GW-Images

Another Busy Weekend

2012-02-12T23:38:00.000-06:00

On Saturday, NWHPC had a photoshoot at David Adickes’ SculptorWorx Studio. Adickes’ is the sculpture that did The Virtuoso in downtown Houston and Big Sam beside I45 in Huntsville. He has also cone the heads of all the U S Presidents. There are two parks, one in Virginia and one in South Dakota that have all of the heads displayed. There are still several scattered about the studio grounds and inside.

David Adickes and the head of Lincoln (I believe)

Cecilee and the Presidents

Jefferson in the back of the studio

Then this afternoon I went with Photoshoots Houston on a very cold photoshoot in the Galleria area. I don’t think anyone got a lot of photos. I know that I didn’t. But I had a good time.

Andreas, Thank You

2012-02-10T23:05:00.001-06:00

I honestly do not know where to begin this. There are times when I feel as if I have passed through this world making hardly a ripple. That has never disturbed me; rippling has never been a big thing with me. It’s just that you have to wonder the whats and whys of such a life.

Yes, I know my photographic guru was somewhat of a nut case. I figured that was okay because I always thought that I was also. Ralph highly stressed living your life through the camera and I always have. To my disappointment, not as much as I would have liked. He never let anything remain under the surface. The thrust of Ralph’s teachings was in bringing out your hopes, fears, dreams, disappointments, successes, failures—just letting it all hang out. One he frequently mentioned was that the greatest gift you can give to another person is to let them know that you are every bit as vile, corrupt and perverted as they are. I appreciate that because I, in truth, am a very inwardly turned individual. To share has always been difficult because I know how vile, corrupt and perverted I am and was never sure I wanted everyone else to know. But because of Ralph I understood that I was at least abnormally normal or normally abnormal, everwhich. I always felt that I had been a little screwed up by spending so much time with Emerson and Hattersley—today, I think I was wrong. I guess, assuming Socrates was correct and the correlation can be drawn, I have lived a life worth living because I have surely lived an examined life. Although, I’m not entirely sure it works both ways.

For the last ten years of Janet’s life I photographed her constantly. I said it was to make up for the first twenty-seven years of our marriage when I was absolutely forbidden to take photographs of her. That was part of it but there must have been more to it than that. I have always used the camera to try to understand life, to make some stupid sense of life and that was never more so than with the photographs of Janet. It wasn’t Thoreau’s life of quiet desperation but we shared a life that was quiet and unassuming. I found in Janet all that I needed in life and I wanted to understand that through the photographs. To the end she was my sanctuary and I can only pray to God that I was hers. Her last years were so difficult, there were only questions, no answers; guessing and never knowing whether or not I was doing what she needed, what I should be doing. I relive those years and all their fears daily.

Family, for the most part, ignored the photographs. Maybe they did not know how to talk about them. Maybe they just didn’t care. I don’t know. My photography is hardly ever a family discussion. Friends did comment, said they liked the photographs, but I know that at least toward the end the photographs were difficult to view—much to private—and I’m sure many felt exploiting, I was never sure myself that they weren't.

Today, there was a brief post to the blog thread where I announced that Janet has passed away. He sent me a link to a post that he had made on his blog regarding the taking of emotionally charged images. I have often wondered if I would every take a photograph that would have a profound effect on another individual. Thank you so much Andreas for letting me know that I did. Your words about my photographs has touched me very, very deeply. It does affirm one of my long held beliefs—the only worthwhile photography comes from the very deepest recesses of being—when it all hangs out.

Random Thoughts on a Bummer Day

2012-02-08T21:39:00.001-06:00

Vacillate—among my favorite words. The exact distance between blue funk and euphoria.

I live on Excedrin and Afrin and I have been off of them for over a week and the doctor’s office called three hours before the appointment and postponed another week—the second time they have postponed. Maybe they are holding out for 2014—or at least practicing for 2014.

I need to do a self portrait for the assigned category at the camera club. Now you would think that wasn’t much of a problem as I do them all the time, but this one is supposed to mean something. It’s supposed to be about how you either believe that people see you or how you would like other people to see you. It’s kinda hard when your are not very concerned about either scenario. Picked that up from my darling wife. I’m me, take it or leave it.

I used to have an eye patch that made me look like the Duke in True Grit. Got it when I had Bell’s Palsy. That would probably work. I guess I could buy another one and maybe a pair of overalls—the ones with the bib and the hammer loop. A white shirt and bright red and blue tie, overalls, but what should I hang in the hammer loop—a hammer wouldn’t work—oh yeah, a dinner jacket and maybe a dunce cap. Do you ever think about the material things that say, “You” or in my case, “Me?” The longer I live in the city the more cornpone country I get. Maybe I could toss my hair—well if I had any, paint on some freckles and find a steam of Johnson Grass to chew on. Darn, and I just had the yard cut today.

My Dad used to do something that bugged me—well among other things. He was always upset when relatives came to town and visited all the other relatives or their in-laws or whatever and just swung by the house for a brief visit on the way out of town. Don’t ever recall that they never gave a call or stopped by—but he always felt a little put out. Maybe it was because they always stopped by at dinner time. I don’t know. He always told them, “Well, you see what’s here. If you want to eat it up from the wife and kids, go ahead.” Don’t even know why it bothered me that he would be upset. But, now I understand that acorns never fall far from the tree.

Another one of those days, I get up and say, I’ll go out for breakfast. Then when the doctor rescheduled I said , I’ll run out for a burger. And after Judge Judy went off I actually got dressed to go out to dinner—here I sit with an upset stomach from a very, very, very greasy can of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup. Two thirds of it is still sitting on the table in case I get up the nerve to continue but I won’t. Nothing tastes worse than chicken fat--and now it is cold chicken fat.

Do You Reckon I Could Convience Anyone That This Is A Self Portrait?

Actually, David duChemin says that all photographs are self portraits and I am inclined to believe that. So I guess, yeah, it is.

What an Amazing Place

2012-02-07T12:13:00.000-06:00

The Concert Hall at Roundtop

The grounds around the Concert Hall are equally impressive.

Alcy wanted to drive to Roundtop because she heard that there was a good place there to eat. She invited me to go along. Well, there may be a good place there to eat but it is not opened on Monday. We didn't take any photographs in Roundtop although there is much there to photograph. We made a fortuitous turn into the drive to the Concert Hall and spent several hours photographing the hall and the surrounding grounds. Then we drove to LaGrange where people also do not eat on Monday. In October I met the owner of Bistro 108 which I was photographing his building--also on Monday, so I should have know that it would not be open, but I forgot. There are three other eateries located on the square, all but one closed. Alcy had quiche and I had a meatloaf sandwich at Latte on the Square. Now I know why country people are so skinny—they don’t eat on Mondays. Had a great day and came home with a few photographs.

Sunday Photoshoot at Mercer Arboretum

2012-01-30T22:04:00.000-06:00

Sunday afternoon made up for all the problems of Saturday. Went to a model shoot at Mercer Arboretum with the Houston Photoshoots Meet Up group. The first shoot I attended with Photoshoots was at Mercer about a year and a half ago. It felt good not to be the newbie this time around. I didn’t shoot a lot of the models but I enjoyed working quite a bit with Nicole and her son TJ.

Cortney Rose is one of the younger models. She's been modeling for the group for over a year as well as doing professional modeling. She's only twelve but a very talented model.

Macie is another of the younger models what has been with the group for a year of so. Her aunt brings her and she always has a number of amazing outfits to shoot.

I didn't meet this new model. I was holding a scrim for a group of photograhers and took the opportunity to grab a few shots. I shot a number of shots using reflectors which seems to be the prefered modifier for most photographers. I didn't like any of them, too artificial. This is actually a combination of scrim with reflector for directional lighting. It's okay but to me the refelctor never looks really natural and most photographers overlight with the reflector--which is the case here. Too much light on the lower part of the face, shadows are overfilled.

This is another new model named Sydney, I think. She may be a sister to the young girl above. This is using no modifier. Sydney was facing away from the sun so that her face was in shadow. I had to darken the highlights on the hair in post.

I think this was Desiree's second shoot. She modeled at an indoor session several months ago. I told her this would give Tyra Banks a run for her money, but Desiree didn't like the photograph. Everyone else did so it's okay.

This is Nicole or Nick. Being older she doesn't get as much attention as the younger models. This is only her second shoot and my guess is that with the excitement these photographs have generated that she is not going to have to worry about being ignored the next time she show up for a shoot. Nick, TJ, myself and another new photographer wandered off by ourselves and got some pretty good photograph.Okay, so I'm bragging!

The purpose of this shoot was to use scrims and reflectors with natural light. I liked the shadow of her hair so I shot this with direct light.

Here I found a stone archway that provided shadow so no modifiers was needed.

I didn't carry a reflector since I much prefer a scrim if at all possible. So all the shote of Nicole that have used a light modifier are shot using a scrim.

Since I like to work close when photographing people I don't do a lot of distant or full figure shots. But every once in a while if I think I can control the background I will give it a try. Really hacked that I cut off her left hand but no one has mentioned it so far.

TJ was the only male model that showed up for this shoot. The guys always get ignored. I had gotten a few shots of him at the downtown shoot but there I didn't do any head shots. This is the only one that I got that I was pleased with.

The Liberty Festival--Homes for Our Troops

2012-01-30T21:19:00.000-06:00

A very long and very interesting extended weekend. Thursday evening I met with members of the Katy Photography Meet Up and a few members of the Northwest Houston Photo Club Meet Up to do portraits at the volunteer’s dinner of the Liberty Festival.

The Liberty Festival’s purpose is to raise money to build homes for disabled veterans. We did portrait sessions on Thursday night and then again on Saturday. The portraits were free but if the person wished to make a contribution to the Festival. As a result they raised $112—not a lot but every bit helps.

In addition several members of the Northwest Houston Photo Club covered the Festival to capture photographs for the organization to use to promote the Festival and attract sponsors for next year. I am extremely proud of the job everyone did—except me. I practically sit this one out. Last year I spent two days from 6:30am until after 7pm. There was no way I could possibly do that this year. Even the few photographs that I did take were not very good. I went Friday with the intention of doing crowd shots but when I arrived there was no crowd, just volunteers and those involved in the Festival. Thursday night I was real excited because the attractions and events had doubled over last year’s festival. Unfortunately Wednesday we had an extremely heavy rain in the area which required moving the visitor parking to some remote sites. I believe that may have had an effect on the number of people that attended. By Saturday the remote sites were still in use with shuttle service, but the large visitor parking area at American Shooting Center had dried out enough that it was usable.

Even though there were large crowds Saturday I stuck close by the portrait set up and only managed to grab a few head shots. I am having a problem with the few candids that I shot Thursday night and am going to have to find some recovery software to see if I can salvage them. Then there was falling asleep while driving home from the shoot Thursday night, the canceled doctors appointment on Friday, the flat tire Saturday morning, the blocked underpasses on I45 that made me have to drive north when I wanted to go south, the closed Mall, being stuck in Houston traffic for three hours and running out of gasoline. All in all a very different beginning for a weekend. Thank goodness for Jam and the Houston Photoshoots Mercer Park shoot Sunday afternoon to get life back in order.

Friday and Saturday there were jostling tournments--guys in actual armor. I didn't see either of the tournments but this is one of the participants that I caught resting up after lunch.

One of the Veterans and his wife waiting for the portrait session.

General Patton from the reenactment group with William the Conqueror

A Major and his aid from the reenactment group

One of the vets waiting for a portrait before going to the shooting range

No gathering in Texas is complete without a few cowboys

Bored Beyond Belief

2012-01-21T17:39:00.001-06:00

I was supposed to go on a photoshoot with NWHPC to the Katy Prairie. Even got up early to do a washing so I would have clean jeans. We were to meet at the Ranchito Taqueria iin Waller at 1:30pm. I was messing around on the computer and felt a little hungry so I went to the kitchen and noticed that it was 1:13pm. Waller if you count getting bathed, shaved and dressed is well over an hour away. So now I sit here bored out of my skull.

Antique Store on FM1960

2012-01-19T17:20:00.000-06:00

Alcy had an antique store on FM1960 that she suggested for a photoshoot. We asked the owner and she had no objections for we wandered around for an hour or so. There are two interesting things about shooting in antique stores. First someone sets up the displays in a fashion which they hope will have some appeal to the customers so your table tops are just waiting to be shot. Second, is the incongruity. I especially like the photographs of the candelabra and the traffic light. The one thing that I missed was the religious artifacts that most antique stores have. Otherwise it was a fun shoot. As to not intimidate the shop owner I left the Nikon in the car and shot everything with the Samsung.

The February Assigned Category for the competition is Self Portrait. So we spent a little time doing that while we were in the antique store. Some how it seemed appropriate to photograph ourselves as being a part of the antiques on display--sorry Alcy, I just meant me.

Alcy Doing a Self Portrait in the Wardrobe Mirror

Self Among the Other Antiques

Self Among the Other Antiques No. 2

Future Self Praying for a Fire Extinguisher

Not Really Sure If This Is Me Or Not

Shoes

Back Again...

2012-01-16T01:25:00.000-06:00

Both Photoshoots of Houston and I have been a little inactive for the past few months. Jam set one up downtown and I couldn't resist giving it a try. I had to pass on the NWHPC photoshoot of the Cheveron Marathon this morning because I knew two would wear me out. I really felt good to be shooting people pictures again.

Make of It What You Will...

2012-01-14T10:27:00.000-06:00

I seem to recall somewhere reading that Carl Jung kept a notepad on his night table to record his dreams each morning. I recently have tried to make notes on some of mine—don’t know why because, unlike Jung, I can’t make any sense of any of them. Besides that I usually don’t get around to recording them until I can no longer remember what they were about. That’s the strange part about dreams. I can lie in bed and seem to totally recount the events of a dream but a very short time later can only remember that I had a dream, not remembering a single thing about it or even what I went over while lying there. That is why this morning I decided to go straight to the computer before I lost this one.

It seems that on a photoshoot I had taken two very different series of photographs. The first series were very bright and colorful. If it is possible to still use the word in it's original context--they were very light hearted and gay. I was very pleased with the photographs and had enlarged several of them to show. They were photographs that made me feel very good, very happy, very pleased. However, the second set of photographs was dark and moody. It seemed that both sets of photographs were very abstract not really depicting anything recognizable. The first seemed to be more splotches of bright, cheerful, diffused colors and the second were mostly more distinct shapes, lines and circles of dull colors against a very dark background. I could not say what had been in front of the camera on either set; only that I had shot both sets on the same photoshoot, the same day. I think I wondered why I had taken the second set and could not see anything of any value in the photographs.

Then, in the dream this morning, I dreamed that I had a dream about the photographs. I dreamed that the second set of photographs were not actually taken by me but were taken by a person that was a gardener. Even though I recall seeing the image of the gardener I could not tell you if the person was a man or a woman. What I recall mostly was the overalls, and the torn, wide brimmed straw hat that the gardener wore. I only saw the gardener from behind so I do not know that I ever saw the gardener’s face. What was special about this gardener was that he/she couldn’t walk. All the gardening was being done by crawling around the garden on his/her stomach. The gardener did not feel put upon because he/she couldn’t travel around the garden more easily. Actually, the gardener seemed a very happy, very content person; enjoying very much what he/she was doing. I also recall that the gardener was a very pleasant person to be around. I felt very good being with the gardener and I when I was I seemed to see everything from the gardeners perspective.

I do not know why the photographs at first were mine and then became the photographs of the gardener but by making that change made a considerable difference in how I felt about the photographs. For some reason I no longer saw the second series as dull and even depressing. They were still dark and moody but now in a very beautiful way. My feelings about the two sets of images did a reversal. What was in the second set of photographs was what the gardener was crawling about the ground creating and enjoying so much. I was aware that the gardener never saw an overall view or the garden, the landscaping, the flowers, the things we generally accept as beautiful about a garden. All the gardener saw was the stems, the soil, the dark shadowed passages beneath the spreading plants. I remember in the dream seeing the garden from that perspective and somehow realizing that there was none of the color that is associated with a garden of flowers but that there was something very special, even up lifting, about seeing it from the perspective of the gardener. I don’t know that I knew what was special about it, only knowing that it was special.

