Road trips?! Yeah, let's hear it for 'road trips'!!

But first, the usual 'whatever catches my eye' file:

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Don't throw those old film cameras in the trash just yet!

1923 Leica camera fetches 2.16 million euros at auction
A Leica camera prototype made in 1923 fetched 2.16 million euros ($2.79 million) at auction on Saturday, setting a new world record for a camera.

http://news.yahoo.com/1923-leica-camera-fetches-2-16-million-euros-185156596.html

At the bottom of this page is a link to this:

12 of the world's most bizarre cameras
So much more than a pinhole in a box — these cameras will blow your mind.

http://www.tecca.com/pictures/most-bizarre-cameras/

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Guinness recognizes surfer for riding 78-foot wave

OSKAR GARCIA, Associated Press
Posted:   05/11/2012 01:18:20 PM PDT
May 11, 2012 11:0 PM GMT

One helluva video!! Awesome!!

http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_20603027/guinness-recognizes-surfer-riding-78-foot-wave?source=rss

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Imagine an underwater world without whales, sharks, and dolphins, where jellyfish and algae rule. It's already happening, says marine biologist Callum Roberts in his new books...
‘The Ocean of Life’—And the Sorrow Beneath the Sea

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/05/13/the-ocean-of-life-and-the-sorrow-beneath-the-sea.html

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Life in the Sea Found Its Fate in a Paroxysm of Extinction

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/science/new-studies-of-permian-extinction-shed-light-on-the-great-dying.html?_r=1

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Why the Recent Sumatra Quake Was So Strange
http://news.yahoo.com/why-recent-sumatra-quake-strange-180805264.html
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Navy study: Sonar, blasts might hurt more sea life
http://news.yahoo.com/navy-study-sonar-blasts-might-hurt-more-sea-031144719.html

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Why Thoughts of Death May Be Good For You

Reminders of death can improve life, according to a review of research on how people respond to both the conscious and unconscious awareness of their own mortality.

http://news.yahoo.com/why-thoughts-death-may-good-222259031.html

I've had a lot of 'thoughts of death', being now 60 YO, with mounting medical issues.
It's not the 'being there'(dead) that scares me, it's the 'getting there' part that does.

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Nestled near Union Square, amidst the travelers, Chinatown gates, the high-rise hotels and department stores, is the Lomography Gallery Store, a place where you can purchase cameras with a wide array of personality, color, and odd lenses that use the standard 35mm film or the lesser-known 120 roll medium-format film.

http://thebolditalic.com/Joshuacobos/stories/1692-shooting-gallery
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Art Is Long; Copyrights Can Even Be Longer
By PATRICIA COHEN
Published: April 24, 2012

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/arts/design/artists-rights-society-vaga-and-intellectual-property.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

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Will Google own your files if you use Google Drive?
(Probably not......)

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-57421836-501465/will-google-own-your-files-if-you-use-google-drive/?tag=cbsnewsSectionContent.10

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.... on the other hand........ ( ha-ha!)
Here's Why Google and Facebook Might Completely Disappear in the Next 5 Years

"We think of Google  and Facebook as Web gorillas.  They’ll be around forever. Yet, with the rate that the tech world is moving these days, there are good reasons to think both might be gone completely in 5 – 8 years.  Not bankrupt gone, but MySpace gone.  And there’s some academic theory to back up that view, along with casual observations from recent history."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/04/30/heres-why-google-and-facebook-might-completely-disappear-in-the-next-5-years/

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The Death Of Facts In An Age Of 'Truthiness'

"According to columnist Rex Huppke, there was a recent death that you might have missed. It wasn't an actor, musician or famous politician, but facts.
In a piece for the Chicago Tribune, Huppke says facts – things we know to be true – are now dead."

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/29/151646558/if-a-fact-dies-in-the-forest-will-anyone-believe-it?ps=cprs

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Salton Sea: Is it drying up?
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/upshot/salton-sea-drying-215543216.html
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10 Correspondents, 10 Drives

The bureau chiefs and national correspondents of The New York Times work from offices in 14 cities across the country, and report from all 50 states.

