After Ike
September 26th, 2008
I’ve been pretty swamped since I got home. My redeye flight from LA was way overbooked…something like 20 seats overbooked. I volunteered to give up my seat and got a voucher and a hotel for the night. But it was midnight before I made it to the hotel and my new flight was at 6 a.m., so I only got about 3 hours of sleep. But I made it home just a little later than I had planned.
Since then I’ve met my new grandson, Titus, of course. And I’ve been dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. Ike came through Ohio with actual hurricane-force winds…something that doesn’t happen here. My neighbor’s old oak tree came down into her house and ours. It was pretty dramatic. Photos of it keep showing up in the local newspaper. But the actual damage was fairly moderate. But getting repairs done is turning out to be a challenge. Our roofer told me he has 2,000 estimates for roof repairs that he personally has to do that are ahead of us. We also have some electrical line damage and some broken windows. I hope we can get things taken care of before winter is too much upon us.
So I’m working on those problems and trying to catch up on photo work that was left while I was gone and also to work on editing all the things I shot on the trip, which was a very successful photo trip. Death Valley was a great location. So there’s lots more to come from there, but I just haven’t had time to get to much of it yet.
But here’s a shot of Vima looking exceptionally beautiful in an old miner’s cabin in Death Valley. Looks like there might be some hurricane damage here too…or not.
More Big Dune
September 22nd, 2008
Here’s NevaehLleh sprucing up Big Dune.
Later today…actually tonight…I’ll be catching a redeye back to Ohio. Had a good day Sunday at the Original Farmers Market meeting friends and drinking Guarana’ from the Brazilian restaurant downstairs from the room where I sat around.
By the way, that drink is pronounced Guaw-ah-nah, not Guaw-awn-ah like they say on the commercials telling you some energy drink doesn’t contain any of it. And if you haven’t tried the real thing…well, there’s a very good reason the stuff is the most popular soft drink in Brazil…it’s really, really good. And it’s based on a fruit juice. Try it sometime. Oh…and it contains something like 5 times as much caffeine as a cup of coffee…
OK…there’s lots more to share with you from the Death Valley trip. But that’s going to have to wait until I get back home, recover from jet lag, and spend some time visiting my new grandson, Titus. But I’ll be back to blogging soon. Meanwhile I’m working on counteracting the effects of that Guarana with the rest of Negra Modelo in the fridge in my motel room.
Big Dune
September 21st, 2008
Driving along the road east of Death Valley we saw a sign with an arrow that simply said “Big Dune.” And looking in the direction of the arrow, there it certainly was…a big dune. So we stopped to shoot. It was well worth the stop.
This is Vima adding a little foreground interest to the shapes of Big Dune. It was a great shooting location. More photos to come.
I’m still in LA. I had the great pleasure Saturday morning to finally meet a wonderful photographer who I’ve “known” on line for some time. Had breakfast with Sita Mae. We met at a great LA place, Pie ‘n Burgers, in Pasadena. Best omlet I’ve ever had. And Sita is every bit as delightful a person as I’d always heard she was.
Saturday evening I had dinner at a great old Mexican place, El Cholo on Western, with a friend from many years ago. MP was a dance major at Ohio University when I was there studying photography. She modeled for me back in those days. I put a photo of her dancing on the blog a while back. We traded stories of our lives and I did a few new photos of her. A very pleasant evening.
Sunday I’ll be spending most of the day at the Original Farmers Market at Third and Fairfax. Several friends and internet accquaitances from the LA area will be stopping by to say hi. That should be fun. If you are in LA please come by and say hello.
Titus Canyon
September 20th, 2008
As is often the case, I had my models climbing the walls while we were shooting. In this case Vima and Neva are climbing the wall of Titus Canyon in Death Valley…and looking quite sensational while doing it, I must say.
We didn’t do a lot of hiking in Death Valley. It had cooled off to the balmier September temperatures. The highest we saw was 113F. Most of the time it was between 95 and 105. When it got down to 90 we started feeling chilly. Anyway, not the greatest conditions for backpacking unless you are a lot more hardcore about it than I am.
But Titus Canyon seemed like a good walk, so we gave it a try. There’s a jeep road through the canyon, but we just drove to the mouth of the canyon and walked up into the canyon for a short distance. It was worth the walk.
And, there’s some special significance for me to this particular location. My grandson was being born at about the time we were in this canyon. And his mother and father named him Titus. They had no idea that I was in Titus Canyon at the time. They just like the old TV show.
