Something To Think About
November 18th, 2011
I’m going to interrupt our irregularly scheduled nudity to take a detour into what is going on in our country right now. Friend, model and intelligent, thoughful person, Theda, works in NYC near the Occupy Wall Street area and has been going by there and keeping tabs on what is going on…and writing updates on facebook that I’ve been enjoying. Today she wrote an insightful essay about the situation there. It deserves a wide audience, so I’m going to stop writing and just let you read what Theda has to say:
The American dream is now the American fantasy
The most amazing thing about Occupy Wall Street may be how radically the news coverage has diverged from the reality of the protest. Even NPR’s coverage doesn’t quite mesh with my own experience.
Pardon me while I go bullet pointy on the whole thing, but I’m tired of re-writing this over and over, so this covers a bit of everything. Please note that I have only been to the original Zuccotti Park encampment, so I can’t speak of the other occupations with any degree of accuracy. I’m certainly not going to rely on 3rd hand reports.
This was written in bits and pieces, both before and after the eviction. So if the writing isn’t quite cohesive, eat me…
The protesters don’t even know why they’re there.
Between 100 and 200 people were sleeping in a park for eight weeks through rain, snow and freezing temperatures with limited access to plumbing and constant threat of arrest. And you think they didn’t know why? Every single Occupier can give you a reason for making him/herself uncomfortable and vulnerable. Maybe many of those reasons will sound foolish and some will be downright stupid, but they know why they’re there. The fact that not everyone’s reason is identical does not mean they “don’t know why they’re there.”
What are their demands?
“Demands are for terrorists.” There are no official demands from the movement as a whole and there probably will not be. There has been a declaration and a FAQ, which are worth reading. Despite the lack of demands, there are some key points of policy that come up frequently:
1) Overturn Citizens United. Corporate personhood is a slap in the face of democracy. Corporations are not people, but they are composed of people who already have the right to vote and openly donate to the candidates of their choice. Not that there wasn’t plenty of soft money floating around prior to Citizens United, but this decision is an open “fuck you” to the average citizen. Campaign reform is required to level the political playing field. Only the wealthy are in a position to run and only with the support of even wealthier corporate interests. That’s plutocracy (or plutarchy, if you prefer).
2) “Too big to fail = too big to exist.” Reinstate Glass-Steagall and break up trusts. If Glass-Steagall had not been repealed in the mid-90s, “Too big to fail” wouldn’t have become our mantra has we handed out hundreds of billions in corporate welfare.
3) Open and regular audits of the Federal Reserve that will probably result in, at minimum, a drastic restructuring of our central banking system. You will also find quite a few who wish to dismantle the Fed all together.
4) Repeal Bush-era tax cuts on the top earners. The top marginal tax rate is the lowest it’s been in decades, yet the rate of unemployment is near that of the Great Depression. Top earners are defined anywhere between $250k and $1.3 million per annum, depending on who you ask and what mathematical formula you use. After 30 years of Reaganomics, it should be abundantly clear that the wealth is not “trickling down.” When allowed to retain more of their capital, the rich do spontaneously become “job creators.” In an unsteady economy, the wealthy invest conservatively and save. That’s why they’re wealthy.
5) Hold financiers accountable for the fraud involved in the subprime mortgage securities fiasco. The handful of civil cases against powerful bankers have been largely unrelated trials.
The government caused this housing bubble to burst by forcing banks to make bad loans.
No one was “forced” to make subprime loans en masse. And no one was forced to rebundle those bad loans as mortgaged backed securities, slap triple A ratings on them and sell them off at a tremendous profit. This is an incredible line of bullshit and no one with any real knowledge of events believes this. But it is awfully nostalgic to blame Jimmy Carter, isn’t it?
They’re just trust fund kids looking for a party and handouts.
