Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

It is that time of year again--springtime at UCLA on the Festival of Books weekend.

There was Ray Bradbury. And Gore Vidal.
And me.

Only difference between them and me is they worked the inside (as in headliner speaker and signer)and I worked the outside (guerrilla marketer).

Arianna Huffington interviewed Vidal in one very crowded auditorium. The two went at it head-to-head about everything from details of Abe Lincoln's handling of the Civil War to George W. Bush's handling of the war in Iraq.

And along the politically-charged road lay the minefields of war and power to an audience of heads nodding side-to-side and up-and-down.

Here's what one or the other (agreeing and agreeing to disagree) came up with (my assessment anyway).

1. Pull out of Iraq now.
2. Hilary's smart, but please don't let her run.
3. Katrina's invasion of New Orleans is far from over.
4. Democrats have no spine (most, but not all of them).
5. Isolationism could spell success for Democrats in the Red states if it concerns invading foreign lands.

There was lots more, too, that I guess you'll have to find out from another blog.

Now as for me, A couple of pals and I ran around, wearing Digital Art Photography for Dummies t-shirts and passing out fliers spurring onlookers to the surprise of a Dummies author on the loose.

Let the Good Stuff Survive

Geeze, already, we go on and on in this country, getting hostile about the national anthem and gay marriage and a wide variety of social issues that never get solved and never will be, because these issues will alway swing back and forth with whoever's in the White House.

In the mean time we let our infrastructure fail (New Orleans dikes), let our traffic congest (everywhere) and hog much of the world's oil.

What do we get for all this...all the cool stuff is attacked by wrecking ball.

Guess Who, What and Where

It's time for another guess round.

Look at the picture above...

Where is this?

What is it?

Who painted once over a century ago?

Okay one more hint, his/her name is a near-rhyme with "ago"...

Hidden Turquoise

Taken at 200 mm zoom.

Mountain Textures

When you take a photograph of a flower, you don't think much about texture, because color is the first thing you notice.

And the first thing that comes up from your (collective) unconscious mind is not to touch it because it's fragile, yet beautiful, facts that necessitate you're leaving it alone.

Often photographers ignore the muted browns, rough and wild, of the bark of the tree, the chopped down pine that reveals a tree's history--the exposed rings inside the open trunk--and anything dead to show life is not eternal.

Tip: Don't forget the browns.

President Protest

Protests definitely vary from place to place. I can remember in San Franciso that the city provided port-a-potties as the participants can come and go as they please.

Not so in tony Palm Desert--only lots of cops and a protest confined to only one spot with only one road for the participants to get there, as all the rest were blocked so as few protesters as possible could protest (anyone not protesting is allowed to pass).

Palm Desert Sculpture

Different angle, different tone.

Bush Goes Where the Money Is

Why would our fair president come to the desert of California?

Money, what else. Where I live--the Coachella Valley (almost a dozen desert cities one next to the other from Palm Springs to Indio)--has some of the richest people in the country, many of whom will pay $26,000 a ticket to see "W," the kind man to multi-national companies and religous zealots.

His twang comes only for those in the red states, here in California, he'll be speaking in a near-academic standard dialect.

Welcome, President Bush, Hope ya get lots of dough!

Ankor Added Up

Love this image? It's part of some ruins in Cambodia. I've posted entries about them--the ruins of Ankor Wa--quite a bit. Well, if you're considering going this summer, you should.

Check out these posts.

Ankor Hallway

Other Asian Temples

Defining Digital Art Photography

This is digital art, not digital art photography.

Okie dokie, everyone put on some black so we can talk about art. Like, I wrote this book with the words "digital art photography" as part of the title.I remember after I wrote the table of contents, my editor and I discussing exactly what this is.

We agreed on this:

1. The image has to be in some sort of digital platform at some point from the point of creation to final product (a movie still, a print, an Internet image). This means that a scanned photo is a work of digital art photography.

2. Some part of the final digital art photography work has to have some part of a photograph (or many photographs) embedded into it. A work created in a software platform that contains no photograph is digital art, not digital art photography.

Wait, don't take off your black outfit (it can be imaginary).

Comment on this first.

Santa Barbara Silhouette

What'd you get when you shoot into the sunset? A silhouette, of course. All the light scattered in the good 'ole California haze, makes for a color craze.

This photo is from Santa Barbara. I gave a demonstration at the Borders there about art photography and caught this on my way out of town.

Both Sides Now

Ahh, there's no place like the San Gorgonio pass. This pass is home to some of the most interesting color reflections in California. It's a very windy place too. The pass takes you out of the Coachella Valley (Palm Springs) and into the Los Angeles area.

There's a giant wind farm on the Coachella Valley side, a place where, it seems, a windmill power generator is erected every day.

About Clouds and Color

Clouds, you know, are white. That's because sunlight cannot penetrate far into them before it is reflected out.

