Best Laid Plans…
July 18th, 2008
Well, the air conditioner on my truck being broken is a bigger problem than I thought at first. Seems the bearing on the compressor has gone bad. That means it could seize up…will seize up at some point…and that would destroy the serpentine belt that drives all the other engine accessories like the alternator. So it has to be repaired.
That means spending tonight in the town of Buffalo, WY, instead of on top of the Beartooth Pass. The part is on order and the local mechanic will replace it in the morning at a substantial cost. There goes the budget for the trip. But it was going to break and have to be repaired anyway, and it didn’t strand me out on the highway in the middle of nowhere, so I’m not complaining.
Buffalo is a nice little town with lots of nice people. The hotel is very nice with a pool and hot tub. So life is fine. Tomorrow it should only take about 5 hours to drive to Silvergate, so there should still be time to stop on the Beartooth Highway for a few photos.
Meanwhile here are a couple of Brooke from our last evening of shooting in the Badlands. I thought those purple flowers were pretty and couldn’t pass up the chance to do a shot with them. And I thought it was time to show a closer photo of Brooke with the rock of the Badlands. Those rocks are very rough. Brooke has a bunch of scratches, but they are not real bad and should heal up quickly. She’s been doing a wonderful job and is just simply beautiful, so I’m very happy with what we’ve shot so far and I’m really looking forward to the mountains and waterfalls that we will be in for the next week.
Badlands Dawn
July 17th, 2008
Brooke and I were up at 5 a.m. today for dawn photos in the Badlands. It was worth it.
Tomorrow it’s back on the road. We’ll rise at 5 again and head out to drive up the Beartooth Pass. We plan to spend the night at a campground on top of the pass. The weather forecast for Cooke City, down off the mountain, is for a high of 70 and low of 40. It might be a little chilly up there.
Today was 10 degrees cooler than yesterday’s 95 degrees. That’s a good thing since the air conditioning on the truck died today. The compressor had been making some loud noise the day before, and this afternoon the output of cold air stopped. Since we’ll be in mountain high country for the next week or so, I’m not going to worry about getting it fixed until I get back home. I’ll just hope for no more 95 degree days on this trip.
Don’t know about internet access until we leave Yellowstone in about 5 days…but if I can get on line I’ll post more from the trip.
That Ain’t Hay
July 17th, 2008
Well, maybe it is. As Brooke and I were driving along the highway in South Dakota on our way to Wall we stopped to take some shots of these large bales stacked along the road. Now, when I was younger I used to work on farms putting up hay, but something seems different about this stack of hay. Maybe it’s because the bales are bigger. I don’t know, but it just seems like something has changed since I was doing haying 40 years ago.
Badlands
July 17th, 2008
The Badlands are beautiful. Brooke Lynne is beautiful. Put the two together and you can’t miss. Well, actually, I can miss. At least at dusk. Brooke had to do this twice because I had the ISO set too low and the VR turned off the first time. But she didn’t complain. She’s not only beautiful, she’s also nice. And an amazingly talented model.
We shot some other interesting stuff today, besides what we did in the Badlands. Maybe I’ll share some of that in my next post…or I might just have so much new stuff that it gets posted instead.
Don’t think we can get away with shooting anything in Wall Drug…just too crowded. And the dinosaur out by the interstate that I wanted to use as a background for a naked Brooke Lynne is now surrounded by businesses that seem to be pretty busy all the time…and there’s an ugly fence around the dino…so that may not work out either. So it goes.
But, it’s not like there’s any shortage of things to shoot around here…more at dawn tomorrow…
R|J’s World
July 15th, 2008
I’m on the road again. Yesterday I was in Iowa visiting RJ . We did a little shoot outdoors at her family’s farm. Here’s one of the shots from that shoot. I just couldn’t resist making yet another photo that is a reference to a famous painting. Of course, I have to add my own twist when I do that…in this case a couple twists. Thanks RJ.
This evening I’m in St. Paul and tomorrow I head to Wall, South Dakota where I’ll spend a couple days shooting in the Badlands. After that there is more fun planned as I go further west. Stay tuned…Digital at 11, whenever I happen to have internet access.
The Times They Are A Changin’?
July 13th, 2008
“THESE ARE THE TIMES THAT TRY MEN’S SOULS:”
When Justice is over-ruled by Law
When Peace is attainable only by War
When Freedom is sabotaged by Organization
When God is only a device for Immortality
When Progress is stifled by Traditional IgnoranceAnd Baby, these are any old time
–Mason Williams, 1964
Bob Dylan told us “The Times They Are A Changin'” but it seems he may have been wrong.
I took this photo in Columbia, South Carolina in 1971. I was in the Army stationed at Ft. Jackson. We would walk from the base into town through this very depressed neighborhood. When I saw that billboard in that environment I almost couldn’t believe my eyes. How would you have felt if you lived in one of those shacks and looked out your window to see that sign?