They drive and they observe and they eat and they buy and they report. Then they drive again. These are some of their favorite stretches of road.
— SAM SIFTON, National Editor

http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/travel/correspondents-select-some-of-their-favorite-roads.html?src=dayp

A slideshow:
10 Views From the Road
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2012/05/20/travel/20ROAD.html?src=dayp#1
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Just Me and My RV

Andy Isaacson for The New York Times

I HAVE spent the night in a Walmart parking lot. I have driven through a national park with a trail of cars in my rearview mirror. I have learned how to dispose of my waste through a plastic hose, and I have filled my gas tank more times in one week than I thought was possible.
But this is to be expected when you’re driving a small studio apartment, or, as I began to call it, my “rig.” One man in a rural California border town even called it cute. He said it reminded him of a Doritos delivery truck.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/travel/in-a-rented-rv-roaming-western-roads.html#
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Now, on to the topic of this post, ROAD TRIPS!

I put off the promised 'handcoloring' post in favor of this one.
Road trips are the *greatest american pastime*, load up the car with 'whatever', and hit the road!
It's almost summer (vacation time)....!

Go somewhere, anywhere, that you haven't been before.
I love it, my dad was great at doing this, our family did it a lot, even though my mom argued with him constantly about "where the **** are we going?" and other useless and irrelevant questions. We got to somewhere, somehow, always more interesting than where we were yesterday.
Once we drove from our home in Maine to Canada, through various back roads. This was in the 1950's, no interstate hi-ways at all.
For a while, all the signs were in English.... then all of a sudden, they were all in french.
We had crossed the border into Canada, no customs, no nothing.
All of a sudden the road signs said things like "Voullez-vous Gitanes?"
('Gitanes' = a french cigarette that will have you hacking in no short order!)

The road trip mentality was embedded in me, a looong time ago.
Thanks Dad, 'I got it'. :-)

Now i go to many places out west...same state of mind/travel plan = wing it
Here's a few good links, hit the road, enjoy yourself!

188 road trips in the West

When i first visited this section, a year or so ago, it was '108 roadtrips...'
So i guess there's now another 80??! Good for us travelers!
http://www.latimes.com/travel/deals/la-tr-roadtrips-page,0,7114926.htmlstory


http://www.beachcalifornia.com/sitelist.html

http://parks.ca.gov/
Check 'em out before they close, due to ridiculous state budget problems in CA.

Take Highway (CA) 99 for a weirdly wonderful drive south
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/04/08/4394588/take-highway-99-for-a-weirdly.html

So what is my road trip advice?...

Well, there's a few ways to explore the world, photographically speaking:

#1 - You can totally wing it, and that's the approach i have taken, many times, more on that below...

#2 - There are however many places where taking a guided tour of some sort is definitely the way to go.
You might drive to get there, but at a certain point, cede to the locals - they know things much better than you do. A couple of examples?

http://www.backroadswest.com/

http://www.californiaoverland.com/

Another example, where you had better go w/ local guides:

I have been to Canyon de Chelly in Arizona....



If you go to the 'national park' what you get to do is drive around the canyon in one big circle, with a few turnouts/viewpoints. There seems to be just one 'viewpoint' that has a trail leading down to the White House ruins. That trail is fine, easily negotiable, for most of the way....UNTIL!... you get to a 40 ft long bit of trail that is all of 2 ft wide, crumbling rock, very uneven. It is carved into what is not exactly a cliff, but close to it. A false move, a stumble? you will tumble to, at best, very serious injury, or death.
I did it, but won't ever try the likes of that again. Next time? I'll take the Navajo tour, much safer.

Be Safe! Stay alive to make photos another day!

My rule of thumb is.... 'If the worst that can happen, happens... is the result survivable/tolerable?'
The answer to that question is... the answer to 'should i do this'?

Every few months there is a story in the media about a few people who end up dead, thanks to bad decisions, unpreparedness, etc.
Don't add yourself to this list of casualties. A couple of examples:

A couple & their 2 kids leave somewhere in Mid-Oregon in December, headed to Gold Beach, on the coast, for a motel reservation. They find a google map that indicates a road over the mountains... it is winter... the road is not marked, no white lines, no route signs... they continue on... it starts to snow... they continue on.. they get trapped by snow, the husband tries to walk overland to find rescue.
His wife and 3 kids are rescued... he dies, being lost,  from hypothermia. Sorry, but i have to call this STUPID!
Don't trust google when your better instincts should tell you 'NO!'.

Another example:
A couple from europe (i think Germany?) decide to take a dirt road in Joshua Tree Nat'l Park that leads to a very 'off the grid campsite'. They are not prepared for being stuck on this dirt road, not enough water, or food. They get stuck in the road - rather predictably - these roads are NOT for anyone who doesn't know what they're doing.
They are found dead a few days later.