I greatly enjoy my dreams. I do not know if there are, as Jung believed, messages in dreams. If there are I’m not intelligent enough to figure them out. If Jung was correct I most likely should not be posting them to the Internet. When I wake, I frequently will lay there going over the scenario in my head wondering how I seem to put such visions together, and why. For many years I had horrendous nightmares. I loved them. I would partially wake up and rewrite the scenario, doze off to the same nightmare, partially wake and rewrite again—trying to affect the ending, to make it more palatable, less devastating. I seemed to do this over and over all during the night. I seldom have nightmares anymore and actually I miss them. Although it really doesn’t matter as long as the dreams I have are still interestingly baffling and they are. I still dream a lot about Janet but probably not as often as I dream about Elizabeth. And I say I still don’t have nightmares?

Adobe Lesson

2012-01-11T21:19:00.000-06:00

Those of you that know me know that I reallly, really don't like Adobe products. A good friend, Alcy, wanted a lesson in Elements and I offered my services. You might also know that I don't cook. For some reason I failed to mention that I hadn't used Elements in some eight or nine years until AFTER lunch. Hey, I was looking forward to something that wasn't Denny's. I was in hopes that Elements was something like riding a bicycle--they say that once you learn you always know how. Well, maybe it wasn't that easy but we muddled through it and she now knows how to Open, Resize, Adjust Levels, Clone and Save--and has some good notes in case she needs a refresher. After some experience at that we will take on additional controls.

She also wanted a new photograph for her Meet Up avatar so we made a few shots on the back patio and then drove over to Meyers Park for a stroll around the pond shooting ducks--with cameras, of course--they're not in season right now. In all a very nice day and I came home with a few descent shots.

A Duck--A White Duck

One of dozens of trees in the park lost to this summers drought.

Roadtrip...

2012-01-08T18:47:00.001-06:00

Heading Home--No, I'm Not Driving

Off Topic or Let's Have Vietnamese Noodles!

2012-01-04T09:33:00.001-06:00

Occasionally members of the camera club that I belong to will joking comment that we are really a dining club that takes photographs. A meal always accompanies a meeting or get together. Truthfully that grates on me. I eat to live, not live to eat—I do live to photograph, so I see my priorities in a different place. Until Janet passed away I had a valid excuse for not going to the dinner that occurs after each club meeting. No longer having that excuse I do attempt to be more sociable. Unfortunately there is one member of the club from Canada that seems to only eat Mexican food. I enjoy Mexican food but not as a steady diet so often I only have coffee.

Sometime prior to 1982 the Houston Chronicle published a review of a book titled How Not to be a Wimp. Janet thought it was humorous so she read me the review. Many times afterwards she commented that she was extremely glad that she only read the review and never purchased the book for me. This frequently happened right after I walked out of a restaurant, or took a store manager to task for not being wheelchair friendly or not insisting that the employees first attention be to the customer—it doesn’t even require that I be the aforementioned customer. I see it I mention it. In truth I see myself as extremely timid, even mousey—but I spent too many years behind a retail counter to take much crap when I am on the other side. I don’t want to be followed around when I am shopping. I don’t want to be ignored by a waiter or waitress—don’t ever throw a menu on my table as you pass by, and don’t ever overcharge me for coffee when I present my AARP card at a Denny’s. I’ve got Denny’s so snakebite that last night they insisted on giving me the 20% discount even thought I did not even enter the building until after 10pm and it was after 11pm when I left. And believe me I do not want to wait at the checkout counter while the cashier finishes her phone call with her most recent hook up or while the unionized employees of Kroger’s discuss their after work party plans rather than check me out. The person standing on the outside the counter is your main attraction when you are on the retail side. Like the lawyer on TV says, “You deserve respect and we demand it!” Bare with me, there is a connection between these two paragraphs.

What brings this all to mind was last night after the club meeting at the restaurant where we go. Some weeks ago I ordered enchiladas which are listed as Tex-Mex. I thought surely no one could possibly screw up Tex-Mex (as long as they didn’t put chicken in the enchiladas.) Well, Tex-Mex enchiladas are covered with good old Texas chili—not these. They were floating is some sort of the most gosh awful tasting brown liquid I have ever had the displeasure of putting in my mouth. Out of character—and because I was hungry—I ate them. It was undoubtedly the worst meal that I have ever been served in a restaurant—bar none.

I have not ordered anything since then. But last night I was really hungry—my eating habits are pretty inconsistent and sometimes I just don’t remember to do it—not that I can tell it has any effect until I go to buckle my belt which for some reason keeps getting longer rather than shorter.

There were several fish dishes on the menu—most with names that I knew to avoid. One said “catfish in butter.” Well, a brushing of butter would be acceptable—not drowning in butter. After all you eat fish to eliminate the fatty acids so it doesn’t make much sense to add them. I specifically asked before I ordered if butter was the only thing on the fish, with the emphasis on ONLY and was told that it was. So help me, it came to the table with that same gosh awful tasting brown sauce drizzled all over it. I took one bite to be sure that this wasn’t some other similar appearing sauce—it wasn’t. I sent it back. If it can ruin an enchilada it will surely ruin a filet of catfish. That is why I ended up at Denny’s after ten o’clock.

Well, Alcy and I are going to Katy Prairie this afternoon and Debi is meeting us there after work. We were talking about where we would go to eat and Debi recommended a Vietnamese noodle restaurant which she tried recently and we decided to go there. This morning I got an email from her suggesting a barbeque place. I know that after having some time to think about last night she’s afraid that I won’t like Vietnamese noodles and will embarrass the dickens out of her—I wouldn’t. I enjoy trying different foods. I mean when I order squid I expect that to be an experiment—or alligator tail or rattlesnake or brains and eggs. It would be the same with Vietnamese noodles. It is one thing to order something that you suspect you might not like. It is an entirely different thing to order something that you know you like but find that it is not eatable when it gets to the table. So Debi, if you are reading this, I really would like to try the Vietnamese noodles. I promise not to embarrass you—if I don’t like them I’ll just bite my tongue and eat at Denny’s afterwards.

Dufus Corner

2012-01-02T20:42:00.000-06:00

Well, I scrounged up the prints for the End of the Year Competition at the camera club, showered, shaved, got all decked out (I did a washing earlier so I could be able to leave the house) and then I decided to take one last look at my email. The notice for the club meeting said January 3rd and the date in the corner of my monitor said January 2nd. Sure hated to waste a shower and a shave to I went out to eat--where else but Denny's. Took the opportunity to do an outline for the remaining book reviews for the year.

This is a red letter day--this is the second time that I have opened my blog and it loaded correctly. I could actually click on a link to enter a new thread rather than having to open the Dashboard. Don't think that has happened two times in a row for probably the last year. Congrats to Blogspot. That makes up for wasting shower water.

After the Empty Streets

2011-12-26T13:36:00.000-06:00

Our second shooting location was Glenwood Cemetery. No matter how many times you photograph at Glenwood—even photographing the same pieces over and over—you will always come away with new and different photographs. Yesterday it had been misting and Glenwood seemed like an ideal spot. Unfortunately I gave Debi a tour of several of the cemeteries in the vicinity of Glenwood and by the time we got there the mist had gone away. So these photographs do not have the cemetery ambiance I would have preferred but surprisingly I was able to get photograph of many of the pieces that are located on high pedestals—something that is usually very difficult to do. The overcast seemed to really enhance the brilliance of the colors—or maybe it was just me. We walked an old man’s legs off but had a great time—even found new pieces that we had never photographed before.

I have shot this piece of the fireman dozens of times and never got a photograph that I would show anyone. I told Debi that it was "today or never." Fortunately it was "today."

Hill Angel, Shot with the Samsung and Processed in Nik Color Efex Pro

Hill Angel

At a cemetery full of beautifully sculpted angels, the Hill Angel has pretty much ruled all these years. Over the years many well done angels have come along but none have been able to usurp it’s beauty and poignancy. I never shoot at Glenwood without photographing the Hill Angel.

That may be changing, at least some competition is on the horizon. A new angel, smooth, unweatherd with sharply chiseled features has just arrived—not even installed on it’s base yet. Unfortunately I got so engrossed in photographing the piece that I did not even notice the family name. These shots will always be unique because when the installation is complete it will be in a different position. Looking forward to going back then.

Some new shots of old pieces.

A Samsung Closeup

More Photos from the Empty Streets of Houston

2011-12-26T12:14:00.000-06:00

George Bush Overlooks a Very Foggy Houston

Mel Chin’s Seven Wonders and Worthen Center from the Bayou Walk in Sesquicentennial Park

One of Houston's Many Downtown Water Features

From Another Angle

The Theatre District, Jones Hall and The Republic Bank Building

Miro’s Personage With Birds with J P Morgan Chase Building

Personage With Birds and the Pennzoil Building

David Adickes' Virtuoso

Texas Avenue Street Light and the Republic Bank Building

Street Light on the Congress Street Bridge Over Buffalo Bayou

Sometimes I Shoot Up, Sometimes I Shoot Down

More Shooting Down

Oh, There's Still Time Brother

2011-12-25T21:18:00.001-06:00

In Stanley Kramer’s film, On the Beach, adapted from Nevil Shute’ novel there is a scene at the end of an empty city street in Sydney, in Australia. In my mind I always see that scene with a Salvation Army band playing There’s Still Time Brother in the background. The film begins at the end of nuclear war where Australia is the only place still inhabited. Basically, it is about knowing the end is coming and how each of the characters played out that time. In the last scene, the radiation has spread to Australia and there is no one left. Actually it is just a scene of the empty street, no Salvation Army band, no background of There’s Still Time Brother.

Debi invited me to join her today for a photo shoot of empty streets. We shot lots of photographs—all without people—but this is the only shot that I actually took of an empty street, sans people and traffic in downtown Houston.

”Oh, there’s still time brother, to love one another, There’s still time brother for you to make a mends.” Someplace in the film a Salvation Army band does play and sing this. It’s just not where I remember it. I like my ending better than Kramer’s even though it really doesn’t make sense because at that point there was no time left.

It was a cold, wet day and we might not have shot a lot of what we went out to shoot but we had a great time. It sure beat last Christmas Day in the Houston Arboretum alone and I got a lot more photographs this time.

A Red Letter Day

2011-12-22T21:32:00.000-06:00

Okay, red letter day, red letter day—I left the house and I didn’t even have a photoshoot to go to!!!! And was that just the beginning. I ate breakfast at Denny’s and came out with a clean t-shirt. Then I went to the Veteran’s Cemetery for photo and when I got home my new bed pillow was waiting on the front porch. Now if that is not a red letter day I don’t know what is.

And I had extra syrup!! When I eat at Denny’s I wear a t-shirt under a regular shirt. I leave the regular shirt open—all the syrup drips go onto the t-shirt and when I leave I button the regular shirt. Today, I was able to leave the regular shirt unbuttoned—that doesn’t happen often.

I was so proud I hardly knew what to do with myself. Many years ago I went on a road trip with an aunt, uncle and my cousin J (the names have been changed to protect the guilty.) J was several years younger than me and oh so spoiled rotten. I guess she was about five or so then. Somewhere in Wyoming or Montana J felt compelled to announce to everyone that she was being so good she hardly knew what to do with herself. Today, leaving Denny’s I knew exactly how she felt.

I had gone out last weekend to photograph the wreath laying at the Houston Veteran’s Cemetery. I photographed mostly people so I wanted to go back today and photographs the wreaths. I wanted to get a photo that gave some idea of the number of wreaths—hardly possible since there were 31,000, but I wanted to get several in one photo. I took the 200mm because I wanted to compress the markers as much as possible—should have taken the 300 with the extender and a tripod. I also wanted to do some close ups with the Samsung which I did.

Then when I got home the box with the new pillow had arrived. I am looking forward to tonight. I gave up on pillows years ago and just accepted the fact that I was going to have a headache when I woke up. Anything that presses against the top of my head and it will be blowing out the top the next morning, so soft pillows are a no no. Actually for the past ten years I have been sleeping on buckwheat pillows—which is very much like sleeping on a contoured rock. The one I have must be worn out because I used to be able to run my hand over it to smooth it out to start from scratch, but now that doesn’t work anymore. So now I have a rock with lumps. For a while I toyed with the idea of making my own pillow with the gel that they use in wheelchair cushions, seemed like an ideal solution, but never got around to it. The new one is from the company that makes the Sleep Number Bed so it is ridiculously overpriced—the last time I paid this much for a pillow was for two kingsized goose down pillows back in the Sixties—then I got two for less than this one. I won’t throw out the buckwheat because there is a thirty day return policy and believe me it will be a great improvement or it’s going back. So wish me luck!!!!!

Sharing Some Thoughts from Joe McNally

2011-12-16T09:12:00.000-06:00

Neicy Moss with Dixie, Models with Horses Photoshoot

Oh boy, do I have friends that need to read the Finding Faces chapter of Joe McNally’s latest book, Chasing the Light. As some may know, last year I joined a meet up group that had a goal of taking new modeling talent and combining it with new photographic talent so that each could assist the other in achieving their goals. I enjoyed it very much because I love to shoot photographs of people and here the people were eager to be in front of a camera. I have pretty much dropped out of the group because all the models were very young, from twelve or so up to early twenties. They were beautiful, they, at least some, were fairly talented. There were two older models, forties/fifties, but they did not participate on a regular bases and when they did they were not ignored but not really pursued. I really couldn’t put my finger on what the problem was but Joe has hit the nail on the head in talking about the photo workshop scene.

”…These models were very young, wonderful people, eager to get pictures made, and easy to work with. Their lineless faces ranged from downright pretty to open and friendly. They also knew how to vamp it up and project the notion of sexy into the lens. Which was great for everyone involved in this particular educational scenario.”

“Given the popularity of the photo workshop scene and the flash movement out there, young ladies such as I’m describing are pretty ubiquitous. Has anybody out there cruised through the website known as Model Mayhem? Yikes. Seems like a rite of passage now, really. Everybody’s out there, working it. “Do pouty…that’s it, do sexy, yeah, now work it, work it…” (Really not being sexist here. I don’t think. I know there are men being photographed, as well, But at the end of the day, most of the people in front of the lens are women, and most of the people behind the lens are men.)”

“And there’s some really good work out there, with many talented folks creating it. But there are also yards and yards of stuff that are facsimiles, they are poorly done reproductions of a look that is supposed to be au courant, or hollow replicas of something seen in a magazine. In other words, it’s posing that is about something I think I’m supposed to look like, and if I wear very little and move around a lot and my boobs are stuffed into a corset that makes them look like missile launchers…man, is that hot or what?”

“Well, to turn a time honored phrase around a bit, pretty or hot or sexy is nice, but is sure isn’t interesting. Or different. Or fun to shoot, necessarily… after a few dozen of these you start to realize it’s really more about exercise than thoughtful photography…”

“Sometimes, though, when confronted with this type of energetic scenario—and maybe I’m just getting old--I actually want the person to stop. Please, just stop and look at me, and consequently, the camera. Do thoughtful. Look away. Remember something important. Look at me like you know something I don’t and these pictures are a series of question you answer, a little at a time, giving me dollops of knowledge about you and your life, but not all at once. Like an investigative reporter, the camera seeks, and it is quite content with snippets that can be put together later. Let’s just take this a pixel at a time, shall we?”

Joe goes on to discuss the difference that I found between shooting women that have little or no real life experience as opposed to a mature woman that could bring something to the shoot beyond physical attributes. I understand that I am well past the age of most of the males in the group and that my priorities are no longer the same but it sure would have been nice to have had the opportunity to photograph someone with more depth to offer. Or maybe I am just missing Janet.

