VLA Evening

The second image in this blog experiment was one of the antennae in the Very Large Array in New Mexico, at sunrise. It ends with another taken at the VLA in the evening a year later.

It has not exactly been an image a day, but I had a sneaking suspicion that would be a hard one to pull off. Nonetheless, I managed to achieve the primary goals: to keep up regular practice at digital photofinishing and to share the results with family and friends.

Overall, I like the idea, but to do it again it would have to have a wider purpose and not as frequent.

It's been fun. Hope you all enjoyed. And HAPPY NEW YEAR all!

Mark

All I Want...

We celebrated my daughter's birthday on the 19th so that there was a bit of separation between that and another, rather better known birth. She was actually born on the 24th---in our family that is a Christmas baby.

A few weeks ago, she also lost her first tooth.

Anyway, Farrell and her friends enjoyed a Princess Party held at the Pink Polka Dot in Houston. I did too, running around trying to get just the photo I wanted.

Oceanside Pier

Some time, when you are watching a movie, pay attention to the lighting. It's night time and cloudy but we can still see everything...it's cloudy but our hero is squinting as though staring at the sun...that sort of thing.
Much of what we see is suggestion, and our minds fill in the rest. Imagery is a powerful tool and advertisers know it.
I enjoy analyzing images and movies. One of the highlights of my museum career---other than my first day at work for the UBC Geological Museum, but nearly as early---was being involved in the production of "Rock Candy: A Video About Mineral Collecting". One of the most satisfying parts about being involved in such a low budget cinematic undertaking (i.e. small) is that one has the chance to experience almost every aspect of film making; if not in directly performing tasks, or even roles, then more than vicariously by being in such proximity as to observe minutiae in the work by those whose purview a particular assignment was.
Beach, palm trees, sunset. OK, the photographer enhanced the sunset colors a bit...
How about completely fabricated? Dec 27th, the sun is nearly at high noon. Anyway, I thought I would have a bit of fun creating an image that reminded one of warm summer evenings. It's Frederick's job, and those who know me, know to whom I am referring. :-)

Food Dance

Well, it is what this pelican did when he was fed a fish. Walking down the Oceanside Pier today, we came across a few children feeding a pelican their father's freshly caught fish bait---smaller fish, such as mackerel, meant to be used as lure for larger fish, such as...I'm not sure...just larger.
It was not really a dance but what rather passed for one as the bird caught up a fish in its bill, then jerked his head backwards to send the fish down his gullet while tottering on his---or her---feet and flapping the wings for steadiness.
The big bird was keen on the fish and quick about retrieval, and between recalling the sign not far back on the pier about not standing too close to these pterodactyl look-alikes and trying to get a decent photo of the action, it was a bit challenging to get a fish up on the rail while looking through the lens then leap and back far enough to click a few frames of the entire scene.

Last week for this blog business...we'll try to make sure one each day goes up.

3-Dec-2009

My friend, Steve, is holding the largest spodumene crystal of the find so far. It had just been washed by Jeff Swanger, whose headlamp is lighting up the specimen. While the color zonation is real, the color of the "non-purple" part is a bit skewed; I think influenced by the background colors. It is as the camera recorded it.

It has been a great day...today we continued on the pocket but nothing as large as this.

Bicolored

Another gem that has recently emerged from its cradle of creation. This spodumene crystal exhibits color zonation causes by the changing chemistry of the fluids from which it crystallized. Such color zonation is not wholly unusual, but rare enough to make a crystal more prized than some others.

This specimen displays its colors openly, while others from this same find are apparently "just" shades of pinkish purple---darkest along the length of the crystal, much like the deeper tones of a pane of glass seen on its edge. A dichroscope---a tool used by gemologists to determine pleochroism, the presence of multiple colors in a gem material---reveals in most of the apparently simply purplish crystals a direction in which they are also green, not discernible by the naked eye.

It is intriguing, one, that while the simplicity is often lauded and indeed sought by many, others find complexity captivating, and two, that while some objects (or people) appear simple at first, under closer scrutiny betray a more labyrinthine nature. Conversely, an elaborate comportment might belie a deceptively straightforward character.

Makes life interesting.

Digging It Out

Part of my life these days is spent as a volunteer miner at a local gem mine: the Oceanview mine near Pala in north San Diego County. On the 5th of December, late in the afternoon, Jeff Swanger (the mine owner), Steve Carter and I opened up a newly found pocket and extracted some of the finest kunzite unearthed in the Pala District in many decades. Kunzite is the pink to purple gem variety of the mineral species spodumene.
This photo was actually taken last Saturday when a number of visitors were present and more gems were being hauled out of the expanding cavity. This is one of those pieces after it was briefly rinsed using the water supply we have underground; it is being lit by one of the miner's lamps.

Digging it out. This title does not really convey the effort, the time, and the money it takes to bring these gems to light but, suffice to say, these are considerable. One must think about whether or not it is worth it. However, if we ever had doubts, the absolute thrill of being the first humans to lay fingers---albeit muddy, bleeding ones---upon these beautiful works of natural art, would lay those misgivings to rest.

"Digging it out" also had another meaning for me recently and involves a decision I am still making. For those that know me, it is hard to believe, but I allowed myself to be in the position of having almost everything electronic I have ever done to reside on a single hard drive (I normally have everything backed up at least four ways). Four days away from going to buy a new back up hard drive; my last remaining electronic repository stopped cooperating with any computer I plugged it into. Hence my lack of posts of late.

After trying several methods to recover the data, I am left with one more possibility---a very expensive one. Some think not, and better to move on. I see the logic and can even envisage mustering up the detachment to do so by imagining a house fire in which all is lost and one is forced to accept a new beginning. I mentioned this to my wife and her response was "It is not like a house fire. It is more like an earthquake where everything got buried and may still be intact under the rubble."

The only question is, "Is it worth it to dig it out?" My mineral field collecting buddies agree...you won't find anything until you've made sacrifices to the rock gods---a bit of blood-letting.

Is it worth it?

Egret

We visited the Wild Animal Park near Escondido yesterday. There are quite a number of native critters that call the park home and this egret was standing quite sentinel like near the radio-controlled-boat pond. What is a bit disconcerting in the image is that this is actually the bird's reflection in the water. The ripples visible to the left of the egret have taken on an abstract nature and as such don't help.

