Flora Isadora: Camera Obscura

Wave Organ Pt. 1

2012-01-31T21:30:00.000-08:00

The Wave Organ was constructed as an acoustic sculpture in the 1980s on a jetty built from grave markers that were scraped from the last cemetery in San Francisco that resisted moving to Colma. A picture of the Laurel Hill Cemetery can be seen in the middle of this page, which recounts the history of cemeteries in San Francisco, including this directly relating to the materials used in not just the Wave Organ but the jetty itself:

Plans to create a five-acre memorial park on Laurel Hill died due to lack of public support. Meanwhile, between 1939 and 1941, more than 35,000 remains were removed from Laurel Hill to Cypress Lawn. Remains were placed in redwood boxes and taken by hearse the same day to Colma. They were kept for six years in Cypress Abbey Mausoleum because World War II delayed construction of a new mausoleum. After the war, because of rising construction costs, simple concrete vaults were built beneath a five-acre burial mound for the remains. Over 1,000 bodies were interred privately.

Once the entire removal process had been completed, the tombstones were broken into pieces and used as paving materials for gutters lining the walks of Buena Vista Park. Other tombstone fragments were used to create the breakwater near the St. Francis Yacht Club and contractor Charles L. Harney was paid 80 cents per ton to dump crypts and heavy markers into the Bay. Sadly, few of the elaborate Egyptian, Gothic and Neoclassical monuments survived.

I went here on January 2, during the day, and definitely not during a full moon. I cannot attest to the sound quality of the art installation, but I have more photos to follow. I've got to break this cycle of not posting things!

It's not pornography if it's faux-classical [evening scene from a gaudy hotel]

2012-01-19T21:09:00.000-08:00

Fire Dancers

2011-12-28T20:52:00.001-08:00

A couple of months ago (yes, I am all sorts of behind in my uploads...sigh...) my friend Holly had a community themed birthday party replete with all sorts of entertainment. The highlight for me was the professional juggling/fire dance pair Mountain Mischief. Consider hiring them for your next bar mitzvah or party; they're good people and highly entertaining. They even juggled around Holly and didn't catch her on fire! Score!

Merry Xmas

2011-12-25T23:09:00.000-08:00

Last week on the Mental Floss blog, they had an article about making "art" with Christmas lights using SLR cameras. I read it with interest, but at the time I was thinking, "This is the type of stuff that is fun for photographers because they get to play with their cameras, but the results aren't visually arresting enough to hold the viewer's interest." I didn't think I would try anything like this myself, until I arrived to my parents' house last night to find that my mother had not one, not two, but three Christmas trees in the house. I just happened to bring my camera so...here are my mom's three Christmas trees, in order, not quite looking like Christmas trees.

Autumn Color

2011-11-24T19:33:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving.

Happy Halloween

2011-11-01T20:19:00.001-07:00

Yeah, I know it was yesterday. Can't believe I forgot.
Personally, I think November 1 has a lot more juju.

Beets

2011-10-20T18:57:00.000-07:00

Caught playing with my food again.

Chinatown by color & texture

2011-09-30T20:48:00.000-07:00

Food (IMO) shouldn't have a face.

The granny undies made me do it!

Real vs. fake.

Chinatown Random

2011-09-14T21:11:00.000-07:00

Playing with Fire (Again)

2011-08-31T22:05:00.000-07:00

Church Courtyard Corridor

2011-08-23T21:35:00.000-07:00

Lassen by the Full Moon (Experiments in Night Photography)

2011-08-16T21:23:00.000-07:00

I went camping last weekend and decided that the full moon was a good excuse to play with long exposures.

Barbie Flambé

2011-08-04T21:25:00.000-07:00

Some people said it would be a shame to burn my work, and as fond as I was of what I had made, there was only reason I made this piece:

Burn the witch! Burn her!

Don't feel too badly for her; she died a noble death: for art. When I found her for fifty cents in the thrift store, she had already been victim of a dog attack. The poor one armed Barbie would never again have a little girl choose her to play with, to grow up loathing her thunder thighs, bulging belly, and huge ass without realizing why, thus making her the perfect subject and "sacrifice".

Corporate Goddesses

2011-07-24T11:12:00.000-07:00

An amusing L.A. Times article about these statues: http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jan/04/local/me-statues4.

Blue lake in summer.

2011-07-15T08:07:00.000-07:00

Aerial Dancer

2011-07-01T19:29:00.000-07:00

The antique claw foot tub

2011-06-15T21:17:00.001-07:00

I stayed at the supposedly haunted Majestic Hotel in S.F. last weekend.
Nothing happened but I did take a bath at 5 am.