There are other stories i have read, similar ones...
All have one thing in common: "stupid"!... and 'not prepared'. Enuf said.

Back to #1 - "Wing it".
Always be prepared for that odd unpredictable moment when a light goes off in your head, and says "i need to take an image, right here and now"! Do it! you'll be glad you did! That's what road trips are about.
Here's a couple of mine:

'Walkin' the line'
Taken somewhere in southern Utah, not too far from Page, AZ. I stopped to take a few pix of some weird rock formations by the side of the road... and then as i was walking back to my car i saw this - loooong shadows, including mine, all pointing to the rising moon. Purr-fect! How could i not shoot a pic of this?


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This one was a stroke of mad luck, for sure. I woke up in an AZ hotel room, did my usual wake-up routine, coffee and cigarettes and 'wake & bake', as they say, and started driving. Drove thru this very lonely deserted town... and as i drove thru, i saw this:


This one had me slamin' on the brakes, and stopping short, immediately.
I have done a number of montage images with just these few negs.
What a great discovery!

Hope the above whets your appetite, that's what I intended.
For a few more & larger images:

www.bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_2012/RoadTrips/index.html

Another abandoned motel

Here's the photoshop sketch of this post's print:


But first, the 'whatever catches my eye' file....

Why Noah Went to the Woods

Outside Magazine, May 2012
Monday, April 09, 2012

He was a proud Marine who survived three brutal tours in Iraq and had plans to redeploy with the national guard. But when 30-year-old Noah Pippin vanished inside Montana’s remote Bob Marshall Wilderness, he left behind a trail of haunting secrets—and a mystery that may never be solved.

http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/Why-Noah-Went-to-the-Woods.html

This is VERY long, but very well worth reading.

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John McAbery carves out a life on the Lost Coast

Amy Barnes
San Francisco Chronicle April 8, 2012 04:00 AM
Copyright San Francisco Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Since this is "material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed...."
all i can do is direct you to this page.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/04/08/HO5N1N8RAE.DTL

The Lost Coast is a chunk of land in No. California that juts out into the ocean & has escaped development of any kind.
The things this guy carves out... are awesome.......

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How Do You Come Up With Your Best Ideas?
By Jared Keller

Apr 10 2012, 8:20 AM ET 32
Inspiration is a tricky thing. It often strikes us when we least expect it, half-asleep, or in the shower, or both.

"The eureka moment, that invisible hand that pushes innovation forward, is elusive. An epiphany is a different way of solving problems than the problem solving we do every day," wrote Steve Blank in The Atlantic earlier this month. In an epiphany, you see the entire answer to a complex problem without realizing you were even consciously thinking about it."

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/how-do-you-come-up-with-your-best-ideas/255647

I always 'sleep on it'!

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Joy Harjo - http://www.joyharjo.com/Blog.htmlwww.joyharjo.com/Blog.html

A totally excellent blog!

"When we’re about to let our last breath go on this earth, will we be regretful about paperwork, emails or Facebook, or missing a sale at Kohl’s? What will we wish we had done? What words are we carrying that need to be said? What could we do to lift the burden of someone?

What has threaded through this time here is the song “Espoketis Omes Kerreskos”. I hear it and sing it constantly. I have been studying how our Mvskoke music is a root of jazz, blues and rock. To even state what has become a very obvious truth rocks the foundation of American music. Hugh Foley, one of our Oklahoma musicologists showed me how this song marks the trail of influence. It is a kind of song line that follows the Trail of Tears.  Take a listen to the Rolling Stones, “The Last Time” and you’ll here one direction the trail led. We were there at the birth of American music.

This morning I head out into the day. This could be the last time, we never know. So let’s act with the kind of awareness and treat everyone with kindness."

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Medical marijuana activists puzzle over intent of federal raid
April 2, 2012 |  2:24 pm

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/04/medical-marijuana-raids.html
I thought Obama was going to lighten up on this? I guess not... and we in CA are severely disappointed...!
It's just a plant! Legalize it!!!

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THE GREEN RUSH
'Master growers' cultivating a higher grade of marijuana
A new breed of connoisseur is producing pot that is potent, tastes smooth and has a pleasing aroma — the kind of product now expected by ever-more discriminating consumers who frequent medical cannabis dispensaries.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0325-marijuana-masters-20120325,0,3385996.story
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The concert w/ Buddy Guy, Jeff Beck, et al. - check it out, NICE!
http://www.pbs.org/inperformanceatthewhitehouse
'Dubya' wasn't nearly this cool!

