Postcard from Tucson

Here is another image from a trip I made to our local Pima Air and Space Museum. I took it as an artistic exercise and like how it turned out. I do not remember what kind of aircraft this engine is on, but obviously it is a single engine aircraft, probably used in reconnaissance during WWII. I just like the way it looked and the detail visible on the engine...and of course, the colors.

I’ve already talked about the museum in other blogs so won’t repeat myself again. What I will do is reprint the most famous poem ever written about flying. I always think of it when around airplanes.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there

I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,

I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew -

And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod

The high untresspassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941

 

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To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com

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Postcard from Oakland

As you may have seen from time to time, if you follow this blog, I love window reflections. I find them fascinating…the way light is reflected and distorted by light. One can see the reflection, and at the same time, see through the glass to what is behind it. It’s almost a visual dichotomy that can yield many different (and nearly unlimited) results. And, of course, there is always the distortion effect caused by imperfections in the glass.

In the case of this building, it is difficult to discern what is reflected and what is behind. It has a large building frontage with lots of glass and is broken up by horizontal and vertical lines…here you have a difficult puzzle for your mind to figure out. Throw in some curved lines and distance clouds, and you really have a mystery. Perhaps that is why I love it so much…and why it really doesn’t matter what is where.

This is the entrance to the Elihu M. Harris State of California Building in downtown Oakland…one of the largest buildings in Oakland. To me, the artist, only the reflections and the architectural designs of the building interest me. There are a few more interesting architectural bits that are part of this building that I will share sometime in the future.

Also, I will be returning to Oakland and San Francisco and other great places in the very near future as I head out on one of my photographic road trips with visits to friends along the way. With the non-stop 100+ temps, higher humidity, and monsoon season now upon us here in Tucson, I am ready to bail out and head for cooler climates…not too cool as I still want to wear my shorts and t-shirts when possible. Maybe in the 70’s or 80’s would be nice. But I am also considering a trip up the California Coast to do some ocean photography. Not sure when I will be leaving, but it won’t be long.

Besides, I need more new photos to share here. Can’t live forever on past glories!

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To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com

If you subscribe to this blog by e-mail and wish to purchase a print or send a free e-mail greeting card using this image, click this link to the main Postcard Blog Site.

 

Postcard from Oak Park

This lovely old home is in Oak Park, IL…a suburb of Chicago. If the name sounds familiar, it is because this city was home for many years of Frank Lloyd Wright, America’s foremost architect

In fact, this home is just a few doors down from Wright’s home. It was a lovely October afternoon in Chicago and my friend Susan and I took a Green Line train west from the city to Oak Park. From the station, we hopped a local bus down to the street where Mr. Wright lived. After visiting his former home and studio, we decided to walk back to the train station rather than take another bus.

I am glad we did as the street was filled with beautiful homes, many of them obviously designed by Mr. Wright. You do not have to be an architectural expert to spot one of his designs. His “Prairie School” style of architecture becomes easy to spot, once you know what to look for. But, this lovely home isn’t one of them. But it and the surrounding landscape have an innate beauty all their own and would be lovely no matter where they were located. But, as I said, this special street makes for a wondrous walk on a beautiful day.

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To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com

If you subscribe to this blog by e-mail and wish to purchase a print or send a free e-mail greeting card using this image, click this link to the main Postcard Blog Site.

Postcard from Chicago

What do you do when it’s 108 outside and there is nothing to do? Why, of course, you open up Photoshop on your computer and see what mischief you can get achieve. And that is what I did yesterday.

I came across several photos I took of paintings in the Chicago Institute of Art. One of their most prized possessions is Edward Hopper’s most famous painting, “Nighthawks.” And I had a nice photo of it. So being that I was a little heat-crazed from being outside earlier, I decided to see if I could make it better. No that is wrong. I could not do it better than Hopper did. I could only do it differently.

So I started using my bag of tricks to create a flashy, glitzy version of Nighthawks. And in the end, this is what I came up with. It is different, you will grant me that much. But, I was just having fun, seeing what I could do. If you think you could do better, come on down and live in 100+ temperatures for days on end, then give it a whirl. I would love to see it.

PS: If you are not familiar with the original painting, click here to see it. And by the way, the artist painted himself in the picture…he’s the guy next to the lady in red…and that lady was modeled after his wife.

Postcard from Yuma

This image of an old portable missile launcher was taken at the Yuma Proving Grounds…the part that is accessible to civilians. It is an outdoor museum of weaponry dating from World War II all the way up to Vietnam. There may be even more modern weapons in the collection, but I can’t recall off the top of my head.

Believe it or not the Yuma Proving Ground (known to the locals as YPG), is one of the largest military installations in the world. It is mainly used for testing military equipment and encompasses over 1,300 square miles in the northwestern Sonoran Desert.

The proving ground conducts tests on nearly every weapon system in the ground combat arsenal. Munitions and artillery systems are tested here in an area almost completely removed from urban encroachment and noise concerns. Restricted airspace controlled by the test center amounts to over 2,000 square miles.

According to an article I read, every year, over 500,000 artillery, mortar and missile rounds are fired, 36,000 parachute drops take place, 200,000 miles are driven on military vehicles, and over 4000 air sorties are flown from the proving ground’s Laguna Army Airfield. Though about 90 percent of the proving ground's workload is devoted to the test and evaluation of weapon systems and munitions, dozens of units visit the proving ground each year for realistic desert training, especially before deploying overseas.