Spheres

These shots were taken for fun to show the amusing sort of things one can do with ultra-transparent (inclusion free) crystal balls.
It concludes this week's installment of images and, unless there is a barrage of requests pleading more, sphere photography.
The designs seen through the crystal are scrims (screens for cutting/diffusing light). One has a square weave and the other a hexagonal weave. The magnification is strong enough that these resemble the interference figures seen in petrography. A glass rod with a ball on the end is used as an analyzer in conjunction with a polariscope to test gemstones...same sort of thing.
At any rate, this is end of spheres...

Inclusions

Five days of spheres is too much...for me anyway. I had intended to talk about inclusions in the next post and decided (with the hint of a friend) to indeed show an inclusion, but of a different type than originally contemplated.
This is a picture of the interior of an amber nodule from the Baltic Sea coast---and life sometime between 23 and 33.9 million years ago, maybe older. One day, back then, an ant was trapped in the fresh tree resin and along came an opportunistic arachnid, surmised an easy supper, and became mired beside it. Maybe the spider did not conceive that it would get stuck since its own web material does not effect any adhesion on its legs whereas other hapless critters generally become hopelessly entangled. At least it had a last meal, which is more than the ant could have said.

Looking carefully at the area near the spider's feet, one can observe disturbances on the amber; rings that evidence the spider's struggle to free itself.

Especially after "Jurassic Park"---book and movie---amber with insect or other inclusions has become a rather popular collectable. While there are plenty of examples on the market, it is still incredibly rare stuff to see "action" frozen in time. First, most tree resin isn't even preserved. It rots away on the forest floor unless ideal conditions come along to preserve it. Second, the ratio of nondescript "junk" trapped in the amber to well preserved, identifiable objects is rather high. Third, taken from there, the percentage of identifiable victims caught in the act of doing something other than having collided with, stepped on, or otherwise managed to get themselves glued to the nice, fresh resin, has to be minuscule. At least in my experience.

Tree resin: easy to find. Fossilized tree resin: cool. Hapless individual(s) caught doing something embarrassing and recorded for millions of years and all to see: priceless.

Perfect Crystals

In Monday's post I used the adjective "nearly" when discussing the idea of a flawless quartz sphere because any gemologist will tell you that very, very few gems are indeed "flawless". At some magnification, some inclusion will betray its origins, especially in a stone as large as this sphere. That said, an entire industry was built around the search and discovery of crystals large and perfect enough for precision lenses and other optical equipment. Then again, this material is quite rare in nature and demand for it birthed---or at least greatly support the establishment of---yet another industry: synthetic crystal growth.
"Eye clean" quartz spheres are rare enough that one generally wants to check its authenticity. Fairly easily done with two crossed sheets of polarized film (such as those found in some 3D movie goggles) and a light source. "How" is a longer story that I don't want to get into at the moment, but I would be entirely overjoyed to expound on the process to any interested parties...it involves a bit of rotation and if you get a wink from the stone, Robert's your father's brother and the stone gets a nod.
Heritage Auctions' natural history consultants and I also scrutinized the sphere with an intense scrute and a strong light and discovered very, very tiny fibrous inclusions that in the gem trade would be called silk. Holding such a sphere up to a strong point source of light can produce what is called asterism...the optical property that gives us star sapphires, rubies and, albeit very faint in this case, star quartz.
This is the first shot I made of the specimen. Definitely shows the sphericity and clarity, but all messed up with reflections: the diffuser is apparent three times, the table, yada yada... Interestingly, none of the surface nor internal reflections are observable in the reflection of the sphere on the table.
Nonetheless, it was back to the drawing board.

The Other Side...

I just spent the last 8 days shooting gems and minerals for Heritage Auctions and their upcoming Natural History auction in January.
One of the items I had to shoot was a nearly flawless quartz sphere.
What do you see when you peer into this crystal ball? Well, the other side---or, at least, what is on the other side. Only backwards and upside down.
One of the aspects I was assigned to show was the fact that this sphere is completely transparent---as much as quartz can be. Some of the images I took do not really present that clarity in an obvious way (some of the shots we just had fun with---"we" because I was assisted by Craig Smith with this one). This was one (again for fun; not a serious contender for the catalog). However, someone familiar with optics would say otherwise. Unless the photographer went to great lengths to arrange reflections on the front of the sphere to be tonally opposite yet symmetrical to that of the image's background, the sphere's clarity is made evident by the fact that the light and dark tones are exactly reversed on the front of the sphere from those behind it.

Neat stuff. Anyway, saving more for later as I intend to use a different image of this sphere for each day this week.

Burg Strechau

Quick one today...such as "today" is. I left work at 01:00, technically Saturday.

After photographing the interior of Burg Strechau, I drove through the small village of Strechau below the castle to try and get a decent image of the whole complex. After being overcast most of the day, the sky opened up just as I was leaving and allowed me this wonderful light and celestial backdrop.

Afternoon Sun in Beijing...Expectations

I saw a picture of a large white stupa in a pond at a presentation in Phoenix on Buddhist art. The view in the image was from a moderate angle above the object, much resembling the snapshot of a child in which the photographer has not knelt to be eye-to-eye with the subject. The image was projected and not really that clear so I assumed the greenery surrounding the stupa were grasses, reeds and garden plants.

When I visited Beijing I felt I had to visit this important monument---it is home to the guardian of Beijing---and set out to look for it. People kept pointing out the direction to me and I kept peering down nooks and crannies to find my destination. Perhaps it was my experience at finding "Manneken Pis" in Brussels...I was expecting something bigger and in a more prominent location considering its national significance to Belgium. Not disappointed...delighted actually and, in fact, somewhat amused by my expectations.

When I finally arrived at the correct park, before me stretched out a lake of some square kilometres and good sized island with an impressive 100 metre or more high edifice.

I had no idea the photo that we were shown at the presentation was taken from a good distance away, and undoubtedly from an aircraft.

At any rate, it was early afternoon as I walked across the bridge to ascend the hill to the stupa, and stopped to record the willows hanging over the water at the island's edge. Yes, that is the sun. The upside of stinging eyes.

Leila

I don't have nearly as many portraits of this person as I would like. This is Leila, my beloved wife, and today is her birthday.

