Showing posts with label Ansel Adams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ansel Adams. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Earth Day Turns 50 and the Cuyahoga River Is Not Even On Fire!

That little photo from the crew of Apollo 17 that is called the "Blue Marble" was a shocker for the humans down below (it could also be up above) on that blue marble. It still is, for that matter. But somehow, we have made some progress. Everyone is talking about seeing things that have not been visible in years and yet, the scientist are telling us, it's not those kinds of emissions that is turning the blue marble warmer and warmer. Now, that's the big shocker! My mother would always tell us boys that you need to be looking in the opposite direction when you see astonishing headlines. She was more right than she was wrong.

It has come out now (Mother, are you looking down on us for this?) that the bigger wealth guys of Silicon Valley are in multi-million dollar luxury bunkers 11-feet below grown in New Zealand. Some made it there just in time before New Zealand closed its borders to foreigners (fresh off their private jet). As it turns out further, it appears that Bill Gates has been stashing food in his basement for a pandemic for years. Now, somehow, this all must be some kind of new "insider trading" (of information, that is). It seems kind of weird, but applying mom's old adage, diversion technique tactics are still at play here. Give $100 million to help the pandemic and stash another 20 thou of green beans and corn and fruit cocktail, peaches and pears. The old boys in Silicon Valley were dealing in real estate before the contractor with a privacy seal on his list of names that had been ordering up these bunkers. The numbers were a bit higher than what you can count on both hands (and feet). There also appeared to be a rather long waiting list,too.


Here, it's the time to also mention again ( been doing this quite a bit lately) what the TxDot guy said to me while we talked on the I-635 project job site  when he said, "The People in Dallas are asleep at the wheel".) The point being:it isn't just Dallas, it's the whole dang country. The rest of the world has been running up to speed for years it seems.



In the 1969 edition of the Cuyahoga River burn, I'm old enough to remember that. At the time it was rather funny. The fires have been put out where it burned. The Flats have turned into brewing companies attached to restaurants and the mouth of the river still meets Lake Erie is free of debit and oil without a fire. The steel mills have long gone away, especially J&L then Bethlehem. It was the time when the Mini--Mills were appearing. They produced only one product and ran the mill on  270 workers vs, U.S. Steel or the other two big integrated mills that produced many products and many sizes of those products, employed 2,000 workers or more and ran around the clock on three full shifts. Times have certainly changed but human greed continues in our wealthy brothers and sisters.

So,  as we celebrate the 50th anniversary/birthday of Earth Day, April 22, 1970-2020 around the world, Life is sweet, but it's not going to be unless we all awake and start pitching in to save the world that has a shelf life of about another 4 Billion years for us to find out how we can take a world population with us to that exoplanet don't you see.

Ansel Adams and my mother would have been good friends because he and John Muir would have enjoyed her biscuits around those camp fires. I miss her biscuits.
This 747-200 (heavily modified, I might add.)

Sunday, August 12, 2018

Two Months of Rain in 3 Days

 Yesterday, for the first time in sometime, I was able to be out with the big camera for a bit and regardless of where I was, it rained enough to have the camera stay on the front seat of the car. I do have some rain gear to protect the camera from rain but somehow, it's just not me. Freelance with a rain coat on the camera doesn't sound like the tone of just saying freelance and ending it there. The weight of the extra words just does not sing like the lesser.

Today is also heavy with a 60 percent chance of rain. The one thing that I did notice was that the grasses have turned that lust green of Springtime again. However, there are plenty signs of fall showing up as I wrote about a couple of weeks back. The weathermen, as well as the models where they get their information, are forecasting already another cold front due to move in next week. It will keep the temps back down in the below normal category again.This coming Friday, the 17th, is when our average high temps drop a degree and then drop off more rapidly during the next 45 days. It is a welcomed relief. It has been a long hot summer this year, for sure.

