Postcard from Las Vegas

For me, Las Vegas is good for two things these days...drinking Manhattans and taking night photographs. I stopped gambling years ago and there are very few floor shows that interest me. So, I would rather sit with a good friend and drink a quality Manhattan and catch up. 

Now, I am fussy about Manhattans as I make the best one ever found on the planet. I seldom order them at bars or restaurants because few bartenders know how to do it right. But, I found a couple of places in Vegas that do one heck of a good job. 

All this is to say that I am worn out with this city that never sleeps. I have been here countless times, mostly for trade shows, so there is not much I have not seen. And I always feel like someone is trying to lift my wallet to get more money out of me. So, I never go unless absolutely necessary.

But, as for photography, I love wandering up and down Las Vegas Blvd at night photographing the amazing sites that make up this unique city. You may have seen some of my other night photos here before. I've also had some fun photographing on old Fremont Street with my camera in the day. But night, is still my favorite time to shoot.

Fortunately, I use one of the best lenses on the market for anti-shake so I can shoot in low light without image blur...not always true, but most of the time it works. Of course I could use a tripod, but that is quite a challenge on busy Las Vegas Blvd. But, we do what we must to get the quality photo.

This, of course, is Caesar's Palace, an older facility that has been remodeled a few times to stay up with some of the new spectacular casinos like, Paris, New York New York, the Bellagio, Venice and others. This photo is a great example of a photo has a foreground, middle ground, and background. Your eye moves smoothly from each section to the next, just like it is supposed to. Having the red underwater lights in the very front of the photo is the first thing your eye seeks, and from there it is an easy flow to throughout the entire image. 

Sorry for the photo lesson here...I do that sometimes.  So best to just sit back and enjoy this night shot of a Las Vegas landmark. Better yet, sip on a Manhattan and see how the photo gets even better.   

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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. Don’t forget, e-mail greeting cards are free.

 

Postcard from Zion

Two months ago, I published a blog here that showed a photo I took at the Court of the Patriarchs in Zion National Park. In that blog, I explained how most of the sunrise was blocked by a bank of clouds and my photo only had one little section of the mountain lit by the sun.

Well, while waiting for the super sunrise that never came at the Court of the Patriarchs, I glanced off to the left and saw another mountain that did get a bit more of light…and that is what you see here. I swung my camera around and used my longest lens setting to capture this photo. Also managed to capture a little Autumn foliage that helps enhance the overall image. So while I didn’t capture the image I really wanted at the Patriarchs (although what I did get was pretty good), I managed to get a nice bonus image that cold November morning.

Like the image from two months ago, I took five quick images in succession at different exposures and blended the best of them into one image using the Exposure Fusion method.

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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. Don’t forget, e-mail greeting cards are free.

Postcard from Oxford

This image laid buried for seven years among many I shot on a trip to Europe. It is the first time it has been seen by anyone, other than myself. This is the entrance to the Keble College Chapel. Keble is one of 38 colleges that comprise Oxford University. It is also one of the newer colleges, having only opened its doors in 1870.

You see, Oxford is a very old university, founded perhaps in 1096 (no one is sure of the exact date). It is the second oldest surviving university (the University of Paris is #1). The university really kicked into high gear around 1167 when King Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris. In 1209, after many disagreements between scholars and city residents, many academics moved further north to found Cambridge University.

So, looking at the dates, you can see Keble’s founding in 1870 is quite new. And, in fact, there are several newer colleges than Keble…and there is actually a college in Oxford called “New College.” It can’t be called really new as it was founded in 1379…but it is still called New College. You had to be there…

Of course, it was the light coming through the windows that caught my attention. It’s a lovely sight and I often wonder if the architect planned it this way to capture the afternoon light…the way the light leads you right to the chapel doors...and the patterns of light and shadow is just wonderful.

As if you could not guess, the original image was shot on film…slide film to be exact. Over time, you will see more and more of my best images from the days of film.

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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. Don’t forget, e-mail greeting cards are free.

Postcard from Along the Merced River

Rivers hardly ever run in a straight line.
Rivers are willing to take ten thousand meanders
and enjoy every one
and grow from every one.
When they leave a meander,
they are always more
than when they entered it.
When rivers meet an obstacle,
they do not try to run over it.
They merely go around
but they always get to the other side.
Rivers accept things as they are,
conform to the shape they find the world in,
yet nothing changes things more than rivers.
Rivers move even mountains into the sea.
Rivers hardly ever are in a hurry
yet is there anything more likely
to reach the point it sets out for
than a river?