Happy Birthday, Love!

:-) Mark

Red Green Show

Interesting how just one branch of this tree produced these red and orange colors while the rest is still vibrant green. I don't remember what kind of tree it was; perhaps a kind of maple. It certainly stands out though.

Which leads to some thoughts I have had about individuality. We often see in people the desire to stand out from the crowd as an expression of one's own identity. As one of the first two punk rockers in the small village where I grew up, the concept is close to home. It begs the question though: "In a room full of punk rockers, which one is the real individual?" Many years later, I was talking to a geologist friend, who knew about my past fashion sense, about the dress code for the company Christmas dinner coming up at the time. When I mentioned that I had planned to wear my tuxedo, my friend exclaimed that I was bowing to the establishment...betraying my 'rebel' self...and that she was attending in her jeans and field shirt.

"You think so? Hmmm. I would imagine that geologists being geologists, most would be doing the same; or maybe throw on a sport jacket or something."

"Right. We don't do the business uniform."

"Ahh, and in this way all these geologists would be bucking the trend."

"Right."

"And one tuxedo standing in this crowd would be...?"

Well, that wasn't so much driven by the desire to express my individuality as it was to shake things up a little...that can be fun sometimes. I had learned much before that exchange that the battle toward the declaration of individuality was not one necessarily successfully fought on the outside, but very much on the inside. A strong sense of identity can wear any clothes. Thomas Jefferson is credited with saying,""In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." The crux of growing up is figuring out what kind of rock one is.

I'm thinking metamorphic...I like change...and gneiss things.

Pink at the Purple Passion

Not much to say today.

A cactus flower I photographed this past summer while doing the shoot at the Purple Passion mine.

A good day today, but a long one. Longer one tomorrow so it is off to get some sleep.

Portraits

Most of my photography has dealt with rather inanimate objects: landscapes, flora and of course minerals. People, and portraits in particular, I find fascinating but I have not really begun to try to photograph them in any serious way. This is largely because many of the people I know are relatively camera shy...and so am I, only from behind the camera. I have not completely gotten over the feeling that I am somehow being invasive with my camera.

I had the opportunity, a week ago, to meet a person on the U-Bahn in Munich on my way back from my first day at the Münchner Mineralientage, Europe's largest trade show for minerals, gems and fossils...and more. After a chat and being people of some spontaneity, we arranged to meet for brunch the next day. It turned out that my new friend was quite photogenic, quite happy to ham in front of a camera and, given the day off (she was working for one of the dealers), quite willing to model at the show from some images I need for an article I am writing.

However, not far from the restaurant where we met was a bridge over the Isar that made for an impromptu studio. I won't get into the details of why we needed to get to the grassy spot next to a playground at the end of the bridge---just think "pets"---but seeing the colorful trees, including the greenish bark and the subtle background of children playing made me suggest trying some "hide-and-seek" sort of photos. Trying to make a posed picture seem like it isn't is not that easy. At first, one doesn't necessarily appreciate the nuances involved in getting a portrait to say what one wants it to say until one is attempting to produce an image as imagined.

I am, of course talking about deliberate portrait photography rather than the more "capturing the moment" type, in which one, either by anticipation and good timing, or by sheer dumb luck, manages to depress the shutter release at the very moment someone, unaware of the camera pointing in their direction, does something that when frozen in time, expresses a particular emotion well.

At any rate, I was still surprised at how many times Margee had to sneak, jump, or whirl around that trunk to get the three or four shots I thought were good enough to keep.

Full Moon in Freiberg

Low clouds had moved in---not quite or much fog, or the building would have been more obscured---by the time we crossed the Obermarktplatz last night in search of a restaurant that friends recommended for our visit to the city of Freiberg in Saxony. With the full moon penetrating the gauze like vapor and the building lit by an orange-yellow street light, this clock tower had a strange feel about it. Not visible in the picture are the near freezing wind and the wisps of fog swirling around the tower, though the latter are somewhat evident from the softening of parts of the image, especially the light glare of the lamp. Late by a day, but very Halloween.

Protestant Prayer Room Ceiling

At an internet cafe and they are closing the doors soon so keeping it short.
Two things:
One, this ceiling was painted in the 14th or 15th century (need to check my notes which aren't here) and these are apparently---so I am told by my guide---the original colors. The images have been restored in that dirt and a rusty layer have been peeled away (a small part of one corner of the ceiling has been left in the state the conservators found it to show the difference) but other than this cleaning process, the colors have not been enhanced. I am guessing lazurite (ultramarine) is the pigment for the blue as azurite (a copper carbonate) would have turned green (malachite, another copper carbonate that is more stable), much like it did in the Sistine Chapel.

Second, this image is a composite of eleven different shots I took laying down on the stone floor. It is a bit wobbly in parts but I am extrememly impressed with the power of Photoshop CS4. One benefit of stitching many images together is a larger overall image, thus in effect greater resolution because one can get in tighter to the subject and 'raster photograph' it.
I had to because I had no wide angle lens and could only get so far down on the floor...

Time and time again...

Time and timepieces seem to be a popular them in my photos here...the former, at least, occupies much of my contemplative time---sorry, couldn't resist---but seriously, when not regarding the rapidity of its passing relative to the quantity of what I feel I want to have accomplished in that duration, I love to have my mind boggled by consequences of its infinite nature. What supposedly imperceptible processes are occurring as we speak, write or do anything that would become immediately apparent when the element of time is compressed? I remember when I first saw a short film in school that used time lapse photography to demonstrate the quotidian activities of flowers that one might ignore if one only watched them for a few minutes...as they opened and closed, or, as in the case of sunflowers, how they change orientation to follow the our great star's path across the sky. I was astounded.

This image features the distinctive clock tower that watches (no pun intended) over the city of Graz from the Schloßberg (Castle Mountain). It was recently reopened after being veiled in scaffolding and tarps for more than a year to allow much needed restoration work. I grew up with images of this edifice in and out of the house and on the occasion of a voyage here, I never fail to visit what has always been---and continues to be in the form of a painting in my own home now---such a familiar sight to me. And so, Tuesday night it was hot chocolate in the "Skybar"...and a few shots of the tower in its night-lit splendor.

