Barstow in Black and White

We put about 1,000 miles on the car last weekend. Big event in Barstow: our 45th high school reunion. We really lucked out with the weather being in the low to mid 70s. Thank goodness! It was a great weekend visiting with ol' school friends. I think my husband and his siblings hit the jackpot with alot of their friends from Yermo showing up. I'm from Newberry (now called Newberry Springs), and no one ever shows up from there except the Bowdridges and Atilanos (the latter being me).

We all met at the Idle Spurs on Friday nite for dinner (for some of us), then cocktails and hors d'oerves. We even danced later - and I'm still recovering from foot surgery. My sisters were there and it was just alot of fun. Saturday was a tour of the Santa Fe RR station, where my Dad worked as well as alot of high school friends including my husband; then visited the Route 66 Museum as well as the Santa Fe Museum. Had lunch at the high school gym hosted by Del Taco. Barstow was the home of the original Del Taco in case you weren't aware of that one! Then Saturday nite was the big event for dinner and more visiting and picture taking. Five more years and the big 50th. I think I can wait for that one!

This picture I'm posting are the letters that spell out B-A-R-S-T-O-W. They were under a table in the museum, hence the title, "Barstow under the table...".

Morning in the Darkroom

Yesterday morning I went thru my recently developed negatives and noted the ones I felt would be worthy of printing. There were several that I found to be of interest. I started with a picture of a grove of young oak trees on the side of a hill that was taken in the early to mid-morning on a drive on Rattlesnake Bar Road in 2005. That was when I first got together with my husband-to-be at the time, and since he was into photography too, we took many of these types of day drives.

Because I have new equipment that I'm not familiar with, I took it slow and easy but steady, in determining the exposure time for this particular picture. It's always a good idea to keep a log of the timing and f-stops for each negative, so as not to have to recreate again in the future. It's just common sense to save oneself some precious time!

I did have one bit of a slow down. One of my timers went out on me, but luckily had an 'antique' version of the GraLab timer that a friend of mine had given me - and it works! So I will use the antique for the time being. I'd love to break down and get one of those fancier modern timers for the dry side of the darkroom - soon though.

After a couple of tries, I was able to print out a pretty good version on RC paper. I'm still practicing, but will switch over to fiberbase when I get the whole print processing down pat! Needless to say, I had fun and I felt like I was accomplishing something very important!

Win some - Lose some!

But it's all for a good reason too! No I did not get juried in to the latest gallery. Apparently they do have two other photographers and in regards to the pillows, they already have someone who is doing fabric art! And that's okay with me too, as I wasn't really crazy about making more pillows with my photography on them. It's alot of work too.

However, yesterday I sat down and started painting from a photo that my Granddaughter photoshopped of herself. I needed to get the painting out of my system. It is actually almost finished - I still have to finish with the highlites in her hair. I guess there's no crime in how 'fast' one completes a painting. But my husband's words are always brewing in the back of my mind, "...I wonder what you could do if you slowed down!?" One of these days maybe I will.

Next week I plan on putting myself on a schedule of spending at least half a day in the darkroom perfecting fiber based gelatin silver prints! (This term is interchangeable with silver gelatin.) By the way, for new photographers, if you've wondered what process that was, it's actually a fancy way to call black and white prints made in the darkroom. Then you have 'giclee' prints that are high resolution scanned photos (film and digital) that are printed with archival quality inks (8 - 12 color inkjet printers).

That's the lesson for the day!

Alone In the Darkroom

I must be losing it!! I spent the morning in the darkroom thinking I was developing two rolls of film - one from San Diego and the other of the family portraits - and both contained zippity doo dah, with the exception of two pictures. Apparently the shutter on this particular camera I was using (Minolta SRT 101) stopped working!! I thought I was hearing a different sound when I was taking the pictures, but blew it off, thinking I just didn't remember that sound. Yeah, right! So as a result of this moronic episode, I went thru all my film cameras to check them out making sure they were in good working condition, namely working shutters, as I do have four other film cameras to work with that are 20+ years old. I still plan on purchasing a new digital slr camera to use - just not today.

In the meantime, I also am getting geared up to submit my work to another local co-op gallery. The work is juried for starters. There's alot for me to do if I'm going to meet their deadline for this month, which is this Thursday!

Wellspring Annual Fundraising Auction

My friend Janie sent me information regarding the Wellspring Women's Center Organization's 'call to artists'. The organization provides support services in the Sacramento area to single mothers, without the help of government money. Now there's a mission! The submission was last Friday, but apparently I'm getting in under the wire. I will be donating "Cypress in the Mist" from my Point Lobos Series of 2009, which I have posted the photo above.

If you are interested in attending, the auction and dinner is scheduled for Thursday evening, September 30th. The flyer does say that the event was sold out, but you can contact Yolanda by email at: yolanda.wellspring@comcast.net. If you are unable to attend, you can also make donations!

Jurying Photography

I received a call about a month ago asking me to jury a photography show in Folsom. As I am saying "yes", I'm thinking, "...I can do this. I've got the background and it's all about offering support to newcomers in the field."

Tuesday was the day. I was all prepared. I'd done my homework and developed a guideline worksheet that comprised the following categories: composition, background, technical work, craftsmanship, and my 'personal feelings'. It was the second version. The first version was too complicated I decided. I was trying to cover all the bases in 'digital' photography as all the entries were digital. The evaluation sheet was more for ME than the ARTISTS. There were some very good entries, and then there were definitely the newbie entries, and I hope I offered them some good advice. I've been asked many times if I gave classes. And I don't. I'm self-taught, and that's more than half the journey. Go experience it yourself. One can collaborate with other photographers as I did. It's good to get a critique from someone else now and then, and at the same time, critiquing is often too close to personal preferences by individuals.

I think if I had to come up with one piece of good advice to instill in a newcomer to photography, it would have to be COMPOSITION. If you can get that down, the rest will follow. You can learn film and/or digital processes out of a book. I think passion is what lends itself to good composition. So if you have the passion - you'll achieve the composition aspect.

The show is tonite, I wonder how it all goes? ; )

San Diego

My husband and I have returned from his Army Reunion in San Diego last week. It was a great trip - combined reunion / vacation. The weather was glorious: 60 to 70 degree weather! Can't beat that - AND with sunshine. Only one morning did it drizzle a little, but it was kind of like being in Hawaii - didn't bother you at all!

We visited the San Diego Museums - there were several all located in Balboa Park. My fave was the Photography Museum to see Graham Nash's B&W Exhibit of rock bands, as well as other photographer friends of his who captured the same from the 1960s thru early 2000. It was so good I had to buy the bound book of all the photos on exhibit. Took a tour on the trolley car of SD and Coronado island; toured the USS Midway (aircraft carrier); and toured Old Town San Diego as well as Little Italy... well for dinner anyway.

Here are a couple of color shots I took with my small digital. I have a roll of B&W film to develop from the trip as well. The top photo is the inside of a transport helicopter; the second is the walkway surrounding one of the museums; and the last one is the cover over the train railway.