ARCHIVE 6: July 2009

DAVID'S PERSONAL NEWS PAGE
and JOURNAL

Jan/Feb 2009
March 2009
April 2009
May 2009
June 2009

In this Archive:

Believing blogs
Budget cuts
Max Lyons
Pain for City/Budgets
Zoomify, 1st test

7/25/2009: San Diego- Camtasia, Essy, Donna's Workshop

Friday was a busy day.  In the morning I went to Mira Mesa college for a class on the software package, Camtasia^(tm).   It is the multimedia generator of choice for the school district.  At its heart it is a screen recorder that can capture all of the action you are doing along with audio (e.g. you narrating your activity) and save it to a video file.  Then you can edit that video to include other clips, still frames, audio, etc.  Not a true or serious video editor, it is designed around teaching software or computer issues and for shorter teaching modules intended for use in such applications as Blackboard/Vista.  It can, however, be used to generate video presentations that can be accessed via URL from any server including this one.  (It can also generate content for sites such as U-Tube.) I need to get past my summer's "pay break" but I'll definitely get the software and start using it.

Then after a quick lunch it was off to Essy's Studio near the Sports Arena to check out the Photogenic Light Grid installed there with an eye toward specifying that set up for our new building's studios.  It is a very handy, slick set up, incredibly flexible and it keeps stuff off the floor so your's truly would have less to trip over and students would have less to drop and break.  A "win-win" in my estimation.  Essy, the owner, was pushing hard for us to adopt some sort of alliance so that students could use his studio.  I would love that but the day rate is designed for professional work and community college students would have a hard time coming up with the cash.  I think we should make it known but I'd be surprised at much movement on it once they hear the costs.

Next weekend I will be in the Bristlecone Pines where I will be giving a presentation to Donna Cosentino's workshop there.  I did that last year and really enjoyed it along with the shooting in that iconic setting.

And then follows the last week of the Summer Semester.  Lee Peterson, Steve Burns, John Watts, and some others had planned a week long shooting trip up to the Ghost Town of Bodie that was to launch when I was done with school (or they would leave earlier and I would rendezvous with them along the way).  I've never been there but it is being closed as a State Park in September and I'd love to shoot there before that happens.  Unfortunately it seems like the windows of availability are no longer overlapping for everyone and the intended trip plans are falling apart.  That is always the risk for professional photographers: when a paying gig shows up you take it, especially in this economy.  So it is all up in the air.  But I still want to do SOMETHING during that period.  Creating images is part and parcel of who and what I am; it feeds my spirit and, as an artist once said about his own art work, "It is a deep inner itch that has to be scratched."  Besides a friend has graciously loaned me a Class B 'Roadtrek' motorhome for the trip so I will definitely e doing something along those lines.  Stay tuned for further updates.

7/16/09: San Diego - Balboa Park Field Trips

For the summer sessions of the Intro to Digital Class, the days are 6 hrs long.  That leaves time to take the students shooting and since Balboa Park is nearly connected to the campus it is a natural destination.  This time, with two classes I got to go twice.  This year it was quite hot there and the reflecting pond in front of the Botanical House proved irresistible as a container of subjects.

The water looked so cool and inviting it was hard to stay out of it.  And the water lilies were in their glory.  The botanical house itself houses some pretty amazing plants from all over, but these simple elegant lilies are still hard to beat.  The great contrast in colors from the rich cool greens of the leaves to the vibrant colors of the petals (they have all colors planted there but I've always liked these glorious red ones at the front of the pool) and then the surprising burst of butter yellow in the centers.  It is really a visual treat.

The park is a nearly never ending treat of visuals and great subject matter from the architectural details of the buildings reflecting the style of the old Spanish colonial era, to the exotic species of flora spread all throughout the park, not just in the famous lath botanical house.

And sometimes really unexpected treats appear.  While we were there on the second class trip a wedding was held and the "limo" was this really impeccable 1929 Durant Sedan.  What a treat to see this fine old automobile not only running but in such showroom condition.  It would be fun to have the opportunity to properly photograph this fine elegant lady.