Roller Derby

2011-06-11T15:14:00.000-07:00

Admittedly, not the best picture in terms of exposure and noise, but I like the shadow.

Been too busy to post.

2011-06-09T20:02:00.000-07:00

It weighs heavy on my conscience.

I have photos...just no time to put them up.

Soon...soon...soon?

Those Sadist Cowboys of the Old West

2011-05-28T11:19:00.000-07:00

Dancer

2011-05-01T17:57:00.000-07:00

Avaishya, two years ago.
Fun bit of trivia: she just got married. Congratulations!

Pillow Fight!!!

2011-04-27T19:17:00.000-07:00

I debated even posting these as the majority of them are of children...and I have no model releases...but I decided that a public event such as World Pillow Fight Day needs to be publicized as much as possible. This post is my sole exception to the share-alike license I have on this blog- these may not be shared; they are copyrighted because I say so.

If anyone recognizes their picture or their child's picture and wants me to remove the photo, please message me. Thanks.

OMG, I nearly didn't post anything at all for April

2011-04-27T18:14:00.000-07:00

I missed my blog's two year birthday and everything!

I log in and see that we now have the option for "Dynamic Views" or some layout bullshit because apparently Blogger feels threatened enough by Tumblr to adopt some of their more creative page layouts. I'm interested...yet, not...now. Chronology isn't a bad format and I like the text to go with the photos, (if I choose to write text to go with the photos, that is), thank you very much.

This is just a stand-in post while I sort through photos I took in the last month or so.

Yes...there are more Preston Castle photos but so much sorting to do. (I saw your comment, Alycen, I'm just being lazy! Sorry!)

Beautiful Mourner

2011-03-21T21:31:00.000-07:00

This cemetery angel was on top of a grave of a girl who was my age, except she died in 1997. She's very much missed as evidenced by the effort of her boyfriend and mother to choose such a touching grave marker and the amount of "stuff" left at her grave- tiny angel statues, a rosary, recent flowers.

More Preston Castle Interiors

2011-03-21T21:17:00.000-07:00

The Zig-Zag Man, am I right?

No one can tell me why there's a woman's dress-form in a boys' reform school, or what it's doing in the room where they did surgery. I know the boys made their own clothes, but?

I'm having a hard time sorting and selecting photos...this isn't made easier by my realization that the photos I took this weekend are better... Damn! I'm still trying to get through the ones I took two weeks ago. So, no new ones yet, even if they are better. I still have to get through everything...chronologically.

Some Preston Castle Interiors

2011-03-17T21:15:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the lag on uploads. I have many, many more photos...and I'm thinking of going back on Saturday, but I'll have to see what happens.

Crows at Dusk

2011-03-15T21:13:00.000-07:00

Preston Castle Gets Its Own Blog Label

2011-03-09T21:45:00.000-08:00

I'm going to post my Preston Castle pictures soon. Part of the delay is I took 800 pictures and I cannot quite sort through them as quickly as I would like due to my mother's birthday being next week and I am trying to bead a necklace and get it in the mail by Friday.

Quick recap: All the Castle docents and volunteers were really helpful, friendly, conversant, and oh yeah- uh, weird shit happened. I doubted anything out of the ordinary would occur due to the fact that it was the middle of the day, we would be in tour groups, and only inside the castle for only a short time. I was completely wrong!

1. I heard a breathy but non-threatening "Hhhhhhhha!" in my ear while I was looking down at my camera and thought it was my boyfriend. I answered, sarcastically, "Boo," and looked up to see that my tour group went on without me and I was left alone lost in a corridor with no one in sight.

2. My legs went wobbly at two points in the tour (the hospital and in a hallway later) requiring me to concentrate to remain upright and walk properly. I felt like I was trying to stand on a waterbed in an earthquake. Moments before that really hit I started to feel a feeling that I can only describe as ecstasy- the drug, not the emotion. I felt floaty, spacey, and physically sensitive as though my skin were tingling.

3. My phone started turning off by itself until we left and it then resumed normal function. I had a fake ghost app running just in case. I had attributed it to a random word generator [once working it spits out a word about once every minute or two with long silences in between] but in rapid succession just before it turned off the final time inside the castle's basement it said, "I" "Still" "Train". A complete sentence? Interesting. [Every ward at the reform school learned three trades.]

