Sideways Glance at a Forest Fire

One of the bitter sweet aspects of a forest fire is the colorfull sunsets as the sun shines through the smoke clouds. So I think that this makes sense to post in color. This smoke cloud with the evening sun trying to get through is from the the Santiago fire, due to the arsonist had started this fire in Santiago Canyon. The wind has shifted and although I was on the I-15 heading North, the forest fire is burning on on the other side of the mountain in Orange County. 

This is the fire that I can see burning from the end of my street, so at one point it may have been as close as 10 miles away. When the Santa Ana winds are blowing at 50 mph, that 10 miles can be covered by a fire in less than an one hour.

I am getting very tired of the smell of smoke.

Best regards, Doug

Still distracted

With the continuing wild fires here in Southern California, I am still distracted from creating or working on my photography projects.  I did stop briefly yesterday to re-shoot the “resort” again, which I think will turn out a little better. No smokey sky or 40 mph winds will in itself be an improvement.

But due to the extended commute and other issues (like seeing the hills by our home ringed with a line of fire), I am not really “focused” on photographic things. I did not even feel like working on any of the projects this morning either with the looming smoke “clouds”.  If I was into making really depressing images (ha, I bet some of you thought I already had!), then this would be a good time for it.  But this does not do me any good.  The good news is that there is a coastal on-shore & high humidity change in the weather for this afternoon, which we need.

Perhaps get back in to my rythum tomorrow as the conditions change.

Best regards, Doug

Photo of the Day: Health Resort

This “Health Resort” typlified today; fire storms and smoke clouds, Freeway closures and people needing to flee their homes, some of which have burned to the ground, and Santa Ana winds with gusts up to 60 mph, which in the Inland Empire meant a dust storm. And I just heard that about 500 homes burned in San Diego. What a day!

I may need to re-photograph this site under more positive conditions….

Best regards, Doug

Not a normal day

For those not aware, for the last couple of days we are plagued with a series of fires in Southern California in conjunction with some strong wind (sand) stormes that has made life miserable.  We are doing okay, but my commute is now an extra hour each way and not the best time for taking photographs.

Best regards, Doug

Transitional Seam update

Frontage Road Home  (from the series: Transitional Seam)

In preparation for my trip to Europe and Asia starting next week, I am anticipating spending some time on my artistic statements for the various series that I have been working on recently.  For what I read, it is recommended that writing the artistic statement is where you should start your series from. That just not seem to work for me.  I have a pretty good idea of what I want to accomplish with a series, its just a lot harder for me to get it written down.

So as I was saying, while getting ready for this trip is when I found out that I kinda shot myself in the foot.  While rechecking my web site this morning, I just realized that I never provided the linkage between my project page to the actual project.  So I have been providing links back to my web page that led to no-where. What a goof!

Okay, that link is now fixed, so you can find a couple of my earlier images as this series has started to unfold.  I also realize that my emphsis seems to be getting images on my blog and not updating my web site.  I guess I look at my web site being much more static and that I will eventually get it updated.  So with that in mind, I also added this image, Frontage Road Home, to my web site for this series.

I had published this image on this blog earlier in the year.  But since then I have modified the title, from House to Home, corrected the right side dip and modified the tonal range to be more in line with what is really there and what I experienced.  The title change is what interests me most, the other two image adjustments are not as important.

While working on the series, A Sideways Glance, during which I initially made this image.  My feelings and preception were a lot more disconnected with who ever is living here, thus my initial title using House. The word House does not make a personal connection with those who live here and call this house their home.  At 75 mph, this was a house, stopping in front of it and really looking and seeing how they live, now I see a home. 

As I work on my iteration of that series, I have slowed down, actually stopped and now making a careful connection with those who are living in this area.  My external and internal perspective has changed, part of the reason that I know that this is a new series, versus a continuation of the earlier series.

Best regards, Doug

My Hand Made Book – paring images

This morning I printed my latest pairing of images for my hand made book, that of the Heart Broken Fence and Halloween Costume, both of which I photographed earlier this week and recently posted images of. I am now finding myself making some more image adjustment tweaks to help ensure the continuity of the pairing.  For those reading this book, they may not know that these two images were taken 150 feet apart and within minutes of each other. But I do.

When I worked on both of these images in PSC3, I processed them individually as seperate stand along Singular Images.  Which if that was how they would be considered, would be okay, even if grouped with the other images in the series, such  as in a gallery exhibit.  But paired opposite each other, I found that they helped me see some tonal details that I had initially overlooked with both of them.  So both of these images had another round of tweaks, but as a result, I like both of them even more as Singular Images as well as being paired together. 

