...but first, the whatever catches my eye file....here we go!
Eight eerie, abandoned amusement parks
".....there’s something inherently spooky about abandoned amusement parks, there’s also something beautiful and poetic about them, particularly in the curious way Mother Nature goes about reclaiming landscapes punctuated by idle roller coasters and collapsing funhouses. In some cases, neglected amusement parks have proven to be more photogenic in death than they were in life."http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/eco-tourism/photos/8-eerie-abandoned-amusement-parks/take-a-ride-or-not?hpt=hp_bn11
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Google Details Electricity Usage of Its Data Centers
By James Galanz
Published: September 8, 2011
Google released what was once among its most closely guarded secrets on Thursday: how much electricity its enormous computing facilities consume.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/technology/google-details-electricity-output-of-its-data-centers.html?_r=2
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On Maine's coast, art runs wild
Robin Soslow, Special to The Chronicle
Sunday, September 4, 2011
I am originally from Maine, this one caught my eye.
Sometimes they call us 'mainers'... sometimes they call us 'maniacs'.
Not sure what the difference is... :-)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/04/TREA1KSHUK.DTL
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NASA’s Cassini orbiter snaps unbelievable picture of Saturn
For a larger view:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/nasa-cassini-orbiter-snaps-unbelievable-picture-saturn-144133480.html
For even more,
Images from the Cassini space probe made into a beautiful video:
http://www.tecca.com/news/2011/06/03/cassini-saturn-space-video/
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Don Henley: Record Companies 'Not Going to Roll Over' on Copyright Issue
'My hope is that artists understand what's at stake and what their rights are,' he says...
By David Browne
September 7, 2011 4:50 PM ET
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/don-henley-record-companies-not-going-to-roll-over-on-copyright-issue-20110907
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The 9/11 Decade
Ironworkers of the Sky
By Randy Kennedy
Published: September 1, 2011 - NY Times
"You need to have a very unique trait inside, to go running out on the iron," says Kevin Sabbagh, 24, a fifth-generation ironworker known as Woogie.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/us/sept-11-reckoning/04Mag-ironworkers.html?_r=1&hpw
"I look forward to sweating. And I look forward to finishing this building. I plan on staying all the way to the top"
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Errol Morris Looks for the Truth in Photography
By KATHRYN SCHULZ
Published: September 1, 2011
One of the first things we learn in “Believing Is Seeing” is that its author, the filmmaker Errol Morris, has limited sight in one eye and lacks normal stereoscopic vision — “My fault,” he writes, for refusing to wear an eye patch after being treated for strabismus in childhood. It’s hard to think of another writer who so neatly embodies the theme of his own book. “Believing Is Seeing” is about the limitations of vision, and about the inevitable idiosyncrasies and distortions involved in the act of looking — in particular, looking at photographs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/books/review/believing-is-seeing-by-errol-morris-book-review.html?hpw
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Offbeat Traveler: Darwin Falls in Death Valley National Park
Death Valley (http://www.nps.gov/deva/index.htm) sounds like an unlikely place for waterfalls, but near Panamint Springs at the western edge of the national park, Darwin Falls flows year-round.
http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-trb-offbeat-traveler-darwin-falls-in-death-valley-20110826,0,5235750.photogallery
www.nps.gov/deva/planyourvisit/panamintspringsarea.htm
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Crash witnesses make off with spilled marijuana
Vivian Ho, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, September 1, 2011
(09-01) 13:17 PDT SAN JOSE -- A pickup truck hauling large bags of marijuana overturned and spilled its load in south San Jose, but passers-by took care of much of the cleanup, police said today.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/01/BADU1KV0IC.DTL#ixzz1WkTZ1ixN
He..He he.... what did you expect in California!!!???