Risking hypothermia and arrest is not a party. And if they were trust fund kids, wouldn’t they already have all the handouts they could want? There was certainly plenty of signage about student loans, but very few (if any) actually believe they shouldn’t have to pay them back. Some of those signs about “student bailouts” were tongue-in-cheek references to corporate bailouts. Others were about restructuring the student loan system in such a way as to minimize defaults by the under-employed. It isn’t pretty.
They’re homeless and/or criminals, not productive members of society.
In the last few weeks of the Occupation, more of NYC’s homeless flocked to the park. For the most part, as long as they were polite and helpful, they were welcome. There was some concern that the Occupiers’ kitchen lacked the resources to feed the city’s entire homeless population and various proposals were raised to minimize “freeloading.” No, this is not ironic. Occupiers actively participate in any of a number of working groups. An internal security detail evicted the violent and drug users as needed.
There is some indication that the NYPD deliberately sent vagrants, drug addicts and sex offenders to the park as part of an effort to discredit the Occupiers and drive them out. There is little proof of this. It’s totally expected that the word would get out and how much role the police played in that hasn’t been proven. It could have been just a handful or a department-wide effort.
In any case, it’s worth noting that not everyone in the park was a protester or a park resident. There are many people who visited only briefly and many who only participated during the day or after work. And of course, there were those merely looking for a meal and a place to sleep, but I find it hard to blame them.
They should “occupy a job.”
Roughly 70% of the protesters are employed and quite a few more are retirees. A recent poll found the age group most supportive of Occupy Wall Street is 50-64. In fact, as the Occupation wore on, the average age of the crowd increased drastically. By the last week, I was seeing at least as many gray heads as dredlocks.
The protesters themselves are a remarkably diverse crowd. You do have your share of crust punks, white boys with dreds and aging hippies, but you also have WWII veterans, economists, professors, union leaders, entrepreneurs, librarians, nurses, teachers, Lego men…
“Redistribution of wealth” is class warfare and tantamount to stealing.
Isn’t it, though? America’s wealth has been redistributed at an alarming rate since the 1980s. A more progressive taxation plan could slow or reverse the process that’s been eating away at the middle and lower classes for decades. To parrot a common talking point, why is it only class warfare when the poor and middle classes fight back?
The protesters are jealous and just want what the 1% have.
If you mean opportunity and an audible voice in government, yeah. If you mean their piles of money and mountains of toys, not so much.
The movement is anti-capitalism.
The majority of protesters are not seeking to overthrow the entire free market. I’m sure some of us would love to live in a Marxist utopia, but that’s not realistic and there was never certainly a consensus on such a thing. This is not about capitalism or corporatism so much as it is about the abuses of capitalism and corporatism.
The movement is anti-Semitic.
There was one anti-Semitic protester (who had other protesters next to him with signs reading “this guy is crazy” and “asshole”), but he’s the only one I know of. There was also one seemingly anti-Semitic heckler that some sources have tried to pass off as a typical protester. He’s been trying to become youtube-famous by uploading videos of himself being obnoxious for a long time and shows no preference in whom he annoys.
I did, however, see a number of anti-Zionist protesters objecting to the United States’ unfaltering allegiance to Israel. Some of them might also have been anti-Semites, but some of them are Jewish. Israel is not the sum total of Jewry and there are many among us who long for an amicable settlement between the Palestinians and Israelis, including homelands for both.
Regardless, local rabbis held kol nidre and simchas torah services for observant protesters and interested onlookers. In addition to the Jewish services, there were frequent meditation and yoga groups. Religious intolerance was never part of the game plan.
The Tea Party never had complaints of assaults or resulted in arrests.
The Tea Party never tried anything so drastic as an indefinitely established Shanty Town near centers of business (and they were quickly co-opted by the same corporate interests that Occupy Wall Street is protesting). Perhaps if the Tea Partiers were committed enough to protest around the clock for eight weeks, they would have run into the same sort of problems (assuming they came as unprepared for violence as the Occupiers have). We’ll never know. The primary difference in ideology is with whom the bulk of the blame rests. The Tea Party blames government. Occupy Wall Street blames everyone. but mostly the corporate lobbies.