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L.A. at Home
Design, Architecture, Gardens,
Southern California Living
A salvaged-wood revolution: Turning more fallen trees into furniture
Three men in neon-colored hard hats push the blade through a black acacia tree trunk, slicing it into three 1/2-inch-thick slabs and exposing stunning lines and swirls.

"That acacia's beautiful," said John Dominguez, the director of a 2-month-old partnership between Anaheim-based West Coast Arborists and Woodhill Firewood in Irvine, adding that the old-growth grain is something that "you'll never see" on the market today.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/home_blog/2012/03/salvaged-wood-furniture.html?track=udlatimesblogs
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Dead wolf photos stir tensions in West
ReutersBy Laura Zuckerman

"A person going by the name Matthew Brown posted the message, "Nice, one down and a BUNCH to go!" in response to a Facebook image of a single wolf choked to death in a snare."

http://news.yahoo.com/dead-wolf-photos-stir-tensions-west-005357205.html
Wolves are just trying to survive - our 'war' against them is... stupid. And if coyotes have taken up residence in Golden Gate Park?.... we ain't never gonna get rid of either.

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Opinion - New York Times
A Sontag Sampler - By SUSAN SONTAG - Published: March 31, 2012
Art Is Boring

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/opinion/sunday/a-sontag-sampler.html?_r=1

Dear Susan - i am not bored yet.

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10 Photographers You Should Ignore

By Wired.com Photo Department
March 29, 2012
Photo: Ansel Adams, 'Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico,' 1941.

http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2012/03/10-photographers-you-should-ignore
One comment:
The article isn't saying Eggleston should be written off or that Shore is boring. What is is saying is that photographers shouldn't try to copy them slavishly.
With this in mind the tongue in cheek implication is that we're better off forgetting about them whilst trying to develop our own style.

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http://lpvmagazine.com

LPV is an online and print magazine dedicated to contemporary documentary and fine art photography. Our objective is to provide a platform for photographers to showcase their work in interesting ways. In our essays, we explore the evolving nature of photography in the digital age and how social media and technology are creating new opportunities for photographers and publishers.
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http://port-magazine.com/2011/11/american-nomad-a-teaser

British writer Richard Grant takes to the roads to discover the tribes of neo-nomads in the deserts of America’s south-west

Beneath the American Dream and white picket fence clichés lies a nomadic culture of modern travelers, criss-crossing the plains, mountain ranges and deserts of the US. In a forthcoming documentary for the BBC, British writer Richard Grant takes to the roads to discover the tribes of neo-nomads in the deserts of America’s south-west – hitch-hikers, kids, preachers, rodeo riders and retirees – and expose the revolution of travelers from the earliest Spanish conquerors to the American Indians and cowboys.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-15856069

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Combat Camera
The year's best military photography.
MARCH 23, 2012

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/03/23/combat_camera
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Friday, Mar 23, 2012 5:00 PM PST
The truth about creativity
Jonah Lehrer talks about why brainstorming doesn't work and why artists need to cultivate grit
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/24/the_truth_about_creativity

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Both Coasts Watch Closely as San Francisco Faces Erosion

 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/science/earth/san-francisco-fights-erosion-as-coastal-cities-watch-closely.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1332621272-xZDCpJZUySA2tVyN7aFhtg#
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San Francisco Archipelago
March 20, 2012

March 20th, 2072 (AP), Northern California Association of City States:

With the surprising acceleration of sea level rise due to the melting of both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets over the past decade, the San Francisco canal system was officially abandoned this week. Additional ferry service has been announced between the new major islands of the San Franciscan Archipelago while the boring machines make progress under the Van Ness Passage and Richmond Pass for new transit tunnels.


http://burritojustice.com/2012/03/20/san-francisco-archipelago

You gotta like a site that has this tagline/motto "You can pry my burrito out of my cold, dead hand"

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The Sound of Solitude

We are all cocooned in noise, and can escape from one another's only when immersed in our own. What effect is the sound-culture having on our self-awareness and faculties of thought?

Brian Patrick Eha - Mar 21 2012, 8:06 AM ET

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/03/the-sound-of-solitude/254480
(This is why i like the desert - the peace, solitude, and absolute quiet... is overwhelming.)


Are you ready for some...?  no, not football, how about photomontage?