(James Dillet Freeman, Rivers)

Postcard from Tucson

Yes, it’s that time of year in the Sonoran Desert…when cactus varieties of all kinds start to bloom. It’s wonderful to walk on desert trails and see the cacti in full bloom. The colors are bright and vivid and it still is a great site for me to enjoy.

Three years ago I came here, never having seen a cactus in bloom. I was used to the spring flowers of the northern climes…daffodils, petunias, snapdragons, pansies, and the unforgettable iris, just to name a few.  And we do have some of those here.

But seeing the desert in bloom for the first time is an unforgettable experience…I still enjoy it even after three years. Those who know me know that I understand very little about horticulture or the names of plants. But, I believe this is a small barrel cactus with multiple blooms. Please correct me if I got it wrong.

Soon, the biggest of them all, the Saguaro cactus, will start to bloom. Definitely a site worth seeing, especially on my side of town where there are hundreds, if not thousands on the hillsides all around me.

April is not a bad time to come to Tucson, if you are in the mood.

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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. Don’t forget, e-mail greeting cards are free.

Postcard from a Rain Forest

I have a few photos, not many, but a few, that I don’t remember taking or where exactly I was when I photographed the scene. All I know for sure is that it is a small creek on the west side of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State.

No doubt I was inside the borders of the Olympic National Park. The west side of the Olympic Range faces the ocean and catches all the storms that come in off of the Pacific. Of course, this is where the rain forests are located as the area gets 140-170 inches of rain per year. That’s a lot of rain! It’s the wettest part of the continental United States. Only the island of Kauai in Hawaii gets more rain than here.

Because this is a temperate rainforest, as opposed to a tropical one like the Amazon Rainforest in South America, it is dominated by dense coniferous timber, including Sitka Spruce, Western Hemlock, Coast Douglas-Fir and Western Red Cedar and mosses that coat the bark of these trees and even drip down from their branches in green, moist tendrils.

There are plenty of lovely hiking trails in this area, but be prepared to get wet…even on the rare sunny day. When I hiked these trails, the woods were filled with impromptu lakes overflowing streams and lots and lots of mud…and it was a sunny day. Still, I am glad I did get to hike here and see it all for myself as it is certainly the exact opposite of where I live now.

Oh…just for your information, the eastern part of the National Park, the part separated from the west by the Olympic Mountains, only gets about 16” of rain per year. What a huge difference a mountain range can make.   

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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. Don’t forget, e-mail greeting cards are free.

Postcard from Devil’s Garden

About 17 miles down Hole-in-the-Rock Road is a small area of interesting rocks known as Devil’s Garden. Now, if you are wondering where Hole-in-the-Rock road is located, it is just east of the town of Escalante along the famous Utah Highway 12, so often mentioned here before…and goes 62 miles south the northern shores of Lake Powell.

The road is well known to backpackers and photographers, but not to many other people. It is not a well traveled road as all 62 miles of it are unpaved and a bit rough. Lots of washboard spots for drainage and lots of mud after a rain. Of course, it is covered in snow during the winter.

If you wonder where it got its name, you will find that answer down at the end…a hole in the rock that looks out over the lake. The road was built by Mormon settlers in the area. It originally went down into Glen Canyon, but since Lake Powell now occupies that space, the last 300 feet of the road are underwater. The road itself has little scenery to recommend it to most folks, but there are a few spectacular places along the route that make it worth doing.

My friend and fellow photographer Dave Forster and I headed down that road on our last trip to southern Utah. Our destination was Dance Hall Rock, about 40 miles down the road. We were about halfway there when we ran into a ranger. He told us we would never make it all the way as there was lots of mud ahead because of a rain and snow storm two days earlier. He suggested a stop at Devil’s Garden on our way back to Highway 12.

Dave had been there once before, but it was new to me. So we headed back and took the side road into Devil’s Garden. It is an interesting collection of large eroded rocks, quite similar to Goblin Valley with fewer formations on a bigger scale. There is a picnic area, a short loop path and two interesting arches. The photo above is one of them. That is Dave in the photo to help give scale to the size of the rock formations…and yes, that is snow on the ground and on top of the arch.