You’re protesting in the wrong place. You should be in front of the White House/Congress.
There have been numerous Occupy DC events. But when you’ve come to the conclusion that all your elected officials are really corporate puppets, you go to the puppet masters, not the puppets. Pay attention to the man behind the curtain.
Obama and his advisers are responsible for this movement.
Maybe, but not in the way you think. Obama was the Left’s small ray of hope and we’ve been severely disappointed. This is political learned helplessness. Under the current system, no one with the means to run for major office could possibly be on the side of the middle and lower classes. The campaign costs are too great. Obama is not terribly popular among the protesters and this is no diversionary tactic. Obama may end up being the lesser evil in 2012, but he’s no longer anyone’s ideal.
The unions, George Soros and the Working Families Party has been paying people $600/week to protest.
New York’s Working Families Party advertised for people to work for their established party. No one at Occupy Wall Street has been paid cash by anyone to protest. Prior to the eviction, they were “paid” in meals and bedding. Thousands flocked to a small park due to their own convictions.
I read that someone at Occupy DC “admitted” to hiring migrant workers, but nowhere other than a few conservative blogs. Nor have I seen the exact quote in context, so I’ll reserve judgment on that. With ten of thousands of participants all over the world, it’s far fetched to believe even a substantial minority were on the payroll.
The Occupations accomplish nothing.
Occupy Everything has, at least temporarily, turned the national dialog from ceaseless debates about raising the debt ceiling versus destroying our position in the global economy to issues that weigh heavily on the minds of average Americans.
The unemployment rate exceeds the number of available jobs by a large margin. Many of those who are employed are underemployed and can only afford basic needs, which may not include paying off tens of thousands in student loan debt. Many more are being denied cost of living increases in salary and are therefore inching towards underemployment. Manufacturing in America is almost dead. Preventative health care is a luxury. Multitudes feel they’ve been systematically disenfranchised. The vocal occupation forced the media and our governing officials to focus on the people’s immediate concerns.
More obviously, the Occupy movement campaigned for Americans to close their accounts with “too big to fail” institutions and move their money to local banks and credit unions. Hundred of thousands have. More Americans have switched in the last month than in the entirety of 2010. An exodus of about one million customers won’t collapse any of the large banks, but it will make a statement and hopefully lead the banks to reconsider some of their more usurious practices.
The Occupation has cost the city millions.
The city is going overboard with barricades and additional police. There have been permanent police posts in the immediate area for years, but adding 20-30 officers to stand around and clear the sidewalk and erecting a barrier maze on Wall Street is overkill. However, I’m sure the Blue Shirts appreciate the over time hours.
The protesters made every effort to police and clean the area themselves (up to and including cleaning the bathrooms at the nearby McDonalds), and were quite successful given the unique circumstances.
Local residents and businesses are suffering because of noise and sanitation issues.
Per an interview with the president of the local community board, the community was largely in support of the protesters’ right to remain. There were multiple meetings between the community board and OWS representatives that resulted in the bulk of the Good Neighbor Policy, which included limited hours for drumming and forbids drug and alcohol usage. Since I wasn’t there overnight, I can’t say how closely the policy was adhered to at odd hours.
The primary complaints from residents and small businesses were about the police barricades. They were removed (probably at the behest of Donald Trump) briefly, but many were put back up within hours. The mayor claimed the protesters took to the street when the barricades came down, but I saw no evidence of this. I took a walk over there when the barricades were down and the streets had roughly the normal amount of tourists photographing each other in front of the NYSE and Federal Hall, but not a single protester. I asked around the encampment if there had been any sort of march down Wall Street that evening and no one knew anything about it.
