Slice

I shot this piece a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't get a chance to post anything to the blog before now. I actually shot this at the request of the artist, who said he didn't have any good night shots of the piece. It's called Slice and the artist is Bruce White. (I'd shot his work before, but didn't know it. I recognized several of the pieces I'd seen on his website.) He had been shown some of the pictures I took of Pulse and thought I might be able to do a good job. It was a little tough to shoot because it's in a small courtyard that's a deep canyon between two halves of the surrounding building. These first shots give you a little bit of a sense of where the piece is.

You can see how it's sandwiched in between two three-story walls in the shot above, and from the street you can barely see the piece because of a large lintel emblazoned with the name of the building. In fact, I'd driven by this dozens of times in Sarasota, and never noticed it, even though it is visible from the street. So I had to find a way to get a picture that included the art and the location, while keeping the two separate and distinct. For that, I had to get a short lens. That allowed me to fit everything into a single picture.



I must say that I was pretty happy with the results of my photoshoot. Once the sun went down and the interior lights on the piece became more visible, I started to get some amazing shots.

Something about that one window being lit sort of appealed to me in this picture above.

Once it got really dark, the light escaping the cutouts was my only source of illumination. It's a great effect.


I'm always fascinated with the effects you can create by using a zoom lens and a long exposure. Some of these pictures are just incredible. They're abstract, but they're firmly rooted in something real.



Cool, man, cool!

The End Of February

Late, late, late, late, late posting this week, sorry. Been busy doing nothing important all week, so I don't know why I've not gotten this up before now. Nice little detail here of a bird of paradise tree. There's also a bird of paradise bush, that has orange and blue blossoms, but this one has white and blue flowers. Not that there are any visible in this shot, but trust me... I liked the vertical composition on this for some reason, and it's got some nice color in it, too. Those of you who live in colder climes have probably never seen one of these. They're a flat tree, with all the leaves growing straight out from the trunk to the left and right. Kinda weird, but neat.

The Big Eclipse Of 2008

Well, here they are, the pictures you've all been waiting for. This is a composite image of the total lunar eclipse of February 20, 2008. You're looking at about an hour and a half span of time here, from the newly-risen full moon at upper left to the completely eclipsed version at lower right. I had been excited about the opportunity to shoot an eclipse again for almost a month before yesterday, and then the day turned out to be terribly overcast. I had pretty much written the occasion off when, right after sundown, the clouds began to part. At first it was only sporadic gaps, but as it got later and later, it started to be more clear than cloudy. Some of these images were shot through those gaps in the clouds, but after a while it was all clear sailing, at least up to near the moment of totality. Before the last little bit of direct sunlight could slip off the side of the moon, big clouds rolled in. But they rolled on past and I was able to get a shot of the surface of the moon illuminated by all the world's sunsets after all. I didn't stay up and shoot the second half of the cosmic ballet since it's pretty much the reverse of what I had just seen. Plus I had an hour drive home since I didn't actually shoot this from anywhere near my house. Oddly enough, everyone I spoke to about the eclipse near where I live said they missed it completely because of the overcast. So I think I got really, really lucky.

Imagine That

You may recall that I shot the lunar eclipse last night. I'm flipping through the pictures trying to find the best ones, which I'll get to you later, when I come across the shot above. This was early in the evening not long after moonrise and well before the eclipse began. I saw a dark spot on the shot that wasn't there in the shot before or after, and I wondered what I was looking at...

A little magnification reveals that for 1/100 of a second, there was a jetliner on the moon! And it was really, really big! Either that, or I just happened to catch a local jet as it passed in front of the moon. Either way, it's pretty cool. This isn't the first time I've inadvertantly caught something in the picture that I didn't know about until later, but this is the most impressive.

This Just In

I just got home from shooting the total lunar eclipse this evening. I've got lots and lots of pictures to go through, but I wanted to get one up and show you how incredible it looked. Hopefully it was clear wherever you are and you got to see it.

