Field Of Dreams
June 10th, 2009
You can dream about baseball if that suits you. I’ll stick to something more like this. Brooke and _G_ at Glacier.
Things continue to be very busy with most of it non-photo related. The truck engine and transmission have been removed and are both being rebuilt. I’m limited in my travel to either riding my motorcycle or hijacking my wife’s van by taking her to and from work. Since it is raining here today, and I hate riding my motorcycle in the rain, I’m spending the day at home. I expect the truck to be out of commission for at least another week and a half, so I’m concentrating on my many jobs that need to be done around the house.
I’ve spent the last several days transferring data from the old home computer onto the new computer and setting up a somewhat logical backup scheme. I think I have that all under control now. I used a program called Goodsync to get everything transferred and make sure I didn’t lose something in the process. It worked very well, but some of the sync operations took as much as 10 hours. We’re talking lots of gigs of photos here. But thanks to the sync program I was able to free up a couple hundred gigs of unnecessary duplication on my external hard drives. Now there is just one of everything on my old drives and they and the internal drive on the new computer all back up onto a new external 1.5T drive. Tomorrow I’ll start trying to do something similar with the data on the studio computer. But there I’m dealing with about 10 times as much data and something like eight external drives in various stages of confusion and duplication and triplication. It’s going to take some time. When I finish I hope to have each file stored and regularly backed up on two drives using two 1.5T drives and four 500 gig drives. Then I’ll start making another backup using the blu-ray burner on the new studio computer.
Now if I could just figure out how to free up more space on the C: drive of the old computer. I’ve uninstalled a bunch of my old programs, like PhotoShop CS, that took a lot of space, but it still seems to have at least 5 gigs of space taken up by something that doesn’t need to be there and that I can’t find to delete. We are giving the old computer to our cousin who doesn’t need a lot of computing power and should be able to get a lot more use out of it. But the C: drive has less than 1 gig of free space…not enough to even let me defrag it. If everything else fails we’ll just take it to Best Buy and have them wipe the drive and reinstall windows XP. I’d try that myself, but the computer didn’t come with an XP disk, so I can’t. It started life as a Best Buy floor sample and has always had some issues that must have been caused by that.
Meanwhile I’ve been getting estimates to have my 100-year-old house painted. _G_’s boyfriend is going to do the job. That should get started in the next couple weeks and take most of the summer to complete. The house is tall so one of the first steps was to buy a used 40-foot extension ladder. That was accomplished last night. They tell me the new paints are better than what was available about 10 years ago when we last had it painted, so this paint job should last at least 15 years. That would be nice.
And I need to make some calls to get someone to do a bunch of little jobs on the exterior of the house. I still haven’t found a roofer to repair the hurricane damage to the house’s tile roof. But I hope to get that taken care of within a month or so.
I also have some commercial photo work that I should be doing over the summer. Nothing all that exciting, but work that will pay some bills…maybe even let me put enough aside to get a new Nikon when the next digital generation is announced.
So, posts may be less frequent for the next few weeks while I deal with “real life”…but there are lots more photos to come from Glacier, not to mention a bunch of other shoots that I’ve never gotten around to putting up here. And I have a couple shoots planned over the next couple weeks. Have to keep shooting, no matter what.
Blame CS4
June 4th, 2009
Yes, I haven’t been here posting updates because of CS4. I’d been putting off upgrading my version of PhotoShop for quite a while, mainly because I knew my old studio computer would not be able to handle the newer versions. I was still using the original CS. My studio computer was so old that I had to add boards to it to give me USB2.o and to get an ethernet port. It still ran pretty well, but was showing signs of future problems.
So, I finally bought a new computer. I’ve been spending this week getting the new machine set up, working out a new backup scheme for my files, loading software…all that stuff. I’m not done, but I’ve made a lot of progress. My old scanner isn’t supported in Vista, so I decided it was a good time to upgrade that too. I don’t use a scanner much, but with the new Epson V500 I ordered I may start working on scanning some of my old negatives. I’m also about to shoot a polaroid project, using up the last of my stock of polaroid film in the process. I want to be able to make good scans of those prints when that project is finished.