The Moon Sets Over the Amargosa
September 20th, 2008
While we were shooting in Death Valley and the surrounding area we stayed at a wonderful place, The Amargosa Hotel and Opera House in Death Valley Junction, just outside the park. You can read the very interesting story of the Amargosa and its owner, Marta, on its web site.
I had hoped to meet Marta while I was there, but unfortunately she recently fell and was confined to her home while we were there.
But it is an interesting place to stay, with a lot of history. And maybe we added just a small bit to the story when I took this photo of Neva as the moon was setting one morning before we headed out for the day.
Rules Are Made To Be Broken
September 19th, 2008
I’m in Los Angeles after 4 wonderful days of shooting in and around Death Valley. It was a great trip, largely because of the fantastic models who went out in the desert with me. NevaehLleh and Vima just did a fantastic job day after day in the heat and sun, on the rocks and in the dirt and sand. I couldn’t imagine better models to work with.
But that’s because I was very lucky. These weren’t the models I had originally planned to take to Death Valley. One of my rules is to not go on multi-day shooting trips with models I’ve not previously met and preferably worked with. It may come as a shock, but not all models are nice people. Some are very difficult to be around. I won’t work with difficult models. I won’t work with unpleasant models. Life is too short. So I want to know what a model is like before I take off with her for several days of work.
But the models I had originally planned to use for this shoot all dropped out for a variety of perfectly valid reasons. And I ended up looking for replacements on Model Mayhem. And I got lucky. Very lucky. NevaehLleh and Vima are as good as any models I’ve encountered. And that goes both in front of the camera and in all those other times between shots. Very nice young women who I can highly recommend to other photographers. Really great models, these two.
There is lots more stuff from Death Valley, of course. I’ll be editing and posting them as I get time…
A few more days in LA, then it’s back home. I’m looking forward to getting home even more than usual this time since my first grandson just arrived in this world a couple days ago and I’m looking forward to introducing him to his grandpa.
Green Hawaii
September 14th, 2008
Hawaii is green. Everywhere, green. Overwhelming green. Green that seems like it might swallow you up if you turned your back. It’s not a threatening sort of thing, just a powerful one. Here’s Leona Anne again, about to succumb to the greenness of Hawaii.
I’m in LA now. Heading out to Death Valley with a couple models before dawn tomorrow. No internet out there. I’ll be back to LA on Thursday. Should have more for you to see when I return from the desert. Don’t think I’ll be seeing so much green out there.
Lost…Under the Banyan Trees
September 12th, 2008
Did some shooting yesterday with Leona Anne who got up before dawn and very capably guided me to some excellent locations for shooting, then added her beautiful form to the beauty of Hawaii. For those of you who are still fans of “Lost” (I think the show jumped the shark after the first season and stopped paying any attention to it myself) that Banyan tree Leona is leaning on in the shot above is the one Charlie hung from. It’s near the trail head for Manoa Falls.
Students Achieving Oneness Will Advance To Twoness
September 11th, 2008
I stole that post title from Woody Allen…one of my favorite quotes from him.
I spent most of today wandering around in the vicinity of Manoa Falls and the Lyon Arboretum. So I thought I’d share a few of my snapshots from the day.
Aloha
September 7th, 2008
Don’t hate me. I’m in Hawaii. In a hotel on Waikiki Beach. These photos were shot from the balcony of our room.
I’ve never had any desire to visit Hawaii. I don’t know why, it was just never on my list of places to go. I’m here because my wife’s old college roommate invited us to join her and a lot of her other friends here to help her celebrate her 60th birthday. She used to live here. She worked on Magnum PI. She wrote a couple scripts for the show back in those days.
So, we’ve been running around with her and a bunch of really nice folks who either live here on the island or flew in for the party.
I have to say that here in Honolulu I’m not all that entranced with this version of paradise spoiled. It’s just a very busy city with a beach and hot weather. Beautiful in a sadly ruined way. But over the coming week we’ll be exploring the less urban parts of the island and I suspect I’ll find that more to my taste. We’ll see.
I’ll have more photos as the week goes by, no doubt. And if this really, really bad internet connection holds up well enough, I may be able to upload a few more. We’ll see. I certainly can’t recommend Skywave Wi-Fi in Hawaii. Terrible service, regularly dropping the connection, very complicated, difficult sign-on. But it seems to be the only option, so it’s what I’m struggling to use. A good example of what you get with no competition.
