Soccer Lens Play

Here in Palm Springs, California, soccer is popular. I live right by a park--Dumuth Park--where there is a game going on all the time during the winter and when the weather's cooler many games are played during the summer. Noone's playing out there now cause it's 114 degrees.

This photo is lens play, one where you set your shutter speed higher, and while it is open, pump the lens up and down.

You might think, "Well, how do I set my shutter speed higher without getting an all white picture from it being open too long?"

Here's how to play "Lens Play"--

Set your camera to Av mode on a sunny day.
Turn the f-stop to its highest value (most of the time f/32--this will be listed as 32 within your LCD screen).
Shoot your subject while you pump your lens in and out.

The trick here is that you've used the Av mode (that means aperture priority) you're controling how wide your shutter opens. The camera will have to decide how long it stays open to get the right amount of light to give you a well-exposed image. When it opens just a little (high number in your f-stop choice), the shutter has to stay open longer to compensate for too small a hole to get enough light. Since in Av mode the camera has to calculate a shutter speed (you've chosen a f-stop value), it will have to set the shutter speed a little longer to make up for the small amount of light that comes through the hole for a well-exposed image.

How long does the shutter stay open. Well in the photo above it was open for 1/15th of a second.

Get out and enjoy your summer day and go and play Lens Play.

Russian Bear Pets

St. Petersburg, Russia is one hellava place to visit. The $300 or so, it costs to get into Russia (these prices are rising all the time because not everyone's loving America much these days. Do you hear that Dubua?) is well worth it. You can check out Russia online at where else but www.russia.com.

Caution--watch out for the cute bears...


A bear as a pet? We're all familiar of the sacred cow in India. Many, though, are not of pet Russian bears.

Well, here's one cute pouch. I wouldn't get too near it though, cause these cuties pack a power of a punch.

Questioned myself as to what happens to these cuties when they become big beasts.
I don't speak a word of Russian so I guess I'll never find out.

This photo was scanned from a negative, can you see the filmish quality?

"Great Ceaser's Ghost"

You just gotta love Perry White--a man's man.

Mid-Century Modern Woman

A couple of years ago a museum in New York City had an exhibition of Jackie's dresses. Can you guess which Jackie?

So like, I'm in the museum and I don't think you were supposed to take pictures. Then I thought what if moths got to the dresses and they got chewed up. That's when I pulled my camera out and started shooting to save the memory. I never have been so discreet in my life.

I didn't use a flash (who needs the attention not to mention who would want to harm the fabric), so only some of the images came out.

Unfortunatly I only had 200 ISO film in my camera (this must have been about five or six years ago cause I can't remember digital cameras being widely used.) In any case, if you want to review what's happened in a few short years you can find a brief history of digital photography online.

When I got back from The Big Apple, I had the images developed at the local camera store, then scanned the negatives into my computer.

When I was driving back from Los Angeles one evening (to Palm Springs), I opened the dresses folder, for some odd reason, I picked the most frumpy one from more than a dozen files to work with, figuring I could use it in a Photoshop project, you know one of those projects that you can do to pass the time on a road trip.

Tripping I was, or so I felt, as I dodged through the images on my-at-the-time computer, a Mac iBook. Soon, Bette Davis popped up. It was an headshot of her that I found on the Debbie Reynolds'Hollywood Hotel in Las Vegas (it's since been torn down, my condolences to Debbie).

Went to work, I did, carefully placing Ms. Davis' head on top of Ms. O's dress.
Above, I present to you, my faithful blogger, the essence of a middle-of-the-last-century woman.

Crazy Dance

Crazy Dance

Don't touch your partner
It will hurt
Those laws of virtue

Seemingly tall people
Who know all there is to
Tell us what to do
In the name of not keeping quiet
To whatever seems sacred
One Nation under the spirit
Of the Bible, steadfast and true

Walk hand in hand among only
English speaking Citizentry
God Bless their crazy dance
Swing forward to the Left
Step backward to the Right

Crazy Dance requires
only two ways of thinking
Dance Black
Dance White
And skip the Red White and Blue

The Are You Fat Blog Entry

Used a flash in the top photograph, even though it was daylight because the corner where this scale was was very dark.

On may way back from Albuqerque (I got back to Palm Springs in 10 hours), I found this fortune-telling scale with a chart of the appropriate weight for a corresponding height that was more then fifty years old.