Gettin' Towards The End Of February

Your picture for the week? How about this pelican looming over you like some spectre of doom. Well, perhpas not doom, since it's just a pelican after all. I think I shot this guy up at The Pier in St. Pete. I can't be sure of that since I see pelicans pretty much everywhere I go that's near the water, but there's a walkway at The Pier that takes you down to a lower level, and these guys like to perch on the upper level and wait for scraps of fish to be thrown their way. So I'm pretty sure that's where I got this low-angle shot.

Purple Pollen

For some years now, I've been trying to capture something similar to what you see in this picture. When I was growing up, we had a row of pine trees out in front of the house. Every year, the trees would sprout these little structures that produce pollen, and they were the coolest shade of purple. Years later, when I became interested in photography, I wanted to try and catch that purple, but could never get the timing right on when the trees would be blooming. Well, I happened to be out and about today, and I found a pine tree that is almost at the end of the cycle. You can see some of the purple is still left in the picture above, but not too much. Maybe next year I'll remember to start looking earlier. Oh, the pollen that comes out of these is yellow, not purple. That post title is just a little bit of alliteration for you.

Ye Olde Cube

I happened to find some pictures from early 2006 recently that showed an earlier sculpture by Christine Desiree that was very similar to the more recent Pulse that I shared with you quite a few times here on the blog. I don't remember the name of this one, but I suppose I could look it up. (High Voltage, that's what it was called...) I'm not sure why I didn't post any pictures of this way back then. I guess the blog was still sort of new, and I didn't post all of the stuff that I could have. Anyhow, I think the similarities are pretty obvious, but the scale is somewhat different. This entire cube would slide right into the one that we built recently. It would be a tight fit, but it would fit.

Now what I didn't know about this sculpture at the time was that it lit up. I never got to see it at night during it's original installation, but they recently re-lit it at it's new home at the Ringling School of Art and Design on US 41 in Sarasota. And me being the photographer type, I had to stop and shoot some new pictures of it. It's neat to stand there in the glow of the light and watch the little red squares flutter in the breeze.

Oodles Of Doodles CCCXXXIII

Well, I never thought I'd get this far in my doodles. The first hundred was pretty easy, the second hundred took a while, but it wasn't too hard. The third hundred took even longer, and now I am one third of the way to my first thousand. It's an odd milestone to celebrate, but here I am anyway. And I found a handful of doodles by one of the great doodle artists, Mozelle Thompson. Still don't know much about him, but I know he's fairly prolific. I believe that prior to this doodle, all of his work has been for RCA, but with this one, he spreads out to MGM. These six doodles are actually from inside the gatefold cover of The Starlight Symphony Conducted By Cyril Ornadel-The Musical World Of Cole Porter (MGM E3843, 1960). I've got no idea why I picked this record up, but I did, then I opened it up, and there were these doodles. I think these doodles represent the 6 musicals named on the cover, those being Kiss Me Kate, Born To Dance, Leave It To Me, Can Can, Silk Stockings and Rosalie. I can't tell you which one is which but I'm sure many of you can figure them all out.

So, where else have you seen artwork here at the blog by Mozelle Thompson? Let me count the ways: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 And one maybe that I just noticed last night in an old post.

Oodles Of Doodles CCCXXXII

Here's another doodle that I recently found from another one of my favorite doodle artists. I had already made up my mind to buy this one before I spotted the little RR down by the bull's right front hoof. This sort of blocky style has shown up in several doodles signed RR, so perhaps that's what drew me to it before I knew those initials were there. This bull fight scene is from Federico Moreno Torroba Conducting The Pasodoble Band Of Madrid-Bull Ring Pasodobles (RCA Victor LPM-1581, 1958). If I counted correctly, this is the tenth doodle I've brough to you by the mysterious RR. Here are the links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