Zuccotti Park encompasses the entire (small) block. Except during some of the larger marches and media blitzes, there have been no building entrances blocked. The sidewalks were mostly crowded with onlookers stopping to read signs and talk to protesters, who stuck close to the perimeter of the park. The food carts are still there, and if anyone had a legitimate complaint about their business, it’s them. (Especially the vendor who had his generator confiscated by the FDNY as a “fire hazard.”)
Furthermore, the encampment itself was becoming a tourist attraction. People on their way from the NYSE and the 9/11 Memorial made Zuccotti Park one of their stops. I’ve been asked for directions to “the” park. “See the city” tour buses come down lower Broadway frequently and passengers would often wave, cheer and take pictures as they passed.
I neither saw nor smelled any evidence of public defecation or urination so often mentioned in the news. Some nearby residents volunteered their bathrooms for showers, so most of the Occupiers were reasonably clean. The city refused permits for port-a-potties, but an organization nearby eventually donated space for that purpose.
Drum circles suck.
Yeah, they really do.
The “people’s mic” and hand gestures are ridiculous.
The NYPD prohibited bullhorns and other forms of artificial amplification. The “people’s mic” is a work-around. On a cognitive level, repeating what you hear facilitates comprehension. So while it feels cult like initially, it’s actually a lovely example of a disparate group cooperating to insure everyone has a say (aka hippie shit).
The hand gestures were developed to reach a consensus in an orderly fashion without interrupting the speaker. It’s easier to determine how popular or unpopular an idea is by wiggling fingers than by a cacophony of clapping and/or booing. And yeah, spirit fingers do look stupid, but they work.
Disrupting the subways will only inconvenience the working class people.
I’d really, really like to know where this “OccupySubway” rumor was started. To my knowledge, there was never any intention of disrupting anyone’s commute. The itinerary for November 17th I was given mentioned nothing of the sort. And it never happened. My only guess is someone misread that the events planned at several subway hubs were actually intended to take place in the subway and off it went through social media until major networks were reporting fictional pandemonium. There was plenty of real pandemonium in the streets, but I somehow managed to miss all of it.
House Fisheye
November 13th, 2011
I’ve been trying all week to get a chance to write a new blog post, but obviously did not succeed. I did get the print made for the gallery show in Vermont that opens at Darkroom Gallery in Essex Junction on November 29. I reworked the photo from the original file and was able to make a very nice 16-inch-wide print with my Epson 4900 printer. I also sent the re-worked file off to the gallery and it sounds like it will work out ok for the banner to advertise the show. So that’s all worked out well.
I also want to say some good words about the US Postal Service. I boxed up the print and took it to the post office on Thursday. I sent it off to Vermont using Priority Mail with delivery confirmation. Friday was Veterans Day with no mail service that day. On Saturday I got an e-mail from the gallery saying they had received the print. I hadn’t even thought to check on the delivery confirmation because I didn’t think it would arrive until tomorrow at the earliest. Pretty amazing service for the price.
Today’s photos are still from the shoot at my friends’ house with models Artistic Physique and Isabel Allende. For these first two I got out my new fisheye lens, which I’m still learning to use. I think it did a pretty good job with these two shots.
And, I’ll conclude the photos from this shoot with a little portrait of the two lovely models who spent that day wandering around the house with me, making these photos possible. Thank you lovely ladies.
Juror’s Choice
November 6th, 2011
First let me remind you all about the show that is currently up in Pittsburgh, Naked In Pittsburgh. I went over there for the opening on Friday and it was a huge success. The show is beautiful and the turnout was massive. It was hard to even make my way through the gallery to see everything, there were so many people there. The show will be up through November 20, so if you missed the opening and want to see it, there is still time. I think you’ll enjoy it if you go.
Now, about that photo at the top of this post. A couple weeks ago I was looking at a call for entries for a nude show at the Darkroom Gallery in Vermont. As I was looking at their web site I noticed that there was also a call for entries for a landscape show that was due to close in just a few days. On a whim I decided to send some photos in for that show as well and pulled up a few of my favorite landscape shots and sent them in.