What It Was All About

2011-12-13T00:23:00.000-06:00

Learning Young

More Photographs from Last Saturday

2011-12-12T22:33:00.000-06:00

A few of the military personnel for the Wreath Laying Ceremony at Houston Veteran's Cemetery.

Some Shots from Saturday

2011-12-12T18:48:00.000-06:00

Subtitle: The Men That Scares the Boxers Off of Big Sis...

The Bad News is that they have Chicks....

And they are raising replacements...

And they say things like, God Bless America and they know the words to the National Anthem!

These along with thousands more gathered at Houston Veteran's Memorial Cemetery on December 10th 2011 to place 31,000 wreaths on the headstone of American's War Veterans.

New Toy

2011-12-05T00:02:00.001-06:00

It has been suggested that I should bring my photographs into the 21^st century. It is true that I am pretty much mid 20^th century. I do manipulate images but I have only used the standard software programs. But today it’s all about HDR and “actions/scripts/filters.” I have resisted using filters because it seems that the photographer is giving over a great deal of the creative control to whoever wrote the action. Also, if I am going to argue that there is more to photography than documentation then I am going to have to argue that the action needs to add content to the photograph and that can be difficult to do.

They bill it as a tool that makes the professional photographer’s job faster and easier—I would beg to differ and frankly can’t imagine a professional photographer getting a lot out of these actions but I suppose some do.

Anyway, I have downloaded a trial of Nik’s Color EFX and am trying to decided if it is worthwhile to blow a hundred bucks for the product key. Here is a few of the ones that I have done so far. Some are not far from the original but some are substantially changed.

None of these are a single filter and all have had additional work beyond simply applying a filter. Not all photographs respond well to filters. I determined a long time ago that the best photographs for manipulation were the ones that were not well done to begin with. I think the same thing applies to adding filters. I have always thought that filters were mostly used to salvage less than stellar photographs and having worked with them for a couple of days I have decided that the less than stellar photographs are the ones that take to having filters applied. I was very pleased with almost all of the photographs originally shot with the Lensbaby. Dark photographs do not work as well and of course I like dark photographs. I found that the photographs that I had not previously processed genearlly worked bettern than the ones that I had not for that reason. I was seldom impressed with just applying one filter and even after multiple filters some took additional work. It's a fun process and it probably won't hold my attention for very long, but for the time being I'll play.

An Observation in a Building Lobby

2011-11-29T22:43:00.001-06:00

Monday I had a doctor's appointment--as usual I arrived well ahead of time so I stayed for awhile in the building lobby. Doctor's waiting rooms are depressing. Anyway, I may take up sitting in lobbies.

People are at their most beautiful when they are very young and when they are very old.

Bringing Sam Home

2011-11-27T11:20:00.000-06:00

Headed Home With Sam

It was a long dreary, dull, rainy trip to bring Sam home from the poinsettia nursery in Brenham. I tried to wait out the rain at a Denny’s about a third of the way there but with the new meds I can’t sit still that long. It slacked off a little somewhere around Hempstead. Coming home it was off and on until I got almost back to Houston where it started up again. Talk radio is so dull on the weekends—Car Show Pro on Saturday and Gun Talk on Sunday. Every Saturday I end up researching new cars and every Sunday have the urge for a Glock 19. Fortunately there is always a Monday and the money is still in the bank.

Vindication!

2011-11-25T16:24:00.001-06:00

"One of the most important steps in my conversion process is to use the “Histogram” to check the blacks and white and then to adjust them using “Levels” if necessary (it’s almost always necessary). After you have established a good black and white, you can use“Levels” to adjust the midtones and really change the mood of your image, for my images I generally am pushing the midtones darker.” Cole Thompson Photography Blog, Time No. 2—Before and After, http://www.photographyblackwhite.com/time-2/

Cole is talking about when converting from color to monochrome--I feel it is as important in color. Pull the white and black sliders in to kiss the upward slopes of the graph in the histogram and then adjust midtones darker.

Ahead of Schedule

2011-11-23T13:33:00.003-06:00

Yes, I know that tomorrow is Thanksgiving, but if no one minds I’m going to jump the gun and say that today, one full day ahead of schedule I am immensely thankful for my new meds.

Before Janet passed away she had lost so much weight that she was having a difficult time keeping her wedding ring on. She did lose it one night when it came off and rolled under the bed. I thought for sure it was gone but a few weeks later I moved the bed for some reason and found her ring. I thought about wrapping some tape around it like the girls did back in high school but never got around to it. Anyway, when she passed away it had been sometime since she had worn it. I thought maybe that I had decided to put it away for safe keeping. I knew that I had considered it, but really couldn’t remember for sure—hey, people, I’m old and memory may not have been the first thing that went but it went anyway. So for the past year I have looked for her ring without success and had pretty much concluded that she had lost it as I had feared that she would. I just hoped that whoever found it enjoyed it or maybe enjoyed the money they got for it—that maybe it served some good purpose.

Well, the new meds kicked in a couple or three days ago—don’t remember exactly when. The last time new meds kicked in I cleaned house for two weeks—no, that was not the last time I cleaned house but from looking around you might not know that. The last time the first attack was books—I gave away over one hundred and fifty books on sailing and photography. This time the first attack was books. There is not a flat surface in this house except about a foot and a half square of the breakfast table where I eat that is not covered with books. I slept with twenty volumes of the Encyclopedia of Photography for over a week because I couldn’t find anyplace that I could stack them! Yes, I could have put them back in the book case but then if I needed one I would just have to get them out again! Anyway organizing books as been going on for a few days and is about under control—at least it is down to organizing bookcases.

This morning I started doing random attacks, hit a few in the kitchen and then turned my attention to the Goddard chest in the dining room where Janet kept the tablecloths, napkins and stuff like that. I frequently used the top drawer for stashing her backup medical items like extra glucose meters and lancets. I decided that it was time for the top drawer to be cleaned out. In the process I found a gold dollar piece, two bags of coins and a set of house keys that I didn’t know I had. I generally dropped my loose change in a wine glass that used to sit on the chest and every once in a while I collected more that I wanted to carry so I would drop them in a baggie and drop them in the top drawer. I had already put two bags of coins in the console in the car to use for toll roads. Between the four bags I’m sure there is more than enough to buy dinner tomorrow—that will make me a big hit in the checkout line.

But most importantly, in a baggie under a stack of napkins I found Janet’s wedding ring.

Addendum: Will it never cease? Last Saturday I went with the NWHPC for a photoshoot at a poinsettia nursery in Brenham. I shot quite a few photographs with the Nikon but most of the photographs were taken with the Samsung. On arriving home I discovered that I no longer had a Samsung—it was nowhere to be found. Since I did not stop anywhere on the way home I concluded that in leaving I had set it on top of the car and drove off—I did that once in North Carolina with a Leica. The camera can be replaced—the club jokes that they all follow me around to see what they might need that I am going to lose today. I replace a lot of lost equipment. Well, today, I finally got up the nerve to send an email to the nursery to see if anyone might have turned it in—which I felt was a very long shot.

Later this afternoon, I decided to go out to Dennys for a cup of coffee, my first this week—the Doctor hollered a lot so I am trying to do better. When I sat down in the car I noticed a piece of paper under the wiper blade that had worked its way down under the edge of the hood. I remembered having seen it as I left the nursery but being accustomed to flyers in the mall parking lots I ignored it thinking that it would blow off on the trip home. I decided to transfer it to the trash can. Thankfully I read it first---“Lost your camera? Ask inside we gave it to lost and found. Tell them your tag number.” Apparently I dropped it near the car well before we left.” So, not only did I find Janet’s ring today I found out that the Samsung is safe and sound. I will drive back to Brenham Saturday to retrieve it.

Interesting Thought

2011-11-21T21:20:00.003-06:00

"By placing a camera between you and your subject, you change the experience radically. The photographer becomes an observer, no longer a participant." Bill Smith, Desiging a Photograph, p.8

What a Way to Start a Day

2011-11-17T14:14:00.000-06:00

Had a doctors appointment this morning. First I got a FREE parking spot in the Medical Center--NO WAY. WAY. Got signed in and the receptionist announced that I had a credit and that she would just apply that to todays visit so no copay. Haven't seen this doctor in over ten years so I don't know where the credit came from. Needless to say I didn't ask. Then on the way back to the car I found a quarter. Yeah, I know that won't buy anything but at least it wasn't a penny.

Progressive Insurance

2011-11-17T08:36:00.003-06:00

Speaking of commercials, how about the one from Progressive Insurance where the guy keeps getting wedgies? Poor fellow can't go anywhere without someone grabbing his jockys and hanging him out to dry. Then they ask, "Is this what it feels like to not have car insurance?" I don't know about that but I do know that's how it feels when you are dumb enough to tuck your shirttail inside your tidy whites. I mean, like who does that???

ADDENDUM: I may have miss spoke here. It may be Safe Auto rather than Progressive. Hardly matters, I'm not willing to pay for their add campaign. Rule of thumb--anything that is heavily advertised on TV is best when left on the shelf.

Hershey's Air Delights

2011-11-16T21:27:00.000-06:00

Don't you just love Hershey's new idea--to fill their candy bars and Kisses with air bubbles! Their ad says that "you have never experienced chocolate bubbles like these." And you won't even when you bite into one because there ain't no chocolate in the bubble. Here's the thing. Take out one third or more of the chocolate and replace it with air so you'll have more chocolate to make more Air Delights. And somehow they expect us to be delighted with that? Give me a solid bar of cholocate and I can assure you that I can find a way to get air into it--been doing it for years--it's called chewing.

NWHPC Meetup Downtown Houston Night Photoshoot

2011-11-14T15:09:00.000-06:00

Had a really great evening. We had a good turn out, many who had just joined the group within the past week. Met at Preston and Main where we were accosted by the metro police the last club photoshoot downtown. Shot along Main, Old Market Square and finally at the Downtown Aquarium. A few turned back or went a different direction before we reached the Aquarium--they missed out. We hired a carriage to take us back to Cabos and spent the rest of the evening (closed the joint) talking photography on the second floor deck. It was great weather, a great group of photographers--couldn't have asked for anything more. Can't wait to see all of the photos posted to the Meet Up page.

I got there early to scout out some locations. Wandered around with the Samsung shooting photographs. I am really enjoying the Samsung. Actually I took more photos with it than I did the Nikon. Anyway, I came across this strange storefront alcove not far up Main Street from where we were to meet.

A Cold Drink at Nikos Nikos in Old Market Square

Frank's, Cabo's Deck and the Esperson Building

And even did some night time shots.

The Seven Wonders with the Hard Rock Cafe in the Distance

One of the Water Courts at the Downtown Aquarium

Caricature Artists at the Downtown Aquaruim

Off the Tripod

The Photograph Is Not the Subject for the Zillionth Time

2011-11-12T22:42:00.001-06:00

"The moment you can look at your photographs first as a collection of lines and tones and sometimes color, the sooner you'll begin to see photogaphs as they are and not as you hoped they would be." David duChemin, p. 52, Photographically Speaking

Hardened Master

2011-11-11T14:55:00.001-06:00

Locked gate on Westheimer, shot the night of the Annual Zombie Walk

It is always interesting to see your photographs through the eyes of others. This morning Rev. Mark S commented on the above photograph. "I like this a lot Gary. The contrast of the moss on the chain with the overall tone of the rest of the picture grabs my attention. I am also struck by the words on the back of the lock, "Hardened Master."

Mark was a part of the now defunct GW Photography Discussion Blog and we still keep up with each other through the Flickr posts. I was aware of the writing on the back of the lock, just had never put them together in the way that Mark has. I of course saw the lock very literally. Knowing the location of the gate and societies current disrespect of personal property, I saw it as preventing entry, as a matter of protection. Mark's comment prompts a consideration of whether it is to prevent entry or escape, an interesting and totally new meaning for the photograph. I think there is a sermon in there someplace.

----------------------------------------

The rest of the story:

Original SOOC, first shot

When I first saw the lock I knew I was not going to like the background. I shot this frame then I moved to the side so that none of the blue in the background was showing. These two photographs were shot within seconds of each other. There were no changes made to the camera settings, yet the fence is gray in one and rust in the other. I like the second photograph but not nearly as much as the first. In post I simply desaturated the blue. I could probably crop out an image from the second shot that I like, I do like the colors but I think the grays in the original shot are closer to what I wanted to say with the photograph. I think they are more appropriate than the warm colors of the second shot and that they are more in keeping with the added meaning that Mark’s comment suggests.

There Was a Man with a Tongue of Wood

2011-11-10T21:13:00.002-06:00

There was a man with tongue of wood

Who essayed to sing,
And in truth it was lamentable.
But there was one who heard
The clip-clapper of this tongue of wood
And knew what the man
Wished to sing,
And with that the singer was content.
--Stephen Crane

Emerson Revisited

2011-11-04T13:27:00.001-05:00

“A friend is one before whom I may think aloud.”

“All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
“Colleges hate geniuses, just as convents hate saints.”
“Don't waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.”
“Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.”
(and the important one)
“I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”

Sometimes a Day Comes Along for No Other Reason Than You Need It

2011-10-31T01:31:00.004-05:00

I am running very far behind on almost everything that I really need to do but instead I am sitting here writing a piece for a blog that I swore I was going to close down—typical Woodard.

Typical Woodard Beach Photo in BW

Jerry Pierson from the Morning Beach Shoot

I very much dreaded this past week, Friday in particular. For some reason it wasn’t as bad as I had expected. Friday after the mail was delivered I drove down to Galveston for a photoshoot the next morning with NWHPC. I went to the places where Janet and I normally would go, out to West Beach and of course Janet’s favorite, the Bolivar Ferry. The weather was overcast and extremely windy but that only adds to the ferry ride.

Boy and Seagulls at the end of the seawall at West Beach

Girl on Bolivar Ferry shortly before a wave broke over the bow and soaked her

“We were very tired, we were very merry, we rode back and forth all night on the ferry.”

Janet wasn’t much on poetry, well outside of Cummings, but she did enjoy that line from a Millay poem. I was reminded of our last trip on the ferry on Christmas Day year before last. It wasn’t nearly as windy so we walked onto the ferry and I put her up at the front like the girl in the photo. She could support herself with the gunwale so she could stand and see over. I had learned earlier that if we drove onto the ferry I couldn’t get her out of the car so she couldn’t see anything. We rode back and forth two times that day.

Then Saturday, one of the ladies from the camera club and I took the Galveston Harbor boat tour so outside of the sunrise shoot on Stewart Beach it was a water weekend. I even came back to Houston by 146 to go through Kemah, Seabrook and the marina area where we practically lived for a number of years.

Sugar Sculls

This morning I was attempting to catch up on email when Debi called and asked if I had ever gone to a Day of the Dead Festival. I said, no, so we decided to check it out. When we first arrived it looked more like a flea market than a celebration and in a way it was. There were all sorts of food booths and vendors selling jewelry and other things but mostly selling what I later learned were sugar sculls. Of course, they are no longer made from sugar. The skulls were highly decorated and not knowing any more about the Day of the Dead than that it was something that the Mexicans did around Halloween I was curious as to the significance of the sculls—I mostly associated the celebration with a religious occurrence which it is only in a very limited way, so sculls seemed a little odd.

We approached a tent where a young fellow seemed to have the most popular sugar sculls for sale. When we got an opportunity I asked him how the sculls were used. The best he could seem to tell me was that people bought them. Didn’t seem he had much more of a grasp of the situation than I had. Fortunately a lady overheard the question and came over to explain that the sculls were use to represent the deceased—family, friends, anyone that someone wished to honor. An alter to the person or persons, all the ancestors you wanted to honor, would be set up and along with a scull representing each honoree. There would be offerings that represented the honoree’s likes, what they had enjoyed when they were alive along with some foods that were specifically associated with the day and marigolds. The Day of the Dead is more about honoring a deceased person or persons than it is a religious celebration. The religious objects that are used in the altars represent the honoree’s religious convictions. It just seemed to me that was something that was greatly missing in today’s society and considering my personal circumstances was something I found worthwhile.