Ante Meridiem/Post Meridiem

This is the only sundial I have seen of its kind...one side performs as the morning dial and at noon, the sun crosses over to the other (afternoon) side. It is on one of the buildings in the Burg Strechau in the province of Styria, Austria. On my way to Graz yesterday, I thought I would stop in to have a look around as I had driven past the castle several times before. Rather interesting: housed in one of the buildings is an automobile collection, featuring quite a number of Steyr vehicles; preserved in the residential building is a notable 14th century Protestant prayer hall...notable because it is one of the only in Austria, a dominantly Catholic country...but perhaps more about it later if the photos I took of the exquisite ceiling turns out.

Pegmatite Patterns

At the Oceanview Mine today. Haven't been underground for quite some time. I love it. Getting my fingers onto some rocks is a preferred way of connecting to the Earth, indeed the Universe.

I studied pegmatites for my Master's degree---one field in the Northwest Territories, in particular, but many others as background to that study. Having grown up with John Sinkankas' "Gems & Minerals And How to Find Them" I always wished I lived near these deposits...now I do...and work/play in them on occasion.

In this image are divergent crystals of schorl, a tourmaline group mineral. Also in the view are garnet crystals (almandine), spodumene alteration products (purple clays), and, of course, the quartz, feldspars and mica that make up the matrix.

Nature creates some cool things...

Muse-ic

Just finished watching a movie called "August Rush". It is a fairy tale...and given what we have in the theatres today, it is a much needed one. Not to judge (really) others, but "August Rush" has such a positive message. Following the music...

The word contains the sound ˈmyüz...more recognizable as muse, defined as "a source of inspiration; especially : a guiding genius" (Merriam-Webster online).

I recently read a blog post---funny, now that I have started one, I have also started reading some---that decried the notion of "doing what you love" as a way to making money. I think the author missed the point. It is a way of getting the most out of life. If money is your music, then by all means, follow it.

While visiting friends in Pennsylvania, the day this image was shot, we went to a drumming evening that our friends hosted. A young man and his father also joined in that evening; obviously for the first time. He was extremely frustrated at not being able to bang out a beat on the bongo...just couldn't do it. I laughed to myself---not at him, but at the fact that I couldn't either. I was having fun trying though, he wasn't. One of the more experienced drummers handed him a wooden box with a stick and showed him how to hit it with a beat and encouraged him to continue and the rest would just follow his lead. Well, he wasn't the best at that either BUT it was a beat clear enough that I could make it out and all of a sudden I could bang that bongo with some semblance of a beat. Talk about the blind leading the blind! What a wonderful evening!

No, I haven't decided that I need to become a musician. My beat isn't found in a metronome...mine is the sound of a shutter. When all I hear is the sound of my pulse, and when it is still enough to keep steady, the sound of the shutter, then I am following my muse.

Now I just need to get good enough to make some money ;-)...

Pennsylvania 01

Short one again today...

This peaceful scene is at a park just below the Blue Marsh Lake dam on the Tulpehocken River in Berks County, Pennsylvania. Friends took us on a bit of a county tour last Friday and this and the next few images are from that visit.

Enjoy!

Black & White...and a touch of sepia.

We arrived in DC in the late in the day and after having sat in the car most of the day, needed a bit of movement and thus made the Washington Mall the destination for an evening stroll. Besides taking in the views, our little adventure became an exercise in the temporary appropriation of inanimate objects to counter the lack of a tripod. I usually did not travel without one in the good old days but for some years now I have tried to board airplanes with only carry-on luggage---managed six weeks in Australia once (including a pair of hiking boots that I never ended up using)---but my only light tripod is ironically rather bulky for its weight and usefulness. Checked out some nice carbon fibre ones on this trip. Alas, no purchase yet.

With all of the light colored edifices and monuments in the vicinity of the Mall, brightly lit at night, it seemed like a natural to try some snapping a few images with the idea of turning them into black and white images. At the west end, farthest from the Smithsonian Metro station, is the Lincoln Memorial. On the way up the steps, we passed quite a number of school classes (don't these kids have bedtimes?...just kidding, it is a rather stunning time of day to visit the Mall) and I overheard one of the teachers advising her charges to pay heed to certain symbolic elements in the statue. I think she said something about Lincoln's hands but all I really got out of my inadvertent eavesdropping was the "pay attention" bit. So I did. I looked at the work in terms of posture, hands (right open, left held closed) gaze (straight ahead...and slightly down) but little of that revealed to me any insight regarding the sculptor's intentions. What I did notice was that the marble was significantly whiter than the building's gray limestone...deliberate, I am sure, and reminiscent, when viewed from the far end of the Reflecting Pool, of the filament in a white tungsten light bulb, imbuing the monument with an apparent luminosity rather than being lit. To interpret this as a metaphor portraying the 16th as a luminary among presidents is inescapable, intended or not.

However, it was not until I started working with the image that I thought about the photographic term black and white...grayscale is much more appropriate, not only in the accurate description of a non-colored image, but, in this case---and any actually---the subject material itself, though the expression shades of gray might find more recognition among those not initiated in the graphic arts.
Not to take away from this man's achievements, but Lincoln's presidency and the politics of the day had their share of gray areas as any other did or does or will. The most pressing issues of his time, and the motives and fuel for the Civil War, were anything but black and white. Black and white thinking on the other hand, is real...and the source of much conflict, both personal and interpersonal. Gray areas are often talked about as no-man's land...as no place one wanted to be. Yet, gray areas are a mix of black and white...regions in which black and white have common ground. We humans like boundaries, like the white picket fences around our house and property...we prefer definition, pigeon-holes, boxes. Why? Gray is easier once one lets go of fear. I know..easy to say.

Gypsy Woman (One & Too)

I could not access the website last night so today I am posting two images of a series I took of a marble sculpture in the Bendel Mansion (Stamford Museum). Rather liked this artwork.

Until next time...

Bendel Mansion Visitor

Another visitor to the Bendel Mansion at the Stamford Museum and Nature Center.

Short one again today...must say, the posting dates are a bit funny ("yesterday" is Sunday, but believe me, it was Monday when I pressed "Publish Post")...fun and games. An expression I might have to add to my word treasury after these past few days.

