I re-opened the comments section! (whoop-dee-doo!)

I'm sure that won't shake your world much.
No surprise, here.
I had closed comments some months ago because virtually 100% of it had become spam, but while researching a previous post about hand-coloring (There will be another hand-coloring post, probably next month), i read a few comments and appreciated that there's actually some people out there reading who benefit from my posts. I am hoping that the hiatus will have discouraged the spammers enough to drop me from their lists. (But I sure as hell ain't holding my breath, ya know?)

So please feel free to speak up, i look forward to intelligent discussion and comments. I'll sift thru the spam if it reappears and bear w/ it.

Yes, even though i send a ton of time in front of this a monitor, i am still a diehard for analog, I still open up the darkroom every few months or so, and my recent round of hand-coloring confirms what I guess I already knew - i can get a whole lot more done in a few hours w/ oil colors, cotton balls and Q-tips than I can w/ Photoshop, in much more time.
Way, waaaay more.

And i really like the way analog is becoming appreciated for it's archival qualities - we are finding that, in the long run, digital is fragile and temporary.
So here's a pertinent link from the 'whatever catches my eye file':

When Artworks Crash: Restorers Face Digital Test
By MELENA RYZIK
Published: June 9, 2013 - NY Times

"Paintings fade; sculptures chip. Art restorers have long known how to repair those material flaws, so the experience of looking at a Vermeer or a Rodin remains basically unchanged over time. But when creativity is computerized, the art isn’t so easy to fix."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/10/arts/design/whitney-saves-douglas-daviss-first-collaborative-sentence.html?hp&_r=0


Here's a personal experience along those lines, "digital is fragile and temporary".

A few years ago, my ol' Mac G3 died, over the course of just a few days. The 2 drives in it had been partitioned into 3 sections each, and one by one, each time i started up, another 1 died/failed to show up on the desktop.
At first, i freaked out... then realized that the most major portion of the work had been backed up, it was somewhere over 100 hours of scanning and image prep. When i figured out that the loss was only some digital pix, I breathed a big sigh of relief, and looked across the room to a suitcase that has all the B&W negs I've shot since i moved to Ca. 21 years ago. They are quite intact and will be safe and sound for many years to come.
Flood? I am on the 4th floor, if i am worrying about flood loss at that height? Film is the least of my worries.
Fire? My apt has sprinklers installed, and that suitcase is pretty darn sturdy, and it's wrapped (inside) in a big sheet of plastic.
Earthquake?... once again, if Ca. gets 'the big one' and it is close to San Rafael?....
saving film might be the least of my worries.
An EMP attack by Korea or Iran?... once again, saving film will be the least of my worries.
But will whatever technology exists 10 or 20 years from be able to deal w/ my negs? I suspect so.
Because there is just way too much 'old stuff' for the 'new stuff' to ignore/exclude/ make unuseable.

Here's another pertinent link from the 'whatever catches my eye file':

Vinyl records aren't dead:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/10/arts/music/vinyl-records-are-making-a-comeback.html

I'd *love* to know what my first release copy of Dave mason's first solo album (pressed on 'marbled' vinyl) would  sell for today. It would probably make me faint.
I will be content to still be able to hear:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnsxq2YKyUo
( a live performance 1977)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvf5rVzmHuc
studio version

A preview of the hand-color post to come:




As a last word, try and find something good, some glimmer of hope in this crazy-ass world.
I did this montage (below) a few years ago, and that's what it's about - find something good, some glimmer of hope in this crazy-ass world.

I titled it the 'The pass', as in the old line in western movies 'let's cut em off at the pass!'... but you?... should 'pass' on thru. As in the lyric from a Doors song (sad to hear Ray M. died recently) - "Break on thru to the other side".
Do that. :-)

'Desert' Time

Here's a watch that you won't find in any store, anywhere..
And you can't put it on your wrist.
I've titled it "Desert time".
Glad i took time to revisit a P'shop sketch of this image and then added the 'sandwich' at the top, and a prickly pear cactus along the rim of the sundial, worked out very nicely.

As usual, it started out one way (the first P'shop sketch, below)...

..and ended up coming out of the darkroom much differently.
When/if that stops happening?... i will know it is time to get treatment for alzheimers or dementia... park my ass in an old age home, and play shuffle board and card games.
(Nope, ain't there yet! No way, no how!)

[On second thought, maybe the dementia would be inspiring, and interesting... at least for me, a guy who dropped acid at least 50 times in the late 60's/early 70's.
Hey... who knows... the mind works in mysterious ways, doesn't it?]

For the time being, i am working same as always - some planning, but it's a springboard... and much improvisation.
Improvisation is definitely the best way to go.
I revised the sketch just before i did the print.
The top part is a sandwich of 2 negs - a landscape in Nevada, with this lonely tree growing out of rocks...and a sky.
The bottom part is a sundial, i shot in Golden Gate Park, SF.
But the sundial didn't 'end' the way i wanted... at the bottom.

So I dodged out the bottom part, anything outside the sundial, and then burned in the (prickly pear) cactus.. to surround it ( as in the sketch above), and make it seem to 'float' in desert space...
The sundial definitely becomes a 'desert time piece', the rocks and the tree being the engine to mark time by another standard.

Here's the four negs:

And how did it end up?

It 'ended up' here/ above.

As usual, larger images at a page in my website:

bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_2013/DesertTime/index.html

So... given all this, do you know what time it is?
No, i didn't think so, and i don't either... and neither of us should care.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uy0ldI_1HA

Bear w/ the ads, it's only a few seconds, but definitely listen to Robert Lamm's atonal/ rambling piano intro ( marvelous!).... and continue on.
Chicago's first album was awesome. As was Terry Kath, their lead guitarist.

Another great track, "Beginnings":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njpK87Vxe_c

Definitely search youtube for 'Chicago+the band' - especially anything w/ Terry Kath.
Signing off... but as always, quoting the Terminator "Ah'll be back". :-)
............. BB