It was an interesting place and I have a few more photos of the area I will share in future. We didn’t spent much time there as we decided to head back west along Highway 12 in order to be in Zion National Park by sunset.

And while I was glad to see this Devil’s Garden (there is another place by that name in Arches National Park, shared here before), we both were disappointed we did not get to make it to Dancehall Rock. There was a special photo opportunity there we both badly wanted to make. Hopefully one day in the future.

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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. Don’t forget, e-mail greeting cards are free.

Postcard from Leavenworth

Bavaria in Washington

Not only have I written before about this little Bavarian-style town in Washington, but I have also showed you this photo before(a few years ago)…except that I made it better…much better. Sometimes I look back at photos I did a few years ago and wonder what was I thinking.

But no artist should beat himself up too much over past work. We grow, we change, and we get better. We learn new tricks, acquire new tools, and make our work better. While a painter or sculptor cannot go back and update past work (other than a touch-up here or there), a photographer can…even a photographer in the age of the darkroom. We can make improvements to past works, and I have routinely done so. And in a few years, I will probably come back to this one and make it better.

For those of you not familiar with Leavenworth, it is a Bavarian-style town on the east side of the Cascade Mountains. Everything, including McDonalds and Starbucks must be done in a Bavarian Style. In the stores, employees wear Bavarian-style clothing…and of course, there are Bavarian and not-so-Bavarian festivals all year long. My favorite, of course, being Oktoberfest.

If you haven’t figured it out already, Leavenworth is a tourist town. People come from all over the world to visit and partake in this unique atmosphere. If you like German food, you will find some good restaurants here to satisfy your cravings. Pizza, burgers, hot dogs, and all the other kinds of food you find in the outside world are also abundantly available.

Every weekend during late Spring, Summer, and Fall, you will find an art show in the downtown park. I did that show for a few years, off and on, when I wasn’t doing shows in other West Coast cities. I have fond memories of this little town in the mountains, and I must say, I do miss it. But, that was from a different chapter in my life.  

(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. Don’t forget, e-mail greeting cards are free.

Postcard from Red Cliffs

About 12 miles north of St. George, Utah and around 30 miles west of Zion National Park, lies a protected wilderness area known as Red Cliffs Desert Reserve. It is well know to locals who frequent the area to hike, picnic and camp out…but not so well known to the rest of the world.

On my last trip to Zion, I took a side trip to this lovely spot in the desert and found a few interesting places to photograph. I hiked into the wilderness area along the Red Reef Trail. It was here that I found this lovely scene of a cascade flowing from one quiet pool above, into another quiet pool below the falls.

The trail first leads you along Quail Creek to the lower pool…then it goes up on top of the rock to give you this elevated view. While the falls are lovely, the rock walls and their contours have an almost surrealistic appearance, making the scene quite unique. What I found out later is there is a water-carved cave underneath where I am standing.

From here, the trail continues on to a beautiful slot canyon that I will show here soon. I could only hike into it so far as it had rained a couple days before I got here, so Quail Creek was pretty high.  Often there is no water in the creek and one can hike through the canyons where the creek usually flows. I hope I can do that someday. Again, this is one of those areas where you have to watch the weather forecasts to make sure you don’t get caught in a flash flood.

So if you make a trip to Zion and have the time, be sure and visit this lovely, relatively unknown spot in the Utah desert. You won’t be disappointed, I promise.

(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. Don’t forget, e-mail greeting cards are free.

Postcard from Zion

This is one of the few photos of Autumn colors that I was able to capture in Zion’s high country. The reason…most of Autumn was finished up high. The real Autumn colors you’ve seen before from my last trip were from down in the Zion Canyon itself.

I titled this photo, “In the Crevice.” Sadly, it is hard to determine how narrow this crevice actually is as you can’t see the rest of the mountains. Trust me…when seen as a whole, this crevice is very small…and as you might determine, these trees are very tall.

But for me, the joy of this photo is the colors…and the survival of the yellow tree in such a small place. I found a few places in Zion where trees were growing under the most adverse conditions. But, as I heard somewhere once in a movie, life always finds a way.

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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. Don’t forget, e-mail greeting cards are free.