So, I’m working on the new computer now…and editing files with the new CS4. I don’t see a lot of changes, but I think that’s because I just don’t know what I’m doing with the new program yet. I’m one of those old weirdos who actually read the manual that comes with software…but, alas, no manual was in the box. I suppose there’s one stashed somewhere in pdf form, but I haven’t found it yet. I think I’m going to break down and buy a book about this version and read it…I really should take a course since I’ve never had any formal PhotoShop training. Or maybe I’ll just take another drive up to Stephen’s in Minneapolis and pick his brain. He seems to know everything there is to know about PhotoShop.
I’m still driving the truck, but it will soon be going into the shop for major repairs. I’ll be riding around on my motorcycle for a few weeks while the work gets done. I’m going to have the transmission rebuilt while the engine is out, so I’ll have a new truck when it comes back…ready for another 200,000 miles.
So, here are a couple of my first photos edited on the new machine with CS4. That’s Brooke and _G_, of course. Above, taken on our first day of shooting at Glacier in the very cold morning light. Below on a later day after a steep climb up an occasionally snow-covered trail to reach that waterfall in the background. My models are tough as well as beautiful.
Flathead Lake and Tina
May 30th, 2009
One of the things I enjoy about traveling to do my figure work is the chance to meet and work with a variety of models who live in the areas I visit. I’ve encountered some very beautiful and talented models this way. Tinytina is a perfect example of this. I contacted her through Model Mayhem and am very glad we were able to work together.
First, she is a very accomplished model…totally professional and brave and bold enough to go ahead and get nude for photos despite the terrible weather on the day of our shoot. It was cold. It was sleeting. There was a strong wind blowing. Tina is a tough lady.
Also, she took us to a location that I would never have found without her guidance. I really appreciate her willingness to share this bit of local wisdom with me. Not every model or photographer is open to sharing location information. But that’s a subject for another blog post.
One of the advantages of bad weather is sometimes beautiful light. I really like the light and color in these photos. They would be very different photographs if it had been warm and sunny. Of course I wouldn’t have had to worry about the models turning blue, but that’s another issue too.
So, thank you Tinytina for being willing to freeze for me. Thank you for being beautiful and talented and making a very difficult situation work despite the weather. I hope we get to work together again, perhaps in a bit warmer situation.
This last photo of Tinytina is pretty different from most of my work. I’m usually looking for a somewhat romanticized sort of photo with everything all beautiful and perfect…a romantic illusion of what nature might be in paradise. But I find myself really drawn to this much more “real” photograph that communicates a bit of the struggle Tinatina was going through to make the photos work. I’m not sure why I like this one so much, but I keep coming back to it, so I decided to go ahead and share it with you.
The news on the truck is not good. The deer did a lot of damage. And the engine isn’t running well now…can’t tie that directly to hitting the deer, but the engine started running a bit rough right after that happened…and it had been running just fine before. Now one cylinder is way down on compression. So the engine is going to have to be rebuilt. A couple weeks of work and several thousand dollars of expense. The radiator also will need to be replaced along with some other stuff that got smashed. I’m looking at possibly having the transmission rebuilt while the engine is out, just because it has a lot of miles on it and will need that done sometime in the future. So, no trips for a while…no wheels for a couple weeks. I’ve been trying to sell my motorcycle, but guess I’ll put that on hold so I can have it to ride around on while the truck is torn apart.
At least the truck kept running through the whole trip and got us all safely back home. So I can’t really complain about anything. These repairs will probably ultimately extend the service life of my truck for a few years longer than I had planned. It only has 200,000 miles on it, so it’s just getting broken in well.
May 28th, 2009
I’m at the studio today catching up on e-mail and setting up my new studio computer while my mechanic figures out how much damage the deer did to my truck.
Not much new to report here, but here’s another photo from the trip. That’s _G_ freezing on a fallen tree at Flathead Lake. You may want to click on the photo to see it larger.
Home Again
May 27th, 2009
And now for something completely different…
May 24th, 2009
We are on our way to Dave Swanson’s home for a visit. Stopped for the night in North Dakota and went to check out a ghost town not far from where we are staying.