Stamford Museum and Nature Center

Greetings from Connecticut!
The Universe is just awesome..in the truest meaning of the word. Learned something last night about the formation of the elements (which I shall undoubtedly write about in the future...it's just too cool), observed Jupiter and three of its satellites, and peeked at the Andromeda galaxy.
The Stamford Museum and Nature Center is a delightful and wonderfully eclectic complex; among its assets are an observatory and planetarium, the Heckscher [Educational] Farm, a museum housed in the Bendel Mansion, and nature trails.
Very enjoyable way to spend a day...or two :-)

Dunbar Dusk

Short one today.
Monday, we supped out at "the lake". Sausages just taste better roasted over a fire in the outdoors :-)
Twice this year I've made the trip to the cabin...not nearly enough.
On the road all next week, so posts may be sparse, if any...camera will be along, of course!

Cycles

Cycles are quite fascinating, especially as everything in existence is part of one or another. The non-linear relationship of things is for me the most interesting aspect of the Buddhist perspective of the universe and its goings-on, especially as it applies to the transient nature of being; that there is no beginning or end to matter. Birth is not the beginning of life as death is not the end; these are merely changes taking place, just as they are throughout that "life". Living entities are temporal manifestations of energy, not at all separate from the rest of what makes up the universe. Physics chimes in with its own version of this as the Law of Conservation of Energy, which states that the total amount of energy in a closed system remains constant. The corollary to this is that anything created is at the expense of something else.

The vegetables that we ate---very yummy ones, to be sure---while I was visiting my parents over the last few days grew in the garden's soil. That growth "used" up some part of the soil, thereby creating a much tastier medium for humans to ingest nutrients (would it not indeed be less than sublime to have to retrieve our nutrition directly from the soil?). Without putting something back, eventually the soil runs out. Well, that's what I was thinking about as I observed the compost bin and my father tilling back into the earth the plant material that did not become food on the table.

Now one might point out the the garden plus dining table hardly construe a closed system. However, the garden and, indeed, we the consumers of the produce are part of the Universe, and the Universe, even in its infinity and if we can conceive that nothing exists outside the Universe, is a closed system.

We---and it remains to be seen just who or what all of "we" consist of---are in this together.

The Columbia River Wetlands

Today's image is as current as I have made so far...I took the photo today as my parents and I went for a bit of a walk.

The house I grew up in---or at least during my public school years---has a view over what we called the Wilmer Sloughs back then; these are part of what since have been made a protected wildlife management site and named the Columbia River Wetlands.

Many memories here: my brother and I, one frosty early May when he and I turned 11 and 12, respectively...or so...camped on one of the islands. We spent a chilly night in the tent and silently paddled around the sloughs during the next day...only to be interrupted by a Fish & Wildlife official, who arrived on his noisy air-prop boat (like the ones used in the Everglades) to inform us that we were disturbing the geese???. Our parents had watched events unfold---indeed our entire camping trip---through the telescope in the living room. Such adventures are not possible now...but it's all good. Hiking is still allowed, the birding is great; these, the longest continuous wetlands remaining in North America, are a real treasure.

More Perspective

Remember the story about the four or five blindfolded (or blind) people standing around an elephant? Each reaches out and touches the elephant and is asked to describe "elephant"...cut it short, the answers vary considerably.

Walking up the many steps to the White Dagoba on Jade Flowery Islet in Beijing's Beihai Park, one crosses several halls. Today's image does not fully capture the image I saw of the artisan working on the ornate door frame but approximates it enough that my memory fills in the rest. Fine for me, I know.

While producing the frame for it, I showed it to another person, who commented that it looked like someone trying to break into a safe... Pop! There goes another bubble. Man! that perspective will get you every time.

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It also dawned on me that I have not spelled out what I am trying to do here. Without goals, one tends to drift along, so I basically wanted to get going and make sure I was working with Photoshop on a regular basis and practising on as many different images as I could. Avoiding procrastination, as it were...or at least the rut of doing similar images all the time (i.e. gem & mineral). My goal is to try to do one image every weekday until the end of the year and take it from there. Travel (and therefore access to internet) might impede that once in a while, but one image every weekday is the general idea.

Fashion Show in a Beijing Street

Wandering around Beijing for several days before attending a conference, I happened upon a public fashion show or festival of some kind. Obviously, I wasn't the only person whose attention was caught...

Short one today...trying to get ready for the airport.

Neither Snow, nor Rain...

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

I first came across these words in a 1981 song called "O Superman" by Laurie Anderson. Like many of the lyrics in that song---indeed, the album---are somewhat non sequitur, so this statement did not seem to be out of place. Having grown up in the hinterlands of Canada, I did not have the background to immediately associate this with the US Postal Service, but soon enough someone did mention it. It seemed like such a cool motto that I was surprised not to see more use made of it in the media. Twenty years after the release of Anderson's "Big Science" album, I wandered around a corner in New York City to see a grand Greek-styled building. I started to look at it from different angles to photograph it, or elements of it, and suddenly realized that I recognized the words across the facade just above the ornate Corinthian columns.

In the meantime, I had also learned that this was not the motto of the US Postal Service---the USPS does not actually have one---but an appropriate quote from Herodotus' Historia, added by the building's architects. This is apparently the most poetic of several translations of the Greek---certainly more so than the one other I have read---and originally referred to the relay messengers in the 5th century BC Persian's communication system.

Official motto or not...worthy words for any work ethic.

Waiting for the Light

Funny, sometimes, those little co-inkydinks (“coincidences” for those that did not see the same television show I did years ago…too many years to remember what show). Fiat Lux, "Let there be light", is the motto of my alma mater, alluding, of course, to knowledge as light. The University of Lethbridge in southern Alberta was a wonderful liberal arts university in one of Canada’s bible belts. I say “was” because I haven’t been there recently and certainly not for long enough to discern whether or not, or how much, the social climates have changed in Lethbridge, southern Alberta and/or the University. I enjoyed my years at the U of L and what ever did cause me negative feelings had nothing to do with the University. The battle was on the inside. That, however, is another story. The coincidence, by the way, is that I had chosen last night to post this image today and today I received a letter from the Alumni Association. Basically, the coincidence added a paragraph to this post...

This and last night's image are part of a series I took in New York City in the spring of 2001 with the Nikon 990 I had at the time. The notion of an idea or "a-ha!" moment represented by a little (or big) light bulb suddenly turning on is pretty much universal in the developed world. This image of a (probably) stressed professional seeking enlightenment when her world seemed upside down spoke to me. There is the "punny" aspect of that and then once you have had a chuckle, a poignancy settles in...