4. My fully charged camera battery drained to a sliver in barely more than an hour inside. Consequently, I changed to my backup battery upon walking outside, which I used for the rest of the afternoon to no remarkable or ill effect. As a matter of fact, that battery still appears to be almost fully charged as of tonight.

Odd. All of it.

So- we're going back. I want to go back every chance I get. In lieu of that, maybe I'll try to take in a photographer day and maybe another tour. I'm thinking about volunteering. I'm seriously in love with this place. And yes, my boyfriend and I ARE spending the night there in June. Can't. Wait.

To hold us over until I get my act together and organize my pictures, here's a shot of the Castle from the next tall hill across town, the Ione Catholic Cemetery.

Preston Castle, and proof that my boyfriend loves me.

2011-03-02T00:12:00.000-08:00

I don't take as many pictures as I used to just a year or two ago.

Part of the reason for that is that I have this awesomely wonderful (or blissfully dumb, selflessly masochistic, or insanely psychotic- take your pick) boyfriend who genuinely seems to like me and that makes me want to spend as much of my free time with him. I told him last weekend that I really felt the urge to go take pictures- (the weekend before had gorgeously unpredictable weather: beautiful, dark, angry skies, and when clear, big fluffy white clouds on blue sky)- but specifically something broken down, abandoned, in disrepair- although I didn't know what or where exactly. I wasted all Saturday in indecision. Sunday, I was determined not to waste another perfectly good picture taking day; I would just get in my car and drive until I found something. This is something I am prone to do alone; I've never taken anyone with me on a "Let's just see..." photo expedition/potential waste of time + gas. This could have been an embarrassing disaster.

We eat lunch and he says to me, "Let's go find you something abandoned to take pictures of." (Love. This guy.)

I drive out of town down a highway I've only been on once before. We stop at a cemetery I knew was along the way. It was 3 o'clock in the afternoon and the sun was too harsh. Aside from seeing birds eating chicken left on a fresh grave, (avian cannibalism?), there wasn't anything "new" of interest to photograph there. Being a cemetery- "life" moves at a glacial pace, thank goodness- and besides the birds fly away whenever I attempt to close in on them, so we get in the car and drive further.

I pass one sign that says "Ione". Skip it. I mention to the wonderful man riding shotgun, "The haunted app on my phone says there's something haunted there. A couple of things. I can't remember what."

We were just getting to the oak woodland, rolling hills part of the journey. The landscape itself starts to get interesting as we finally gain the slightest bit of elevation out of the valley. The second sign I come upon for Ione, blinker goes on. I'm throwing "oak landscape scenery" to the wind; we're going right.

I still can't remember...what was it that's supposed to be so haunted in Ione? Whatever, doesn't matter. Old gold rush towns usually have old buildings falling apart somewhere, maybe an old cemetery with broken stones. That's good enough for me. Let's explore.

I'm cautious, driving through an area I'm thoroughly unfamiliar with, watching the road. We come to a fork in the road. I ask, "Left or right?" He says, "Right", I feel "Left", but go right anyway.

The town is a literal "blink and you miss it." After three seconds we realize we were now leaving the town we just entered and we see razor wire, sniper towers, official looking signs. Hey, a prison! Mule Creek! A big, scary place full of big, scary people! A Manson family member is in there!

I decide to turn back around and go "right" after all when I see a historic marker. Hey, I love these things; I've got to pull over and read the plaque on the big rock. It says, "Preston Castle, the Preston School of Industry."

"THAT'S IT!!! THAT'S THE HUGE HAUNTED THING IN IONE!"

I look around dumbly. It can't be Mule Creek Prison. What the...?

I look up.

Hey, that looks like a castle on a hill. That's got to be it, right?

(Poor honey. He's a trooper.)

We drive back about 500 yards to the driveway. "No Trespassing Signs" are on one entrance but not the other... I see a loophole.

Drive in 100 feet, jump out of the car, take pictures. Drive another 50 feet, jump out of the car, take pictures. Drive to the top of the hill to the old guard station. Drat! Fence! No trespassing sign. Hmmm...probably just a helpful suggestion?

I leave the car running and the poor boyfriend as I run along the fence and take more pictures. I'll just be a minute. I'm always just a minute. Okay, one more second...just a couple of pictures...

I'm a fiend. This is my heroin.

Poor boyfriend turns the car around as a car drives by and the driver shoots him a look. Dang. I should really get back there...just a couple more pictures, but I just found this really nice gap in the fence... Okay, okay, okay...