Postcard from Southeastern Utah

This is an arch in the making. If we come back in several thousand years, or longer, it will be completed…and if we wait even longer, it will be gone…collapsed into ruble by gravity and the forces of nature. Its like most all things in nature…they are born, they live, they die….they just take a little longer than humans.

But for now, it is just a lovely alcove carved into a huge rock by combinations of water, wind, and hot and cold temperatures. High above the alcove you will most likely find sinkholes, holding rainwater. Eventually, those holes will deepen and break through the back of the alcove…then let the real arch begin to form!

The alcove’s beautiful shape and layers are enhanced by the black desert varnish (aka “rock varnish” and “desert patina”). You find this material in many locations in the Southwest. It is mostly composed of clay, which arrives by wind. Clay, then, acts as a substrate to catch additional substances that chemically react together when the rock reaches high temperatures in the desert sun. Wetting by dew is also an important part of the process.

I photographed this alcove inside Long Canyon, along the Burr Trail, off of Highway 12 in Utah. In the past, you have seen other images from Long Canyon…one of Utah’s most beautiful spots. It is one of my favorite places in the state and hope I can get back there again…especially just after a rainstorm, which is when I photographed here. Enjoy.

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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. Don’t forget, e-mail greeting cards are free.

Postcard from my iPad

 

This may be the most boring, inartistic photo of mine ever published. And I apologize for that…but this is the first photograph ever taken with my new iPad (aka iPad 3). It is completely unretouched…no Photoshop, Lightroom, iPhoto, or any other software was used here. It went from my iPod to this blog (via Flickr).

If you read my Rants and Raves tech blog yesterday, you know the full story of how I wound up at my local Apple Store on Sunday and surprise myself by buying this remarkable tablet. The highlight is its amazing Retina display…2048x1536. It has a million more pixels than an HDTV so its resolution is stunning. So, if you think the quality of this photo is good, it is even more amazing when seen on the iPad.

Included with the tablet is a 5 megapixel camera with advanced optics, auto white balance, image stabilization and more. Now, it is definitely weird to hold a tablet up to take a photograph…and I probably won’t do it very often…but as with all new toys, I had to try it out. I was surprised by the full range of light that I was able to capture here…from the blue sky with white clouds all the way to shadows with great clarity across the board.

By the way, the photo is of the swimming pool area in my apartment complex in Tucson. The fellow in the picture is trying to retrieve his basketball which you see floating in the pool. Happens a lot here as the basketball court is off to the left of the photo.

But wait, there’s more! The new iPad will take 1080P movies as well…and I did shoot a short 12 second movie of the pool’s waterfall which was pretty good, once I moved my finger away from the lens. Still learning here.

I don’t mean for this blog to be a commercial for Apple, but I love this new iPad and all that it does. I doubt you will be seeing any more photos taken with it, but from now on, I bet you will see more and more people using one as a camera. I’ve seen a few already, one of which was during my last photo trip to Zion in November.

A new trick I learned just today, is I can automatically transmit all future photos from the iPad directly to my desktop computer via Apple’s iCloud…even though I use a Windows PC. Now, I can’t do all the other things that Apple computer and iPhone users can do with the iCloud…wish I could. Microsoft really needs to get with the program here.

(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. Don’t forget, e-mail greeting cards are free.

Postcard from Alba

I did this digital engraving from a photograph I took a few years ago in the charming medieval town of Alba…located in the Piedmont region of Northern Italy. If you look on a map, you will find it located about an hour south of the major city of Torino (Turin). This area is known for its white truffles, peaches, and most especially, its fine wines. I know because I have downed many a glass of their fine reds (squisito!).

The city is an old one, dating back before the rise of the Roman empire. During the days of the empire, the city was known as Alba Pompeia. Although most of the Roman ruins are gone, you can find a few here and there. 

Back in medieval times, Alba was once known as the “city with a hundred towers.” Some are still left. This image shows one side of the Piazza Duomo (known as a “Portici” in Italian). On the other side of the piazza is the Alba Cathedral of San Lorenzo, which was built in the 12th century and has been “remodeled” several times over the centuries. In Italian, Duomo means dome, hence the name of the piazza.

I love simple scenes like this one, and one of my favorite all-time art forms is wood engravings. Very simply, an image is carved by the artist on special type of wood, then used to make a print. Almost all engravings are printed in black and white, but there have been a handful done in color.