The big move is done and we are now settling in trying to put things in what seems to be proper places, etc. Took the time this evening to stroll down to the dock and watch the sun set over the small lake we now live next to. As an ex-pat Canadian, I have to say...I like palm trees in the sunset.

Weight of the World

I had just gotten my last post out and was starting on this one (trying to get ahead of the game...) when all of a sudden my internet connection was lost. “That time already?” Yes…moving time. We had canceled service at our old location and were supposed to have it reconnected at our new location the next day. Met the ATT service man there even, as I was unloading the car. “Should be set now!” he said. The move hadn’t quite progressed as much as I had hoped in terms of me getting my office set up again (Finally! This evening…). It turn out that I would not have gotten far anyway, as I met another ATT man the next day looking to establish which home was which address. The wonderfully friendly, chipper service man yesterday, it would seem, had terminated our neighbor’s telephone service and set her up with DSL. The ATT post for her apartment is cleverly situated in front of our home (on the far corner from her home, to boot), Now our neighbor didn’t realize that she had gained something in the deal because she doesn’t use internet, but the phone must have been unusually dead because ATT help was quick to correct the error, though allowing enough time for me to get myself in order and set up again.

Anyway...a few days ago, I remembered a certain thought about this image:

The image of someone with the weight of the world upon him and heading for a church seemed rather poignant. I leave it to the viewer to add perspective. I firmly believe religion to be individual activity, even in a so-called “gathering of two or more”.
However, having had that thought as I observed this scene, I remembered that there was indeed a certain man, to whom this very church was no strange place, that would, for at least a period of 13 days if never another day in his life, have indeed felt the weight of the world on his shoulders: John F. Kennedy.

Today, after a week of moving household, I look at it and there is yet another perspective. A house full of stuff isn’t nearly as heavy and I am indeed fortunate that most of the weight on my shoulders this past week consisted of only it.
Not only that, but on Saturday, Leila and I scrambled to get done, cleaned up and off to a fine anniversary dinner at The Melting Pot, the latter becoming dangerously close to becoming a tradition :-)

Eternity...or not.

I have driven past these dunes so many times and kept meaning to stop to wander in and do some photography, but I was either pushed for time or the weather wasn't great (too windy) or there was just plain too much dust being kicked up by dune buggies and others...or,or,or. One day though, we arrived just as a brief rain shower unloaded and moved northwest. The light was different from any I had seen there and that tipped that scales. We wandered up and over the dunes barefoot. Raindrops had created a rough surface, yet when one put full weight down, one's foot pushed through the 2 cm wet "crust" into the loose, warm sand below. The sultry air was laden with not only the moisture from above, but the evaporate escaping the sand as well.
Standing on top of one of the dunes far enough from the highway not to be able to see it, I could turn around and the sand seemed to continue forever---not really, but the impression of vastness was palpable. The thought about just how many sand grains there were in this pile helped the illusion along... I think "infinity" might have been a more proximate bit of vocabulary to my thoughts but the little gray cells produced "eternity".
I made a card titled such and showed it to a friend. Her reaction? "Oh no, I don't think I'd want to spend Eternity there. How desolate!" I distinctly heard my romantic bubble make a most discernible popping sound as all my notions about a title for this scene made a messy pile around my ankles. Blink. Marie was absolutely right...wrong word! Don't allow me to mislead you. I still recall very well the sensations of whatever connection I had at the time but I seem unable to find the movie title for them. Oh well, can't win 'em all...
Viewers for now will have to settle for the actual name of this 5 by 40+ mile [read: hardly infinite either] stretch of ancient Lake Coahuila beach sand: Imperial Sand Dunes, California.

No Potato...

I was about to leave and, from the cab of my truck, waved good bye to an acquaintance living and working on Last Chance Creek in the Yukon. He waved back, but rather strangely I thought...until I realized he was actually flagging me down. "Hey, I've just shut down the sluice to check up on something. Want to come down and have a closer look?" Within five seconds, give or take a few milliseconds, set park brake, turned off engine and slid down the slope to the steel giant that moments ago was gulping gravel and sloshing it down with water; it's bowels dis-aggregating the boulders, pebbles, sand and clay, finally running the slurry through the sluice boxes, which, like our intestines, trap the good stuff and let the waste right on through. My host jumped up onto the boxes and pulled up the grates to have a look. After only an hour on the first day of operation, the upper riffles were already laden with the yellow metal. After raking the riffles out a bit, two specimens of well-crystallized gold popped up and they were handed to me. Today's image subject is one of those crystals.

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Eight years ago, I curated a major exhibit on gold and in an interview before the exhibit opened was asked, "If you could be a mineral, what mineral what it be?" I found that tantamount to the more frequent question as to what my favorite mineral is except that it more directly, perhaps philosophically, begged the question "why". Prior to that, I was unsure whether or not I had a favorite mineral, expressing instead an affection for all minerals and their diversity. Reflection caused me to admit that perhaps I do have a favorite mineral: gold. There are perhaps many reasons why; perhaps most amusing to me is the fact that the first months of my embryonic life were spent on a gold placer claim in the Yukon. I could also point to gold’s aesthetic nature and the value that humans have placed on gold, thus joining the millions, if not billions of past, present and more than likely future humans. But the most profound answer came from replying to "What mineral would I be?"
The first funeral I ever attended was that of an elderly friend and fellow mineral collector. During the ceremony a small collection of minerals was passed around allowing those gathered to reflect on the specimens and their relevance to my friend's heavily mineral-influenced life.
What struck me at the time is that the mineral that best mirrored his life was absent---gold. Like gold, this man's character was not easily tarnished; he was patient, fair and giving, and by anyone’s definition, of "golden" character.
It is gold's nature, the fact that it can be beaten and drawn without breaking and its virtual immunity to chemical corruption that make gold so endearing.
While gold has undeniably corrupted humanity throughout history, it has also brought out the best in the human race. With the admirable qualities that gold embodies, it is not gold that is the root of all evil; it is the lust for gold. (I know, the expression is actually about money, but gold has since the early days of commerce been money, and still is...just ask the increasing throng of pundits pontificating about the collapse of fiat currency). Nonetheless, even the latter has inspired humans to achieve amazing feats: from the Klondike miners that had to endure incredible hardships to reach the goldfields; to the creators of some of the world's greatest masterpieces; and to the Olympic athletes, who push the limits of human capability in "going for the gold", represented not only by gold medals but often by lucrative endorsements.