Never-the-less, photography is about timing. Sometimes, the timing is good and sometimes it just is an empty box. Ansel Adams said that a being a good photographer is about where you stand. He has a point there and if you are not standing where the timing is right, then you are in the wrong place. I've had good days. I've have had bad. Over the course of the year, looking back, it boils down to about 1-3 percent of all shots are when the timing is right. There are those that will tell you that I'm wrong. On the flip side of that coin, I can say that they are wrong, too. It isn't about who is right or wrong. It's not about the flip side of the coin. It's about 1-3 percent of all shots are keepers. Technique can only do certain things. Wind can mess up a shot in a hot second. Just like it can bring down a jet liner at DFW, and did, before there was wind shear equipment. It's all relative in some manner.

With this writing, there are now over 7K images on line today under the Dallaspaparazzo tag. Those are with agents from coast to coast, the UK and Germany. And, their agents span markets from China to Australia to Eastern Slavic nations (Russia, Belarus and Ukraine), Western (Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia) and Southern (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia and Bulgaria). 

With that said, helping these images find a useful place in someones blog, their web page, their newsletters or advertising piece or just an image you find something special about that is dear to your heart has become a growing challenge with so many cameras out there today. Yet, there are things that over the years have become embedded in my subject matter that is selling more and more each year. 

If, from a business standpoint every cost factor was weighed in, I am loosing money. But how much weight do you place on a hobby vs. a business. From a business standpoint, the IRS says that I must count it as a business. From a personal standpoint, I'm officially retired and consider it a hobby. But, the bottom line is it cost money to either.  Just to have a camera cleaned professionally today cost $50.00. Any adjustments made are extra. So, take the came in for a cleaning and you can walk out of the camera store with a bill of $150.00 on a good day. 

I have stayed away from advertising. I really don't want to get into that game at this late stage in life. Or, with the haters on social media out there doing their destructive thing to society as a whole. There is no place in my life for those things, today. Absolutely none.

The passion that I have for photography in an urban setting is tops. I love this city, I love the momentum it generates, and I love to see a city that is alive culturally, and still keep nature and  green spaces running like veins throughout itself. Already, looking back at a lot of my shots, those things do not exist today. They are gone, destroyed, lost, decayed, and a lots have been reduced to sawdust or firewood.

Yet, I have seen a couple of species of Raptors excel in their magnificence. I have watched cornfields become homes to not just hundreds, but thousands of individuals in less than 20 years. I want to continue to shoot urban settings. They are the heartbeat of one area of humanity called Dallas, Texas. Growing up watching the Thanksgiving Day parades from Dallas or seeing the Cotton Bowl Football game is part of who I am. Now, being here in Dallas watching the next great adventure take place---the transformation of  Fair Park with its many museums, the Cotton Bowl and Starplex ,the Midway, aquarium, Pan American Arena and the largest collection of Art Decco Buildings assembled in one place in the nation, into the daily park that it should have been years ago, is like an adrenal rush of excitement.  It's like a kid's excitement of something new and exciting. The potential for photography to show off Dallas is at hand. 

The bottom line is that to get those shots--to log a piece of history--is going to take money to keep this blog, these images, etc going. Plus keeping pace with vectors and videos, I must explore a way to do that which will make those creative visions possible.The old clock is ticking faster each and every day. I'm coming to the end of the first ten years of this pacemaker. While the technology is smaller and better for the upcoming number 2 maker or battery change (which every the electrician determines necessary) so, I got to get running (pardon the pun).

This is a writing to let you know that the upcoming changes to this blog and even the website, is rooted in staying on line if at all possible. When changes begin to occur, it will have been the best choice in which to continue this project, to grow it and to enhance it to those what follow us online. 
We thank you for your support. We appreciate your comments when we see you out and about. We believe that with God's help, this project will have opened hearts, minds and spirit through a lens on a camera that has benefited you in some small way; thanks be to God.  


The Horse

The Cows

  
The Cowboy, in Dallas


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