At the end of last week I received an e-mail telling me that my entry, the photo above, was the Juror’s Choice for the show…i.e., the “winner.” I’m, of course, very pleased and honored by that selection.
But, there’s a bit of a problem. The gallery wants to make a banner with the photo to advertise the exhibit. The banner will be 35 inches long.
Now, the best camera for any photo is the camera you have with you at the time. It happens that this photo was taken at a lake near my home where I often walk in the mornings. On one of those morning walks a few years ago I saw this photo and pulled out the little Casio point and shoot camera that I always kept in my pocket back then. It let me take the picture. But the file isn’t the prettiest digital file I’ve worked with by a far cry. I’ve tried to make a large print from it because it really looks like a photo that would be good large, but it just seems to fall apart at a size above about 11×14. Of course, part of the problem is that the fog makes everything seem soft, so it isn’t just the fault of the camera. I had planned to send the gallery something on the order of an 8×10″ print if this one was accepted for the show. Now I guess I’ll see if I can print it a little larger…maybe about 15″ wide…since it won that award.
So, I wrote back to the gallery and told them all that. They asked me to go ahead and send them the best quality file I could and they would see what they can do. So that’s what I’ve done. I went back to the original file and did a re-edit to make it as good as my limited PhotoShop skills can make it. Maybe the material that the banner is printed on will be kind enough to the photo to make it work. I hope so. I’d love to see my photo on a banner at a gallery.
Around the House
November 3rd, 2011
Don’t forget the opening Friday night of the Naked in Pittsburgh gallery show at 2112 Sarah Street. I plan to be there for the opening. I have four photos in the show, all of which feature model Artistic Physique, who also plans to be at the opening. So, if you are in the Pittsburgh area come on by and say hi.
This week I spent a couple days in Athens, Ohio, shooting a dance concert at the Ohio University School of Dance. I haven’t had time to even look through those photos yet, and I need to get on that so I can get them uploaded for the dancers to see. But that will have to wait until I get back from Pittsburgh.
I’m staying too busy, but here are some more photos of my shoot at my friends’ old house with model Isabelle:
And here’s an intentionally blurry one just for my old friend Unbearable Lightness:
Happy Halloween
October 30th, 2011
Cam Damage enjoying a little time with Death. That is all. Enjoy the holiday.
Dark, Dank Basement
October 27th, 2011
Sorry I haven’t been posting much here. I’ve been having a bit of a hard time getting back into the swing of things since I got back from the trip. Part of that, of course, is the issues of getting the truck fixed. Today it went into the body shop, so I’m without wheels until the weekend. You’d think that would mean I’d get a lot done at home, but it didn’t work out that way today.
But, before I left for the trip I had done a couple shoots that I didn’t get time to edit before I left. So I’m going to post from those shoots before I get on with editing the trip photos. Here’s the first installment of that.
These were shot at a friend’s house that they are fixing up to rent or resell. Lots of work being done. And a great place to photograph. These photos may make the place look a little scary, but it isn’t really like that. This is a case of seeing a setting and the light that was there and knowing how the camera would treat the light…which allowed me to create photos that really don’t look anything like what you’d see if you walked into this basement. But these are straight out of the camera with nothing other than minor tone adjustment in PhotoShop.
That’s the wonderful model and bodybuilder, Artistic Physique, in the photos above and below.
And I worked with a new model that day, Isabel Allende. That’s her below and with Artistic Physique in the last photo.
I’ll have more from this shoot to post before I move on the the next one in the que. I think there will be some more “normal” photos of Isabel and AP for you to see soon.
Incidently, for those who care about such things, it was dark down in that basement. These were all shot at 6400 ISO at very long shutter speeds, in the neighborhood of 1/2 to 1 second. I used a table-top tripod braced against the wall to keep the camera steady. These aren’t my typical thing, but I saw the possibilities of the location and I’m pleased with the results.