Get back in the car...drive 50 feet again, start taking pictures of something I just took pictures of 15 minutes earlier... Poor honey...okay, okay, okay...

We take a needless drive-by loop on the way out to look at the smaller houses at the base of Preston Castle because I'm still more curious. Some of these are occupied. Some have elements of kids about- big plastic push cars, toys in the road. I see a guy come outside and drag a garden hose across his yard.

As we drive out of town, the ominous and awesome presence of this castle is so obvious from every direction. We can't help but feel it stare us down as we drive away.

I am pleased. I went in search of an abandoned building, and I accidentally found the most gigantic Romanesque Revivalist fortress right in my backyard! I can't believe our luck.

Curious, I have to find the website listed on a sign I saw there. The sign promised tours and events like weddings and reunions (who would want a wedding at a former juvenile prison; exposed beams, holes in the edifice, screen windows flapping in the wind?), so I doubted it was a current sign. I was so happy to be wrong: double lucky day!

"Hey! Tour season starts NEXT SATURDAY! Want to go back and take the tour? It's only $10."

The awesome boyfriend enthusiastically agrees.

I scroll down. "Holy mackerel! We can spend the night there for $100! Next open night is June, the week of my birthday."

His eyes widen, "That's cool! I'd do it. How 'bout you?"

I did mention I love this man, right?

In short- we're going back on Saturday for the official tour and we'll determine at that time if we want- or if we will be able- to spend the night here.

Coming up on the castle:

Old guard station:

These guys, turkey vultures, were EVERYWHERE. I think they get
a good wind up there or smell prison food cooking next door, who knows?

The anachronistic barbecue outside was annoying me as it was not
easy to avoid getting it in the shot.

"No Smoking" sign and in the window appear to be T-shirts on display.
"Merle Haggard was here" in adult XXL perhaps?

Barbed wire, can't resist. I thought I was taking these in color because
the sky was so blue, but no. Vintage by accident rather than by design.

What's with the rope, chain, or Christmas lights hanging out of the
round center window?

Guard station again.

I don't know if these are still in use or if there is ghost mail to be picked up, but some of the former facility workers used to live in the homes below the Castle and some appear to be inhabited by families.

Another huge, grand building on the property. I don't know
what it is, but it appears to be getting renovated as well.
I'll ask on Saturday.

I listened to a podcast on Monday that had interviewed someone from
the Preston Castle Foundation. She said guards would live in these houses
during the week as there were only two dirt roads into Ione "back in the
day" and drive home to Sacramento on the weekends. Or else, if they
planned to move their families with them, they would stay in these houses
temporarily as they searched for homes to rent in town. Ione being the size of a dot, few rentals or properties were available at any given time.
I REALLY want to know why this one is marked uninhabitable.

Next week: I go inside the fence!

House of the Faithful

2011-02-17T20:17:00.000-08:00

Coming back from a funeral and I decide to stop in this little podunk town because they have a real tortilleria run by actual Mexicans who make real, fresh tortillas- not those corn frisbees found wrapped in plastic bags at the grocery store that smell like mildew when you first bring them home. I love fresh tortillas. Kryptonite. Seriously.

There's this abandoned house next door to the tortilleria that I've always admired but never checked out. So, camera in hand, I decide to look- to my surprise it appears to be an old church. I suppose that explains why no one has torn it down despite the fact it appears to be disintegrating. I tried to find out what church it was on the internet, but being a really rural place, I couldn't find anything about it.

For once I'm posting both color and black and white pictures in one post. I prefer the black and white (because I always do), but there's something about the rust and mold that I like in the color shots.

Mindless musing about Photoshop and all the pictures I lost last year

2011-02-08T20:43:00.001-08:00

I miss Photoshop almost as much as all the pictures I lost in the great double-hard-drive-calamity of May '10. I kept it installed on my external drive because it hogged a lot of space on my already over-stressed computer and when the drives tumbled to the ground, so did my capacity to do anything with Photoshop. I was never very adept at it, but I had a couple of cool plug-ins that I used somewhat frequently. I've been unsuccessful in trying to reload it on my computer- there must be remnants of the previous install remaining and even though I have an honest, real, paid for version, (granted two versions old now), it won't let me re-install. Even worse- those neat plug-ins I used to use? Can't find them anywhere.

*waa-waa* Sad trombone.

Oak Landscape

2011-01-27T21:18:00.000-08:00

Another one in the "not sure" category.

I kinda like it, I kinda don't...

