Postcard from Sacramento

Architecture

I am the type of person
that builds.
I build things.
Ideas,
Art,
Feelings.

I let my feelings build so high,
you could fill the tallest building in the world
three million times
before I break.

And when I break,
I fall so hard.
I imagine that my tall building
is a devastating crash
with only one causality .
Me.

I'd like to believe that my structure is strong.
Built out of the strongest metal,
but even it breaks with
three million feelings pent up inside.

It's not strong enough to carry all of the forever.

But the best part is
that when I do fall,
crashing under all that weight,
I can build a better building.

Maybe this one will be able to fill
the world's tallest building
four million times
before it falls too.

Poem by Lara Carboni

Original Photo by JR Corkrum – “Lines and Shadows”

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

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

or visit my Flickr Page.

Postcard from Dance Hall Rock

I think in a previous post, I mentioned briefly our trip down to Dancing Hall Rock…39 miles down an unpaved washboard road that I hope never to see again. Thank God we were in Dave’s SUV…but I sure felt every undulation in that long, long road.

As a sidebar, I always thought the washboard effect was caused by either water or road grading. I was wrong. A washboard road is caused by autos traveling greater than 5 mph on an unpaved road. The more cars that travel the road, the greater the rippling. So I guess our trip down Hole-in-the-Rock road added to the washboard effect. Apologies to all of you who go down that road from now on.  

Anyway, Hole-in-the-Rock Road lies of a few miles east of Escalante, UT…off of Highway 12. It was built by Mormon settlers to help other settlers coming up from the south get to Utah. Most of the country in that area is flat desert country with some hills and big rocks along the way.

Dance Hall Rock is one of those big, big sandstone rocks shaped like an amphitheater. It got its name from the Mormon settlers who would get together there for socializing and dancing. Apparently the rock has some amazing acoustic qualities that make music sound louder and more pleasing.  All this socializing happened in and around the 1880’s.  Being sandstone, it is very susceptible to water.

Our purpose that day was not to make music, but to climb up the rock to find large and small and deep sinkholes where plants and trees grow straight up. What you see here is a smaller sinkhole that has a  variety of desert plants. There were larger and deeper holes also up on top and you will see one of those soon, with a very large tall tree growing straight out of it. The light was very difficult to work with this day as the top of the rock is in bright sunlight and the deep holes are in strong shadows. A little Photoshop work should make it a better image. I will publish it here as soon as I have finished.

I wish I knew a little more about geology so I could tell you how many years it took to make this hole. Its all driven by wind and rain and as time passes, the hole gets deeper and deeper. The wind deposits topsoil over time and brings the plant seeds that grab on to the soil and grow. Nature is so wondrous…there is a great line from the original Jurassic Park film, “Life always finds a way.”   It did here.

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

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

Postcard from Zion

I think I mentioned in a recent post that I had been to Zion earlier this month to photograph the autumn colors in Zion Canyon. I think I also mentioned that this part of the trip was a bust! There wasn’t any color to speak of…many of the green trees went directly to brown, bypassing red and yellow. Even the yellows where one could find them were not all that vibrant. And the reds? Forget about it. They were not there.

After that disappointment, my friend and fellow photographer Dave Forster and I headed up into the high country of Zion. It’s a spectacular climb up the mountains with breath-taking views of Zion plus the mile-long trip through the Zion-Mount Carmel Tunnel. Up top, you find spectacular red-rock mountains with lots of amazing geological formations.

Sadly, except for one location high up near Checkerboard Mesa, Autumn colors were also sadly absent. But that one location yielded some pretty good photos, if I do say so myself. We even found a beautiful all-yellow tree that made a great backdrop for some photos you will see later on. 

After shooting those photos, I headed back to the car as it was quite cold. But along the way, I looked down as I always do and came across this lovely little scene with a couple of small rocks, a little snow and some very interesting thin ice patterns. It is one of nature’s abstractions and I was lucky to be there at just the right time to photograph it. The sun was behind a mountain but was starting to emerge. In a very short while, this scene was gone.

Some of you may think I placed the snow on the rock. I did not. This scene was shot exactly as I found it. If I moved the camera down a little bit, you would see my feet. The whole scene is perhaps 6” to 7” wide…a very small area but very unique and quite beautiful. One of natures small miracles that you should always look for when photographing in the wilderness.