Plus, with a specific gravity of 19.3, it is just cool to have a good size nugget sitting in the palm of your hand :-)

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Photo tech stuff: Necessity truly is the mother of invention...single tensor light with white letter paper diffuser (bond or not?...can't remember), Al foil reflector and the specimen was sitting on my Zune's viewing screen. Studio: My mom's desk in the basement. Rather pleasing to get away with it...

Purple Passion

In early August of this year, a friend invited me to photodocument a mining operation near Wickenburg, Arizona. The mine was originally operated for lead, silver and a bit of gold, but the current owners are after something entirely different...what the early miners would have called waste rock. The Purple Passion mine, as it is now called, is the source for a rather unique assemblage of fluorescent minerals. Fluorescence, as mentioned in an earlier post, is named after the mineral fluorite. It is a type of luminescence emitted by a material that when subjected to ultraviolet (UV) radiation---electromagnetic radiation off the blue end of the visible light spectrum---seems to glow in the dark. The fluorescence of most fluorescent minerals needs to be observed in the dark.

In this image, I photographed one of the miners standing in front of a rock wall at night (not underground, but under the stars), shining a UV lamp onto the rock face. Part of the "speckly effect surrounding the man is actually digital noise as I shot this image at the equivalent of ISO 25000 (most point and shoot cameras operate in the 200-400 ISO range). I thought it looked kind of neat, not to mention ridiculously difficult for me at this stage to remove, so I left it in.

I had been fluorescent collecting once before---for little bluish-white specs of scheelite in eastern Washington---but this was something else all together. Everything around you just glowed a brilliant orange, blue-purple, white and green, and shades in between. I even found two fluorescent materials that skittered away as I rolled over the boulder they were under...scorpions glow bright grayish-green.

Challenges

Definitely the theme this week. I have found that in the past 5 to 10 years out of the last 20, attending shows has been more about meeting up with people and catching up on newsy bits in the gem and mineral world and , of course, perusing the exhibits and dealers' stocks. This Denver---people in the mineral, gem, fossil biz more than often measure time in shows, "Yeah, I remember those came out about three Tucsons ago."---the challenge was also getting all the image processing finished after the day's photography was done (by Jeff, not me). Some late nights. Oh well, in the words of Warren Zevon, "I'll sleep when I'm dead..."

Back in the days of establishing and building a new mineral museum---about a decade ago, there were about two years when I slept no more than four hours out of every twenty-four. It was exciting, high-adrenalin stuff; hard work and hard play. Some days, the brain just needed cleansing and going for a walk or bike ride was just another excuse for having time to cogitate on matters generally perceived to be urgent. Photography allows me to block all invasive thoughts and be present in my surroundings, so, as needed, I would leave the office for an hour or so, grab a 36 roll of Velvia (how convenient to have one of Vancouver's major photo suppliers across the street in Downtown) and give myself a challenge to shoot any theme that came to mind before I left: trees, architecture, textures, building stone geology, or even a movie set (at the time, one of the few things I could guarantee any visitor to the city to witness on any given day).
I was researching something a while ago on the internet and came across www.dpreview.com and noticed a tab called "Challenges" (see first post). I had a quick look and it seems that certain people related to the site (I am not sure exactly how) issue challenges (also not sure why) to the site's users to enter photographs reflecting given themes. I do not believe there are prizes or anything, but I browsed the list of themes open to entries and saw "Summer 2009". I had just started the blog and decided to send in the kayaker image I used. I went through the other images after the submission date had passed and voted on them (one is appropriately not permitted to vote on one's own entry), then glanced at the new themes and spied "Juxtaposition". "Ohhh, I have such an image..."
Well, life got busy (hah! "Got?") and the site did not enter my thoughts until an email popped onto my Blackberry's screen proclaiming that my image had placed 11th out of 185 in the "Juxtaposition" theme. I have to admit to feeling rather chuffed about it; not out of any real competitiveness, but at a time of going public of sorts with photography, such recognition by peers is pleasing.

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Approaching Rathlin Island, just off Northern Ireland's Antrim Coast, on the fast track ferry (read "refitted fishing boat") one is struck by the juxtaposition of the black 65 million-year old basalt flows overlaying the white chalk (limestone) cliffs. The erosion of these geological formations has resulted in truly "salt and pepper" beaches made of black and white cobbles. ...Oh, the thinks you can think* when encountering such thinkable things: black & white, yin & yang...but one thing stands out in my memory. The proximity to one another of each geological unit, yet the rigidity of their separateness; then contrasted with the infinite possibilities of pattern presented by individuals who left the order and became more rounded through travel. Rather reflects the human experience, no?

I know it's Sunday...just making up for a week of limited posts :-)

* With reverence to Dr. Theodore Seuss Guisel.

Time...again

Not much to comment about today, except that it has been a wonderful day. We arrived at the hotel at 03:30 this morning and got to bed at 04:06. A few hours sleep later it was up and at 'em at the Denver show. I love going the gem & mineral shows. Mostly because going affords me the opportunity to meet a large number of the people I call friends; people that also have a common passion in minerals, fossils, gems or "objets naturelles" in general (adding the French just seems to highlight the notion that a number of objects perhaps more commonly deemed as items of only "natural science interest", especially minerals, are collected by more than a few purely as natural works of art).

Being show time, that brings up the theme of time again. There tends to be a palpable lack of it compared to what one usually requires in order to get "things" done, so my postings may deviate from the daily...but they will be in my thoughts :-)

More tonight from Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park...