Oodles Of Doodles CCCXXXI

Imagine my surprise when I walked into the Goodwill store and right there on the top of the stack, with the back side facing forward, was this awesome doodle! And not just any plain old good doodle, this is a doodle with a pedigree. According to Mr. Chusid over at the Jim Flora website, this is a Jim Flora doodle! This is only the second one I've ever found, so I'm pretty excited about it. I would not have immediately attributed this one to Flora, but I can see where it has some bits of his signature style in it. But I have to defer to Irwin on this since he's the expert. This comes from the flipside of Billy Mure's Supersonic Guitars In Hi-Fi (RCA Victor LPM-1536, 1957). I brought you a Jim Flora doodle only once before, and I have also brought you another cool spaceship as well. (While you're looking at the unsigned doodle right above the spaceship link I just gave you, tell me if that doesn't look like a Mozelle Thompson doodle to you. Sure does to me...)

The Next Week Of February

You never know what you might see until you see it. I came across this log in Ohio one day, and right there in the center of it was this almost-perfect star shape. So naturally I had to get down on my knees and shoot it. Sometimes photographs sneak up on you from directions you can't imagine, so you always have to keep your eyes open. All of life is like that, I suppose.

Louis In A Box

I don't know why, but I just thought this was funny. It's Louis Armstrong in a box. Well, it's not really Louis Armstrong, but a sculpture by Niki de Saint Phalle, one of the artists participating in the Sarasota Season Of Sculpture. This is the only artwork not being displayed on the bayfront, but that's where I saw it first, still tucked away in it's shipping crate. They later carried it down the raod a bit to the Ringling Museum. They have him on display down there now, but he's out of the box.

Fish Story

I think I've mentioned that I was in Boca Grande this past Sunday to shoot some pictures. I wandered around a corner and happened upon the scene you see above. At first I thought there was a small wedding going on, but I couldn't figure out what the bride and groom were doing in the water. I snapped a couple of shots and started to amble in that general direction. Before I could get very close, I saw them push what I at first thought was a large rock back into the water, then everyone cheered. I had to look at the pictures I had snapped and zoom way in before I realized that someone had caught a giant grouper, and everyone was huddled around it taking pictures. You can see the size of this monster in the blurry enlargement below. I wish I could have gotten closer before they released it and gotten some nice pictures, but I was glad that they let it go. This fish probably weighed between two and three hundred pounds! And the guy caught it on that little fishing pole you see him holding up. Now that's fishing!

Sunset Yesterday

You gotta love living in a place where you can get sunsets like this pretty much any day of the week.

Bird In Distress

Not long after I spotted the ospreys I mentioned a few minutes ago, I came across this little tern. Stumbled across is more like it, because I almost stepped on him. He didn't fly away so I knelt down to take a few pictures. It worried me that he wasn't flying or walking away like these guys normally do, so when I was done shooting, I walked over to him. Something was wrong because I was able to pick him up. His wings and feet seemed to be in good shape, he just didn't seem to have any energy. I took him over to the lighthouse and found a park ranger, but we weren't able to get hold of anybody due to the Super Bowl starting in a few minutes. I put the guy back on the beach where I found him and checked on him a few times later. He seemed to be a little better, walking around instead of just laying there. The park ranger assured me that she would check on him in the morning. I feel bad that there wasn't anything more I could do for the guy. The two shots below aren't typical of the way he was behaving, so don't look at them and think he was broken. Those are after I set him back on the beach and before he got his bearings. But even in the picture above, you can look at his eye and tell something's not quite right...

Osprey Action

I found my first pair of mating ospreys this season down on Boca Grande this afternoon. The one above was skittish and flew off as soon as I walked up, but his (or her) mate just sat there and watched me until I got bored and wandered away.

More From February

The image for this week in February is a close-up of a cormorant. You've really got to get in there close before you realize that they have beautiful turquoise eyes. I'm not sure this picture even does their eyes any justice. They are amazing up close. Maybe the eye color helps them to see underwater better, I don't know.

The First Of February

Almost forgot that the month changed today, but I just remembered and here is your calendar picture. This was the sunrise one morning when I was working in Ohio a year or so ago. I remember that this was the only time I saw the sun all day. This is a shot that really benefits from a larger canvas, so be sure and click the picture to see a bigger version.