2011-01-27T21:00:00.000-08:00

Not sure.
It was just the wrong time of day to take that picture because of the harsh contrast, but it was the right time of day to get that oak shadow in the first place. Hmmm.

Things that are green in January

2011-01-26T21:53:00.000-08:00

It starts to feel like looking at someone's vacation slides after awhile.

German Fairy Tale + Swedish Director

2011-01-24T21:22:00.000-08:00

I've been lazy and haven't felt like sorting the shots I've taken lately.

In winter...

2010-12-29T19:07:00.000-08:00

Xmas morning.
Where I'm from- no snow, only fog.

Trees can't swim.

2010-12-22T20:00:00.001-08:00

Otherwise, they'd be canoes.

I don't care if it's not funny. I'm rather unamused at the moment.

Winter Solstice Red Moon Eclipse

2010-12-21T00:34:00.000-08:00

So...

2010-12-20T18:15:00.001-08:00

I lost again. Not that anyone cares...

Cemetery Angel [again]

2010-12-19T03:17:00.000-08:00

I just did this as a b&w for my cousin as a Christmas present.

"Angel with a migraine."

It's still not too late to vote!

2010-12-16T18:05:00.000-08:00

Four more days are left to vote. Please go to the Krome Photo Contest Vote Page and select "Finalist K". You will have to allow the "Contests" app on Facebook to vote, but it's legit. Four more days means four more votes a person! Please help me win a new Nikon D7000! It's spiffy! Thanks!

Help me win a Nikon camera (this week only- don't delay)!

2010-12-10T20:21:00.001-08:00

I am one of 12 people in a contest to win a really sick Nikon camera. You can help! If you're on Facebook, please go to Krome Photos, select "Contests", "Vote Now", and pick the only black and white photo on the page. It's the picture of Peter Hayes's hand (from Black Rebel Motorcycle Club) strumming his guitar. You (and all your friends, family, acquaintances, coworkers and neighbors) can vote EVERY SINGLE DAY until midnight PST on 12/19. I have a one in twelve shot of winning this and you can help make it happen! PLEASE!

Thanks for reading/voting!

Blue Gate

2010-12-09T23:00:00.000-08:00

Land of the Lost

2010-12-01T20:34:00.000-08:00

The Dragonesque Grotesques

2010-11-27T18:41:00.001-08:00

I named the top one "Sparky" and the bottom one "Spike".
A pair on either side of a staircase- hope you see these, Kristy!

Tibetan Mask

2010-11-23T23:11:00.000-08:00

The Grumpy Gargoyle*

2010-11-22T21:32:00.000-08:00

*Technically a "grotesque" because he's obviously not a water fixture, but that may be the source of his grumpiness. (I quite like him, actually.)

Leek

2010-11-14T01:20:00.001-08:00

I was making soup last week, washing this leek, when I realized, "My goodness, this is a pretty leek!" So I stopped washing and chopping and I grabbed my camera before I whacked the pretty leek to soup-sized bits.

Mushroom, mushroom

2010-11-14T01:05:00.000-08:00

No context pictures

2010-11-06T10:39:00.000-07:00

A detective would be able to piece together what I did last Saturday night.

another fake ghost picture

2010-10-25T21:04:00.000-07:00

Jack O'Munch

2010-10-23T16:59:00.000-07:00

Someone dumped this Jack O'Lantern by the dumpsters in the alley, so I picked it up and put it on someone's porch. Squash artistry should not go to waste.

Disembodied, Pt. 2

2010-10-17T12:11:00.001-07:00

Dressing rooms. I loathe them.

I'm having a hard time with these for some reason but still haven't posted all that I meant from this "series". I've gone to post a few times in the last couple of weeks but end up deleting the posts before I publish.

?

Freud would have a few words. Fuck Freud.

Disembodied, Pt. 1

2010-09-27T21:28:00.000-07:00

It rained last week

2010-09-15T19:41:00.000-07:00

Rosebush minus roses.

Abandoned Railroad Tunnels

2010-08-24T21:46:00.001-07:00

Yet even more calamity

2010-08-09T14:48:00.001-07:00

I should probably mention- my computer died. No more pictures unless I happen to upload from my work computer (unlikely), repair it, or buy a new one. The really sad thing is I know I took some interesting pictures last week and they are trapped inside my camera.

And while I was trying desperately in vain to save up for hard drive recovery, ha.

Also NOT Iceland

2010-07-20T20:28:00.001-07:00

The tree is a dead giveaway,

but I'm realizing how few landscape shots I have.