Not being Catholic, my early religious indoctrination was mostly to scoff at what I now call religious artifacts. For some reason, beyond my long discussions with Don McCuistian debating the Baptist vs the Church of Christ dogma I never really was very good at scoffing—ignoring Catholics, that I could do, but it never seemed important or really necessary to scoff. As I have previously mentioned numerous times I love finding and photographing religious artifacts which usually means objects related to the Catholic’s practice of their religion. I find them beautiful. I find them inspirational—and for some unknown reason because it is surely not in my upbringing—I find them poignant.

Above the door of the building it said Dow School and above the door on the side we had approached it said, Girls. I assume on the other side it said Boys. There was a long staircase up to the front door. Inside we were first greeted with a four foot replica of a black sugar scull with appropriate decoration. Beyond that was what appeared to be an altar. We were photographing as we entered. In the halls on either side of the first altar there were several smaller altars set up with candles, artifacts, sugar sculls, some had food, some wine and drinks, one I noticed had cigarettes. There were crucifix, prayer candles, pictures of the Virgin of Guadalupe—numerous religious artifacts which coincided with my assumption that the Day of the Dead was a religious celebration. All of this confused me considerably. You can no longer pray in school or at school functions, God to the best of my knowledge had been expelled some time ago. So how was a “school” allowed to openly display objects with obvious religious connotations. Along with all the religious artifacts and other offerings were many of the trappings of Halloween and a lot of orange in the form of flowers but no pumpkins.

Young Dancer

After we finished photographing inside we went out to photograph the stage where young people were performing dances from Central and South American countries. While we were having cold drinks we noticed the lady that had been announcing the dances in English wandering through the crowd. During the announcements she had mentioned an organization called MECA so when we got a chance we asked her what MECA was. It turns out the she was one of the founders some thirty years ago and that the school is no longer a public school which explains having the religious artifacts. They teach cultural and performance arts after hours to the children in a large surrounding area. Apparently it was one of the early attempts to promote multiculturalism and to preserve the cultural institutions of the Hispanics in Houston.

Debi and I both enjoyed it very much and plan on going back next year—only this time it will be with a better understanding of what the altars and the artifacts represent. I have already processed most of my photographs and for the most part am very pleased. (I just saw Debie’s, now I’m not so pleased.)

Art Project on Lyons Avenue

Law Office Door on Harrisburg

One of Several Pieces located on the corner of Pease and Dowling

Afterwards we drove over to Sawyer to see if we could find a piece of outdoor art that Debie had seen in passing—a miniature of a piece of art at Bush International, we didn’t find it. So we drove over to the Sixth Ward on Lyons Avenue to photograph a most unusual piece of art which will eventually become a stage for performance art. Then toured the Denver Harbor area (in forty years I don’t believe I have ever been to Denver Harbor), drove out Navigation to the Turning Basin at the end of the Houston Ship Channel and back in by Harrisburg. Janet and I used to hang out and photograph the color in the Ship Channel area back in the Seventies. Back then it was mostly barrio and extremely colorful. Now a lot of the color is gone but it is still an interesting area but not anyplace that someone from Katy would normally find themselves of their own volition. On the way back to Debie’s car, after photographing the strange art on the corner of Pease and Dowling, we stopped at Jax Bar and Grill for one of Houston’s best, but oh so greasy, hamburgers and Snapple for a late lunch—well I had a Dr Pepper. Debie will be the Activities Chairperson for NWHPC next year so we talked for well over an hour about her trip to Arizona last week and hashing out lots of ideas for club activities—she’s going to be good. I am constantly amazed at the places she can get us into—like a Day of the Dead Festival. If it is happening in Houston, Debie is probably going to find it.

I really needed the couple of days in Galveston. I really needed today. Sometimes it just happens that way.

An Old Conversation Update

2011-10-23T02:31:00.003-05:00

Well, I swore that I was not going to continue this blog. However, the other blog is not “shovel ready” and I have something I want to talk about.

A couple of years ago I posted to the GW Photography Discussions blog one of my photographic principles: “The photograph is not the subject.” That started a long, long conversation. I finally amended the statement to “The photograph is not the object photographed.” Now this is something that I have long accepted but don’t know that I ever made any attempt to hash out the details prior to posting it to Discussions.

For the most part I am an essence person, I don’t really need the details, the minutia. All I need to know is that it is true and I am happy. Well the statement is true, has always been true, but it is not terribly clear. During the conversations on the blog I quoted several photographers that are considerably more capable of stating what I was saying but I am not sure that I ever convinced anyone. I personally believe that if you can only see a photograph as the subject matter you will never be able to advance your photography.

We are in a very good time with respect to photographic literature. When I was younger there was John Szarkowski, Minor White, Susan Sontag, Ralph Hattersley, Lou Bernstein, Herbert Keppler and many others writing about the meaning in photography but it seems to me that after them there has been a very long, very dry spell in photographic writing. Lately that is changing. David duChemin, Chris Orwig, Bruce Barnbaum, George Hall, Michael Freeman are once again exploring the meaning of photography, are talking about photographic vision, about photographic intent. I am having a ball buying books—okay, I’ve always had a ball buying books but now I buy them for the writing rather than the photographs--finally it's true what we used to say about buying Playboy.

Tonight after the photoshoot at the Zombie Walk—which seems to be something that you only need to do once, I was reading from David duChemin’s just published Photographically Speaking that puts a slightly different slant on what I have been trying to say. But first, I am an underliner—since Mickey Spillane stopped publishing the good parts in italics I have had to highlight the good parts someway and I prefer underlining to highlighting. I may run out of ink before I get to the end of Photographically Speaking. DuChemin doesn’t say anything that is not a good part.

On page 20 (I have just barely got started) duChemin is basically talking about seeing photographically and discussing how the photograph flattens the three dimensional world into two dimensions. He writes: “Being conscious of this flattening allows us to use it to our advantage, or to compensate for it and reintroduce the illusion of depth. It allows us to begin to read an image as it really is—a flat image composed of lines and tones. I’m often amused by how unaware of this flattening we are. As photographers we deal in creating illusions, yet we’re taken in by those illusions all the time. I hear my students talk about photographs as though they’re little three dimensional worlds. They say things like, “I like how that person is standing,” as though the photograph is a little aquarium full of real, but smaller, people. I have to remind them there is no person in that photograph. There are only the lines and shapes that represent that person. If this sounds like pedantic hair splitting, let me explain.”

“The ability to see the illusion for what it is allows us to more finely create it. If we stop seeing that shape in the photograph as a person and instead see it as lines and tones, we become aware of those basic building blocks. Seeing the person distracts us; it’s a sleight of hand that keeps us from seeing what’s really going on. It’s pattern recognition, something Galen Rowell often wrote about. We see the shapes and recognize them as a person because we’ve seen people before. Additionally, we respond emotionally to people. So when we look at a photograph of a loved one, we find that our emotions for that person come flooding back. The emotional response created by the illusion of the photograph blinds us to anything but that emotion. But ask a photographer who doesn’t know that person, who doesn’t share the same memories, and they’ll see things in that image you never did. They’ll see sloppy framing and imbalance, harsh shadows, and distracting backgrounds. It’s an extreme example, but learning to see images as they really are—being able to identify the building blocks—becomes an important way of seeing.”

Earlier duChemin gives an excellent breakdown of what I have been saying that the photograph has a subject, a meaning, that is separate from the subject matter, the object photographed. I have said that “photographic technique is the sentence structure of the visual language of photography.” He puts a slightly different twist on that.

Instead of subject, subject matter and sentence structure/composition, duChemin characterizes it as message, elements and decisions and gives the following definitions of each.

Message: “The subject is the message or theme of the photograph, and it differs from subject matter in the same way in which the moral of a story is not the story itself.” Which he illustrates with Aesop’s fable of the race between the hare and the tortoise. The hare and the tortoise are the subject matter but the moral, the subject/message, is pacing and persistence.

Elements: “Subject matter/elements is the thing through which the story is told”

The three important elements; message, elements, decisions to which he continues with what he calls the “missing piece,” the reader. “Once she begins to read, a new element is introduced; the act of interpretation. That interpretation is entirely out of our hands.”

I read all of this back in the fifties and the sixties—just wish I had someone as easy to understand as the authors I mentioned above. I had Minor White who I could only guess at what he was saying. Minor was on an intellectual plane all his own; Sontag who was compelled to be downright esoteric; Hattersley that put a psychological twist to everything concerning photography—I loved what they wrote, I hung on every word and understood a few of them.

Of course, I have all the books but there are two books that are on my must own (not must read but must own and study) list duChemin's Within the Frame and Photographically Speaking.

To close, from p. 19, “Before we learn to see like the camera and understand that the camera is a tool that flattens the world from three dimensions to two, we are just people with cameras.” I interpret this to be the same as saying that you must be able to see the photograph as a photograph and not as the subject matter--remember my ranting about critiquing a photograph with such comments as "oh, what beautiful eyes," "the kid is precious," -- read that to equate with "I like how that person is standing."

...

2011-10-17T18:14:00.003-05:00

I guess I am feeling a little defeated today. Well, it didn’t just start today but I am considering bringing it to a head today. I started this blog for a number of reasons but mostly to rant, rave and ramble. I was in hopes it would be of some help to family members that wanted to keep up at least occasionally with my activities and that photographer friends would find it of some interest. It seems that outside of Jan, both intentions pretty much have bit the dust.

Jan, I do want to thank you for your continued interest, your friendship. Should I start another blog, which I may you will be the first to know. I may still do the proposed blog I mentioned.

But right now, this one seems hardly worth the effort. I have my Journals which I do each year and at the present they are running behind so for a while anyway I am putting my efforts into them. Thanks to everyone that has shown an interest and offered support along the way.

I Am a Rule of Thirds Convert

2011-10-15T09:21:00.000-05:00

I am always pleased when I encounter writings that say what I think in ways that are much more understandable than I am able to say it. I have a problem with rules, all rules not just the rules of photography, but especially rules of photography, of conventional photographic wisdoms (which aren’t wisdoms at all but acceptable homogenizations to assure that no one becomes better photographers than those who spout the rules.)

One that is so prevalent that I rail about the most is The Rule of Thirds. I came across a post today that has a rule of thirds that I can support 100%, The Rule of Thirds on Cole Thompson’s blog.

In Within the Frame, David duChemin writes: ”Three images go into making your final photograph. The first is the image you visualize—the story you are compelled to tell. The second is the scene you capture with the camera. The third is the image you refine in post production. The better we are at all of these, the closer our final photograph will come to reflecting our initial vision. The more harmoniously the artist and the geek can coexist and the better they both are at what they do, the more powerful and powerfully communicated our vision will be.”

I frequently refer to that quote in many of the critiques that I do. Cole Thompson’s rule of thirds is saying the same thing, “A great image is comprised of 1/3 vision, 1/3 the shot and 1/3 processing.” That one I can fully support.

Coming Home, Reluctantly

2011-10-14T20:56:00.000-05:00

Monday Sam and I stopped at a Denny's in Brookshire, the first one that I had seen since leaving Houston Saturday morning. I took in the map I bought in Schulenburg to see where I might conveniently go besides Houston. It looked like I was going to get there for the afternoon rush hour. Couldn't find anything exciting so I plowed into I-10 at 5 o'clock. Just made darn sure I stayed off of Airline.

An Idea I Am Considering--need your feedback

2011-10-13T18:43:00.000-05:00

As some of you may know at one time I had three blogs. This, of course, is my personal blog which is likely to go off in almost any direction. It is mostly photography but from basically a very personal level. It is where the few that wish to keep up with what I am into now can. One, the Photography Discussions blog was members only and I wanted to keep it very small and available only to people that would participate in the discussions. That blog after two years seemed to have run it course and was discontinued. I had already started a third blog but I could never come up with a real theme that I was interested in doing so it has mostly lingered. I am thinking of trying it again with the following theme.

I have a real hang up about technique vs. content. Not that I do not respect photographic technique I feel that it is much over played on the Internet forums. I am very tired of hearing technique discussed as the how rather than the why. I understand why content is so seldom discussed; it is much easier to talk about technique—technique is impersonal. Discussing content is very personal because it reveals who you are and what you believe a lot more than you might think. The photographs that you take and post to the Internet or use in camera clubs do the very same thing. Your choice of subject matter, your choice of techniques, your choice of presentation all reflect on who you are and what you think. Happily as amateurs we can go about our hobby thinking that we are safe—we are just photographers. Oh, so naive.

Technique has no such pratfalls. You can go about discussing technique and conventional photographic wisdoms until your dying day and it will reveal little about you other than your lack of understanding of photography—which in a way is revealing in itself. LOL Well, I am old enough that I don’t really care much what people think of me or what they know about me or about what I think so I believe I can handle content in a photograph and embarrassed myself only minimally.

What I propose doing is to build the blog around selecting photographs from the Internet that I can get permission to post to the blog and write my discussion of the photograph. One photographer has already given me permission to use a few of his photographs. I believe that I might find others.

What I need to know from those that follow this blog is whether or not you personally would find this something that you would be interested in reading. I will also discuss my photographic philosophies, I will be discussing the history of photography, I will be including quotations from photographers. I may even include the book reviews that I have been writting. Unlike the discussions blog it will not require any participation. If you wish to comment on the photograph or on my comments you will be free to do so but there is no requirement that you do so.

Please give me some feedback, your thoughts, whether or not you would find that useful. Post them to this thread. If there seems to be an interest I will do a sample of what I would like to do on the new blog.

W Eugene Smith Quote

2011-10-11T22:03:00.000-05:00

Just received Michael Freeman’s The Photographer’s Vision, Understanding and Appreciating Great Photography. I haven’t finished reading The Photographer’s Eye or The Photographer’s Mind yet so this is probably going to be on the back burner for awhile anyway. However, in scanning through it I came across a discussion of W Eugene Smith’s photograph of a mental patient. Both the original straight print and the print completed by Smith are shown. Michael talks about how Smith burned the background, even the persons hair until it was complete black leaving only the face, ear, small area of the neck and just a suggestion of hair. The remainder of the photograph is completely black. He also mentions that Smith bleached the highlights on the face—a very common practice among good printers.

It points out very graphically that this obsession about out of the camera photography is a lot of malarkey. Photographs have always been manipulated and some of the very best ones, such as this example have been highly manipulated. But what I actually want to share is a quotation by Smith that Freeman includes. Unlike the majority of the Life Magazine photographers Smith insisted on printing his own photographs. It was not that the Life lab was not good it was excellent but Smith makes a very poignant point.

“Negatives are the notebooks, the jottings, the false starts, the whims, the poor drafts, and the good draft but never the completed version of the work… Negatives are private, as in my bedroom… I don’t think that any really great writer would make his rough draft and then toss it to a secretary to put into final form… If I am trying to reach people, if I am trying to say something and if I am trying to say this as strongly as I can, why go to all of the other effort and then neglect one other way of reaching the reason that is all began.”

The very same thing is true of the digital image. It is simply the first step. Believe me, if W Eugene Smith couldn’t get it finished in the camera the current crop of photographers don’t stand a snowball’s change in Hades doing it.

Part of the Story..

2011-10-11T21:28:00.000-05:00

I am tired of processing the photographs from last weekend so it is going to have to wait. Instead I am going to start the post about the trip, but I am going to start near the end.