Well, maybe some things have changed, but how much has really changed under the surface?
I leave in the morning for a trip out west. It should be a great time in some of the most beautiful places in the U.S. with some of the most beautiful women in the U.S. modeling for me. I guess I shouldn’t complain.
‘Nuff Said
July 13th, 2008
Nurses
July 10th, 2008
I’ve had this post in draft for a while, waiting for the right time to post it. Something on Dave Swanson’s blog yesterday made me think now is the time. Watch the video to understand what I’m talking about in my comment.
t the main memory I have of that day, 42 years later, is of a young beautiful nurse sitting at the end of a corridor in her hat and white uniform with a very, very short skirt. A huge distraction for a 14-year-old boy.I’ve chosen to blur the faces in most of the nurse photos. For me that represents the anonymity that accompanies the intimacy of our interactions with nurses. And, of course, the surgical mask also contributes to that feeling of distance and mystery. When you see all those masked people you aren’t really sure if they are there to take out your appendix or to rob you. Then later you get the bill from the hospital and realize it was both.
More Chill
July 7th, 2008
Here are a couple more photos from that cold warehouse in West Virginia from back in December. I just mowed the yard and was covered with sweat, so I felt like something cold.
I had a busy, but very pleasant holiday weekend, spent visiting relatives. Saw some fireworks but didn’t get to experiment with trying to shoot them hand-held using VR. Maybe next year.
Now I’m spending this week getting ready for a trip out west. The truck is in the shop today…and will be for a couple more days. It needs a new “body computer” and they tell me this is a 2-3 day job because the old computer has to be removed and sent away where the programming (and the truck’s recorded mileage reading) are transferred to the new computer which is then shipped back to the dealership and installed. The truck can’t be moved in the meantime. So I’m stuck at home today trying to catch up on some things.
Tomorrow I’ll take my wife to work and hang on to her van for the day so I can go to the studio and get some other things done. I have prints to ship out to a collector who found my work on my web site and wrote to purchase prints and a set of framed prints to ship to a gallery in California that has been doing a great job selling my photos.
Also today I will work on getting the truck camper ready for the trip. It hasn’t been used since last summer, so I’m cleaning it up and making sure everything works. Well, the refrigerator has never worked, so I’m giving up on that after several repair attempts and just going to use it as a storage cabinet and take a small cooler along and just buy some ice when I need to keep something cold.
That warehouse was a great location. Lots of wonderful backgrounds and great light. But, boy, it was cold there in December.
Chillin’ at the old Warehouse
July 2nd, 2008
Old abandoned buildings can be fun photo locations. When you also have a brave, adventurous, hardy model they can be great. That’s what happened with this shoot. This was back in December down in West Virginia. Yes, those are icicles hanging down from the ceiling. It was pretty damn cold. But the model had found the location and wanted me to be the one to shoot her there. And she didn’t care how cold it was. So I drove down to West Virginia and we had a great day of shooting. Since then she has stopped modeling and removed all her photos from the model sites, so she will remain nameless. But she is a trooper, intelligent and very knowledgeable about art. A real joy to work with. I hope she’ll come back to modeling one of these days and I’ll be able to do some more work with her.
Life is busy as usual. I’m recovering from the trip to Michigan and getting ready to leave on an extended trip out west in a week and a half. I’ll be driving my truck with the slide-in camper. Just had my mechanic check it over yesterday and, as I suspected, it needs a new “body computer” that controls all the things like windshield wipers, door locks, dashboard, anything involving the body. Turns out it has to be done by a dealer and it takes 2-3 days. I’m taking it in on Monday. I don’t want to load the camper until that job is done, so my time to get everything sorted out for the trip is getting compressed. Plus, I won’t have my truck to run around and get stuff I need for several days.
I decided not to shoot anything new until I leave on the trip, but it looks like I won’t stick to that decision. A wonderful California model/photographer is going to be in the area next week, so she might convince me to pick up the camera for a while. Plus someone I’ve worked with a number of times may come in to the studio for some photos next week too. But those will both be short shoots that I won’t even think about editing until I return, so it won’t be too big a dent in my schedule.
I think this photo below is my favorite from the warehouse shoot. I love what’s happening with the color, the light and the blurring. I’m having fun regularly with the VR on my Nikon 18-200mm lens. It’s almost like having the camera on a tripod, but not quite the same. The VR compensates for camera movement, but not for subject movement…kind of like a tripod, except that it doesn’t always completely eliminate the camera movement blur and the results can be very interesting. It’s fairly unpredictable, but working with digital it’s possible to get instant feedback by chimping and adjust things to dial in something that works. I think this one works pretty well.