*stuff about Iceland contest deleted*

I need your help!!!!

2010-07-15T11:53:00.001-07:00

*stuff about contest for a trip to Iceland deleted*

Extinct volcanoes, at sunset, NOT ICELAND:

*stuff about contest deleted*

*Leaving the part about my friend and her son's blogs*=

Guðrún Kristín Valgersdóttir and her son Gabríel Alexander - both have blogs- they're in Icelandic though- go see for the pictures, if your Icelandic is as rusty [or non-existent] as mine! http://www.gudrunkv.blogspot.com/ and http://gabrielalex.blogspot.com/.

"I need to clean my lens better" or "Ooo, faeries!"

2010-07-03T11:03:00.000-07:00

"You be the judge!"

I'm Looking Forward to Joining You, Finally

2010-07-01T18:39:00.000-07:00

This was actually my favorite shot of her but I never uploaded it here. Instead I put it on my computer desktop so I've been looking at this photo nearly everyday for almost three months.

I know so many people who are having a rough time now, so here she is, finally, my desktop angel.

I killed 'em, dead. The continuing saga.

2010-06-30T18:29:00.001-07:00

Following up with another company that quoted me $400 for data recovery to see if they can handle banged up hardware as opposed to corrupt data. *fingers crossed*

The latest in the case of the broken hard drives

2010-06-28T19:03:00.000-07:00

Estimates came back for hard drive recovery to get my nearly 210 gigs of photos back: $700-3900. So...I can either go without paying rent for several months or kiss the idea of ever getting my work back goodbye.

in suspense

2010-06-21T23:14:00.000-07:00

I don't know why...because...?

With this comes background

2010-06-16T22:01:00.000-07:00

My friend hooked me up with a room in a nice hotel in downtown San Francisco for my birthday. While we were out to dinner, the hotel accidentally delivered bucket of ice containing chardonnay, chocolate, a couple of camelias, a card addressed to Mr. & Mrs. Talarico/Mariscott, and a scroll of how to say "I love you" in 50 languages. We called the front desk but they told us to keep it. I neither partake in chardonnay nor chocolate, but I stuck the flowers in the lampshade and took pictures.

Jack Kerouac Alley, San Francisco

2010-06-16T21:36:00.000-07:00

From my birthday, Sunday.

P.S. I suppose I might be close enough to not being pissed off over losing 5 years worth of photographic work to start posting things again.

The calamity

2010-05-26T18:08:00.000-07:00

I knocked both external hard drives that backed up all my photographic work from the last five years off my desk and onto the floor last night.

Both drives.
Dead.
All my work.
All of it.

I can't even think that I've lost everything right now, it's way too much to feel at once.

So...if anyone reading this happens to know anyone that's really excellent at hard drive data recovery and can do it for less than an arm, a leg, a firstborn, and $500, please send me a message. It's an emergency. The life you save may be my own.

Damn Birds

2010-05-20T21:39:00.000-07:00

I'm not deliberately neglecting my blog, I just haven't really taken any photos in over a month. My shoulder hurts and I don't feel like holding my camera. I have other pictures I could put up in the meantime but for whatever reason they're almost all from cemeteries and I don't want this to seem like The All Cemeteries All the Time Blog (not that there's anything wrong with that). Despite that, here's another picture from a cemetery (surprise, surprise)- the Vietnamese cemetery, last month- just to update the page with something.

wings

2010-04-29T20:15:00.000-07:00

Catherine Mahan

2010-04-19T20:50:00.000-07:00

I'm sure it would have worked in b&w* but she's Irish, therefore, green.

A lot of miner's lettuce in this cemetery. The next grave over had only a wooden marker, the name long ago weathered-off, but the whole plot was completely covered in miner's lettuce and only miner's lettuce. I wonder if the person down there was a miner? I wonder if anyone even knows who lies there? Catherine was fortunate that someone was able to afford a stone marker so she could be remembered by name.

*(trying to get the color out of my system.)

Carrion Feeders

2010-04-19T19:59:00.001-07:00

Not so much "Turkey Vultures" as"ugly motherfuckers".

a year and a day

2010-04-17T19:16:00.001-07:00

...and 185 posts on this page.

[*Total photos shot 4/20/09-4/10/10: 23,586. This means I'm posting less than one percent of what I take. ;)]

Tear the sky

2010-04-17T13:26:00.000-07:00

The color thing continues...