Saturday night I could not go to sleep so I was pretty drug out Sunday during the photoshoot at Texas Photo Fest in Smithville. I had planned to stay for the dinner get together with the Austin meet up group that went from five to seven but everyone else from Houston was heading back so a little after four I decided to call it a trip and head for Houston also. Even though I had planned to stop in LaGrange on the way back for some photographs I didn’t want to retrace the route up. I decided to go south through Schulenburg instead. I had seen a sign somewhere in my travels that Schulenburg was only fifteen miles away but couldn’t remember whether I saw the sign in Bastrop or Smithville. Couldn’t find it again in Smithville so after several stops I finally found a station with a Texas map. The sign was in LaGrange but I found a direct road from Smithville. After getting reorientated I headed south. It was less than thirty miles. I couldn’t keep my eyes open so I hit the first motel I found in Schulenburg. I had bought Excedrin PM in Bastrop so I went to bed very, very early and got a good nights sleep.

Before we had married Janet had taken some photographs in Schulenburg that were extremely good so I thought since I had an extra day I would check out the town—very disappointing. I had never asked why she only photographed churches, houses and some chickens, now I know. So I again headed for Houston. The first town east of Schulenburg is Weimar and that is where the story actually begins.

Back in the Seventies before Janet and I got into sailing we were into to bicycling. We would pack of the bicycles and head out of Houston almost every weekend. One of those trips that we had enjoyed very much began in Weimer. We had picked out a loop from Weimer up to LaGrange and then back to Weimer via a different route. We arrived in Weimer before sunrise because we wanted to be in LaGrange to have lunch at the Bon Bon Café, which unfortunately is no longer there. It was a great ride over gentle hills. We did get to LaGrange in time for lunch, but we lingered a little longer than we had planned. Leaving out of LaGrange you cross the Colorado River then have about a mile or so of very steep winding climb up the south bank. At the top is a state park and an old brewery which we decided to checkout while we took a rest after the climb.

In the park there were a number of deer running loose. Janet being a city girl didn’t often get that close to deer so she was going around calling them “precious darling baby deer” like she called me “precious darling baby Bunkie.” We parked the bikes and roamed around the grounds for quite a while. On returning to the bikes one of the deer was trying to get to the trail snacks that Janet had in her saddlebags. She started running ahead to chase the deer off yelling “dumb deer, dumb deer.” From then on I was very careful because I saw how quickly things could change from “precious darling” to “dumb.”

Anyway we did not get back to Weimer before dark and the last leg of the trip was down the Interstate 10 feeder which was a little disconcerting to do even in daylight. To top it off just as we got to I-10 we hit one horrendous thunderstorm. I don’t think that we ever did a ride that produced as much anxiety as the last five miles of the ride back into Weimer.

Rental car parked near where we parked Janet's Chevy nearly forty years ago

Anyway, I decided to check out downtown Weimer. I parked the rental car somewhere close to where we had parked Janet’s Chevy for that trip. Of course, Weimer I’m sure doesn’t look the same after thirty some years but I wanted a photograph of the place where the Weimer/LaGrange ride started. I walked around what there is of a downtown and realized that we had never retraced that ride so I decided to head for LaGrange along the same route. Stopped to photograph a couple of deer along side the road and a church that probably wasn’t there in the Seventies. It was a pleasant drive and brought back a lot of memories. In the end, I did get to do some photographs in LaGrange after all.

Of course, I probably knew this before but probably had not thought about it a lot. The best thing about being retired and not having anyone that depends on you is that you don’t have to be in any particular place at any particular time. The worst thing about being retired and not having anyone that depends on you is that you don’t have to be in any particular place at any particular time. I love photographing small towns but it is not nearly as much fun to do it by yourself.

Socrates said that the unexamined life was not worth living. If I may paraphrase, the unshared life is the pits. Okay, next time I will write about photography. Maybe. Yeah, I will. I got three new books today and one has a quote from W. Eugene Smith that I would like to steal for a blog.

On the way out of Weimer I stopped to photograph St Michael's Church and Cemetery

Texas Photo Fest

2011-10-10T19:11:00.000-05:00

Sam and I hit the road again to do Texas Photo Fest in Smithville. Budget let me have another vehicle even though I scratched the last one. Photographed in Smithville, Bastrop, LaGrange, Schulemberg, Weimer, Sealy and maybe a couple of other places--came home whipped. New rule: ONE TOWN AT A TIME WOODARD. I will probably bore everyone to death posting photos!!

Heading to Texas Photo Fest in Smithville

Horses...

2011-10-07T13:43:00.001-05:00

I have got to share this. I was critiquing on PhotoNet this morning and came across these photographs.

I am not an animal person. Sure I like dogs, even like cats but in spite of being a native Texas there is no way I would be considered a horse person. In the fifth grade I remember Miss Alice Millican introducing the class to Rosa Bonheur’s Horse Fair. I have no idea which one it was, she painted many but I remember being impressed with it. That was the first thing that I thought of when I saw the photographs of Wojtek Kwiatkowski. If you like horses take a look because I doubt that you will ever see more outstanding photographs of horses than these.

2011 Portfolio Challenge: Table for One

2011-10-07T01:58:00.002-05:00

The Artist Statement

Sometimes a photograph is about what is not in the photograph. Such it is with this series.

The first Table for One photograph was taken November 1st 2010. Since then the series has evolved. However, the theme holds true to that first photograph.

For the first twenty-seven years that Janet and I were married she simply refused to be in front of the camera. She relented in 2002 and for the next eight years I tried to make up for lost time. I took hundreds of photographs at home, in parks, even during her hospitalizations.

She had Alzheimer’s and for the last couple of years eating out was one of the few things that she still seemed able to enjoy. I tried to take her out to eat a few times each week and I almost always took photographs of Janet at the restaurant. I called these photographs the McDonald’s Portraits because that is where the first eating out photograph was taken. Most were taken in Denny’s and others in local restaurants that we visited. I relish all the photographs I have of Janet but the McDonald’s Portraits seem special because they were taken at times when she seemed happier. She passed away late last year.

I still carry a camera and I still take photographs when I eat out. Even though the theme of these photographs may appear to be different from the photographs of Janet, to a great extent it is much the same. Instead of photographing Janet, I am photographing her absence in single cups of coffee, single orders, empty chairs, empty booths, books and other diversions I use to fill the time alone.

I know to almost everyone these will simply appear to be photographs of coffee cups and assorted dinnerware. They are. To me they are also much more than that.

It’s over!!!! I got four very good very helpful reviews. First was Odin Clay but as usual Odin and I talked more about Janet than we did my photographs. He had worked at Southwestern Camera with Janet and they had a tremendous admiration for each other. When Odin left SWC and went into photo lab management, wherever Odin went is where Janet had her processing done. However, he seemed pleased with the concept and very complimentary on the execution of the photographs. Had very little negative to say. The tenth photograph he mentioned was “very uptown.” I did not inquire what he meant by that but I took it as a compliment. I was very apprehensive about having Odin review the photographs because I did not believe that he knew that Janet had passed away and I have difficulty breaking the news to friends. I had really planned on not selecting Odin to avoid any problems but I drew the very last place in selecting the reviewers and when I got to the board Odin was the only choice for the first review. I managed to get through it without difficulty by keeping it as light as possible.

The second review was Bill and Julie Nanni. They also seemed pleased with the concept and confirmed that I had achieved what I was attempting as far as content. Julie wanted to see me open up the shadows a little which is a standard comment I get on my photography. I do tend to go dark and to lose the detail in shadows so she had a very valid point and something that I will consider when I have the book done. Bill felt that the series needed to be opened up more, a little more variety and was pleased when I explained the four phases that the series has gone through so far. First was the cups and tableware only. Then I decided that to really carry the intent of the images I needed to include the empty chair, or empty booth to emphasize the absence of Janet. In the third phase I started to include environment beyond the immediate table, this included people. The ten photographs that I used in the portfolio were all from this phase. I explained that I especially enjoyed the photographs that I had taken of Janet that included people because it gave the impression of a more “normal” atmosphere and after all this series is intended to be an extension of the McDonald’s Portraits that I did when Janet and I ate out. The latest phase, the current phase, is moving to the Samsung point and shoot which I am doing in black and white. The Samsung focuses very close so I am working back toward the table items but in a very dark and somber way. Since I am still in the process of working this series of photographs there may be additional phases in the future, or I may just conclude that I have done everything that I wanted to do with the series. Bill seems pleased with that explanation of the project and was very encouraging to continue exploring the concept.

The third review was Frank and Raquel Kreipe. Raquel was much taken with and a little emotional after reading the artist statement which made me emotional. I was afraid that I would have difficulty with the emotional content during the reviews but this was the only one where I really choked up. Raquel gave me a hug after reading the artist statement and all the emotion took over. Raquel is an artist, painter, and she approached the photographs from the point of view of being paintings. She was very complimentary and again confirmed that my message was coming across well in the photographs. She was very encouraging to continue the series since it continued a connection to Janet and I very much agree. Frank had an interesting assignment. He asked me to tell him which was the strongest and which was the weakest of my photographs. I selected the one shot in Denny’s at sunset (#7) as the strongest and one shot in Denny’s that only included the back of the booth (#2) as the weakest. He agreed with the strongest, but considered the one that had picked as the weakest to be one of the strongest. He felt that the ones that included people and especially the ones that included washed out windows (#5, 6, 8) were the weakest and on consideration I have to agree with that. Surprisingly, Frank seemed very pleased that the photographs were not mounted. Something that I was concerned about since the rules of the Challenge states that they must be mounted. I’m just not good at following rules.

The forth review was the toughest. Frank Wright teaches architectural photography at Rice University and Frank is a projectionist when it comes to the printing. Julie Nanni had mentioned that the paper that some of the prints were on seemed to be a warmer tone than others. I had not noticed that before but in laying them over each other it was clear that the paper was not all the same tone. Frank had two very important pieces of advice—one that I be more careful in getting the tones of all the photographs to be more consistent—matching the white balance throughout. I let some go very warm whereas most were on the cool side. Almost all of the photographs were done in mixed lighting. He suggested that in the mixed light situations that I should use the Photovision calibration target that I usually carry in my bag and seldom take out—an excellent suggestion. In talking with Frank at dinner after the review it is evident that getting that absolutely correct print is a passion with him. His second piece of advice was very unusual—he said that in the current world of fine art photography that the artist statement was more important than the photographs. I am well aware that the artist statement is important from having visited galleries but I was not aware that being able to verbalize the concept carried that much importance. He was very complimentary of my artist statement which I appreciate. In a way it reminded me of the story of Minor White being as concerned about what happened between photographs in his sequences as he was in the photographs themselves. My way of thinking would put the photographs above all else but I am beginning to think that there is much more to photography than photography—okay, maybe I have at least felt that for some time. Interestingly, Frank almost echoed Frank and Raquel’s comment about the photographs not being mounted. According to him they should NOT be mounted. That they would be stacked face down and the reviewer would flip them over one at a time for viewing—only seeing a single photograph at a time—again something that was very surprising and contrary to everything I thought about presenting photographs to a gallery.

In all, every review brought something new to the table that was truly important. I have been sold on the Portfolio Challenge as the most important thing that I have ever involved myself in photographically and every year it just gets better. This is my forth year to participate in Portfolio Challenge. In the past I have had reviewers rearrange the sequence of my images, at least one or two, and they never agree with each other. This is the first year that no one suggested rearranging. I think this is due mostly to the help I got from Michael Young in selecting the ones to use at the Challenge. A very good night, a very educational night.

If any one would care to see the ten photographs that I included in the portfolio for review they are in the 2011Portfolio Challenge set on Flickr.

I have somewhere between fifty and a hundred of the Table for One photographs. When the series is complete I intend to do a 12x12 Blurb Book. I have done a “trial” book which can be seen on my Blurb site.

Reliving Past Glories...

2011-10-05T19:42:00.002-05:00

Looking through some old photographs on PhotoNet I came across this drawing of Janet's Leica M3 that I uploaded in July of 2005.

Around about that time NWHPC was having a competition for designing the club shoulder patch. I was trying out several designs and one was a fairly generic rangefinder camera. It had to be fairly graphic because it had to be replicated in embroidery. Janet came by and mentioned that it was not a chrome model with black leather and that it should have black leather. That sounded like an interesting challenge so I applied a simulated black leather covering and added a texture that was similar to the texture on her Leica. When I got that done she had something else that she thought it needed. Needless to say we were well beyond embroidery stage but I was enjoying giving it a try. Then she decided it needed a lens so I went to the camera cabinet and got out her 35mm Summicron for a model. I knew she wasn't going to stand for a couple of circles. When it was done I was a little surprised how well the drawing turned out that I decided to go back to the cabinet and get her M3. She always made fun of the canted film rewind on my M4 so I knew she would like the M3 better. I was tired of drawing the front of the camera so I decided to see if I could draw the top, thus the one I posted to PhotoNet. The hardest part of the drawing was the L in Leica--it's not as smooth as I would like it.

I used this drawing in a composite that I entered into a competition at NWHPC--it completely fooled everyone. You can tell that it is not an actual body by the rails on the flash shoe, they are uneven. Also I forgot to draw the neckstrap lugs--always intended to go back and do that but never got around to it. It was a fun exercise trying to discover how to get the various shapes, the reflections on the shinnier areas, drawing the film counter under glass and the knurling on the knobs. I believe that it took around thirty some layers. I never had the patience to try it again.

This is the image that I entered into the competition. The Polariod frames were also drawn in PSP. When I got it together there was a blank area in the lower right and we had just joined Texas Healthspring and one of their pens was laying on the desk so I drew an image of it to go in the corner. The only actual photograph is the head of the garden fountain with I broke up into the fake Polariod SX70 mats. Old people have a lot of time on their hands.

More digital drawings--just the frames, the photos are actually photos

Portfolio Challenge, Phase One

2011-10-05T18:33:00.000-05:00

Well, phase one of Portfolio Challenge is over--on to two. Last night was the public showing of the portfolios. Tomorrow night will be the review. I'm not sure which creates the most aprehension. Fortunately I was not required to read the artist statement, just talk about photographs of coffee cups. That was a relief.

Anyway, I have been in a major blue funk for the last couple of days so I was pleased to be able to joke about photographing coffee cups rather than talk about the photographs. On top of that Aunt Bea's may be closed--the sign says remodeling but they haven't concerned themselves with the decor for forty years so I suspect that it is likely more permenant than that. It was my only nearby and relatively afforadable place for vegatables.

We did have a good turn out for the viewing and I was impressed with the portfolios. It seems that every year the quality of the portfolios improves. Not sure how many photographers participated but I can only count eleven--that's a fairly low participation but it means that each portfolio will absolutely get three reviews and maybe four which would be good. Just so I don't draw Odin Clay things will be fine.

Michael Young came as my guest and I got an email this morning that both he and Lesa may rejoin the club. Michael is one of the most unusual people that I have ever met so it is always interesting when he is around. I greatly appreciate the help he gave me in selecting the prints for the challenge this year. It really surprised that he might come back.

A Full Day

2011-09-29T22:52:00.000-05:00

Debi photographing from the 60th floor observation deck of the J P Morgan Chase Building

Had an interesting day today. Debi Beauregard has a few days off and we had been talking about photographing the interior of the Co-Cathedral in downtown Houston. We decided to do it. We metroed in and met at Main Street Square. Debi mentioned the observation deck in the Chase building and I had never been there, always intended to go but never did, so we decided to do that first. Since Debi had never been and it had been years since I had been in the tunnel we decided to take the tunnel system to the Chase.

We photographed from the observation deck, did the inside of the Co-Cathedral then headed south to the art museums for lunch at the Fine Arts. It was a very, very full day and I came home with a few photographs that I like. Debi does a lot of HDR so I am interested in seeing what she has come up with.

Looking down on the Esperson and the Pennsoil Buildings

Exterior of the chapel inside St Joseph Hospital

Miro's Personage with Birds against the Pennsoil Building

Inside the Co-Cathedral

Debi and the Raschenbergs

After visiting the art museums in Fort Worth going to the Houston Fine Arts Museum is the pits. They act like they are afraid that you might accidently enjoy yourself and they can't stand that. We made one very, very brief run between doors and then headed to the Contemporary Arts where you are actually allowed to take photographs.

