed microphones underwater and listened.

They found that with clicks of sound, like a flashlight switching on and off, the narwhals scanned their underwater world to receive narrow snapshots and reconstructed them into a larger acoustic picture — one with more resolution than any other animal on the planet, with the possible exception of beluga whales.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/science/narwhals-echolocation.html

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You think Photoshop is some great software? You ain't seen nothin' yet, read this article, until you get to the part about how after all the information is loaded and the 'start' button is pushed, it takes several days to generate an image.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/12/science/shipwrecks-black-sea-archaeology.html

here's a depiction of the robot/drone that gathers:

and the product:

If you think humans are the only creatures that have smarts, feelings, empathy, perception beyond themselves, you are oh so wrong.

How a Donkey Became My Running Partner

We’d agreed to take this donkey because we figured he’d be fun and trouble-free. I didn’t know he’d set my life on an entirely new course.

Running With Sherman

By CHRISTOPHER McDOUGALL NOV. 17, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/17/well/move/how-a-donkey-became-my-running-partner.html

'Running With Sherman' is a weekly column exploring connections between humans and animals. 

Next week: Training a Donkey

Looks like this could be a very interesting story...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/well/move/how-to-save-a-donkey-it-helps-to-have-a-goat.html

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A wild bottlenose dolphin, tangled in a fishing line, swims up to a diver in Hawaii and waits while the diver cuts the line free.

When a dolphin needed help off the coast of Hawaii, he was determined to let a scuba instructor know.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/23/16663801-diver-who-saved-dolphin-he-swam-right-up-to-me?lite

But yet slaughter of dolphins continues in Taiji, Japan:

Yes, the water is red - blood red. Humans aren't the smartest animals by any means. 

We are however the meanest, greediest, we lack morality that animals have.

Have you read stories about dogs that will not leave their sick/dying friend's side?

Or dogs that find their way to their owners grave??

Hope i have given you a few things to ponder :-)

Dreamer

Here's the dreamer:

I found this face carved in soft sandstone on Ocean Beach, San Francisco, some years ago. I will hope he is dreaming, and not dead.

The landscape - the horizon, the two trees, is at Sunset Crater in Arizona.

 The ragged rocks above it - tufa at Mono Lake in Ca.

 

The lighthouse superimposed at the top is at Pt. Bonita in the Marin headlands, just north of SF.

What does it all mean? Perhaps dreams foster thoughts ( = the trees, which grow) ...which then beget difficulties of whatever kind ( the ragged tufa rocks)... but there is light at the end of this tunnel, the lighthouse shines on. Perhaps this is about the power of thought, mind over matter?

Technically, it's not hard. First exposure, the sunset crater trees and shadow, with a good bit of the shadow dodged back to accommodate the face. Then, i burned in the face, then added the tufa, and the lighthouse.

The same simple tools accomplish everything.

this one deserved some hand coloring:

Many years ago, i wrote a statement of sorts.

(Alotta things in the world change in a heartbeat these days.

I don't mind being slooooow. It comes with age ( 64 YO) I am OK with it.)

I collect negatives by taking myself, and simple camera, to places I love - the California coast, and desert - and start walking. 

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?

"I'm just a chaperone, and a really loose one at that..."

After all these years, this rings truer than ever.

I don't remember where the idea for this one came from, i think i linked the face with the huge shadow in the landscape first. I regularly sift thru PSD sketches, add subtract to them, print them out quickly letter size, leave a pile of them on my floor, and look thru them once in a while, maybe take a fistful in my bag, and look thru them during my bus commute to work. A 20 minute bus ride is a nice time to let the mind wander as the landscape rolls by. Rumination is a good way to describe it.

Which brings me to the 'whatever catches my eye' file:

The End of Reflection - Future Tense

By TEDDY WAYNE JUNE 11, 2016 - for the New York Times

“Finding moments to engage in contemplative thinking has always been a challenge, since we’re distractible,” said Nicholas Carr, author of “The Shallows.” “But now that we’re carrying these powerful media devices around with us all day long, those opportunities become even less frequent, for the simple reason that we have this ability to distract ourselves constantly.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/fashion/internet-technology-phones-introspection.html

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'Think Less, Think Better'

'Gray Matter' New York Times - By MOSHE BAR JUNE 17, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/19/opinion/sunday/think-less-think-better.html

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http://www.pdnonline.com/features/The-Surprising-Fate-of-Film-16660.shtml

(It ain't dead yet folks, get used to it!)

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/07/07/how-photography-helped-build-the-statue-of-liberty/

Not a week goes by that i don't read about some new discovery in the ocean:

http://www.deepseanews.com/2016/07/rare-mass-sighting-of-pyrosomes-in-the-azores/

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It's the oddballs & wierdos that make the real progress. See a movie called 'the imitation game' about the gay british guy who invented a rudimentary computer to crack Nazi code.