Vietnamese Cemetery

2010-04-15T23:28:00.000-07:00

atomic

2010-04-13T23:33:00.000-07:00

Not really abandoned, but no longer in use .

my new favorite cemetery angel

2010-04-11T17:49:00.000-07:00

This isn't even the best shot of her but it best represents my mood right now, plus I needed something in color. I feel drab and sad and blah.

He said this reminded him of John Ford...

2010-04-09T13:30:00.001-07:00

...that's why.

Minerva

2010-03-25T21:11:00.000-07:00

Reason #1331 I love this girl

2010-03-20T04:44:00.000-07:00

I can say: "Let's trespass through a vineyard, hike up a field of mustard flowers, you take off your dress, and I'll take pictures," and she'll do it.

rats with wings in love

2010-03-17T18:42:00.000-07:00

7th March 2010.

once more with feeling*

2010-03-16T21:39:00.000-07:00

Quiet, somber, contemplative: as he is.

I thought I wanted to post something else tonight; I guess I really didn't.

*He'll get the reference if he sees this.

J'adore Thor

2010-03-11T18:51:00.000-08:00

I can't stop staring at this picture.

Purely Documentary: BRMC Mega-post!

2010-03-10T23:59:00.000-08:00

Not all "great" pictures or the best representation of what I can do with my camera but I'm trying to get the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club out of my system! I've got other stuff to post now!

Triumph...nice. ;)

"Open Invitation" was left off the list- it was the last song. Beautiful.

Peter and Robert shared a "moment".

Seems that after going to Slim's last night on her birthday, and getting in the free appearance at Amoeba today, Hardrockchick went to see A Place to Bury Strangers then ran back to Slim's to catch BRMC AGAIN tonight. That girl has seen them four times now in the last week and a half- twice today alone, with Io Echo and APTBS in between- not to mention that little weekend trip she took to NYC to meet Alice In Chains. I swear that girl is my hero.

As for me, I just marathon posted these pictures over the course of four hours while listening to Beat The Devil's Tattoo on repeat...I reserve the right to return to "The Night of Hundreds of BMRC Photos" at another time, but I want to move onto posting other photos of other subjects again. :)

P.S.- Since there are still people coming here from other sites to look at BRMC photos, please click on the tag and click "Older Posts" once you get to the bottom of the page. It appears this mega-post attempted to break Blogger and now all my BRMC posts won't display on one page. ;)

At the feet of Peter Hayes

2010-03-10T20:49:00.000-08:00

So, BRMC's album came out yesterday, they had a release party show at Slim's and Hardrockchick was there. Lucky girl got to meet Peter Hayes who wished her a happy birthday... Today BRMC performed at Amoeba on Haight in San Francisco for free and are doing the same at the Amoeba in Hollywood on Friday. I wouldn't know of that except I received a very nice email from Lisa Melton of Amoeba telling me of this plus the fact the show will be streamed live here and you can download the first song of the album, Beat The Devil's Tattoo, for free at that link as well. I told her I'd post it, so there ya go.

I am now officially a BRMC cheerleader.

Peter with Harmonica

2010-03-05T23:11:00.000-08:00

I promised bass. I lied. Later...I'm still not done yet.

Admit it: you wanted to see more of Robert Levon Been under colored lights

2010-03-03T22:10:00.000-08:00

These are totally out of order- and the last one I nearly didn't include at all because it's blurry and that light sucks- but oh well. I have a nice wine buzz going and I don't care.

That otherwise-not-quite-up-to-quality-standards picture is one of the few I got where RLB got on guitar and was on the right side of the stage* where HRC and I were standing.

I thought I'd make at least one more BRMC post today in PURDY COLORS seeing as how I've received more hits in this blog on one single day today than ever before because hardrockchick.com and thus my lil ol' photo blog by extension got picked up by http://www.brmc-forum.com (and now I'm seeing http://www.brmcgeneration.com/photos.html -yay, wooo!). *Hi, People!*

Like I say in my little bio over there on the side of the page, I don't care what you do with my photos- I see lots of you downloading them- and that's cool...just credit me if you use them anywhere and don't sell them. That's all I ask. I don't own the boys and neither do you! Cheers! ;)

P.S.- I've still got more to upload but like I said, I shot 1700 pictures of the band, and pruning them has been quite an undertaking. Yet more coming...it's an obsession, what can I say?

*Which reminds me: Peter Hayes with bass...to come! ;)

Leah Shapiro

2010-03-03T07:45:00.000-08:00

...is a very competent drummer. She just never stopped. I hate to use a pop culture cliche, but yes, Energizer Bunny comes to mind.