At The Beach

I went to the beach today, which you can do in Florida in the middle of January without too much difficulty. It was cold, and I had to wear a jacket, so it was a little odd, but not too bad. Not a whole lot of stuff to take pictures of, though, but I did get some nice shots of this shell. I found it on a stretch of beach along the southern edge of Ft. Desoto near St. Pete that was nearly deserted. That gave me time to get down on my hands and knees and line things up just so. The shot above is the position I found the shell in, but I moved it for the shot below. Not sure which pose I like more.

The Last Bit Of January

What is the calendar page this week? It's a cactus! Isn't that exciting? I'm not sure why I thought this was such a great picture. Maybe it's the composition. Maybe it looks cooler when it's printed out. It's not impressing me too much at the moment. I remember shooting this picture up in St. Pete in Pass-A-Grille Beach. I've always wondered how the little beach got that name, but I'm too lazy to look it up.

Ernie And The iPod

I finally decided to join the 21st century and get myself an iPod. I figured that if I'm going to listen to 50 year old vinyl records, I may as well listen to them on something modern. I've been looking for an iPod for a few months now, and have been checking out the pawn shops on a regular basis. I figured if I waited long enough, I'd find a bargain. Sure enough, I managed to find a 30G video model for about $150 this weekend, so I snagged it. Came complete with over 3000 songs from the previous owner, 2 or 3 of which were actually worth listening to. There was even a copy of Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back on there. I lost all that in the reformat though. But before I could reformat it, I had to get it home. And before I could get it home I had a couple of errands to finish. But I didn't want to wait, so I was playing with it in the car on the way to Wal-Mart after leaving the pawn shop. I had the earbuds in, driving down the road, and guess what? Yep, I got pulled over. And do you know what's illegal in the state of Florida? Driving with headphones on or in both ears. So my cheap iPod is now not nearly so cheap, since I have to pay a $76 fine in addition to the price of the used iPod. Some deal. I suppose that's better than having to pay the ticket for the real reason I got pulled over, which was for doing 71 in a 55. Not that I realized how fast I was going, I was paying too much attention to the iPod. Live and learn, I guess...

Half A Million

Congratulations to me. In an hour or two, the blog will get it's half a millionth hit! That's pretty impressive for a place with almost no content that's irregularly updated and has been around for less than three years. I figure some day Boing Boing will link to me and I'll get another half million in a day or two, but until then, I'm happy with the half million I've already earned the hard way. And by hard, I mean by giving away free Christmas music. Thanks for all the hits, folks, keep 'em comin'.

More Of January

The picture this week is a night shot of The Pier in St. Pete. I capitalize it because that's the name of it, The Pier. It's not a pier, it's The Pier.

Get Out And Vote

OK, all you art lovers need to go out and vote for the best sculpture in the Sarasota Season Of Sculpture 4! Of course, my vote goes to Christine Desiree's Pulse, because it's the best. Well, that, and I had a small hand in building it, so perhaps I'm not the most impartial of voters. But do you think that's going to stop Bill from voting for Hillary? I think not. So whatever your reason for voting, even if it's just to get me off you back, go visit the online edition of Arts & Culture Magazine and peruse the January/February 2008 issue. There's an article in there that covers the whole show, and you can vote for you favorite piece. If you don't vote for Pulse, you might want to vote for American Dreams, which we helped repair after some vandals knocked it to the ground. Or you could vote for Dance, which I took a great picture of. Or perhaps La Divine Proportion, which I also took a great picture of, but didn't share with you until now. Or maybe Celebraciones or Autumn Rhythm #20. The list goes on...

Bringing Art Back To Life

Here's a story I've been meaning to share for a couple of weeks, I just keep forgetting about it. Back when we first installed the giant cube called Pulse (which has been well-shared here on the blog), there was another piece of art nearby that caught my eye. I took a picture of that one the day after our install (above). It's called American Dreams, and it's by Gillian Christy, an artist up in Rhode Island. You may not know who she is, but you've perhaps seen her work on NFL Today on CBS and The Apprentice on NBC.