"When he wasn't blackmailing lords and being sued for libel, William Playfair invented the pie chart, the bar graph, and the line graph."  By Cara Giaimo June 28, 2016

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-scottish-scoundrel-who-changed-how-we-see-data

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Review: Hieronymus Bosch, for Whom the Devil Was Always in the Details

Hieronymus Bosch: Touched by the Devil * Directed by Pieter van Huystee * Documentary * 1h 26m

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/movies/hieronymus-bosch-touched-by-the-devil-review.html

I'm definitely going to get this one, if it ever shows up on Netflix!

I'm self publishing now!

 After 20+ years of making darkroom photomontage, and not being able to get arrested for it, I am publishing photo books i make with Blurb, getting them on Amazon.
I recently published a revised version of the 'California Beach Trip' images - marvelous and mind-bending B&W darkroom montage images - done almost 20 years ago for a multimedia company that never used them.
The first version was a 'pull out all the stops' thing, adding many new digital images, & overlaying text on the images. i asked two excellent designer friends of mine what they thought, and both answered the same - 'get back to basics, just the B&W, use very little text, & don't put it on the images'.
I took their advice. So here it is, hope you enjoy - it is also much more affordable, fewer images and no blank pages. Add a copy to your bookshelf, or buy the e-Book ( if you can find it, i couldn't but then again i am not that savvy to eBooks) - now that's affordable!

On Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1364681250?keywords=California%20beach%20trip&qid=1449102160&ref_=sr_1_3&s=books&sr=1-3

On Blurb:

http://www.blurb.com/books/6661547-california-beach-trip-photomontage-by-bob-bennett#basic

http://www.blurb.com/books/6661547-california-beach-trip-photomontage-by-bob-bennett/pages/0#basic

http://www.blurb.com/b/6661547-california-beach-trip-photomontage-by-bob-bennett

Yes, there are 3 different URL's, which seem to work differently on various browsers/systems - one of them will work for you, i sure hope!

The preview can't show all the images, but you can see them at the link below.
 http://bobbennettphoto.net/BT_BW_Bk/index.html


I've got a couple more books waiting in the wings:

Above, the cover, below an inner page.

The third book, a surreal visual and somewhat philosopical trip.

That's all for now - "Ah'll be back" just like the Terminator/'Ahnold' said.

Rocks tell stories

When i first started writing this one, i thought it would be a short post. But it swiftly turned very, very long.

Rocks tell stories...but you have to know how to read them, which I don't know how to do, not really, i know i am illiterate in this way, better to admit it, and go from there, stumble on, and try to understand just by looking at these things. I am no geologist.
There are others who know much better than me, like John McPhee, who has written many books on the formation of this place we call 'America'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annals_of_the_Former_World

John McPhee - a reporter's reporter

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5508293

Here's some rocks I collected along many California beaches:

There are of course many layers deposited. MANY layers. Of silt, sand, mud and shells. All then compressed and turned into 'rock'. Without the '...n'roll' part.
Then somehow, those layers get broken up, and washed in by the waves, and sanded by sand and waves... and then become what i have collected here, a melange of detritus.

When i was growing up in a small town in Maine, my mom was the director of us three kids upbringing. She took us to i don't remember how many places, usually north of our town, and on the way back we passed by a place, just a trailer on a gravel parking lot, called 'the rock shop'. It had many many examples of various minerals, and semi precious stones, also including hunks of mica, which i found fascinating, all shiny, in many thin layers.

Mica is a fascinating rock.. or should i say mineral?
When broken off, the thin layers were translucent - how can rock be translucent, i thought? Ah, but it can.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mica

http://www.rocksandminerals4u.com/mica.html

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/379747/mica

There was always a tumbler at work on something, a soothing sound.

http://www.geology.com/rock-tumbler/

What we soak up when we are young remains w/ us, always, it is our foundation, it becomes our core.
And now I live near the Pacific Ocean, and if you think calling it 'pacific' means it's calm or pacified? ..forget about it.

The beach is always a-tumblin' whatever is on it, over and over and over again.
here's how it goes:

And then the pebbles get tossed around, another story, sand, storms, waves, wind.

I found this on Agate Beach, at Patricks Point SP, it's agate, of course.

This most resembles a specimen "Turritella agate" found in Wyoming, of all places:

From Wikipedia:

"Turritella agate is formed from silicified fossil Elimia tenera (erroneously considered Turritella) shells. E. tenera are spiral freshwater gastropods having elongated, spiral shells composed of many whorls. Similarly, coral, petrified wood and other organic remains or porous rocks can also become agatized. Agatized coral is often referred to as Petoskey stone or agate."