Not a great picture, but drummers always are hard to shoot...and "in the interest of equal time" and such.

More still later...I'm getting there! One more folder of pictures to go! ;)

Admit it: you wanted to see more of Peter Hayes in black and white

2010-03-02T21:19:00.000-08:00

A frivolous, self-absorbed thought

2010-03-01T23:15:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago I moaned that I needed a black dog as a subject to get out of my photographic equivalent of writer's block. I didn't need a black dog; I needed Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

(LOL)

G'Night. I mean it this time...;)

Peter Hayes is red and alone, so very alone.

2010-03-01T22:53:00.000-08:00

I had to do one more before I went to bed tonight.

Just figured out that from the 1700 I shot Friday night, I cut down my number of "good" pictures to 400. Now it's just a matter of pruning those 400 down to say, 20. *sigh* I'm a terrible self-editor.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (before the show): "That is love."

2010-03-01T21:56:00.000-08:00

Hardrockchick.com saw Peter tweaking his setup just a few feet away from where we were standing and commented on his perfectionism: "That is love."

*yawn* Tired tonight...still more to come later...

Peter Hayes

2010-02-28T21:18:00.000-08:00

More still coming. I'm being a lag-ass.

Robert Levon Been

2010-02-28T18:25:00.000-08:00

More to come.

arch awry

2010-02-18T22:38:00.000-08:00

despise religion...but sometimes attracted to the "stuff"...

a macro of a leaf after rain + random thoughts as of late featuring black dogs

2010-02-14T00:36:00.000-08:00

Going through old pictures again since I'm having trouble finding anything to shoot right now.
________________________________________________

How about a worthless trivial sidebar that has absolutely nothing to do with this photo?

Been fascinated with black dog legends lately… Black Shuck, Cu Sìth, and Garm, the Cŵn Annwn, Barghest, Gytrash and the like…both the stories themselves and how the folkloric origins of the legends later became corrupted once Christianity took hold particularly in the British Isles and Scandinavia. It's this turn that makes me especially engrossed by the few variations of these stories post-Christianity that allow for the benevolent nature of these spectral beasts- the protective dogs that accompany lone women travelers and the visions of these dogs that appear as warnings rather than indicators of inevitable danger. Not all the stories attribute them to hellhounds, animalistic grim reapers, cannibalistic shapeshifters or demonic portents of certain death.

My first pet was a mongrel black dog, Sam, a stray dog of approximately 6 months old who adopted *me* when I was two and a half years old. He showed up one day at my father's station and we became instantly inseparable. I have no idea how much this fact plays into my interest in this myth, but maybe it does. He most definitely was an awesome dog who loved me as much as I loved him. He tried to follow me to Kindergarten when I started school and would wait by the gate for me after school when I started riding my bike in first grade. As a child born on Friday the 13th, and a little weird anyway, I was always absorbed by supernatural folklore so from a pretty young age I was aware of the concept of witches having familiars- but never being a cat person, I thought it was just as appropriate to have a black dog as it was to have a black cat.

So, back to the point. I've been kicking some story variations around in my head based on the black dog- but I know myself well enough to know that I can start a story but it doesn't mean I'll ever finish it. Instead, and even better, I want to find a black dog to photograph. I think maybe this is why I've turned to photography in part in the first place- I may be a wordy person with a lot of ideas, but I tend start writing a lot of things that I never finish. With photography- snap! you've got it; you're done...

This being said: wanting to photograph something and actually finding that *thing* to photograph- the difference between wish and reality- therein lies the wide chasm of dull disappointment. Hmmm.

Oh well. *shrugs* The good news is that after a couple of weeks, I finally have an idea. Now I just need to find a big, black dog. An English mastiff would be perfect. *sigh* I wish I knew where to find one.

Gate

2010-02-12T20:39:00.000-08:00

disengage switch

2010-02-10T00:19:00.001-08:00

Blocked someone on Facebook tonight. I feel guilty but he was really annoying me. I'm not normally such a bitch.

Untitled

2010-02-09T23:53:00.000-08:00

...no ideas right now...*sigh*

One of my most favorite pictures, ever.

2010-01-30T18:17:00.000-08:00

My favorite photo, ever, until I took the one of Evie and Bella last October anyway.

As taken:

With Photoshop:

I don't know which I prefer.

Waterspirits

2010-01-30T02:51:00.000-08:00

Wanted to be creative tonight, resorted to old photos since neither muse nor opportunity were forthcoming.