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Earliest Signs of Advanced Tools Found
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Published: August 31, 2011
One hallmark of Homo erectus, a forerunner of modern humans, was his stone tools, an advanced technology reflecting a good deal of forethought and dexterity. Up to now, however, scientists have been unable to pin a firm date on the earliest known evidence of his stone tool-making.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/science/01tools.html?_r=1&hpw
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The Glamorous Past and Desolate Present of 'America's Dead Sea'
By Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg
"The Salton Sea was once a tourist destination, a "Palm Springs with water." Now the largest lake in California is an environmental disaster....
http://www.theatlantic.com/video/archive/2011/08/the-glamorous-past-and-desolate-present-of-americas-dead-sea/244341/
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Green - a blog about energy and the environment - The New York Times
"Just as traders use various stock indices to monitor the global economy, microanalyzing each blip, a team of nearly 50 scientists from many disciplines is designing an analogous tool to track the health of the world’s oceans and the implications for human well-being."
August 15, 2011, 2:36 pm
An Index for ocean health - by Dylan Walsh
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com
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NASA Rover Arrives at Huge Mars Crater After 3-Year Trek
YEEEEAHHH!!! all right!!!!!!!
http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-rover-arrives-huge-mars-crater-3-trek-173601595.html
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Shouts & Murmurs
God’s Blog
by Paul Simms - August 8, 2011
This one is a hoot, good for a few hearty laughs, check it out!
It starts...
"UPDATE: Pretty pleased with what I’ve come up with in just six days. Going to take tomorrow off. Feel free to check out what I’ve done so far. Suggestions and criticism (constructive, please!) more than welcome. God out."
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2011/08/08/110808sh_shouts_simms
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Affordable art is the new reality
New technologies have given emerging artists a shot at building an audience -- and consumers a chance to buy quality art for a reasonable price.
http://www.latimes.com/features/home/la-hm-affordable-art-20110806,0,6328319.story
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Calligraphers still going against type
In a fast-paced world dominated by computers, these masters of handwriting continue to make art from letters. For them, the pen is still mightier than the keyboard.
By Thomas Curwen, Los Angeles Times
August 9, 2011
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-calligraphy-20110809,0,2269586.story
Calligraphy was the thing that really got me started on art - i learned it at one of those brick-walled ivy covered NE boarding schools, when i was 10 yo.
Then i started taking in Celtic illuminated manuscripts...and then....
islamic/persian illuminated manuscripts, and... so on, and so on, and so on.
I lived in Wash DC for 20+ years. I first arrived in 1969 to 'study' at American Univ. Yeah, right, did anyone in college in 1969 actually 'study'?... i sure didn't. I walked a mile to all the great art museums in DC, probably stoned and then some.
Took it ALL in.
I have to thank my mom, long gone, for taking all her kids to every good art exhibit you could drive to in Maine. Which included a lot of Winslow Homer originals, that kind of thing.
No wonder I went into some kind artistic work.
No regrets.
On to some photomontage!
I got a print recently, made by a very good friend of mine, made w/ a panoramic camera.
©Jan Faul / Artfaul.comIt was a double exposure, made by mistake. Sometimes mistakes can be awesome, much better than anything you can make while trying to be logical/organized/etc.
I was rather inspired by not just the image itself... but the concept of a double exposure... as applied to my montage work.
I have always blended together 2 or more images top to bottom, side to side, or any combination thereof, so that they blend into each other, most of each image remains distinctly itself.... but haven't tried anything that was this long/deep... a blend - like about 80% of the image, one negative overlapping the other the whole 80%.
But i came up w/ 2 images that were like that... took 'em into the darkroom, here's the first one:
On this one, the only part of the 'gas station' neg. that didn't overlap the landscape/sky was the ground at the bottom. There's a lot of tension here, which I liked, it makes you wonder 'what am I seeing here?'
I exposed the gas station first, the sky second.
First pass just didn't work, too heavy handed, too dark.
Since I had the sky neg already there in the enlarger when i saw the heavy handed/way too dark of the bottom, i exposed a few more sheets (much lighter/better),....and then returned to the bottom/the gas station....& added a much lighter 'bottom' exposure.
AAAaaah! That's it....
It's not the same as my PSD sketch. So what? it's called a 'sketch' for a reason - it's provisional, open to improvisation/further improvement.
This one is kinda spooky, you're not quite sure what you are seeing, or if you are seeing it at all.
Compared to the 'sketch'? this is much spookier, harder to decipher.
As usual, for more, & larger images, a page at my site:
www.bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_2011/OutOfGas/index.html