All Wet In Denver
October 21st, 2011
On the drive back home from out west I had a wonderful opportunity to hang out with a couple great photographers, thanks to Brooke. We made a small detour on the way back east for a stop in Denver where Brooke was scheduled to work with Mark Sink and Kristen Hatgi. So I spent a day hanging out at their home while they did photos of Brooke.
Both Mark and Kristen are very nice people and excellent photographers. But there is another element to their work that moves it into a whole different level. They both work with the wet plate collodion process. They really know this old process and they let me watch the entire process from coating the plates to the finishing of the unique, one of a kind, photos that result. It was a real treat to get to see all the details of how this process is done.
I was surprised at how relatively simple the wet plate process is. Of course, it was invented and practiced at a time when things we take for granted, like running water, were not all that common. And there are parts of it, like the coating of the plates, that Mark and Kristen make look easy, but only because of the skill they have achieved through years of practice. And I learned a few of the incidental quirks of this process. Like, obviously, the plates are wet…but it had never occurred to me that a result of that is that the plate holders, when loaded, will drip. And the sensitized collodion that drips out will create a permanent black stain where ever it drops. Not something you want on your carpet or hard wood floors. So the holders come out of the darkroom in a tray.
Here’s one of Mark’s wet plate photos of Brooke:
But, there’s more to it than just the process. This really is a fairly simple process that anyone could learn with a bit of effort and time. But it’s one thing to learn and practice an old photography method. It’s quite another to take that method and use it to make art. But that’s what Mark and Kristen are doing. Their photos made with this process are wonderful creations. There’s a sort of spiritual quality to the finished photos that is simply not matched by any other process that I’ve ever seen. Mark and Kristen use that power of this process to produce amazingly powerful photographs. The beauty of the finished plates cannot be reproduced by a scan on the web, but you can get a hint of it from these samples. If you ever have the chance to see Mark and Kristen’s work in person, you should take advantage of it…you won’t be disappointed.
Here’s one of Kristen’s wet plate photos of Brooke:
As much as I loved seeing both the process and the results, I’m also sure that wet plate photography is not something I’ll be doing. If you’ve followed my blog for any amount of time you know that I consider cameras and other photo equipment…and processes like film or digital or wet plate collodion…to be tools that can be chosen for the purpose at hand. Every photographer should chose the tools that are best suited to the work they are trying to do. And we should each chose the tools that fit our working style and that are the best fit for us.
Another by Mark:
I work with digital cameras. I adopted digital early because it was an obvious best fit for the kind of color work I was interested in doing. I’ve worked with pretty much every kind of camera that is out there and I know what works for me. And what works for me is definitely not a view camera. Let alone a system where each plate must be coated by hand right before it is put in the camera and exposed. I could not work that way. It would make me crazy and I could not get the results I’m after. But all that just increases my respect and admiration for Mark and Kristen who are true masters of the wet plate collodion process. It is clearly the right tool for their work and they are making wonderful art as a result.
And one more by Kristen:
Home Again
October 19th, 2011
I’m back home. No incidents with the truck or deer or anything like that on the drive back from LA. In fact, I’m so pleased with the overall performance of my 2002 truck, despite all the issues caused by hitting the deer, that I’ve decided to see if I can keep driving it for at least another five years. Maybe see how close I can get to half a million miles on it.
I’ve been real busy since I got back at the end of last week. There’s been family stuff and truck repair stuff. And just about the time I got back home I also got the notification that I had four photographs accepted for the Naked In Pittsburgh show. I had already written to the organizers of this show to complain about their schedule for the thing. They allowed about two months for people to send in entries, but then only a week and a half from the date of notification until the date that the prints were due at the gallery. That’s just not enough time to get prints ready. I normally order mattes and frames from an excellent place, Frame Destination. They have great prices and the quality is as good as any other place I’ve used. And their turnaround is very fast…but not fast enough to get to me in time for this show. So I got mattes cut locally for quite a bit more money than if I’d ordered them and I’m just using old frames I already had.