Don't know what it is but I didn't get yelled at for photographing it which is an improvement.

After the art museums we walked down to the Natural Science and came out to impending rain

The Elevator at the Kimble

2011-09-25T19:43:00.000-05:00

People Pictures

2011-09-25T00:39:00.001-05:00

A recluses’ dilemma: I love photographing people. Sometimes I am pretty good at it but not most of the time. This past week I had an opportunity to photograph a very old friend, Otis. He and I went through twelve years of school together—started in the first grade and graduated together. My oldest memory of Otis goes back to the second grade when he and I were the Jack Frost Twins in the classes’ annual Second Grade Play. All the classes back then put on a play every year. We wore blue crape paper costumes with cotton fur.

Otis was, and still is, one of the most respected members of our class. I doubt seriously that you can find a single person from Burkburnett that dislikes Otis. He is just that kind of person. I am not saying that he is a person that caters to others to gain their approval. Otis is definitely Otis. He is a large person—very impressive in size. He is a strongly patriotic and strongly opinionated person. Otis does not miss words—he clearly and strongly says what he thinks. Otis has character and it is character that is his without question. People know where Otis stands.

He and his wife Carol celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary last year and I promised to come to Arlington and do an anniversary photograph but I kept procrastinating. I was going to do in on the way to Wichita Falls to visit with my older brother but I kept letting things get in the way.

A friend in White Settlement, near Fort Worth, lost her husband a week ago and getting up to offer my condolences was finally important enough to get me out of Houston. Ivan had been in hospice and was not expect to last long but I learned from Robbie that he had asked not to have a service. Had there been one I was planning on going but not having a service made the visit a little more flexible so I went when Robbie thought she would be ready to receive guest.

I finally worked out a schedule between Robbie, Otis and my brother who came down from Wichita Falls. Got all the reservations and the rental car lined up for last Wednesday with the plan to stay until Friday, Saturday or Sunday—the tail end was flexible.

I went first to visit Robbie and we went out to dinner on Wednesday evening. Afterwards we went through numerous photo albums while she shared the details of life with Ivan. Advice and encouragement from Robbie and Ivan had been a tremendous help as Janet progressed farther into the dementia. We met on line as a result of a political faux pas on my part, learned we had common interests if not politics which worked in into a very interesting friendship. Toward the end Ivan suffered much the same as Janet had.

I met with Otis and Carol at 8am Thursday and we photographed until around noon. I had great plans for the photographs but there were two approaches that to me were important. I don’t know much about other people’s marriages and base most everything on my personal experiences. I do know about love. I do know about having a wife that you completely mesh with and I believe that Otis and Carol have that type of relationship. They are still together because they love each other, respect each other and fit together so very comfortably. I wanted to show that in the photographs. I came close. Maybe not as close I would have liked but close. I also wanted to show Otis as a little larger than life, maybe got close. I guess that I generally do not look that closely at other men’s wives but until I started doing the photographs I had not realize how very pretty Carol is. She has beautiful eyes and beautifully sculptured features. It was really a joy to photograph both of them. Unfortunately I did miss one very important approach that I really wanted to do. Basically it would have been an individual shot of each one with the other in the background out of focus. I would love to have a couple of photographs of Janet and I done that way.

I learned from Janet that when you actually love and totally commit to another person that you do actually become one entity. But I also learned that by becoming one doesn't mean that neither actually gives up their self—in that perfect relationship each is still an individual. I wanted to capture that concept of each remaining an individual but there was always that other presence—it is there to always encourage and protect. No matter where you go the other is always there. I wanted to capture that for Otis and Carol and that I did not do.

I knew before I left Houston that in the end I most likely was going to be disappointed in the photographs and I am—at least the photographs of them together. I think I got a number of nice individual photos of each but I did not do as well as I would have liked on the photos of them together. I hope that I get another opportunity to photograph them in the near future.

Rare Sighting...

2011-09-24T19:04:00.006-05:00

Oh, Oh, so woe is me--how did I ever end up in this mess

It’s like finding Bigfoot tracks in the middle of a sandstorm in the Sahara—my big brother in an art museum. Maybe the Ivory Billed Woodpecker still exists in Louisiana… or the Dodo Bird… This is the Kimble in Fort Worth.

My sister-in-law, Billie, does not care for the Impressionist so I thought I should photograph her with one

Listening to the doscent talk about a piece that she does like

Pointing out a flaw on another piece that she does like

Billie becoming one with the piece

Billie and Dalese in the elevator

Everyone else took the elevator

I am not the only crazy photographer in the family--my niece, Dalese, taking a photograph

My niece considers a purchase

My family visits a Miro

Solitude

2011-09-20T09:54:00.005-05:00

Solitude at the Houston Arboretum 9/20/2011

I had lunch with Debi Beauregard near Town and Country and was headed back home. Debi wasn't going to make the competition at the club and I offered to met and pick up her entry. Glad I did. She entered one photo and took home the first place ribbon. Thought I would stop in the Arboretum since I hadn't been there in a while. I took the Inner Loop and for the entire trip only saw one other person who was headed the opposite direction. This was shot at the pond at the far end of the Loop. As usual didn't get any photos worth while but enjoyed the time. It was warm but not unpleasant and may have had one encounter with a mosquito--not really sure but it was quite a change from normal when they eat you alive. Shot this with the Samsung propped on a fence rail. Surprisingly I didn't get lost since I stuck to one trail. The last time I was there I kept branching off on trails till I had no idea where I was. I shot photos for an hour and spent two hours trying to find my way back--well, maybe it wasn't that bad but that's a good story. I did get lost.

BTW: this is a new composition I am playing with. It is based on the musical Fifth. Not sure I understand the music part just yet but I understand the mechanics of the composition. This is just eyeballed but it seems to work well for long format photographs. This may need just a tad more on the right to fully fit but it is close.

“Without great solitude no serious work is possible.”   Pablo Picasso

“Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous—to poetry.”   Thomas Mann

“One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.’’   Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating uon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone—that is the secret of invention: be alone, that is when ideas are born.”   Nikola Tesla

“When I am… completely myself, entirely alone… it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly.”   Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Archives and Other Things

2011-09-18T19:19:00.000-05:00

How do you organize almost ten years of digital photographs shot with five different cameras, four different brands? I sure don’t know but for ten years I have been plugging away at it and getting no closer to success.

If you back up and you revise an image on one drive, how to you sync it with the other drive—floppies, CD’s and DVD’s have long since lost any usefulness.

Anyway, when I run out of other things to do I try working on the “archives.” All of the early photographs from the Minolta and even for the first year of the Nikon were processed with a freebie software—can’t remember the name. But then Adobe bought the company and built Lightroom around the program. At the time it was one of the few non-destructive RAW converters available. It achieved that by writing the changes to a separate file that was referenced when you opened the original RAW images. Every time I saved the images to the computer it created three folders; one for the original RAW, under that folder there were two subfolders, one for the "changes" and one where it saved the "converted" or worked image. I saved everything in TIFF after it was worked but would still need to go back to the original RAW if I wanted to make changes. To look at my completed images meant that I had to drill down to the third file. Since I have this thing about Adobe, I purchased Nikon Capture NX when updates were no longer available for my freebie. What I have been doing, in order to save a little on disk space was going through some of the old files, merging the converted images back into the original folder and zapping the changes file—that got rid of two folders for every shoot.

In the process I came across this photograph of Janet taken in December 2006. It was a funny photograph even at the time it was taken. She had a new pink cap and she was modeling it for me. I think from the look on her face she was enjoying how silly she knew she looked in it. But the story of the cap was even stranger. You see Janet absolutely hated, with a purple passion, the color pink. She had made sure from day one that I understood that so that there would be no pink gifting ever. We were at the grocery store, can’t remember where we were trading at the time, Krogers I think, but they had this big cardboard display box sitting in the middle of the aisle and Janet decided that she needed one of these caps. They were gosh awful ugly. I probably mentioned that fact. I feel certain that I also reminded to her how much she hated pink—neither changed her mind so she came home with a pink cap. I believe in all the years that we were married this is the only time I ever knew Janet to buy anything that was pink, This may have been the one and only time that she ever wore it. You should have seen it from the side or back—oh so ugly. It would have made Jane Russell look like a dork and probably refroze all the snow Jane had melted in Alaska.

It’s nice to go back to some of the old photographs when she was her mischievous self, cracking crooked grins and making faces at my camera. I dearly loved her sense of humor.

NWHPC at TGR Exotic Animal Park

2011-09-17T18:58:00.002-05:00

NWHPC had a photoshoot at TGR Exotic Animal Park so we met at Denny’s for breakfast. Doesn’t qualify as a Table for One since we ended up with twenty-three for breakfast and a couple dozen or so more joined us at the park. It is more of a rescue for wild animals than a park so most everything is in cages. I shot more photographers than animals. Everyone had a great time. If you would like to see the photos from the shoot they are on the NorthwestHouston Photo Club Meet Up, click the PHOTOS tab and it will be the first set.

Sam and I were the first to arrive at Denny’s so, naturally we did our coffee cup thing.

Breakfast

A herd of cows, a pride of lions, a pod of whales a flock of chickens--a whole bunch of photographers

Stan

Debi

Bear

I enjoyed this photograph of the albino kangaroo.

You can hop but your can't hide

A pig in hog heaven or It would set my piggy heart a ruffle if I could only find a truffle

POP...Spin

2011-09-15T23:53:00.000-05:00

Joe does have a sense of humor

Have you ever had days that just seem to pop? I wallow in depression ninety percent of the time and can’t figure out why because my days literally, okay figuratively, pop. Most of the day my head is going ninety miles an hour—that’s why I can’t sleep. It won’t shut off. It’s not organized and it may be going three different directions at the same time.

I got an email from a facebook group Cool Photos and Art. Debi Beauregard had posted a link to a photographer that I really wanted to write about. So I had today's post all planned out.

Then, tonight at seven o’clock I went out to eat. I took Joe McNally’s book When it Clicks. I like learning from Joe, but I don’t particularly like Joe’s writing and I don’t particularly like When It Clicks. I was just looking for a time filler. Since I am having a difficult time getting through the book I thought a little forced reading might be the answer. But tonight before I finished eating I had read a half dozen things that I was anxious to get home and write about.

When I got home I had an email from Paul Caponigro with a link to a interview he had done with Jerry Ulesmann. I can’t pass up Ulesmann. That added another half dozen things I wanted to explore in writing but then I noticed a link to a interview with Tillman Crane—I’ve got to quite reading.

I know I’m bugging everyone with my going on about Portfolio Challenge. But hey, I’m an old guy. I don’t have a lot to talk about. I have developed a pattern for Portfolio Challenges, even though I always set up some prearranged project—they never bears fruit. Actually I’ve planned the same project for the past three years and have yet to take a single photograph for the project. What I end up with is something that I stumbled upon. I like it that way. I like things that don’t necessarily make sense that can’t be planned; they just happen. It’s like making love on a diving board; who’d a thunk it? So now I am going to narrow down the dozen things I want to write about and see which ones come up.

McNally, was one of the last photographers hired by Life magazine. He was recounting a story about one of his early assignments—to go to the Rocky Mountain States and do a story on nannies. He was telling about the Picture Editor, John Loengard’s, very New York, very Mary Poppins concept of nannies. John was brainstorming the shoot with ideas that were about as supercalifragilisticexpialidocious as they come and would probably require a Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to discover anywhere west of the Staten Island. As McNally was leaving the office with his head spinning, John called out over his shoulder, “Just get a shot of one kissing a moose!” I loved it. That is the kind of thinking that made Life Magazine what it was. I miss that kind of thinking.

I have rejoined PhotoNet and am once again doing critiques. They will be ignored but they give me what I need and that is a discussion of photography that involves something other than the rule of thirds. I get to throw in a little Hattersley and a lot of Woodard. It’s a captive audience that can only object after the fact.

Ulesmann, like myself, was greatly influenced by Ralph Hattersley. Thusly, he can do no wrong. But truthfully I much more enjoyed the interview with Tillman Crane. He was a double major, religion and history when he got a job as a photojournalist with a newspaper in Tennessee—he is an accidental photographer. Maybe that is the best kind. Anyway, he was telling about how he was assisting at the Maine School of Photography and traveling to Delaware while he worked on his PHD in photography. Once every three weeks he made the overnight trip by train, got his portfolio reviewed and returned to Maine. At the time he was a landscape photographer. However, on one trip he saw something that grabbed his attention so the next time he carried a camera and photographed a newsstand. As Tillman put it, previsualization was something that he just didn’t do, this was a new experience for him. As a result he started carrying a camera on each trip and making various photographs relating to the train stations. At the end of the year he realized that his landscapes were predictable, the train station pictures were a little unpredictable and he liked that. He realized that the train station pictures were far superior to the landscapes and they ended up being his graduate project. Sometimes I need stories like that. Tonight I don’t feel so weird. I know that I am not the only one that stumbles into a project.

Everyone Needs a Guru..

2011-09-15T01:46:00.000-05:00

When all else fails me I invariably turn to Ralph Hattersley. In the sixties he wrote a great piece that was a parody of Eric Berne’s transactional analysis classic The Games That People Play. Of course it was written about photographers so Ralph called it, The Games That Photographers Play. I only mention that because tonight I had an urge to read The Games article again. As was many of the articles that Hattersley wrote for Popular Photography in the sixties, it was reproduced in Hattersley’s book Discover Yourself Through Photography.

For the remainder of the year I am writing a book review for the NWHPC monthly newsletter and Hattersleyisms keeps creeping into the reviews so that they are about as much photographic opinion as review. Tonight I was polishing the review for the December newsletter—I have all of them written. In it I wrote a short blurb about Aunt Gussie always cutting off the heads of her grandkids when she photographed them that came across as very Hattersley—I immediately had this urge to read The Games.

I didn’t get that far. Hattersley also did a piece he titled Photography May Be a Practice of Religion for You. I'm sure I have mentioned that before on one or both of the blogs. He had been commissioned by Esquire magazine to do a series of ultra controversial photographs on Christianity for their December issue. When he turned in the photographs the editor commented that they were the best photographs that Hattersley had ever done for them and I very much agree. Well, I don’t know everything that he did for Esquire but I agree these are exceptional photographs.

This was during the time that Ralph was studying with Eli Siegel the founder of Aesthetic Realism. One of the things that Siegel had told Hattersley was that Hattersley was not doing a good job of seeing his wife, he was not relating enough to her through things. Therefore he was diminishing her. As Siegel put it, human beings have large dimension and the way to relate to that largeness is to see it in many, many things. Hattersley decided to approach the Esquire assignment from that same angle. He took a very simple theme, Christ in All Things. Christ being of a larger dimension than even a wife should be able to be seen in all things, not just the church, the religious festival, Christmas and seeing himself being crucified on the cross--which is where the vast majority of Christians seem to prefer keeping him.

The photographs are phenomenal. They are not photographs that you are likely to see anywhere else. He wanted to relate Christ to everyday life and he did in a very beautiful and thought provoking, even inspirational way.

Unfortunately my favorite photograph from the article for some reason is not included in the book. It was very different from the rest of the photographs, more mystic and possibly could be considered blasphemous. It wasn’t but some would see it that way which is probably why it isn’t in the book. That’s okay because I still have the original article. Hey it was only forty, forty-five years ago. After he published the article in Popular Photography, Hattersley gave that same assignment to his class and they also created some great photographs. I am always amazed when I read Photography May Be.

Interestingly at the time I first read it I was in a transitional phase where I was beginning to see religion very differently. I always feel much better after I have read it. I feel pretty certain that I have few friends that would care much for the article.

Esquire never ran the photographs.

