The Pig & The Millstone

The blog will be quiet for the next few days, so I wanted to give you all something meaty to chew on while I'm away.  Typically I shy away from verbalizing these kind of arguments, but you're a quiet and contemplative audience, so I think you can handle it.  If you, too, are traveling someplace this long holiday weekend, I hope it's someplace nice and you have a safe and pleasant time.

The Pig & The Millstone... Abundance and Work... what can we take from this?  A large fattened pig sculpture placed near a worn granite millstone.

The path leads to the millstone (work), a cul-de-sac of toil.  Progress (hapiness) is obviously not the purpose of the path, the option is the circle or the way back (regression).  All the while observed by a lucid fattened sow (abundance).

I am torn, in my own interpretation of the nature of abundance.  Does she look on in mockery or promise?   Is it possible that her presence is more permanent than her meaning?

For our own answers, we must first ask, "Why the hell am I on this path, anyway?"

Droplets in Green

Droplets in Green, a photo by McF Studios on Flickr.

Seems like it's been raining for a weeks. Probably because it has been raining for weeks. After months of winter tan, we're seeing the glowing green of spring. In some places it seems to be glowing, and a walk through a green light bath is very theraputic for me.

City Whitetail

City Whitetail, a photo by McF Studios on Flickr.

PALETTE CLEANSER!!!!!!! (Wait… "Palette" refers to the slab I mix my paints on, and "Palate" refers to the roof of my mouth and sense of taste. Hmm...? I'm sticking with the painter's tool.)

Just a Whitetail in a National Park. One more inhabitant of the city. But this spot is a bit more hidden and you'll have to get wet and muddy to find it. Just my kind of place!

The Philly Frenetic

When I was a kid, I made a list of places I should live.  Places one could make great works of art full of nobility, meaning, and permanence.  It only occurs to me now, years after my departure, that the city of my childhood was never on that list.  That place was only ever a launch pad, the beginning.  Those who know me, regard my comments about Philly as a certain disdain.  Not so, I'd argue, my career is a path, Philly is where it began.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  The center of Broad Street at the intersection of Walnut.  Three blocks from the college I attended, one block from my old apartment, fifteen years in the past, congested and wet.  There was a romance to the city at one time.  It's horn-song and vocal polyphony swooning the young pie-eyed artist with the lure and con of history as culture.  A temporary condition, horrible, but necessary and I would soon feel compelled to leave the confining city streets in favour of more verdant destinations.  Photos of which are forthcoming... THANKFULLY!

Alpine Lake Reflection

What a strange week.  Makes me want to sit here a second and consider where I am.  Lakeside, on a morning that might bring an end to the rain.  Big banks of clouds were still looming all around.  I set up for a much bigger reflection in anticipation of alpenglow on the background.   However, the clouds that snuck past in the night were still making their presence known.

{Drat!}

When that sunbeam hit the wall in the middle ground, I floated my camera about an inch above the lake to make this composition.  One of my favourite things about this is its asymmetry.  I think it tells a more true story with something missing.  Maybe I'm having a Dorian Gray moment.

Hope you all get out someplace pleasant this weekend.

Evening Ducks in Motion

Mine are the wild ones,

Unaware of what they are,

Ignorant of shame and fear.

Moving ahead always lost

from the path, our footfalls

deliberate and wary.

Harrumbph

Everyone I've met, no matter how jaded, has a talisman of some fancy.  This is one of mine.

In 1996, while sweating away in a foundry, I made this figure to embellish my chasing station.  It was welded to my bench & stared while I worked.  One day my boss came around and said "you'll never get anywhere doing your best work on someone else's ideas."  When that job came to an end, I took this statuette with me.  It's sitting on the edge of a bookshelf today, staring at me still.

Flashing the Bell

Every idea should be acted upon and considered later.  Following this logic I got up very early and went out into the cold morning in a down coat, gloves and hat.  Had the full kit of camera stuff, including three flashes.  Got right to playing and ended up making two hundred exposures before the sun made it to this spot.  I really wanted that specularity in this composition, so much I wan't paying any attention to how warm it was getting.  But that's what stopped me!  I was sweating in the now very warm morning, and the red faced joggers were looking at ME like I was the silly one.