So, fast forward a week or two into the exhibition. I'm down there shooting the cube again, and I see a news crew gathered around that other piece of sculpture. As soon as they clear, I wander over and discover what you see in the picture above. Some vandals had climbed up on the piece and pushed it over. Note that the part hasn't rolled over, it's actually been bent where the rolled part changes into the soaring section. It's hard to soar when you're lying on the ground like this. So after I saw what had happened, I got on the phone and contacted the artist we had worked with on Pulse. She put us in touch with the director of Sarasota Season of Sculpture 4. She in turn put us in contact with Gillian up in Rhode Island. We offered our services to try and repair her sculpture without returning it to her studio. She agreed to let us try, and we spent a few nights putting the piece back together. Our first attempt revealed that there was more damage than just what was visible. Many sections were flexed in the crash, and the sculpture was no longer able to support itself. But a second series of repairs finally did the trick.

It took a few weeks of work to arrange the equipment necessary for the re-install, but we finally got all of our ducks in a row. This last picture shows American Dreams after we repaired and re-installed it. To my eye, it looks pretty close to the same as it did originally. Now if the vandals will just stay away from it, we'll be all right.

Oodles Of Doodles CCCXXX

Ahhh, teenagers. Gotta love 'em. At least RCA loved 'em when they came out with the great record Chet Atkins' Teensville (RCA Victor LSP-2161, 1960). This was after Elvis but before the Beatles, so they were doing everything in their power to separate the teenagers from their dollars. I don't know how excited teenagers were about listening to Chet Atkins take on such rockers as White Silver Sands, One Mint Julep and Night Train. But at least we get a nice dancing doodle. There's also a tag line on the front, "Guitar With A Beat", which I shared with you many moons ago. I don't know how I missed this at the time, but I'm making up for it tonight.

Score!

I got lucky at the Goodwill store this evening. I don't usually visit during the week, but I felt like I needed to visit this evening, so I did. What did I find but copies of just about every Roger Ebert book out there! This is the stack of all his movie review books, dating way back to I think 1985 (That first volume covers several years, but you have to open it up to see what years those are and I'm not going to try and pull it out from the bottom of the pile just now), then it goes from 1987 all the way to 2006 year by year! I think there's one older one I didn't get, and one from 1986, but I don't know for sure. I already had three of these, and I love to read them whether I've seen the movies or not. (I'm sure you're thinking that I should have bought just the most recent copy, but they do change from year to year, adding new movies and dropping old ones out, plus there's all sorts of supplemental essays and articles in each one.) I also picked up four hard-cover books, including his two Great Movies books. They also had one of the Answer Man books, but I already had that one. I think the total was 24 books at $2 a piece. Not a bad haul and I'll be reading these forever! Notice how the title changed a couple of times over the years in the picture above. Starts out as Roger Ebert's Home Movie Companion, then it changes to Roger Ebert's Video Companion and winds up as Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook. I guess you have to change with the times. This collections spans VHS tapes to laser discs to DVDs and I suppose it's now transitioning over to Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. I'm so excited!

Oodles Of Doodles CCCXXIX

I suppose there was a time when Guy Lombardo was considered a hip musician. How could anyone who is today considered such a boring anachronism have ever been popular? I don't know, but based on the number of Lombardo records I see in the junk stores, he must have been bigger than Elvis at one time. I mean, I never see Elvis records, and that must mean that he didn't sell very many, right? OK, perhaps there is a small flaw in my logic there, but you get the idea. This doodle shows Guy Lombardo And His Royal Canadians as they must have appeared in the early fifties at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York. At least that's what the liner notes tell me. I suspect there were more members of the band in real life, but what do I know. This doodle comes from the back of the LP The Band Played On (Decca DL 8208). I'm afraid I didn't muster up the courage to listen to it. Sorry.

Success!