Is been fun for me to try and recreate the art form digitally, and this image is one of my very few successes. But I will keep plugging away.

(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. Don’t forget, e-mail greeting cards are free.

Postcard from Highway 12

As Highway 12 climbed higher and higher toward Boulder Mountain, I left the September summer behind and entered Autumn. The first aspens were just beginning to turn, but the the higher I ascended, the more the colors grew in intensity…until I reached the summit when most of the trees had achieved their full Autumn glory. It was a very special and unexpected sight.

Soon, I would start back down again toward Capitol Reef National Park, and summer would return. But, on that highway, I saw the fall season begin, then peak, then disappear until a later date, all in one morning.

Highway 12 in Utah is one of the most beautiful byways in America, as I have documented here before. I did this digital painting in an impressionist style to show the light and the colors up on Boulder Mountain that early September day. I do so much like to experiment with digital paints using different techniques...and the original photo seemed so right for a painting.

(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. Don’t forget, e-mail greeting cards are free.

Postcard from Tucson

I am just back from the the annual Tucson Book Festival. It is arguably my favorite event in Tucson. Too bad it only happens once a year. This was the 4th year and it is now in the top 3 book festivals in the US. This year, well over 450 published authors, such as J.A. Jance, Elmore Leonard, T. Jefferson Parker and many more, came here for the two day celebration of books of all types…from mysteries to history…from thrillers to cookbooks, all genres were represented.

As you can see, there were a boatload of tents all over the University of Arizona Mall where you can purchase books, attend seminars, eat lunch, meet authors, get your books autographed, and visit many other publishing-related vendors. The photo above shows you just some of tents outside…there are many more off to the right.

For me, the best part of the festival are the author talks and workshops that occur in classrooms, auditoriums and tents on the U of A campus. There are hundreds of them, but sadly you can only do five a day as they are held in the same time slots. When the lists come out, I spend hours going over them and narrowing down the ones I want to see…then finally make my final selections. Sadly there are always two or three events held at the same time and I have to make a hard choice. As always, I carry the list on my smartphone so I knew where to go for each event.

One of the other fun things, at least for me, is discovering new authors. While researching events, I look up their names in Amazon and Wikipedia to see what kind of books they write. This year, I made many new discoveries and have started reading their books. It always makes the book better after you have attended an interview or panel discussion with the author.

The events I attended had such diverse titles as, “Nasty Nazis, “Queen Elizabeth I and her World,” “Books in High Gear,”and “The O.K. Corral Gunfight and the Alamo in History and Legend,” just to name a few.

Like last year, C-Span 2 was also here showing live book talks on both Saturday and Sunday. I attended two of those and got on camera as I was one of the questioners during the discussion of the OK Corral. I hope I sounded intelligent.

In such a short space as this, it is difficult to explain how much I love this festival. If you are an avid reader such as me, look for a festival like this somewhere near you.  Or next year, plan to come down to Tucson and see this one.  By the way, the weather was perfect, in the mid 70’s.

Postcard from the Oregon Coast

I mentioned in a previous blog that I am in the middle of a major Website update…and it is going quite well. One of the benefits of doing that is discovering photos that have been overlooked. What you see here is one of those photos.

I took this image in June of 2007, and although it was on my hard drive and cataloged in Lightroom, I never did anything with it…in fact I pretty much ignored the whole catalog from that shoot. How great it was to find it.

Another thing I found in redoing my site was I had never posted any photos from the Oregon Coast. Of course, that was immediately rectified and now you can see some of my best photos from those various expeditions. There are also some other new galleries on the site, and of course new photos in older galleries that have not been posted before. More on that in future editions.

I was lucky on this 2007 expedition to get this photo. It was taken in Ecola State Park near Cannon Beach, OR...one of my favorite spots on the fabulous Oregon Coast. I know we have fabulous sunsets here in Arizona, and you have seen a few of them over the years. But, a good sunset photo on an ocean beach is worth its weight in gold. I am so happy to have “rediscovered” this work.

Sadly, it may be quite a while before I see the Oregon Coast again, if ever, But I have great memories of trips down Highway 101, all the way from Astoria to the California border. I remember one trip that took almost four days…the last day being Super Bowl Sunday…driving in the rain, trying to find a radio station so I could listen to the game. I finally got a hotel room in Gold Beach and watched the 4th quarter there. I don’t know why that memory sticks in my head…probably because it is the only Super Bowl I nearly missed.