Today I made the prints with my new Epson 4900. I continue to have an interesting problem getting good results out of that printer. I started out doing it the “right” way. Using PhotoShop, letting PhotoShop manage colors. The prints were awful…not even close to what I was seeing on my calibrated monitor. I worked on the files to try to get the print to look the way I wanted it. I tried different things, like still using PhotoShop, but letting the printer manage colors. Finally I went to ACDSee and printed from it…which is not a color managed workflow. The prints were perfect. Exactly what I wanted. So, I just went ahead and made all the prints for the show using ACDSee. When I’m not under a deadline I’ll try to figure out what’s going on that is causing this problem…or maybe I’ll just print with ACDSee and not worry about it. Results are what matters, not how you get there.
OK…I know you are looking for some photos, and I’ll get to that soon. There’s a ton of good stuff from the trip, despite the efforts of that damn deer. But I just have not had the time and attention to apply to editing yet. Too many other things going on. But I’ll get to it soon.
Meanwhile, here are a few snapshots from the trip, just for kicks.
Here are Brooke on the left and Kat on the right with beautiful model and talented photographer Tanya Dakin in the middle. Tanya happened to be in Las Vegas while we were there and we were able to meet her for breakfast as we were heading out of town to LA.
Here are Brooke and Kat with friends Clay and Lucky at the opening of Gary Breckheimer and Renee Jacob’s wonderful show at the Skotia Gallery in Culver City.
Here’s the massive Gotham Police Department deployed on the corner of Wilshire where my daughter’s apartment is located. Yep, they were filming the new Batman movie right outside her building the whole time we were were in LA.
And one last snap…here’s my truck parked at the Wig Wam Motel in Holbrook, AZ, on the first night of the drive back from LA. A fun place to stay.
I promise I’ll get to the editing and posting of the more “serious” photos soon.
Collaboration
October 12th, 2011
I consider my models to be co-creators of the work we do together. I honestly don’t understand why my view on this is so much a minority point of view. I often say that the models do all the hard work and I just take photos of them while they do it.
I’m serious about this. I share copyright with my models. I give them all the photos we do together and full rights to do anything they want with them. They can sell them. They can pick photos I don’t like and photoshop them in ways I don’t like and I’ll never say a word. Because I believe they have just as much right to the photos as I do.
But usually what the models do with the photos turns out to be something that I like. Sometimes they do things completely different from what I would do, and produce something that I love. That’s the case here. Brooke found a photo from the red rock desert that she thought would look good as a sepia-toned black and white photo. It’s unlikely that I would have photoshopped this photo that way since color is, for me, an essential element of my work. But this is Brooke’s photo too and her decisions about it are just as valid as mine. And, I love what she did with this photo. I think it’s very successful. So I wanted to share it with you.
And, besides, I’m too tired to do my own editing right now. We are on the way home. This trip is about to end. Today we drove from Holbrook, AZ, to Denver, with a stop in Rio Rancho, NM, to have lunch with our friend, Ralph. It was a long day. Last night in Holbrook we stayed at the WigWam Motel. It’s a very interesting place and we were able to get some fun photos with the moon rising above the WigWams, but there was no wi-fi at the WigWam, so we were way behind on just catching up with reading e-mail and other things like facebook. So, now it’s almost time for sleep…I drove way too many miles today…and I just don’t feel up to doing editing.
Maybe I’ll get to some editing in the next day or two and be able to share more from the trip. Or it may have to wait until I get home and get some rest. We’ll see. This trip has been the most difficult and trying trip I’ve ever taken, despite the excellent company of the models who went through the trials with me. But it may take some time to recover from all that I’ve been through…and I’m pretty certain that I’ll never take on this extensive of a trip again. But, there are going to be a lot of excellent photos, so it’s always possible I’ll change my mind…but I doubt it.
