Let's try and look on the bright side, marvel at what still exists.... ( in keeping with the blog title 'the beach blog'....)
Deep-sea discoveries off Canada's coast
By Derrick Ho, Special to CNN
July 22, 2010 8:34 a.m. EDT
Using high-tech robotic cameras, a team of scientists is getting a rare first glimpse of marine life in the North Atlantic that could shed light on the ocean's ecosystem and climate to as far back as 1,000 years.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/07/21/canada.marine.life/index.html?hpt=C2
-------------------------
SYDNEY (AFP) – Australian scientists have discovered bizarre prehistoric sea life hundreds of kilometres below the Great Barrier Reef, in an unprecedented mission to document species under threat from ocean warming.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100715/sc_afp/australiaenvironmentcoralreef
More images:
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/15/scientists-discover-bizarre-deep-sea-creatures/?hpt=C2
Say What?! Whales Shout over Noise Pollution
Just like a New Yorker shouting to be heard in a crowded deli, whales must shout to be heard in ever noisier ocean waters, a new study suggests.
Wed Jul 7, 4:10 pm ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20100707/sc_livescience/saywhatwhalesshoutovernoisepollution
Coral find in sanctuaries proves hotbed of life
David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Thirty-five miles west of the Point Reyes Lighthouse, and 10,000 feet beneath the ocean surface, scientists steering a robot submersible have found beds of cold-water corals that provide a unique habitat for countless sea creatures, from brittle stars to octopus and rockfish.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/06/26/MNNN1E5577.DTL
Tuna’s End
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/magazine/27Tuna-t.html?hpw
A few other things worth noting:
America's Strangest Roadside Attractions
These odd and quirky attractions lure in motorists to out-of-the sights.
http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/48HoursIn/slideshow/photos-americas-best-roadside-attractions-10322244
As for things digital???........
The Web Means the End of Forgetting
By JEFFREY ROSEN
Published: July 19, 2010
'The problem she faced is.......... how best to live our lives in a world where the Internet records everything and forgets nothing — where every online photo, status update, Twitter post and blog entry by and about us can be stored forever. With Web sites like LOL Facebook Moments, which collects and shares embarrassing personal revelations from Facebook users, ill-advised photos and online chatter are coming back to haunt people months or years after the fact.'
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/magazine/25privacy-t2.html?ref=magazine
----------------------------
Digital Tools for Making Brilliant Mistakes
By ROB WALKER
Published: July 19, 2010 - The New York Times
Progress toward perfection has genuine skeptics, who insist on sticking with marginalized tools. The newer thing may seem less flawed or simply easier, such traditionalists insist, but it sacrifices warmth, soul, depth, personality, chance and the human touch.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/magazine/25fob-consumed-t.html?ref=magazine
On to some photography!
A Cryptic Signpost
This is one of those 'don't know where it came from, why I did it, don't have a clue what it means' images.
But I did it anyway. In fact that's the very best reason to definitely do a print.
I love the signpost, at the left, directing one towards...'who the f*** knows where', since the letters are rather illegible, and it points to...nothing? - maybe that's what I liked about it. I found the collection of stuff at the right along a road somewhere in the desert, at an 'L' turn in an otherwise straight as an arrow road.
On one side was the (aptly named) "No Gotta Ranch", on the other side, a place that shoulda been named "No Gotta Ranch #2", but wasn't named or described at all, no 'shingle' hung.
And probably not interested in visitors - that's why people move here.
What there was on display were racks of various old collected things, lanterns, mining equipment, bottles, etc... and also, in a corral by the roadside a couple of friendly donkeys (or burros? I don't know the difference ) ...who heard me stop, and came to the gate to say 'hello'.
I returned the hello (all equines have the most marvelously velvety soft noses(snouts?!), don't they?
& shot a frame of the 'collectibles'.
With a name like 'no gotta ranch' I figured the owners were not much for strangers pointing cameras in their direction, so I worked fast, and moved on.
For whatever reason, this image made sense, to be somewhere in the distance.
The print is, as always, technically easy at first glance, but the subtleties of how things get burned and dodged is where it either succeeds or fails.
There were 3 final prints, all interesting in their own ways, the differences were subtle, to be sure.
This is one those images that whispered 'hand-color me'.
Why do some images 'ask' to be hand-colored, and some not?
Maybe the B&W image is still a bit too ambiguous?... not that I have a problem with that, but perhaps viewers may.
One thing I have learned from years of working w/ images and seeing how people react to them, and what they buy, is that too many people want something that isn't too challenging, and looks good over the couch. No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the public, did they?
www.bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_2010/Desert_Directions/index.html