Here's the final darkroom print:

Motel sign?...somewhere along the Salton Sea.
Landscape?...Nevada.
Starry sky?...a sandwich - some clouds, and some 'stars' created by poking some holes in black paper, putting a light behind it, and shooting that thru a star cross filter.
The motel? Not open, not for a long time, though it's not obvious from just this sign alone.

The image i did? ...ain't 'priceless'... I hope it is intriguing.

(Have you noticed this is a parody of a credit card company ad? - i hope so.)

I really like the signage that many places have created over the years - it's garish, it screams at you, and that's the point. But many of these things have been left to decay over the years.
Here's one that now points to... nothing.

If you missed a previous post, there was a good link to motel architecture:

http://todayspictures.slate.com/20111212/
("In 1925, America’s first motel, the Motel Inn, opened in San Luis Obispo, Calif. Today we look at the ubiquitous motel architecture, from Niagara Falls to Las Vegas to the Gold Coast of Australia.")

One experience i like having is driving thru the desert after sunset....

..... to one's final destination, many miles away, and seeing a desert town from far, far away, as just a twinkling of lights. Beyond the light they cast is a vast space which you will pass thru quickly. The feeling of that distance, and the contrast to the anticipated warmth of the town lights is kinda like our human existence - here we are on this small planet which just happens to be the right distance from the sun, and just happens to have an atmosphere the supports life - our atmosphere is 21% oxygen - at 15% nothing would burn, at 24% everything would burn.
It's the cosmic equivalent of walking on a knife's edge.

So this 'motel' sign appears, planted in a harsh desert space, beckoning.
This image is simply about that feeling - seeing the way to a hospitable place in the middle of nowhere.

I've used this motel sign once before, many years ago:

But there's quite a difference between how the old image came about vs. the new one, which leads to a discussion about how one's work evolves over time.

I'll describe my changes on one condition, along the lines of "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" ...that is to say, do some similar introspection on your own work! - no, you don't have to show me anything! (You might also find some of this instructive if you are trying to do similar montage work.)

I moved to CA in '92, started collecting a whole new batch of negs, didn't want to use anything 'east coast', where i moved from, it just didn't fit in at all. So the pile of proof sheets i had to work with was not very deep...
Most of the time I'd start a print, do a few exposures, and then get kinda 'stuck' - as in 'what do i do now?'...
and i would find myself searching for something.. sometimes 'anything'... that finished an image off.
Which is why so many of them end being 'surreal'.

The process i used went something like this:

My favorite printing paper (Ilford RC matte) no longer exists. 'RC' was the important part. Loved that paper, it was good for hand-coloring, and..it dries in no time flat! I could do a test exposure of one element in the montage, dry it out in a minute, and tape it down in register (put the test scrap on the easel, turn on the exposure, move it around til it matches up, then tape it down/in place).
This was very VERY useful when doing assignment illustrations, ...and also many 'art' prints.... I could really see how the image was shaping up. If you haven't already clicked the link to 'darkroom' in the column to the right, check these pages out:

www.bobbennettphoto.net/DarkRm2/1.html
www.bobbennettphoto.net/DarkRm2/Rockydeal

Initially, as the pile of proof sheets became deeper, searching for complimentary negs got a bit easier. When the pile got even deeper, it was just toooo deep... i got lost!

I started to rely more and more on my 'inner eye', & gut instinct.
I definitely got much more 'gut instinct' in taking the negatives - and i started dreaming about images - i would sift thru my pile of sketches last thing before I went to sleep, and every once in a while, I'd wake up w/ a new image connection in my head. And that's how this one came about.
I went to Nevada in late 2008, shot many rocky severe landscapes, remembered the motel sign and put them in 'the crock pot of dreams', so to speak.

I've also started a new development process: I make scans or fast and dirty dig. pix of the contacts, take them into photoshop, make a sketch, of sorts, print that out.... and put it into the aforementioned 'crock pot of dreams'...and let my subconcious (sic?) mind run with that.

Darkroom-technically-wise, it's once again pretty straightforward, landscape at the bottom, motel sign in the middle, and a sky sandwiched w/ one of my 'star-scape' negs at the top.

This one is also an interesting challenge for handcoloring, I could play it (at least) two ways, I could make the sign appear to be lit by coloring all of the little lightbulbs in the arrow as 'on'.
I could also leave all the lights off, and add color to the 'stars' in the cloudy sky.
More on that in a future post.....

For larger images of all the above:

www.bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_2012/Motel

(Also included, some previous prints with an 'abandoned motel' theme.)