That's the beach - how 'bout the desert?
Many stories here too, all of them millennia long, about accumulation, tectonic plate motion, and rain, much rain.

The Grand Canyon, Horse Shoe overlook.

I have a severe fear of heights, 

this is as close to the edge as i will go, 

there are better pictures to be had elsewhere.

 

Joshua Tree NP

Above, Canyon De Chelly - if you ever get the chance,
visit this one. 

You'll be glad you did.

Above, the White House ruins, Cyn De Chelly. There are *definitely* stories here.

It was abandoned due to drought, the canyon land no longer suported the tribe.

Will we be in the same boat, hundreds of years later, in California?

What do I do with the rocks I shoot? I make up new stories.

In conclusion, one interesting link:

 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/05/opinion/why-sand-is-disappearing.html
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In a couple of weeks, a darkroom montage post,
another couple of  'sandwiches'.

Hope you have enjoyed the above, please stop in again. :-)

 ..........................

Preview my book and/or dive into my latest darkroom creation: "Secrets"

Check out my first book, at Blurb.com.
Preview:
http://www.blurb.com/books/5470637-a-walk-on-the-california-coast
Or take a look at the B&W montage images done 16 yrs ago that are the foundation for the booK: http://www.californiabeachtrip.com

OK, on to the darkroom - Darkroom binge - July 4, 5

#1 Secret

Started this darkroom binge (2 days - July 4, 5) the same way i do all of them - w/ something simple.
This one is just a sky...dodged back a good bit in the center:

 ...and a beautifully lit doorway shot on a ship docked at SF harbor during 'fleet week'.
The door is locked tight, you ain't gonna get in here. But what you can't have is always want you want to have, isn't it?
There's something secret and probably valuable here, other wise, why would it be locked tight?

After I nailed the print in the first two passes, i just had to try something else.

 

So I blew in *something completely different* ( thank you monty python, for the phrase/description, it serves me well).
This was to burn in a neg made years ago at Cliff house/Ocean Beach/SF...

of the amusements there, at the Musee Mechanique,
just a wee bit of this neg, below
(I didn't even 'test' the exposure, i just burned it in.)

I should have tested it, the print is 'a nice start', but i should have burned in more.

I scanned it, and colorized it ( P'shop).

Far from perfect, but if you follow this blog at all, you'll know that i am not interested in perfect. I like mistakes, i like improvising. You won't discover anything new by being safe.

I've heard a lot of photographers say pretty much the same thing in so many words:
'The best thing about photoshop is you can do anything. The worst thing about photoshop is you can do anything, and get lost in the possibilities, and never make up your mind.'

I don't usually go for that approach, but this time round, WTF, let's work this one a bit.
I scanned the proof sheets, and came up with some alternate versions:

a not-so-subtle version, above.

and a version very close to the darkroom print:

I'm not sure which I like best, i think perhaps i like the darkroom version, but i can't hand-color glossy paper. Boo-hoo.

As usual, larger images, and a bit more yak at a page on my website:

www.bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_2014/Secret/index.html

In the 'whatever catches my eye' file this month:

A very interesting discussion of the well worn but will be infinitely discussed topic, film versus digital:
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/filmdig.htm

S.F. next door to ocean wilderness filled with beauty and beasts
Carl Nolte
Updated 8:52 pm, Sunday, September 21, 2014
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/nativeson/article/S-F-next-door-to-ocean-wilderness-filled-with-5770484.php


Sometimes You Just Need to Print Your Photos the Old-Fashioned Way
By David Rosenberg
http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2014/09/21/mark_steinmetz_a_look_at_some_of_the_atlanta_based_photographers_quiet_and.html

I was reminded of a photographer whose work is widely admired by of all things a good old fashioned newspaper article:

Robert Frank, his book 'The Americans' is a classic.

http://museum.stanford.edu/news_room/frank.html

Robert Frank
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100688154

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHtRZBDOgag


A text interview w/ RF:
http://www.americansuburbx.com/2010/02/theory-interview-with-robert-frank.html


Robert Frank and photography: Art in the age of image overload
Photographic overload.

By D.K. Row, The Oregonian The Oregonian

"I was pondering the implications of such a possibility while spending time with the 48 Polaroid images by Robert Frank on view at the Blue Sky Gallery. "

http://www.oregonlive.com/art/index.ssf/2012/01/robert_frank_and_photography_a.html

You've no doubt seen many pictures of the famous 'HOLLYWOOD' sign, but who else shot it like this?

So what does just an 'H' stand for?

It might not be hollywood, it could be 'hello'...

or it could be 'hell'. You got any other suggestions? Feel free to interpret as you wish.

Stop back in again in a month or so - more darkroom to come, more digital montage, and probably more rambling, 'wild and crazy' thoughts.