The Pass

Here's the photoshop sketch of this post's print:



But first, as always, the 'whatever catches my eye' file:

The science of the Mojave, and scorpions that glow in the dark

Cal State's Desert Studies Center, a 1,200-acre field station near Soda Springs, is one of the world's few desert research facilities. It gives students a close-up view of life at 100-plus degrees.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-desert-studies-20111009,0,1108402.story
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Photographers find light in the dead of night

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/08/DDBM1L4LCA.DTL&type=art
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Lovin’ Letterpress | Week 1


http://megancharland.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/lovin-letterpress-week-1/

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Talking to Koko the gorilla
By The Week's Editorial Staff | The Week – 11 hrs ago

http://news.yahoo.com/talking-koko-gorilla-123500449.html?bouchon=807,ca

"This 40-year-old lowland gorilla, says Alex Hannaford, understands English and longs for a baby........."

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Amazing desert animals
Deserts are often viewed as desolate and devoid of life. But author James Parry proves otherwise in his new book "The Desert" (Carlton Books). Parry showcases fascinating creatures and plant life that thrive in the heat. View more photos from "The Desert" in this slideshow.

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/desert-creatures-1317239813-slideshow/



How I Did It: Hartley Peavey of Peavey Electronics
How Hartley Peavey took his electronics company from a one-man shop to a $270 million global brand
Growing up in Mississippi in the 1950s, Hartley Peavey dreamed of becoming a rock star. Though he lacked the chops to become the next Chuck Berry, his name has been etched into the pantheon of rock 'n' roll history. That's because Peavey amplifiers, sound equipment, and guitars boast a devoted following among rock stars and wannabes alike. More recently, airports, government buildings, and other facilities are turning to Peavey gear as well. Peavey started 46 years ago as a one-man shop. Now it is a global brand with about 1,000 employees and a reported $270 million in annual revenue.
By Kasey Wehrum | Inc – Tue, Sep 27, 2011 12:00 AM EDT
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/did-hartley-peavey-peavey-electronics-070000229.html

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Magic Mushrooms Can Make Lasting Personality Changes, Study Says
Elizabeth Lopatto, ©2011 Bloomberg News
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Psilocybin, or "magic mushrooms," can make people more open in their feelings and aesthetic sensibilities, conferring on them a lasting personality change, according to a study by Johns Hopkins researchers.


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/09/29/bloomberg_articlesLS96451A74E9.DTL

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How Far Will Dolphins Go to Relate to Humans?

OFF THE BAHAMAS — In a remote patch of turquoise sea, Denise L. Herzing splashes into the water with a pod of 15 Atlantic spotted dolphins. For the next 45 minutes, she engages the curious creatures in a game of keep-away, using a piece of Sargassum seaweed like a dog’s chew toy.
How far will dolphins go to engage?
“The key is going to be coming up with a system in which the dolphins want to communicate,” said Stan Kuczaj, director of the Marine Mammal Behavior and Cognition Laboratory at the University of Southern Mississippi. “If they don’t care, it won’t work.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/science/20dolphin.html

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Portraits of sea creatures
What’s the best way to create up-close images of sea life? Photographer Mark Laita built an aquarium in his Los Angeles studio and shot more than 80 species borrowed from aquariums across the country for his new book “Sea” (Abrams). View more of Laita’s fascinating photographs in this slideshow.

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/portraits-of-sea-creatures-1317072248-slideshow/

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I can't beleive his song has not been covered, in the last 40 years, in some way shape or form.

Yardbirds - You're a better man than I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jj2R69qRxU&feature=related




This is the second print done inspired by a print a friend sent me of an in-camera (unintended) double exposure. 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, with a relatively short area of 'blending'... but I haven't tried anything that was this long/deep... a blend.

Sooo.... there's some rocks in 'Valley of Fire', Nevada - i loved the way the huge rocks kinda 'gave way' to a few straggling clouds, & the 'pass' (thru) between them.
In this country, there's always a few Joshua Trees, everywhere... that's what filled up the rest of the space. This was taken outside Las vegas, NV a few years ago.

Don't know why or how this came about... it just did. Many times, i don't ask for an explanation, i just 'do it' ( Thank you, Nike, for a seminal thought). In recent years, I have been using Photoshop as a 'sketch' tool. I take a lot of low res digital pix of contact sheets, or various frames, and just start slamming some things together. I don't expect to come up w/ anything immediately, what I've found is that you just start somewhere, get the ball rolling, start by 'playing', sort of.
I learned this many years ago, when I worked as an art director, which was a great experience for a budding (future!) photographer - you got hire interesting photogs, and watch them work/ figure out problems. Several times I watched as they worked on tabletop shots, w/ many objects grouped together. They started by just messing around, playing - "hey, that doesn't look half bad let's do a polaroid'... they'd look at it and say ' nah,... let's try this'. Another polaroid... 'well, not bad, but how about this?...'.
And somewhere along the line, the 'play' would yield something that really started to happen = "now we're gettin' somewhere, can we move this item abit like that? and that item about like this?...'
And all of a sudden, the 'play' got a lot tighter, more focused... and we got some work done.
So that's how i work w/ all the dig pix of contacts, just mess around, 'play'... until that "aha!" moment happens.

You will find a much better visual explanation of which negs got exposed how, here:
www.bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_2011/ThePass/index.html

There's also 3 more prints, all a bit different.

"Out of gas"

Here's the photoshop sketch that led to this entry's darkroom print:

...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.com

It 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