I’ve Never Been Lost In The Wilderness…
October 6th, 2011
That’s Kat and Brooke at South Coyote Buttes…a place that is about as truly wilderness as anyplace left in this country. It’s every bit as beautiful as the famous Wave, which is in North Coyote Buttes. But the Wave is much more easy to get to, and so popular now that permits to visit it as almost impossible to get. The day we went to South Coyote Buttes there were 50 people at the lottery for the 10 permits available for the Wave. But we were able to just walk into the ranger station the day before and get our permits to visit the South area.
But, it is hard to get to. The 4WD road to the trailhead is a bit of a challenge with deep sand almost all the way…and all up hill. But we made it with no problems…didn’t get stuck at all. And I was prepared with recovery gear to get us unstuck if that had happened.
So we spent most of the day wandering around in the amazing rock formations of this area. There are no real trails, certainly none that are maintained. You just wander wherever you are inclined to go. There’s plenty to see. There was one group of people that arrived shortly after us with a guide, but they didn’t stay long. And toward the end of the day another guy showed up to hike around a bit. Other than that we had the place all to ourselves. And it’s a huge place.
When it came time to head back, as thunderheads were forming and we could see lightning striking off to the southwest, we started walking back to the trail head. I had taken a compass bearing when we headed out from the parking area and it was pretty simple. The trail head is due south from the area. So we walked south for a while on what appeared to be a long-abandoned road. We started down a steep hill, all the while thinking, “I don’t remember climbing this hill on the way in.” But we knew we were headed in the right direction and figured we would hit the road eventually and follow it back to the car. And, besides, I really didn’t want to climb back up that hill.
Well, after about a mile I had to admit that we were off track and the best solution was to retrace our steps and see where we had gone wrong. But that meant going up that damn hill. And, trust me, this hill was an ass-kicker. Plus we were at around 5,000 feet of elevation…no small matter for a flatlander like me. It was gruesome. I had to stop to get my breath every 10-20 feet, it seemed. I’m talking serious agony here.
But we made it up the hill. And, continuing along the old track we had followed, there, off to the right, was the car. We had walked right by it, maybe 30 yards to the side, and somehow not seen it.
This reminded me of one of my favorite quotes attributed to Daniel Boone. I don’t know if he actually said it or not, and don’t really care…it’s good enough that he should have said. According to the story someone asked him if he had ever been lost in the wilderness. He replied that he had never been lost. He had been bewildered once for three days, though.
So we were back in the rented RAV4 and started the drive back down the mountain on the road of deep sand as we watched the thunderstorms move in and rain drops fell on the windshield. All the time I kept picturing the sign that was way back, 30 miles away, at the start of the road. It said, “Road Impassable When Wet.” There’s a reason they call this area the “slickrock” area. Get that red rock wet and you can have a hard time even standing on it, it’s so slick. A car, even a jeep, will just slide off the road.
But, there’s another thing about thunderstorms out in that desert. The air is really, really dry. Often there will be a huge rainstorm, but most of the rain will evaporate again on the way down and never actually reach the ground. We were fortunate and didn’t end up having to spend the night in the car in the desert…the road never got wet enough to be a problem. After about an hour and a half of driving…to cover about 30 miles…we were back out on the main highway and our desert wilderness shoot was at an end.
The next day we headed down the road to Las Vegas, where we are now. Of course, issues with the truck continued with the muffler separating from the exhaust pipe out in the desert. Made for a loud drive on into the city, but we made it. Yesterday I found a good independent muffler shop and they did a quick, inexpensive weld job and all is ok with the exhaust system again. That did require me to cancel the shoot I had scheduled for dawn at a spot out by Lake Mead, though. So I’m pretty much done shooting on this trip. Tomorrow we head on to LA where I’ll visit my daughter and her fiance and meet a bunch of my LA friends. Then next week I turn the truck to the east and see how soon I can get back to Ohio.