Guess what I finally got a copy of this weekend? You'll have to wait until next Christmas to hear it, though. Just imagine the wonderful sounds of Chimeatron ringing in your ears. (In case you don't remember, this is one of the LPs I showed you back during the Christmas season that I had a sleeve for, but no vinyl. But now I've got the record, baby!)

Oodles Of Doodles CCCXXVIII

Another doodle for you tonight from another artist that you've seen plenty of times (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) before here at the blog. This is from the flipside of Al Nevins And His Orchestra-Dancing With The Blues (RCA Victor LPM-1654, 1958). Yep, that's Al Nevins from The Three Suns. And the artist here is Mozelle Thompson, who I've shared out quite a bit around here. Very nice work, I wish I could find out more about him. They must have thought quite highly of him to allow that large signature to be featured so prominently with his work.

Oodles Of Doodles CCCXXVII

I've been excited about sharing this doodle ever since I found the LP several months ago. I think it was lost in the Christmas shuffle for a little while, but I found it again today and I'm sharing it with you tonight. I don't know exactly why I'm excited about it, I just like the somewhat gritty depiction of 'modern' life it seems to depict. (Modern in this case being somewhere in the early fifties, I believe.) I suppose it dovetails nicely with the LP I scanned it from, The Age Of Anxiety (Symphony No. 2 For Piano And Orchestra) (After W. H. Auden) by Leonard Bernstein Conducting The Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra Of New York, Lukas Foss, Piano (Columbia ML 4325). It's rare that I feature a doodle from a symphonic LP, but this one speaks to me for whatever reason. I thought you'd enjoy it, too. No idea who the artist is, but there is a credit on the LP itself that says Darrill Connelly. That may or may not cover the design of the entire LP and may or may not include the doodle. Google doesn't return much on that name, so if it means anything to anybody, please let me know.

Oodles Of Doodles CCCXXVI

Here's another little doodle for you tonight. This is an interesting one, but it's certainly not the most artistic one I've ever shared. I'm guessing that the dancing guy above is drunk as can be, that is the about the only thing I can think of that may explain the look on his face. His date doesn't seem to be too perturbed about it, though. I don't think this is meant to be the same couple as shown on the front of the LP (below), but maybe. They don't even look like they were drawn by the same artist to me, but anything is possible. The album in question is Kurt Edelhagen And His Orchestra-Jazz From Germany (Decca DL 8231). I guess the target audience here was GIs returning from their time in post-war Germany, trying to recapture a little bit of the music they experienced over there. Not the native oom-pah band stuff, but the American invention after it got filtered through the Germanic lens.

Oodles Of Doodles CCCXXV

Guess what I dug up yesterday? Yep, it's another doodle from someone I've shared many times before, yet I have no idea who he is. All I can tell you is the initials RR seem to show up quite a bit on the backs of these RCA Victor LPs, and occasionally on other labels. This locket appears on the back of George Beverly Shea-Through The Years (RCA Victor LPM-1642, 1958). I didn't have to look at this one twice to know it was something I needed. I'm almost to the point where I can recognize the work of this mysterious RR. Perhaps it's time I did some serious research to see who it really is. And I mean primary research, not a Google search. Perhaps I should contact the History Detectives. "RR" has shown up before here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Oh, and here too.

The Next Week In January

Another week, and yes, another picture. Great one this week that I can remember taking quite clearly. It was in some one's back yard on Anna Maria Island. I had heard these quaker parrots squawking for a while and I was trying to find them. Turned out they were gorging themselves on this bird feeder. I shot for probably twenty minutes as the flew in and out of view. There were maybe a dozen birds on a wire above this feeder, and as soon as a perch became available, a new bird would swoop down and take his turn. If someone didn't vacate a perch quickly enough for another birds liking, he was fairly likely to get pushed off of that perch. Some of the pictures in this series (but not this one unfortunately) showed a cockatoo that had flown some one's coop and taken up residence with the wild birds. I guess he thought he fit in somehow, but he stood out like a sore thumb.