When large droplets form within a cloud, light can make its way well into it and sometimes through it. Ah, ha...that means no reflection occurs. The light scatters into different wavelengths of the visible spectrum.

Within the wispy clouds above the wavelenths are separted and color forms.

Red and yellow are long rays within the visible spectrum of light. Blue and green are short rays.

The short rays scatter more and the long rays are less.

Congratulations, you've looked at clouds from Both Sides Now!

Candlelight before Easter

Paris. 1600 ISO inside Notre Dam.

Real People Art Photos

Deep inside my laptop are images of the elderly. The beauty of the old is often overlooked. Gray hair take to the lens and your sensor like diamonds.

A worn face is filled with information--information of a lifetime.

What the elderly wear is the most overlooked aspect of the fashion industry. Wide open doors for fascinating photos.

Contrast

My latest sign picture is unique. It's the first time I've found an uncluttered background that is brown--a mountainside.

It's only been two months since I submitted a revision of my proposal for a The Book of Signs--The Twentieth Century." I'm told by my agent that it is an expensive book to produce.

It seems like a year.

Check out some of the signs.

Burma through Yellow Glass

Okay, so I'm not the kind of person who's gonna walk around with tons of equipment for a day's photography. First, I don't want to come off in poor countries as some rich American, and second my camera case is too big to lug around when I'm going on a boat (in Burma, you're seems like you're always on a boat).

On the other hand, I like to use all the equipment that I do have, including color filters. So I make each day of my travels a day when I use specific lenses and/or filters all day long. On the day I took this photo, I declared that it was yellow day (that is, I used a yellow filter all day long).

Here's the photo. Plese notice the texture of the landscape, and the items that break up the texture making for an interesting shot that viewers will linger, making their stare longer than a glance.

Happy Birthday Cheeta

The birthday party is sure to be a hoot. I'm sure they'll play Monkey in the Middle.

MONKEY IN THE MIDDLE

The game is played with a ball and three players. Two of the players throw the ball back and forth while the third player, or the "monkey in the middle," tries to catch it. If the monkey in the middle succeeds, that player trades places with the player who threw the ball last.

Happy 74th birthday Cheeta!

Visit with Cheeta in the fabulous trendy Palm Springs where not only the senior humans retire, but the monkeys do too.

Woman Art Master

She painted flowers. Alfred Stieglitz offered her financial support so she could pursue her work. She died at 98. The above photograph is an imitation of her work, a calalily close-up.

Who was she?

The photo was taken in the Huntington Gardens near Pasadena, CA yesterday on my jaunt to the big city.

What's Happened to Japan?

Young women dressed as little girls is what's happening. Sure, you see an occasional kimono, but you're far more likely to catch the girls in their puffy pinks and/or black leather.

If you put these people in the midwest, say Topeka, I think people would faint.

As Joan Rivers would say "Oh, grow up!"

My BetterPhoto.com Class

Hi Visitors!

I'm teaching a class at BetterPhoto.com, a great resource for all levels of photographers (if you haven't seen this site, it's great and it's here).

We've only just begun, so if you're itching to learn about this art photography stuff, you can sign up for my current class now, or you can register for the May section within the next month.

Check it out here.

Texture and Text and Art Photography and Immigration

r o u g h - - c o a r s e - - s c r a t c h y - -

j a g g e d - - j a r r i n g - - b a r b a r i c - -

i m m i g r a t e - - a l i e n - - c r u d e - -

s e v e r e - - M e x i c o - - t e r r o r - -

b r u t a l - - c a t a s t r o p h e - - f e a r - -

U S H o u s e o f R e p r e s e n t a t i v e s

New Libraries and Lens Distortion

Greetings from stunning Rancho Mirage, California, a place where all the talk is about the new library. Didn't have my wide angle on me, only my 28-300 mm lens. Caught a couple of nice photos anyway...There's lens distortion that in photographic terms is referred to as barrel distortion. Do you see it? You can get special lenses to correct this or you can use the skew option in Photoshop CS2 as described in my book.

Flowers and Flash

Flash and flowers go together at dusk like birds in the spring. Check this one out, an azela from my last weekend's hiking trip.

Western Wildflowers

It's spring in the California desert, a time to celebrate the wildflowers in bloom.

Although it hasn't been the greatest year for abundant displays of color, there are quite a few shows to be had if you zoom into the areas of spotty blooms.

Here's a few from my hike yesterday in the Anza Borrego area of Southern California, just east of San Diego.

Angkor Hallway

The ruins of Ankor Wat are near Siam Reap, a booming town in Cambodia. This is a trip that I would recommend for those who want a change of pace from, say, traveling to Europe. Ankor Wat is a beautiful place best seen by rending a bicycle, if you're so inclined. You can ride from temple to temple. The accommadations are first class, and the food is wonderful. Don't forget to stop at Raffles one evening to catch the dancers.