7/12/2009: San Diego - New Portfolio & Web Site in the Works

I give up.  Too many of you have been hammering on me to get more of my fine art work "out there" (wherever "there" is).  My problem is I have been a commercial shooter for so long I do not naturally think of the art side of what I do as "commercial" and therefore more as play than a viable (meaning "sellable") product.  Now I admit that is despite the fact that I teach my students that it is all about "business" and generating a revenue stream whether you are selling your services as a professional or your products as an artist.  And it is also in spite of my experience of actually selling work pretty much whenever I've shown it.  But for some reason, it simply did not click with me.

Maybe it was an early onset of Old Timer's disease.  Maybe it was those years of being more concerned about the revenue from "services" and seeing the "art" side as just nice occasional "gravy" and not something I needed or could properly devote the time to exploring.  Maybe it was because as a full time teacher I don't really need it and have precious little time for it still.  Maybe it was that I wasn't willing to throw my hat in that ring since in some ways it is even more "politicized" than the commercial world and, to be honest, I wasn't sure the work was good enough since I had no consistent outside verification or validation of it.  

Whatever... 

I have finally crossed some threshold in my mind and with prodding from a number of sources have started movement toward pursuing that side of things.  Maybe there was some critical mass of encouragement reached.   Maybe it was the success of the CDs.  Maybe it was just recently selling a print and remembering the rush of having a complete stranger willing to cough up discretionary money for something they did not need but really liked.  I confess that has always had a real appeal for me.  I loved all of the print sales at the last gallery I was at in Oceanside. Yet despite all of that I still did not pursue it seriously.  Well, that is about to change.

My good friend Linda Fiske, a really superb graphic artist, is starting the design on a new and stand-alone web site for me devoted exclusively to that Fine Art side of my work so I've also started putting together a collection of potential images to go into that and into the first serious Fine Art Portfolio I've done since I was back in art school.  The portfolio will be designed as the type of thing to hand off to a rep to do the leg work with the web site as back up and extended resources.  My friend Lee Peterson has shown me how well that can work if done right and inspired me to follow suit though I am still lagging behind.  Oh well, I'm younger.  (OK, not much younger but at this age I'm looking for all the help I can get...)

So for those who might be interested in seeing this develop, I put the starting collection that I assembled this weekend into its own little gallery space that is not accessible from anywhere else on this site.  It is there primarily for me to look at and start the painful process of editing: culling some and adding others until I am ready to let it become something real.  You can see this embryonic set of images here.  

7/10/2009: San Diego - Found some Old (visual) Treasure

I was revisiting some older work and discovered the shots from a trip to the Glamis Dunes area I took with a friend almost a year ago.   The files had been archived but for some reason set aside for other projects and forgotten.  It was like finding money in an old sock.

The Glamis Dunes in Imperial County are the site of extraordinarily crowded and boisterous off-road activity.  It seems that although I'm sure there are exceptions, most of the people I watch don't go there to enjoy the scenery, they go there to ride their machines in one of the few places it is allowed.  The goods news is the constantly shifting sand quickly wipes out all traces of their passing so long as they stay in the sand.  But it does add some issues when trying to photograph the landscape without all of the buzzing little engines as irritating as a swarm of metal bees hovering over a sweating brow.

The dunes themselves, once you are focused away from the human intrusion, are truly otherworldly or at least that is how they seem to me.  Some Dunes "Boom" when the wind is just right to ruffle the compacted top layer of sand, but normally they are very quiet and carry on their shape-shifting in near silence.  If you get your ear right down to the ground you will hear the faint whispering of the sand.  The wind hugs the ground and a fine layer of sand is constantly moving and creating fantastic sculptural forms, some graphic, some sensuous... but never the same for long.

I added some of this collection to the Desert Gallery and refocused it a bit.  I think it needs a little more work but this is a reasonable start.  I guess I'll just have to go do some more shooting out there... when the summer is over, of course.

To see the whole collection Click Here or go to the Gallery Page and select the Desert Collection.

7/5/2009: San Diego- Last Day of the Fair

Today was the last day of the Del Mar (now San Diego) Fair.  I gave my last two presentations (on Panos & Mosaics and on HDR) and they went pretty well.  There was a nearly full house for both of them and the audience had some really good questions so those that I did not put to sleep were paying attention. 