Amusing

2011-09-12T15:10:00.000-05:00

I have just been reading a most amusing post that illustrates to me the absurdity of mathmizing (just made that word up so don’t look it up) photography. Art doesn’t require, need, or benefit from mathematical formulas. Period. Hopefully the post was from a “just took a camera out of the box the first time in my life” photographer. It probably wasn’t because he/she was terribly concerned about the inverse square law and how it affected exposure as the distance between the camera and the subject matter changed. Few people taking a camera of the box for the first time has ever heard of the inverse square law, thank goodness. They would be better off if they never heard of it. The inverse square law only applies to the distance between a light source and the subject matter. It does not apply in any way, shape or form to the distance between the camera and the subject matter. If it did we wouldn’t be able to see the moon. If the exposure is correct for a subject two feet in front of the camera it is going to be correct for that same subject under the same lighting when the camera is two hundred or two thousand or two million feet away or even 238,856 miles away. Jeeze put away the calculators and learn to see photographically--that is much more important and even a lot more fun for anyone but a geek.

Glass of Pick You

2011-09-12T13:28:00.000-05:00

With the portfolio carved in stone just waiting for October it seems that the Table for One is continuing but possibly in a different direction thanks to the Samsung.

9/11 at Whataburger

2011-09-11T21:09:00.002-05:00

The Doldrums...

2011-09-10T22:37:00.000-05:00

As much as I enjoy playing with the Samsung, eating out by myself is the pits. After driving around for an hour trying to decide where to stop I went to Denny’s and had a sundae. Then I got lost coming home which I frequently do when I get on the west side of town. Decided the sundae wasn’t enough so I stopped at Burger Bobs and got a carry out to take home. Maybe when the weather cools off I will try cooking again. But then again I might not.

I got on Little York by mistake but staying on it seemed the shortest way home. Drove by a carwash and out front was the most unusual automobile. It was pimped out to the max. I think it might have been an older model Lincoln convertable. The headlights were surrounded by circular purple lighted rings, three of so around each light. They appeared to stand out making the headlight look like they were inset into the fender—may have been. I wanted to stop and photograph it but it was dark. It is probably not a good idea for an old white dude, even if he is packing to be wandering around Acers Homes after dark, especially for the purpose of approaching someone in a pimpmobile. Of course, I am not sure whether it was actually good sense that prevented me from stopping or if it was simply the lethargy that takes over when I don’t have a photoshoot scheduled.

My neighbor on the south moved out and I miss them. He was the typical twenty-something heavily tattooed gang member with no visible means of support but they were great neighbors. It was like being under the protection of a godfather. With Rapheal next door I knew that nothing bad was going to happen at my house. I always slept better when I could hear someone in their backyard and there was almost always someone in their backyard during the night. I am always apprehensive about who will be moving in next. Just hope they are as considerate and quiet.

Last night was great. Mary came back to Houston for a friend's wedding and we went out to Pappas Seafood. Janet loved Pappas but the last time I took her she didn't seem to even realize where we were so we never went back. I had forgotten how much I loved oysters. At Pappas the oysters are always good. I came home miserably stuffed but so content.

Blurb Book--Table for One

2011-09-08T23:59:00.000-05:00

For those of you who do not know this already, I think I am pretty tough stuff when it comes to photography. I do feign modesty but it is clearly false modesty. Of course, that's today. Tomorrow with every bit as much conviction I will think that I stink. As Emerson says, "Say today in harsh words what you think today even though it contradicts everything you said yesterday."

I have posted numerous photographs from my Table for One Portfolio Challenge project. I may have mentioned that I plan on doing a coffee table book, possibly in November when the project will be one year old--or I may wait until the project runs its course which I feel certain will be well into the future. I am just enjoying it too much to quit right now. Eventually a new project will over shadow it and it will end. Anyway, for the Challenge review I decided to put together a mock up of the coffee table book in a 7" square. I received my copy today. One more run thorough and my head will not fit through a 36" doorway. I am extremely pleased. I feel certain that I posted a link to the Blurb book to the blog but I noticed tonight that the book was still marked private on the Blurb website so in case I didn't I am going to mention it again. www/blurb.com and search for GW-Images.

Great Grandfathers and Other Things

2011-09-08T23:11:00.000-05:00

I really miss the weirder side of photography. I've been walking the straight and narrow much too closely lately. So occasionally I put the Lensbaby on the Nikon or as I have been doing recently leave the Nikon in the bag and use the Samsung. I love the grain, the lack of sharpness—the more surreal quality of the Samsung. I plug in all the minus EV available because I love blackness. A few days ago I walked around the house shooting photographs of pictures or any object that I could find behind glass, through the glass into the china cabinet and the curio cabinet, getting double and multiple exposures in a single frame.

In the hallway I shot a photograph of a photograph of Janet’s Great Grandfather Peace and just down the hall a photocopy of my Great Grandfather’s discharge papers from the Civil War that Janet had done for me. Noticing them tonight I decided to combine the two photographs and frankly Scarlet, I like the results. Interestingly they both came to Texas from Missouri after the Civil War, hers from Howell County on the Arkansas border and my from Scotland County on the Iowa Border.

I have a few other shots that I did that I liked so I’ll just post a couple.

This is another photograph that I thought turned out interesting. Janet loved seashells. What is shown here is only a small part of the ones in the curio cabinet. Most of the objects in the curio cabinet are in the same positions that Janet originally put them. The shells are Janet's arrangement. Over the years I have moved a few things but very few. I did move the small figure for this shot but I thought that for the photograph it was appropriate. There are actually two of the figures in slightly different poses. Janet found them partially buried in the beach sand at Morgan's Point after a hurricane one year. They are just pot metal so they don't have anything more than sentimental value although it would be interesting to know their history. I thought that gave the figure enough of a nautical background to be combined with the sea shells. The sand dollars in the jar were collected on the beach at Galveston by my stepmother one year when my folks were down for Thanksgiving.

This is a book that I have been wanting to read for a while. I've seen references to it numerous times in various forums but so far I'm not terribly impressed. Maybe it has to grow on you. The War of Art seemed to go appropriately with the only weapon I had available. I also purchased another copy of Emerson's Self Reliance although I have no idea why--I must have a half dozen copies already. That I have been impressed with for, well next year, it will be sixty years. I was thirteen the first of the several hundred times that I have read Self Reliance. Janet and I both grew up reading Emerson's essay.

A Pretty Good Day...

2011-09-07T10:35:00.002-05:00

It is not from the meeting at 59 Diner, just more Table for One

Had a great afternoon with Michael Young yesterday. We met at our usual 59 Diner and spent two hours discussing the ridiculousness of the world, the macabre, Eric Fromm, Edgar Allen Poe and even the reason for our meeting, my Table for One portfolio.

I greatly appreciate Michael’s help. Of the hundred or so photographs I first narrowed it down to twenty-nine which I used on the placard. From those I had nineteen printed and those needed to be narrowed down to between eight and twelve. I was hoping for ten. I was not only pleased but impressed with the attention Michael gave to each of the photographs. The first run through he came up with exactly ten.

When the project first started I limited the subject matter to simply what was on the table. Then I realized that to really say what I wanted each one to say I needed to include an empty chair or booth bench. As it progressed I began to include more of the environment and it was from these later photographs that Michael selected. Even though I did lose a couple of my favorites that left to my own devices I would have included it was easy to see that Michael’s selection was a much more cohesive group—a greatly improved portfolio. We did discuss the photographs as he sorted through them but it did not really require any persuasion to go with the ten he selected.

A great chocolate milk shake, a couple of hours of interesting conversation but very importantly a much, much stronger portfolio for the challenge. How could you beat a deal like that. Thank you Michael.

As you might have surmised, I am addicted to this project. I have probably added a dozen or more photographs since I had the prints made. It will probably continue for a very long time—well as long as I feel that I am not totally replicating what I have already done. The insertion of the Samsung is taking the project in a new direction—it’s almost like starting again. Susan Sontag said that all photographs are surreal and IMO the Samsung photographs are considerably more surreal than the Nikon photographs.

Then to top the day off it was camera club. Jerry put together a model shoot but I got so busy talking I didn’t take any photographs of the models. Les didn’t show up so I tried to fill in with a few overall shots of the meeting and shot mostly photographers.

Invocation? Please have Jim stop talking so we can take photographs?

Samsung

2011-09-06T12:33:00.000-05:00

I have been stumbling over the Samsung for almost two years now and have not really figured out how it works. It is very frustrating because the setting options are different depending upon which shooting mode you have selected. Why can’t a point and shoot just be simple like a Nikon D700?

I really enjoy using it—yeah, it’s noisy when you set it on 1600 ISO, but who cares. I put up with film grain for fifty years, I can live with noise. Truthfully the perfectly smooth digital gnaws at my artistic sensibilities most of the time. Anyway, I decided to tote the P&S yesterday but I took the D700 for a backup in case I got too frustrated. Came home with at least a couple that I liked. Really think I should use the Samsung more.

Should I reshoot my entire Table for One portfolio. I've got a couple of weeks before I have to have it completed.

Brainstorming..If I onlyhad a brain...

2011-09-05T14:53:00.000-05:00

Denny's on I45 at Shepherd

Whataburger on Little York

Whataburger on Mason Road in Katy

Denny's on I45 at Shepherd

..I could while away the hours, conferrin' with the flowers, Consultin' with the rain. And my head I'd be scratchin' while my thoughts were busy hatchin' If I only had a brain...

I am trying to come up with a project for next year's Portfolio Challenge. This morning I was on Texas Travel and noticed a posting about an event in Pittsburg, Texas. Since I don’t believe that I was even aware that Texas had a Pittsburg I went to check it out. From that developed a kernel of an idea.

The first thought was to go to Texas Travel and pick out and attend one “event” during the month in an unfamiliar town. But that could involve a lot of long distance travel. Then I remembered a television show of some years ago that began each segment with a throw of a dart. Wherever the dart landed the main character went there to do something—okay my memory is a little vague but it was something like that. Maybe it was some redheaded fellow, Bill Some-Thing-or-Other, on some morning show that went there and interviewed someone. Doesn’t really matter—it’s just the concept that holds my interest.

Making all of Texas the dart board is a little too ambitious so I scaled down the idea. I think I will make a dart board that encompasses maybe a 100 mile radius of Houston. That would make it more doable. Could even make it a one day affair. Pick out an unfamiliar small town within say ten miles of the dart to go spend a day of photography. I could use that for my Portfolio Challenge if I start in October rather than wait until January. I will be going to Fort Worth later this month, September so I actually could start it then. Rather than use the dart I might pick out one of the towns of the 287 project and spend a day, maybe Crockett or Palestine since they are well off my beaten bath. And within a comfortable morning drive from Ft Worth. Something to consider. With my dart throwing abilities I am sure that the Flower Gardens will come up frequently. For those not familiar with the Flower Gardens they are a coral reef located in the Gulf of Mexico. Favorite haunt of scuba divers and an anchorage for sailors.

What attracted me to Pittsburg was the description of an outdoor piece of art donated by Bo Pilgrim that sounded like something I would like to photograph. I still work periodically on the Outdoor Art in Houston project that Janet and I started back in about 2002. From the research I have done for the Hwy 287 Project I know I will be photographing a good deal of outdoor art in the small towns along the way. For the Travel Tex project it will need a consistent theme from town to town and outdoor art would be attractive to me. Unfortunately really small towns often do not have municipal art so I will need to find a different connection. I will give it some thought and if I do the project will probably make revisions as it gets started. Urban decay, especially evident in most small towns, maybe government buildings, buildings being updated, I like cafés so maybe café shots would be a thought. I like that because I greatly enjoy visiting the “local's” eatery in small towns. Yeah, I like that idea. Hope the Challenge doesn’t tire of my café shots if I do it twice in a row. Anyway, we'll see. Could just use the 287 Project.

Interesting thought occured while scanning through the above photographs and the dozens that proceeded. You'd think someone my age would have developed a friend or two along the way. If I did it's darn hard to tell from my photographs. Maybe I need to do a parody, If I only had a friend...

Red Alert, Red Alert--Politics

2011-09-01T20:31:00.001-05:00

I know that a personal photographic blog in probably the last place that I should mention politics. The key word in that last sentence is personal, so as I usually do, I do what I want to do regardless of its advisability. LOL

In the last post I mentioned that I don’t have much use for rules unless they are my rules. A friend replied back that I didn’t even follow my rules very well. She is right. Emerson taught me to “say today in harsh words what you think today even though it contradicts everything you said yesterday.” That’s really a paraphrase but I thought the quotation marks made it look impressive. And also something about to be a man you must be a non-conformist and that the world would whip you for your non-conformity. Always found both pieces of advice to be of excellent value. I am for the most part a quiet person and not usually terribly controversial—except when I feel it is needed as in cases political. So, neither advice from Emerson has caused me much discomfort. I look at it this way, if you want to get hacked off at me over my politics I feel certain that I can give you a much more inclusive list of personal proclivities that you will find equally reprehensible to reinforce your position.

I have just spent nearly an hour reading comments on a piece that says that the Republican Insiders think that Romney has a better chance than Perry of defeating Obama. I have been a very political person since I was in probably junior high school (middle school for you young people—as though there are actually any young people that read this blog.) Until the Republican Insiders put John McCain at the head of the ticket in 2008 I had been a lifelong in your face and proud of it Republican. George Bush made as many Independents out of Republicans as Jimmy Carter made Republicans out of Democrats. I hung in until the 2008 election. McCain was my last straw. I did vote for McCain but only because he picked Sarah Palin as a running mate and I was hoping that he would only last a few months until she could get her footing and then we could have a scrumptious not to mention splendiferous (to quote Cummings) state funeral for the old RINO geezer.

As it turns out I lost my vote but that’s okay. McCain has hung on for the majority of BO’s first term so I would have lost my vote anyway. Yeah we possibly would have been better off under McCain but only marginally so what to hey—it was a lose, lose situation at best.

If Romney heads the ticket, this Independent will not vote Republican in 2012. I will not vote Democrat—I simply will not vote for the first time since my vote for Nixon when he ran against Kennedy. I possibly could vote for Perry, Cain or Rubio. I definitely would vote and twice or more times if I could for Ron Paul (unfortunately the only way you can vote more than once legally in Texas is to be a dead Democrat from Duval County—just ask LBJ, I’m sure you will be able to catch him at a polling place in November next year.) That list will possibly lengthen or shorten as the campaigns move forward. There is only one factor that right now is carved in stone—NO vote for Romney and it has nothing to do with his religion. It has to do with the fact that if we get a Democrat in the White House in 2013, I would just as soon it be one that has the kahonies (SP? spell check doesn’t comprehend and in Texas we generally spell it with only five bouncy letters) to admit that they are a Democrat.

I'll just throw in a photograph so that the post has some relevancy.

This is where I had lunch today. It's a converted dining car along side the UP tracks in northwest Houston. Couldn't do a Table for One shot because I had lunch with my ex-boss, Carolyn Sloan. The serving was enough to two people so now I'm signing off so head for the kitchen to finish it.

Table for One is Drawing to a Close

2011-08-31T20:26:00.000-05:00

To the delight of most of my friends I'm sure, Table for One is wrapping up. I received my prints for Portfolio Challenge today—well at least the first run. I am going to meet with Michael Young to narrow the nineteen that I had printed down to ten, or maybe twelve. Then I will do any brushing up that needs to be done and have them reprinted and mounted. I was thinking about not mounting them but it is necessary. They are just too difficult to handle otherwise. Besides that is the rule but you know me and rules. If it’s not my rule then I don’t pay much attention to it.

The idea of the Challenge is to present the photographs as though they were being presented to a gallery. I am never going to present any of my photographs to a gallery. These photographs will be published in a 12”x12” book, just as the photographs from last year’s Challenge. That is why I thought it would be better to present them as pages from a book rather than as photographs to hang. The image size is approximately 7”x10” centered on the 12”x12” sheet.

As always when I get prints back I think they are too dark but after living with them for a half hour I decide they are just about perfect. There are two that if they are in the final cut that I will lighten slightly before reprinting.