Are you overweight according to those standards?

Here is a more current chart--

Here are some more blogs about being overweight (fat, the unPC term).

Big Fat Blog
Big Fat Deal
Logtar's Blog entry
ALAS (a blog) entry

Blog Entertainment Art Life

This is a photo. It is produced with a camera. This photo could be entertainment. Entertainment is something that amuses, pleases or detracts from reality. This photo entertains, or is entertainment because it's a part of life.

What part of your daily life does this photo remind you of? To me, this photo represents art. It is art because this photo involves you with the entertainment whose subject matter is solitude--maybe the art of solitude.

Way up high this photo is, maybe a photo that is a bit creepy. Maybe it's a photograph that changes your way of seeing, a form of entertainment. The gate is open in this photo, come on and explore the art of tags.

This post is an art and photography and technology experiment. I want to see if this photo gets me more hits. Supposedly, a post with a popular tag such as art, photography, entertainment and life will get me higher up when whatever-it-is that searches the blogs to decide who to put first starts rolling its wheels of technology.

Photography, art and photography, life, entertainment and technology in this post and with this photo has been a form of entertainment for my evening.

Travel to the Odd American Southwest

Nobody ever puts the Southwest in its proper place. Yes, in these parts there are oddities everywhere. I'm feeling like I fit in.

I traveled Route 66 in New Mexico to particapate in its 80th anniversary celebration. I sold digital photographs of mid-century modern signs, no, let me put that another way--I chatted with other afficanados of the Mother Road and didn't sell any of my signage photographs, but I went away with a couple of new friends.

There was a man, though, who, had many signage photographs that I was selling tattooed all over his body.

I traveled home and on the way dinosaurs appeared on the side of the highway, being passed up at 70 mph were snapped in a minutia of a second on my Canon Digital Rebel XT--one of many feats that made this trip worth it.

Oh and the tatooed man--I hope he's there tommorrow.

I forgot to bring my digital camera to the convention center.

route 66 framed prints

Photoshop Auto Levels Quandry

On my way to New Mexico, I passed the Amboy Salt Flats in the Southern California desert.

When I looked at the photo as-is, I liked it.
Then I did what I usually do--I tweaked the levels using Image>Adjustments>Auto Levels.

Here's both photographs. Which one do you think is more enticing and why?

(I sound like a teacher of photography now. That's because I am at BetterPhoto.com!)

Honey, I'm Home

This is a National Historic Site (well, not just this, but more than a dozen of them, all part of the WigWam motel).

I Take Credit Cards

Armed with my new credit cards, I've gone capitalist with my signage--I'm going to sell them at the Route 66 festival at the Old Town Hotel Albuquerque (I'll also be signing my book, "Digital Art Photography for Dummies," a publication you can pick up by clicking to your right where it says "Buy My Book.") My internal wares are debating what percentage of my proceeds will go to the preservation society.

Why?

Because at the present time, Route 66 looks as if it could be the road leaving Basara, Iraq.

So as I leave my abode in beautiful Palm Springs (I don't live in a gated community and I drive a hybrid) I'll have many of my works that I'm hopeful will be published in "The Book of Signs--The Twentieth Century" next year and that I hope will be bought up with a vengeance.

Here's some of 'em--Albuquerque--http://bookofsigns.blogspot.com/2006/02/sign-mania.html
Go 'head and copy and paste that URL into the top of your browser window and turn on...tune in to blasts of color and fun.

Where was this Taken?

What's the likey hood of a dragonfly landing on text elements as in this picture? (very, somewhat, not) Where would this happen? (Hint--you'd have to be able to read it).

Off To Get My Kicks...

On Route 66. I'm a goin' here.

For the latest new on the Mother Road go here.

I'm a sellin a lot of stuff--

My Book (signed copies).

My art work (Route 66 and beyond signage)

That's all for now, gotta get ready for the really big Route 66 show.

route 66 posters

Way Up High

Alrighty, then. Enough old cars. Let's move way up high for a shot.

Tip: If you're high up in a hotel room or sitting in the window seat of a jet (but not high on drugs), that would be a great photo op. Why do I think so?