No time for words…have to get on the road…but here are a few shots from our quick ghost shoot.
Up The Creek
May 23rd, 2009
Don’t Let The Wildlife Get Your Goat
May 23rd, 2009
The wild creatures in Glacier are in the majority. We’ve seen all sorts of animals. It’s been great. And we haven’t had to use our bear spray yet.
Yesterday we did see a couple bears. A mother black bear and her cub were right beside the road when we drove slowly by in the Many Glacier area. They were about 10 feet from the truck. We didn’t stop or take any photos because momma bear did not look like she was happy to see us.
We’ve also seen elk and, of course, more
deer. _G_ saw a moose, but Brooke and I missed it in the woods as we drove by. Today we saw a bald eagle fly low right over the truck as we were driving.
We had seen mountain goats high up on the cliffs above Avalanche Lake on our first day here, but yesterday we managed to get a lot closer look at a whole herd of them, as you can see here. What a great place this is.
We leave in the morning and start the drive, first to Dave Swanson’s place, then on back home 
after our visit with him. But Glacier is a place I’ll want to return to. It’s beautiful and wild and wonderful. And uncrowded compared to places like Yellowstone.
Icing the Models
May 20th, 2009
It’s cold today. And windy. And cloudy. And rainy. Great weather for photos, unless you happen to be a nude model. Then it’s bad news. But I work with the very best, bravest, toughest figure models in the world. And they proved that again today.
We met Montana model Tinytina at 8 a.m. and headed to a location she had chosen for us on Flathead Lake. It was totally exposed to the wind and to the rain that was falling. It was also beautiful in a very different way from what we had been seeing up in Glacier National Park.
Tinytina is a great model and a great person. It was a pleasure to meet and work with her. I highly recommend her to anyone who is looking for a model in northwest Montana. You couldn’t do better.
I contacted 14 Montana models through Model Mayhem to find someone local to work with on this trip. Only three responded. Two of those said they didn’t do nude work. That left Tinytina. What a great stroke of luck to have connected with her for this one day.
It was a short shoot. Each model took a couple turns braving the cold and wind. And I couldn’t resist doing a shot with all three of them together, as you can see above. In more reasonable temperatures we would have spent several hours shooting at this great location, but that would have been far beyond a safe level of exposure on a day like today. In a very short period of time we were able to make a number of fine photographs.
And below is a photo just to show what the glamorous exciting world of figure modeling looks like between shots.
Thank you ladies for all the suffering you do for my art. I really, really appreciate it. You are the best.
Cold, Wet and Dirty
May 19th, 2009
I often tell my models that they will get cold and wet and dirty if they work with me. That’s what happened to Brooke today. At least for a short while in the morning.
It was cold and raining this morning. We got up early and drove to the park to shoot at a spot we saw yesterday that Brooke wanted to return to for a shot. It was along a very popular trail. But by arriving early in the morning in a pouring rain we saw no one else at all on the trail and we got the shot. At that point Brooke was pretty cold and Gaea was sure she wasn’t interested in getting naked in that weather.
But we didn’t give up completely. We went to the visitor center to see what the weather was doing on the other side of the park. The weather often differs from one side of the mountains to the other. The web cam showed it was raining hard there too and the forecast was for more of the same all day.
So we went back to the condo and napped and relaxed. Tomorrow it’s up early again and off to meet a local model for a shoot at a different location that she has suggested for us. The weather is supposed to improve and stay good for the rest of the week. I’d actually rather shoot in overcast, but it sounds like it will be sunny and warm the rest of the time we are here. And today it was just too cold, even though the light was very nice. So I’m going to try to schedule things for Thursday and Friday that will put us in the shade of the mountains each day while we are shooting. We’ll see if that works out.
We’ve been getting some good photos. The trip is already a success, even if we didn’t take another shot. But we have lots more shooting to do in a bunch of locations that we have yet to visit. That’s Brooke up above, of course, from Monday’s day of shooting near McDonald Lake. And below is Gaea by Avalanche Creek on the hike up to the lake when we were sweating in 80 degree heat yesterday.