So anyway, those little yellow flowers dotted throughout this photograph are more Physsaria belli.  Kind of hard to see (they're really tiny) but I was more interested in artfully recording the habitat.  There's a closeup here.

The Big Cement Pier at OB

When I get bored, I go for a walk.  When I'm a city, I get bored quickly so I see a lot of a places, sometimes more than once.  Most of the time popular places like this fill up with people, so I'll wander off and see what the restaurants are like. Earlier in the day I watched a a huge flock of cormorants attack a bait ball in the rain.  Eventually the rain stopped and the crowds came back.  If you ever find yourself on this pier looking for an easy exit go straight to the pizzeria/brewery.  If you have several draughts of "Junk in the Trunkel Dunkel" you'll need to walk around bit afterward, so head back to the pier, it should be nearing sunset, which is when tourists get hungry.  This photo was made about twenty minutes afterward.  I rested the camera on the railing which was painted and sticky with fish guts, gull poop, and salt air.  I washed my hands, but no the camera.

Polarizing Play

Polarizing Play, a photo by McF Studios on Flickr.

I began this photograph in the fall of 2009 and have tried various ways of producing it, but couldn't get it right without a lot of heavy manipulation. When I made the source exposures I was having fun with my polarizer (hence the title), but later couldn't bring it all together in the studio with that sense of platonic realism I strive toward. While I was working on the recent panoramic HDRs something occured to me to try on this. I think it came out very nice, showing the various levels at which the objects exist while celebrating their luminance. Not bad for a couple of rocks stuck in the mud.

A Stump to Fish By

A Stump to Fish By, a photo by McF Studios on Flickr.

Exploring a local park, I found this scene. The little stump seems to mimic the shape of what I imagine is placed there most often. The rebar and cement blocks are typical of our cities "natural areas", very telltale of the reclaimation efforts.

Safer in the Water

Safer in the Water, a photo by McF Studios on Flickr.

That's San Diego, CA from the pacific ocean. I loved being out in the monotone blue, and that's as close as I ever want to be to a city.

Fog in the Park

Fog in the Park, a photo by McF Studios on Flickr.

I understand the irony of complaining about an "endless winter" then posting shots of winter during these fantastic spring days. Couldn't be helped, though, this one was next.
On a foggy winter morning, I made my way through commuting undergrads to City Park in Fort Collins, CO. After shooting the compositions I had planned, I crunched around the frozen snow for a while. The great golden light and contrasting blue shadows were very intriguiging. Something mysterious may have been happening just over there...

West from Trinidad

West from Trinidad, originally uploaded by McF Studios.

If you've spent time in the high desert you've no doubt seen rain fall from clouds without touching the ground.  It was happening all day in evey direction!  By the time evening rolled through, however, the clouds, with their strange behaviour, all but disappeared.  Oh well, if I could make or predict the weather, I wouldn't have to earn a living anymore.

Leucocrinum montanum

Sorry the blog's late today.  I spent the last two days cooped up in the studio dealing with an over-stuffed and disorganized image library.  After briefly contemplating deleting the whole thing and starting over, I settled on going out and making more images this morning.  Please accept this bouquet of Sand Lilies, beautiful native wildflowers, as an offer of my gratitude that any of you come around here at all.

Physsaria bellii

Bell's twinpod (Physsaria bellii) is endemic to certain limestone and shale ridges in Larimer, Boulder and Jefferson counties in Colorado, USA.  It's just begun to bloom, the characteristic seed pods will be along soon enough.

Blue Hour Composition

Let's start the week off with a calm moment.

This photograph was made during the blue hour before dawn in a hard blowing wind.  In the presence of all that turbulence the surface of the water was chaotic and this pattern of rocks was lost in the texture.  But a good long patient exposure of five seconds was enough to clarify the moment.  Maybe this is a lesson that can be applied somewhere else.

For the first time on this blog, I'm making an image available as a free wallpaper.  Maybe I will do this on a regularly scheduled basis.  The above photograph can be downloaded here, sized 2530x1600 so it'll fit anything you want it to, enjoy.