Flow

I need to reread Mihaly Csikczentmihalyi's book "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" but my recollection is that one of the author's basic premises is that happy people do what they love. He describes flow as "a state of consciousness so focused that it amounts to absolute absorption in an activity." The result is "optimal experience", which Csikczentmihalyi asserts is a key element in sustained happiness. People tend to allow themselves to be engrossed in what they are doing when it is something they do for its own sake; when they are doing what they would want to do if they could be doing anything. For most, that is something other than what they do for a living; hence the plethora of job-related jokes intended to make those that share these moments of "humor" believe they have found a ray of respite in an otherwise dreary environment. I believe the author's contention is right on the mark and reflected in the expressions or "nuggets of wisdom" all-too-rarely shared or passed over with the briefest of nods when read on the header of one's daytimer (non-pda versions). "Do what you love, the money will follow"...also the name of a book I believe, but serves as a good example. The simple truth is that people will naturally do their best at doing what they really love to do to keep themselves occupied. I suppose one should add the caveat that sitting on the couch watching television is questionable in terms of an "occupation"; I think what we are talking about is some sort of productivity. Optimal experience also has something to do with achievement.

Today's image also has something to do with flow...a fair bit, actually. The green crystals on this specimen are fluorite, which gets its name from the Latin fluere, "to flow", in allusion to this mineral's use as a flux. Chemically, this mineral is calcium fluoride, the latter meaning that this compound has the element fluorine in it. "Fluorine" and, by extension, "fluoride" are in turn derived from the name of this mineral, as is the word "fluorescence". Materials that produce visible light when excited by ultraviolet radiation are said to fluoresce and this property was first discovered in fluorite crystals.
Oddly---or perhaps not---flowstone is not related at all to fluorite but rather to the rocks seen in last Friday's image...but that is another story entirely...and there aren't any light bulbs named after it.

Time in the World

Geology is the only discipline I know that gives one the kind of sense of time that really helps put the world and what is happening in it in the most real perspective. I often say I like to look at what is going on as though I was standing on Mars. It makes so many things here seem very small...which they are. The only constant in the world is change. One of my favorite lines in Desiderata advises us to accept that the universe is unfolding as it should. Studying geology has given me a greater appreciation of that line. Not that we shouldn't look out for our environment, after all it is our environment and we are adapted to live in it. If we change it too much, we might just not be able to survive in it. I have no fear that the planet is in danger, but I give us humans lesser odds. Then again, why should we be different from any other organism that has ever existed, exists today or will exist? But I digress.
My real thought behind this was something that struck me when I visited Mammoth Hot Springs again this summer. Yes, geologists have an insight into the mechanisms of the Earth but also an appreciation for how slowly, compared to our lives, they move. There are obvious exceptions...say volcanic eruptions, for example. Nonetheless, I was amazed at how much a place as "timeless" as these hot springs had changed since I was here in 2003! New pools were flourishing; others dried up. It made the whole hot spring system seem more alive to me.

Photographically speaking, this image became another small adventure that began with the thought "Man, I wish I had a wide angle lens". So, I shot several images to cover the range that "I wished I could" and stitched them together...nothing particularly new as I had used the technique in CorelDraw for producing more interesting backgrounds for exhibits, but this time it seemed fresh because there existed a different purpose. I love finding alternative solutions to doing something conventionally. I don't know why...it just pleases me.

Up and Down

This image was taken minutes after yesterday's. I had done what I felt I needed to. I had looked up at the huge antennae, up at the sky they were attempting to penetrate and wondered many up thoughts. As I started back to the vehicle, I was given a not so gentle reminder about something...the other direction. I almost came a cropper when I stepped on the frost-covered railroad ties. Aside from being reminded of the health-related aspects of watching where one is going, it also struck me that perhaps these ties were making their presence known for another reason. I cannot remember when I first heard or thought of this but there is often a benefit in looking the other direction when all attention is focused in another. A brief scan at the least; one never knows what one might be missing. It is part of being more aware of one's surroundings.
Had I glanced down, when the obvious stars (again, pardon the pun) of the show commanded looking up, I might have had the opportunity to photograph an intricate and interesting pattern without a streaky footprint across it. After looking around I found this tie and the design it had as a result of the intense weathering. The frost gives it a strange, almost translucent quality. The juxtaposition of the ballast, tie and frost was also a cool twist on the rock, wood and water (albeit frozen) theme from what I usually think of when contemplating these three elements in a landscape image...I'm down with it.
Sorry ;-)

Perspectives of One Fine Morning at the VLA.

Day two and still at it :-)

The VLA (Very Large Array) near Socorro, New Mexico (closer, actually, to the town of Magdalena, but few other than mineral collectors would know where that is) is one of---if not the---Earth's largest radio telescopes for making observations in deep space. It has been popularized to quite an extent in literature and film, perhaps most notably (recently) in the movie "Contact" starring Jodie Foster, and has a bit of a cult following, if you will. In fact, I know someone who officially changed his surname to "Socorro" in honor of this installation. "Normal" people might consider this as appropriate as he does, but for perhaps different reasons...the same reason actually, but there is, as there always is, a matter of perspective. Glass half full, half empty..."Thou Shalt Not Steal", but Robin Hood's OK by us...that sort of thing.

Perspective is also something I like playing with in photography. I was one of those people that smiled and nodded then the class was instructed to see the room from the position of standing on one's desk in Dead Poet's Society. The first kiss of the sun on this landscape is subtly evident once one's eyes are bored with the image's main focus and wander down the railroad track.

We spent Thanksgiving in Magdalena and were on our way home to California when the sun was threatening to pop up over the horizon as we neared the VLA. Sensing the imminent PO (photographic opportunity), I encouraged my wife to develop a lead foot for the accelerator, then at the crudely calculated distance away from the target zone, the brake pedal. I hopped out and ran for the fence...no time to mess with digging the tripod out...and nearly did a classic freeze your facial skin on the frosty metal as I propped the camera to get what I wanted. f16 required a 3rd of second...hence the less than razor sharp focus on the antenna and immediate surroundings. I was nonetheless pleased with what I could see at the time on the D-70's viewing screen, because the technical aspects often take second place to "being there". When I am truly "doing photography" I am not "taking pictures", I am using the camera to fully engage myself to what I am seeing. Much as donning headphones and closing one's eyes allows one to much better listen to---rather than just hear---the music, a camera (pardon the pun) focuses one's attention on what one can see through it. In manipulating the camera, I often achieve, at least in part, in recording not just what I see, but how I see it. I cannot drive by or stand in front of this facility without contemplating the enormity and distances of the universe. Those elements are, at least for me, captured in this image and I am reminded of those thoughts when I view this photograph.