In short it is quite a place. I am just glad they have a museum where photographers and weaponry aficionados can go to see weapons that are part of our country’s history. It was fun creating this image in Photoshop with the help of several different plug-ins. God, how I love digital photography.

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To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com

If you subscribe to this blog by e-mail and wish to purchase a print or send a free e-mail greeting card using this image, click this link to the main Postcard Blog Site.

Postcard from Red Canyon

There is nothing wrong with your computer. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to...

OK…enough of that. With apologies to the creators of the old TV show, The Outer Limits, the opening paragraph just seemed appropriate for this photo.

And no, I did not forget to rotate the photo to a vertical position before posting it here. This tree was actually growing sideway! I was on this hike in the Red Canyon area in Utah. I believe it was the Arches Trail, if you ever want to find it. And there it was, right along the trail. Now who can resist a photo op like this one?

I have written about Red Canyon before in these pages. But, in case you don’t remember, it is located about 10 miles from the beginning of the famous Highway 12 (western side). Red Canyon is one of the many beautiful and fascinating places you find along this highway. Go a few miles further and you come to the entrance to Bryce Canyon National Park.  

I agree there is nothing special or artistic about this photo (save for the uniqueness of the subject), but I like it and was glad I found it on the trail. I don’t know how it came about. Perhaps a landslide pushed the tree over on its side, but it just continued to grow. You know, you just can’t keep a good tree down. What is your guess?

(To see a larger version of this photo, just click on the image)

To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com

If you subscribe to this blog by e-mail and wish to purchase a print or send a free e-mail greeting card using this image, click this link to the main Postcard Blog Site.

Postcard from Soap Lake

This image is of the northern end of Soap Lake. The lake got its name from the naturally occurring foam that occasionally appears along the shoreline. The water has a slick soapy feel because of its mineral-rich content, long thought to have healing medicinal powers. In fact, for many years, the VA Administration had a hospital at the south end of the lake to treat skin diseases.  

Compared to the ocean and other naturally occurring mineral resources in the world, Soap Lake still has the highest diverse mineral content of any body of water on the planet. Soap Lake water contains ichthyols, an oil-like substance sold over the counter in Europe to treat infections and abrasions. The icthyol in Soap Lake water most likely come from decomposition of tiny brine-like red shrimp that flourish in the water from late spring to mid-summer (as you might imagine, there are no fish in the lake). Like the Dead Sea, the high mineral content of the lake makes the water very buoyant.

Now, don’t let this scientific analysis take away from the beauty of this scene. Like many photos in my collection, I got lucky with the weather…not to mention no wind to disturb the reflections.

Soap Lake is located in North Central Washington, at the very southern end of the 60 mile-long Grand Coulee. At the northern end of the coulee is the massive Grand Coulee Dam. In the photo, you can see the walls of the coulee start to shrink in size as they go from right to left. By the time they get to the southern part of the lake, they disappear almost completely and you are left on the large, rolling plains that makes up central Washington. The city of Soap Lake lies at the southern end of the lake.

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To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com

If you subscribe to this blog by e-mail and wish to purchase a print or send a free e-mail greeting card using this image, click this link to the main Postcard Blog Site.

Postcard from Tucson

This photo was taken at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, here in Tucson. It is just a very small portion of the Air Force Materiel Command's 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG)…AKA “The Aircraft Bone Yard.” Its primary mission is to store excess military and government aircraft.  Davis-Monthan was selected due to our low humidity and hard, alkaline soil, which allows the aircraft to be naturally preserved for cannibalization or possible reuse.

Davis-Monthan (named after 2 local World War I pilots) is an active base with many different military units beside AMARG. Among others, it is the home of the A-10 “Warthog” aircraft, used so effectively in both Iraqi wars to destroy enemy tanks. Tucson residents can look up and see them flying overhead on a regular basis.  

The storage facility of AMARG alone covers 2,600 acres. Besides storing excess aircraft, the facility also repairs aircraft, disassembles surplus aircraft for parts (for sale to countries who still use older-style aircraft)…and destroys aircraft to comply with the SALT treaty. Russian spy satellites fly over the base to confirm that the US is living up to the treaty. We also have satellites monitoring similar facilities in Russia.

The number of planes on-site varies, almost day-to-day. The highest number of planes ever stored here was over 10,000 shortly after the end of the Vietnam War. Today, the number is about 4,000…my best guess.

The AMARG facility is easily visible from nearby Tucson streets. In fact, one main street dips down below ground level to accommodate overpasses that are used to move aircraft from one side to another. Its quite a site to see a B-52 bomber being moved on an overpass above your car.

If you want a closer look, tours of the bone yard run daily from the Pima Air and Space Museum. It is a fascinating tour and gives you a good look a some of the most famous aircraft in US Military History. Well worth the time.

I took this photo while on the tour. I used a very long lens to capture the planes, so the Santa Catalina Mountains appear closer than they really are. I got lucky with shadows and light on the mountains.

(To see a larger version of this photo, just click on the image)

To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com

If you subscribe to this blog by e-mail and wish to purchase a print or send a free e-mail greeting card using this image, click this link to the main Postcard Blog Site.