The fairgrounds are on the State's possible chopping block in the budget crisis which would be the ultimate in absurdity since it actually makes money for them.   But then the entire crisis is an exercise in ultimate absurdity (and irresponsibility).  I hope that it does not happen or, if it does, that some entity that appreciates all that it represents to the region will acquire it.  But the State seems devoted to killing the sources of revenue, employment, and productivity in order to continue to fabricate the ability to give aid to those who largely generate very little.  It is the equivalent of having your TV go on the fritz because a $500 picture tube blew to protect a 10-cent fuse.   It is simply ignorance gone to seed.  And the fruit it will bear is going to be bitter indeed for generations to come.  And, worse yet, as the saying goes, "As California goes so too goes the nation..."   

Many State Parks and other holdings are on the chopping block as well.  Lee Peterson is the driving force behind another photo trip during the break between summer and Fall so we can go to the Bodie "ghost town" which is slated to close to the public the first of September as part of the State's cost cutting.  Since I've never been there I jumped at the chance to go before it is too late.  Other more famous Parks such as Pt. Lobos are also in jeopardy.    Oh well, who needs those tourist dollars anyway?  Besides, I'm sure those IOUs the State is now sending out instead of money it owes will be worth something someday.  Of course people thought that about Confederate money too and it at least looked like money.

But then so does Monopoly money...

7/4/2009: San Diego- New Handout now online!

I have just finished work on a new handout for my digital students and other interested folks.  I call it "Burning and Dodging on Steroids" and it covers several digital techniques we use to the same ends as burning and dodging in the darkroom.  It of course mentioned the tools in PhotoShop of that name but then moves into more successful methods including using overlay layers, simulating contrast masking, and using layer masks to blend tonalities.  It is a PDF file and you can download it from the SDCC page or by clicking HERE.

7/4/2009: San Diego - Morning: 4th of July Reminiscing

Happy Independence Day, America!  As with other Holidays it seems like most people have forgotten what it is all about apart from the specifics of the celebration activities.  For most the 4th of July simply means great fireworks exhibitions and they give little thought to the events in the 1770s when courageous bold people stepped forward to pledge their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to declare their independence from tyranny and start the riskiest of all ventures, a new country.  Founded on the principles of freedom expounded by John Locke, Edmund Burke, and their philosophical friends it became a unique country based on the rule of law in which an individual was deemed innocent until proven guilty (unlike Napoleonic Law) and where the Government was seen as being of, by, and for the people because they so believed in it they left the citizenry with the means of overthrowing it if it got out of control as their former government had done..

Most of those original signers of the Declaration of Independence paid for their dreams and temerity with the very fortunes and often the lives they pledged on that document.  Honor is something this generation seems unable to grasp as they did.  And the country is now rushing, in my opinion, to being a collection of people of, by, and for the government.  We have gotten soft.  There have been too many soft sheets and fear-free days for us to remember that the fireworks we thrill at today are a reminder of weapons of war -- cannon and rocket fire -- being fired at Americans in 1812 and spilling American blood.  We forget that freedom is not free because we've not had to make any payments on that account in a long while.  We have become, in our minds and philosophies, an "entitled" people.  Not to opportunity but to outcome. 

Oh, we talk a good line about wanting a "level playing field" but not only is that not how the world works, it is not what we really want anyway because then there would be no excuse for failure other than ourselves.  It would be hard to sustain a complaint of victim-hood if there truly were a level playing field where the only thing that separates winner from loser is skill, effort, and perseverance.  Scapegoats are a wonderful thing because it is ever so much easier to blame "them" than ourselves.  And for evil people who draw their power, as Machiavelli suggested, from the creation of dependencies from people and groups, there is no power and consequently no money when there are no scapegoats. 

But that mentality spits in the face of Locke, slaps hard at the faces of Washington and Jefferson, Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin, and so many others, many of whom paid the ultimate sacrifice so that WE, their families and children and children's children could remain free.  That modern soft mentality utterly ignores, if in fact it ever rally understood, the realities of what made us strong and, for a time at least, the leader of the Free World.

I love the fireworks like most people.  But to me they are different because I've heard real rockets, felt the ground shudder from real bombs and cannon fire, heard the sounds of brave men giving their all because their country called for their help.  So enjoy the celebrations while we can still have them.  I fear that the day may be rushing at us like a runaway train when such remembrances are no longer allowed.