I usually like the yellow light of the night lights in big cities, however with the above shot I lowered the temperture to nearly the minimum in Photoshop CS2 Raw format (that woud be 2100, 2000 is the lowest the temperature slider will go), so I got normal color in what was once a yellow-tinted photograph. Hooray for Raw as it converts temperature without getting noise (as you probably would have gotten if you did this in Photoshop)>

For more about this seemingly complicated format (it's really not) buy my book at amazon.com

Another Car, Another Question

Man. I play my bongos, listen to Odetta, and then I iron my hair in here, dig?
The leoperd skin pattern drove my mind to lines from Hairspray.

The car, another decoration from Uruguay (a country that reminds me of 60s America)
puts my brain in spin dry with the word O de Tt A

Who was she (yes, she's a human and not the Bible)?

On the Road Again the Second Time Around

Photographs of past trips allow you to take your trip all over again.

My last day in Colonia, Uruguay was a dissapointment, only because I knew I was leaving. Tranquility among cobblestone streets that lead up to views of the South Pacific Ocean left me in Neverland--pathos leading me to think, "I never want to leave here."

But indeed I did and along the way as I drove to Montevideo I saw more old cars.

Table for Two

Okay, so you can't eat inside here as it's a display to show you what's inside the restaurant.

Car Planter in Colonia, Uruguay

Colina is one beautiful spot right on the ocean in what seems is the middle of nowhere.

Along-the-Highway Car Museum

Isolated Uruguay is my favorite spot in South America. No where else in the world do people use old cars as staging areas--passanger compartments set up like a railroad dining car,giant planters with trees growing out of them and make-shift monuments created by former owners.

Here I start with scattered early twentieth and mid-century vehicles, highway centerpieces on a trip from Colonia to Montevideo. I'll post one each day till I get tired of them. car photos

You Say Pants, I say Dresses

All right digital art photography buffs. Digital Art Photography for Dummies, the book of photo art encourages you to comment about a news story with a photo. Take the picture yourself, or dig one up out of your family archives. Any old print picture (from a newspaper or magazine) that is scanned and tweaked for clarity in Photoshop is okay too.


Gee, this story has been seen before. America regresses back to another age...

Bobbie Spanbauer wasn't the first and as it now seems our regressive culture is repeating a two-generation old question--

Are girls and women free to wear whatever they want when they want? (In the picture above is my mom and some other daring girls about 70 years ago.)

Our culture should be ashamed that this nonsense has come up again.

If you don't know what I'm writing about read the story with the headline--

STUDENT BARS GRADUATE WHO REFUSED TO WEAR DRESS

And if you want more take a look at what people are saying about this on these blogs--

GenderYouth Network

MattHillNC.com

Bolivian Dinosaurs

Jurassic Park just may lie in the middle of Bolivia, high in the Andes.

At any rate, aside from the tracks preserved on land, there's a bit of celebration of sorts within Sucre, Bolivia where a huge dino greets you as you drive into the colonial capitol.

Incoming Fog at Santa Monica Beach

I'm not sure if I should have changed this to black-and-white (I used a Channel Mixture Layer).

Now my question for all of you meteorology buffs is--What kind of fog is this?
A: Radiation
B: Advection

Interactive Art

http://www.planetdan.net/pics/misc/georgie.htm
Thanks to this blog for this entertainment.

What group is this chick a member of?

A Carmen Miranda remake? Well maybe.

But this woman is an offshoot of a group formed in San Francisco in the early 80s.
The group members were the wedge issue of the 80s.

Jerry Falwell had many issues with these people.

Guess he's too old now to bother with his baiting and left his minsitry to political chicanery of the House. Saving the issue from missing the 2006 radar screen was dependable ole W.

Here's the latest on this intolerant waste-of-time issue:

MSNBC The Moderate Voice The Gideonse Bible Wonkette

Jurassic Tech isn't a Dinosaur

While you're in LA, check out this place, a truly odd trip into worlds that sometimes we see or know and sometimes not. Come study your memory and see the sights of the microscopic art and underworld discovered a century ago.

Off to LA

I'll grab the best of L.A. This pic was taken from the plane last week.

Hip Body Luggage

I'd define hip body luggage as--
*tattoos on people of any sex and on people born after 1970,
*earings on men,
*any earing on someplace other than the ear, and on any sex of a Westerner who has never been East,
*skirts on men who are not Scottish and playing bagpipes,

Can you think of other stuff that would be body luggage?
Can you think of a senior citizen actor who has a visible piece of body luggage in the latest remake of an old movie?
Tip: Photographing body luggage close up makes for an interesting shot.