These are personal photographs. When you insist on doing something personal for Portfolio Challenge you really put yourself on the line. That is not easy. They are just photographs of coffee cups but will anyone have any idea what the photographs are about? Or does it even matter?

I doubt that anyone will have the slightest idea. I've been harping on "the photograph is not the subject (matter)" for three years without convincing a single person. There are coffee cups in the photographs (well coffee cups and other stuff you might find on a table in a restaurant) but the photographs are not about coffee cups. They are not even really about restaurants. Very often photographs are about what is not in the photograph.

At a time like this I really miss Janet's support and encouragement. She always assured me that everything was fine and if it wasn't she fixed it before there was a problem. In thinking back to last year’s Challenge, even though she couldn’t express an opinion, she looked at the photographs. I believe I saw a look on her face that I had seen many times in the past forty years. It was her “Weird Woodard is at it again” look. For two people that were in such total agreement on so many things, we almost never agreed on photography—particularly on what to photograph.

The "project" may be drawing to a close but I doubt seriously that I will quit taking photographs on this theme just because Portfolio Challenge has come and gone. I may find a different subject matter but the theme will be the same. The SUBJECT will be the same! LOL

The BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir

2011-08-28T11:05:00.000-05:00

What a photoshoot. I didn’t get a single photograph that really captures the remarkable beauty of the building but I am inspired to go back again for another attempt. NWHPC scheduled the late evening/sunset photoshoot at the Hindu Mandir in Stafford. This is a most remarkable building.

The mandir was carved in India from 33,000 pieces of marble and limestone. The carved stones were shipped to Houston and assembled in 16 months by volunteers. That alone would be remarkable but you really have to see it to fully comprehend the beauty and delicacy of the carvings.

Unfortunately there were problems with the exterior lighting so the building was not lit as it usually is after dark. I do want to go back for another evening shoot when the lights are repaired. I also want to be there for sunrise when the front of the mandir will not be in shadow.

Breakfast

2011-08-23T23:08:00.000-05:00

At breakfast this morning in the book I was reading I came across a photograph of a entire box of Moo Cards laid out on a flat surface. They brought back a memory of a picture that Mother had hanging over the buffet at home. It got me to thinking about the things that influence our “vision,” what we see and how we see it.

For those that do not know what Moo Cards are they are a specialized type of business card and about half the height of a regular card. The unique thing about Moo Cards other than their size is that Moo will print a different photograph on each of the cards in the box—I think they come in 50’s and 100’s. A lot of photographers like Moo Cards for that reason—the opportunity to make each card unique. They generally have one entire side of the card with the photograph and have all the contact info on the other side.

The cards that were in the photographs were all photographs of a very graphic red, blue and yellow object that had been shot from many different angles and compositions. All butted up against each other, it was very reminiscent of the Art Deco period. It was because of this resemblance that it reminded me of Mother’s picture.

This probably needs some background. My family was extremely poor. But it was back when you really didn’t know you were poor because most everyone around you was also poor. We lived in what at one time had been an oil field shack during the oil boom in Burkburnett. The shacks were hastily thrown up to accommodate the hoards that rush into the oil field and were never intended as permanent homes. I do not know when my family purchased the house (actually I believe it was two shacks stuck together) but they moved to Burk in 1926, my brother was born there in 1927, probably in the “big room” as I was eleven years later, and Dad was living there well into the 1960’s. The shacks did not have stud construction. The load bearing walls were the one-by sheathing. Window and door frames stuck out into the rooms and the only thing between you and the great outdoors was a 1” thick board, actually 3/4” thick, and a few layers of tar paper on the outside and cheesecloth and a layer of wallpaper inside. It may not have been much of a structure but it was a home in the best sense of the term.

There was the “big room,” that’s what it was always called, which was 16’ square and two smaller rooms stuck on the front (I think this was originally a second shack that had been attached to the big room.) The kitchen was an 8’ or 9’ lean-to shed attached across the back of the big room. Outside of a Ranch Oak couch that folded out into a bed that Dad and Mother bought when they first married, the closest thing we had to real furniture, store bought not hand me down, was a very inexpensive dining room suit, a table, maybe six chairs and a buffet. Along with the dining room suite in the big room was mother’s pump organ that she got for her tenth birthday and occasionally other furniture. Before the shed that contained the bathroom and an extra bedroom was built onto the side, the big room was where the No. 2 washtub served as the family bath on Saturday night so we would be ready for church the next morning.

My father never in his life had enough to sentimental over but my mother would have kept each and every thing that ever passed through her or her family’s hands. That is where the picture came in—it was a sheet of Christmas wrapping paper that she had framed in a half-round frame painted bright red. It was a metallic paper and was basically four colors, red, green, silver and black all put together in a very abstract Art Deco arrangement. The individual sections were maybe 1” or 1 1/4” at the largest. Over all it might have been 14” x 20”. It looked very much like a serving tray and actually it might have been at one time. My mother may have been poor but I think you would have called her a modernist. As much respect as she had for the past, she definitely was not stuck in the past.

The Christmas wrapping picture hung over the buffet as far back as I can remember. It was there when she passed away in 1955 so I lived with it through my formative years. Mother often called my attention to the picture because I think she knew that it might keep me from being stuck in the past—don’t know that worked exactly like she had intended but I do have a great respect for the abstract so maybe it did.

Strange the things you can think of at breakfast.

Three From This Afternoon

2011-08-21T19:43:00.000-05:00

Port Arthur Pano

2011-08-21T00:49:00.000-05:00

Buildings on Proctor Street

I shot this photograph when Debi and I was in Port Arthur a week or so ago. I had not stitched it because my stitching program is on the laptop and I have not moved the images over. Today Gerrad posted a link to a free Microsoft stitching program so I downloaded it. I am very impressed. I believe it does as good as my relatively expensive software. The final image is 8" x 47". It was hand held and I think seven images.

Chapter Seven: In Search of Self and the Metaphor

2011-08-20T14:33:00.000-05:00

“Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation and fantasy.”—Susan Sontag

“Photographs that set out to be metaphors for the feelings of the photographer are both difficult to accomplish and hard to understand straight away. To attempt to show our emotions, state of mind or psyche in photographs could appear futile, given the seeming objectivity of the medium. Emotions can be difficult to portray because of their ephemeral quality but as they govern much of our behaviors and continuously affect our lives, they can hardly be ignored. “

“The psychological approach does, of course, make the photographer very vulnerable, as the pictures may be embarrassingly personal or overbearingly symbolic. But if your emotions and inner feelings are honestly expressed, you are less likely to be accused of pretentiousness or self-obsession.” Paul Hill, Approaching Photography, Chapter 7, In Search of Self and the Metasphor, p 115

DOF Rant

2011-08-15T21:01:00.000-05:00

As most know I love taking on the Conventional Photographic Wisdoms. I recently wrote a response to a request on a forum regarding depth of field and my reply was taken to task. I hope I haven’t ranted on this recently but if I have I’m going to do it again.

The situation was this. A young photographer was shooting basically a table top and was having problems with getting the image as sharp from front to back as she wanted. Another reply suggested that she change to a longer focal length lens and shoot from farther back. I rebutted that remark, saying that as long as she kept the size of the object she was shooting the same size on the sensor, the longer lens would not affect depth of field—it won’t. I suggested that she simply move back a little and then crop out the same image. The original poster took issue with that remark stating his qualifications as a product photographer that knew what he was talking about. This is my rebuttal to his rebuttal.

Depth of Field, DOF, is affected by three things; aperture, distance and focal length of lens. However it is governed by the size of the image on the sensor. Regardless of what anyone says, DOF can only be changed by changing the size of the image on the sensor or by changing aperture—zip, period, tada—that is it.

Optics are ruled by the laws of physics--not conventional photographic wisdoms no matter how many times you have heard it repeated it doesn't check out when you do the math. Physics can be confirmed quite easily mathically.

Assuming there is no question that changing aperture changes DOF let’s look at distance and focal length. We are assuming in all cases that the aperture remains the same throughout.

Scenario 01: You can increase DOF by simply moving farther away because with the same focal length increasing the distances makes the image smaller on the sensor. You can decrease DOF by simply moving closer because with the same focal length lens you have made the image larger. Image gets smaller DOF increases. Image gets larger DOF decreases.

Scenario 02: You can increase DOF by switching to a shorter focal length lens and leaving the camera in the same position because you have made the image smaller on the sensor. You can decrease DOF by switching to a longer focal length lens from the same camera position because you have made the image larger. Image gets smaller DOF increases. Image gets larger DOF decreases.

Scenario 03: If you change both distance and focal length so that the image is the same size on the sensor it does not matter how far away your are or what focal length lens you are using the DOF will be the same. Image size doesn't change, DOF remains the same regardless of distance or focal length of lens.

The following is calculated using DOFMaster for a Nikon D700 camera with a full frame sensor at 0.03mm circle of confusion—all pretty standard. http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

I am going to step through a series of focal lengths. In each case I will double the focal length of the lens and double the distance. This will for all practical purposes keep the size of the image on the sensor the same in all of the shots.

25mm @ f/16 shooting from 2 feet—DOF 2.25’

50mm @ f/16 shooting from 4 feet—DOF 1.89’
100mm @ f/16 shooting from 8 feet—DOF 1.82’
200mm @ f/16 shooting from 16 feet—DOF 1.8’
400mm @ f/16 shooting from 32 feet—DOF 1.8’
800mm @ f/16 shooting from 64 feet—DOF 1.8’

The focal length changes from 25mm to 800mm and the shooting distance varies from 2 feet to 64 feet--pretty drastic changes, yet the DOF remains virtually the same in each case.

Okay, let’s assume the young photographer had a 150mm lens which they used to shoot from 12 feet away. The DOF would be 1.81’ (1’ 9.7”), same as the 100mm at 8' or the 200mm lenses at 16'. Now assuming that instead of 12 feet away she shot at 13 feet away. By increasing the distance by 1’ the DOF would be changed to 2.13’ (2’ 1.6”—with the 150mm lens by moving back 1 foot she would have gained 3.8” of additional DOF) because now the image was smaller on the sensor than it would have been at 12'.

Let’s also assume that the original shot posted to the forum was done with the 50mm lens from 4’ which would have given a DOF of 1.89’ (1’ 10.7”). She could have gained the same amount of increased DOF by using the 50mm lens at 4.31’ where the DOF would have been 2.21’ (a gain of 3.84” in DOF). That means that rather than change lenses all she had to do was to back up less than 4 inches and she would have achieved the same increased DOF.

Keep in mind, it was not changing the focal length of the lens that changed the DOF. In both cases, with the 150mm and with the 50mm, it was increasing the distance and reducing the size of the image on the sensor that increased the DOF.

What would have changed would be spatial distance and perspective in the photograph. The shot using the 150mm lens would have reduced the convergence of the table top making it appear flatter or less deep. The 50mm lens would have produced the table top with more or less “normal” perspective.

Changing focal lengths does not change DOF. It does change spatial distance and perspective.

The Very First in the Table for One Series

2011-08-14T23:58:00.000-05:00

Gotta Pick Up the Pace

2011-08-13T08:28:00.001-05:00

Robert Frank devoted two years to road trips across the U.S. During that time he shot 27,000 photographs which were edited down to the 83 published in The Americans.

When Gary Winogrand died he left behind 2,500 rolls of exposed but undeveloped 35mm 36 exposure film; 6,500 rolls of film that were developed but uncontacted and 3000 unedited contact sheets. That is a total of 432,000 images—unworked.

Does that make you feel like you are slothing off?

Back to Denny's

2011-08-12T22:53:00.001-05:00

We had some pretty nice clouds around five o'clock when I got this bright idea. I was in hopes that we would have an interesting sunset and I wanted to see if I could find when the light inside and the light outside balanced. It it at almost exactly sunset so the next time we have an interesting sunset I know where to be and when. Not saying that I am not pleased with the shot that I got but maybe one table back from where I was.

I continued shooting through the blue hour until the sky went completely black.

I am doing a monthly book review for the NWHPC newsletter through the end of the year. I have already got all of them written but I received a new book today, The Passionate Photographer. I thought I might replace one of the ones that are already done. So I would read for awhile then shoot for a while. I think there might be some interesting shots from here when cars are entering and leaving the parking area--will work on that.

Monterey, Little Mexico

2011-08-10T18:55:00.001-05:00

I have read recently that one of the primary reasons that photographs fail is clutter, EXCEPT (always an exception) when there is order to the clutter. I am not exactly sure that I understand how to find order in clutter but I have enjoyed giving it a try lately. I am trying to decide if there is anything in this photograph that should not be there. There are a number of repeating similar shapes, the columns, the paper towels, the salt shaker and the water glass. There is considerable imbalance with the right third almost featureless but is it dark enough to counterweigh the color and detail on the left. To me they are interesting questions. I am having a ball taking photographs when I go out to eat. It's a great place to work on order in clutter. Yeah, I know, it is dark, very dark. There is at least one surprise in the photograph, a simple detail of the couple buried within the clutter, but the question is will it hold attention long enough for the viewer to find it. I'm thinking that it's a pretty good photograph with the jury still out. For the present I am happy with it.

A Twofold Trip

2011-08-07T16:03:00.000-05:00

Debi Beauregard and I drove over to Port Arthur yesterday.

I went because that is where Janet was born and that is where I am starting the Highway 287 Project (even though I have already photographed Woodville, that was for practice.) We both went because the next competition at NWHPC is on Urban Decay. The downtown area of Port Arthur is almost a ghost town. It is very reminiscent of places like Detroit but on a smaller scale. We did photographs for both.

This is one of my favorite Urban Decay shots.

We photographed along Lakeshore Drive doing Rose Hill, White Haven, the Pompeiiean Villa, the Masonic Temple, the Vuylsteke home, the Lamar University campus and ended at The Museum of the Gulf Coast. It was a very tiring day. We stopped at the Visitor's Center in the Civic Center and asked about places to eat. The guy asked what type of food we were looking for and I told him that we were interested in the places that the locals go like the small cafes on courthouse squares. Well, I knew that Port Author didn't have a courthouse square but they apparently don't have small cafes where the locals go either. LOL As usual we ended up at a barbecue joint.

Got some good photographs. Especially enjoyed photographingg in the museum.

Buu Mon Buddhis Temple (originally a Baptist Church)

Rose Hill

White Haven

Waterfront

Port Arthur native, Janis Joplin’s Psychedelic Porche (replica) and Sculpture of Janis

Works of Robert Raschenberg, another Port Arthur native

Lesson Learned

2011-08-02T23:51:00.001-05:00

I recently booked a motel room in Woodville through Priceline. I seemed to have been under the impression that Priceline secured the best possible prices—was I wrong.

I booked the room in late June for July 15^th. When I arrived at the motel they asked for me credit card. I explained that I had already paid through Priceline and was told that was only to “hold” the reservation. When I received my credit card statement Priceline charged me in June, the motel in July so I called Priceline. The charge from the motel was thirteen dollars less.

The girl on the phone at Priceline took all the information and said she would turn it over to one of their “specialist” and that I should have an answer within five working days—already not very impressive. So I called the credit card and they immediately disallowed the Priceline billing.

Today I received my answer from Priceline and was told that the motel was refunding their billing. I replied back that was not satisfactory and asked why I was being billed thirteen dollars more from Priceline than I had been by the motel.

Tonight I got a reply that Priceline could not refund the difference. I replied thinking them for the reply and noted that in the future I would avoid booking through Priceline. Actually when speaking to the credit card company I distinctly got the impression that I was not the only complaint about Priceline Just thought I would mention this as a heads up since most of you do more traveling than I have been doing in the past.

I’ve got a room booked in Bastrop for the Texas Photo Fest in Smithville but it is through Expedia. I think I will call the motel and see what their price is if I go direct and leave out the middle man. At least it will give me an opportunity to see if I want to go with Expedia in the future. I can assure you this is a one and only time with Priceline.