Very interesting process;- )

Best regards, Doug

Heart Broken Fence

Heart Broken Fence  (from the series: Bad Trip – Sad Trip)

This is the other Victorville road side tribute memorial that is located about 150 feet from the Halloween Costume image I made earlier this week.   The other memorial you can see from the I-15 freeway, but this one is not really evident until I was on the frontage road.  They are so close to each other, but it does not seem that they are related in any way.

I had written about Objectivity earlier this month and for me, this image is ahother case in point. I made a number of images of the heart shaped memorial and then made some close up images of the tribute of flowers that are attached to the broken fence.  But standing back and pausing to seeing this all together, I also found myself bringing in the Yacca plant into the composition on the left, as a rather modern and abstract figurative cross. It just seemed right, whether this memorial is for some one who is a Christian or not. Thats my subjectivity coming into the image.

This and the Halloween Costume images are now tentatively going to be paired together in my book. Now to figure where, as I have already decided which two other images are coming out.

Best regards, Doug

Photographing Techniques

Road to New Custom Home Lots  (From the series Transistional Seam)

A comment from Anita Jesse earlier today about my photographic technique made me realize that I should share some information. She had asked a simple question; where did I park (my car) to take these pictures? For my current two series in progress, I have two basicly different techniques for the image capture.

For the series A Sideways Glance, I have been making the exposure mostly from a moving car out the open window.  Having driven this section of the I-15 freeway a number of times, I already know the composition that I want to capture. Then it is a matter of which lane do I need to be on the freeway to achieve my composition (usually a series of images from the near lane and out until I have the right composition), pacing the trucks to have a “free” unobstructed photograph, and remembering to keep the camera level during the exposure, all the while keeping my eyes on the road (except for that quick glance). 

I’ve had to make repeated exposures over a number of weeks to get all of these lined up to achieve what I want to suggest.  BUT, I will also stop on the side of the freeway if there is a diffictult composition and I can not make it any other way.  I always check out the traffic patterns and where I feel I need to park to make the stop before hand.  The freeways in Southern CA are dangerous, especially when they are already posted at 70 mph to begin with.  Sometimes I have decided it is not the worth the risk and I will do the best I can with a drive-by.

As to the series Transitional Seam that I am actively photographing now, I can plan a head and make my decisions as to where to park, as I usually need to get out and make my exposure.  When some one decides to let their pit bulls run freely around, I will position the car to make the exposure from the open window.  The one thing about the areas where I am working with the homes and lots on the dirt roads, the pace is easy, the understanding is good, the folks are nice and a wave will do, and the traffic is either very slow or not at all.  When you drive an SUV, you can usually create a parking spot in a flat open area on the side of the road.  But if there is not a good spot to park, it will require finding a safe parking spot, lock the car and take a hike up the road, etc to where I want to photograh.

For the image in the post below, the Empty Office, this was on a side road off a tiny bit larger road and I did find a wide place on the the side of the larger road adjacent to this location.  During the entire time that I was working on this composition, only one car went by.  For today’s post, I again was parked on a little wider area of this access road and I had seen one car a little earlier when I was initially driving through this area.  My biggest problem for these images is the dust stirred up from the roads.

As always my biggest concern is for the safety of myself and others, otherwise it is a composition that has been seen for just my eyes only.

Bset regards, Doug

Photo of the Day: Empty Office

Book project on hiatus

With the pending three week trip that will take me to Germany and then China, I do not have time at the moment to work on my self made book.  Thus my book making project is on hiatus until the end of November when I can resume this project again.  This book will not be completed or available for the holidays!

 I hope that I can print a few more pages of the dummy book before I leave, but with a friends wedding a week from Saturday and my son flying down from Portland next Tuesday, I don’t see how I am going to work in the needed time.

But so far, I have a two side rag paper that I like (Moab Natural, 190 gm), a nice print & book size that will be a pleasure to hold and read. I have a pretty good image sequence that stills gets some fine tuning, but coming nicely together, with a pace and rythum that should flow nicely.

The images are all pretty finely crafted and look really nice.  But of course, like the past week, I still find myself being drawn into new memorials and monuments that need to be photographed. And then inserted into the book, but the page count is pretty fixed, so the stronger images will survive. Thus two images that I had earlier chosen are now going to be eliminated shortly in favor of the two images I made this week.  But that image decision will also have to wait until the end of next month.

I am liking this book project within the series project.

Best regards, Doug