But, I do know that I have more pictures squirreled away on hard drives and backup CD’s that I will get to one day and post on my Web site…so stay tuned.

(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. Don’t forget, e-mail greeting cards are free.

Postcard from Yosemite

I’ve been fortunate in the last few years to visit Yosemite in May, especially in those years when they had record-setting snowfalls during the preceding winter. Of course that means a lovely green Springtime with full waterfalls, streams and rivers.

Such was the case in the Spring of 2007 when I took this photo. This is Bridalveil Creek, which flows directly from the famous and beautiful Bridalveil Falls. This section of the creek is just below the falls. I love how the light plays on the moss on the trees and how full the creek is. Even if you’ve never been here, I think you can feel how fast the creek is flowing.

This picture was taken along the trail that goes from the parking area to the falls. That year, I never got near the falls as there was so much mist created by the massive amounts of water pounding the rocks at the bottom of the falls. One would have been drenched in seconds. Not a great idea for someone with expensive camera equipment.

I’ve also been in Yosemite in late Autumn, when the rivers are low and many famous waterfalls don’t even exist…Yosemite Falls for instance. But Bridalveil never seems to dry up, although I have seen it pretty low.

I’ve been working hard of late posting new photos on my Web site. The current galleries have now been updated with new photos…and I have a few more new galleries to add.  This particular photo has only gone up in the last few days as well as other photos from Yosemite being seen for the first time. I hope you will stop by and take a look at the Yosemite photos as well as the other galleries.

(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. Don’t forget, e-mail greeting cards are free.

Postcard from Port Townsend

In my last blog, I wrote about that moment of creation when an artist completes a work that he knows is exactly right. Well, just like the special image of Chicago in the last blog, the same can be said of this work. It is a photo I took a few years ago while spending part of a day in Port Townsend, WA.

Such a lovely town on the Northeast corner of the Olympic Peninsula, across the Puget Sound from the cities and countryside just north of Seattle. At first, I thought this unique structure might be a bed-and-breakfast. But I could find no mention of it anywhere, so it may just be a private residence.

But it made for a lovely photograph…or so I thought until I looked at it on my computer during post processing. It had some nice artistic qualities to it, but it just sort of laid there, if you know what I mean. So I did nothing to it for a couple of years…occasionally looking at it and trying some things, but none very successful.

Finally I realized there was just not enough color to make it interesting and the light left something to be desired. So, I converted it to black and white, then started using some of my other Photoshop plug-ins to enhance the sharpness while still giving it a bit of a sketch quality. Again, when I got it right, I knew it immediately. But, like most of my work, I let it sit for a while, occasionally going back and taking a look to see if I still liked it.

Well I did…and still do. In fact it is hanging on the wall opposite from where I write this blog. It is one of the “chosen few” photos that adorn the walls of my home. Maybe that is the ultimate proof of whether or not I really love one of my works.

And speaking of Port Townsend, you can view all my six of my best photos from that charming little city at my Website. In fact, I have been working on a major revision of my site for some time now. A long ways to go, but several of the revised and updated photo galleries are now on-line and I invite you to pay a visit. Several new works have been added and more are on their way. 

(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.

Postcard from Chicago

There is a unquantifiable trigger in the mind of an artist when they know immediately they have created something special. It is a special feeling that overwhelms one’s state of mind and is impossible to put into words. So it is with this image.

I started with a concept based on a sketch I had done previously. And although the final image turned out to be different than what I had originally envisioned, the original concept was fulfilled. In fact it was fulfilled way beyond my original expectations.

I recently watched a film called “The Prestige” about magicians and their tricks. In it, one of the characters said that to reveal the secret of a trick is to give away its value, and something very special becomes quite ordinary and unspectacular. I thought about that line in depth and how it applied to my photography and paintings.

So for that reason, I won’t go into detail about the creation of this image…except to say it started from an original photograph I took in Chicago that I turned into a sketch. You have probably seen photos of the Chicago Theater on State Street as it is one of great landmarks of the “Windy City.”

Unlike a magician’s illusion, this illusion is real. I created it out of my own artistic voice and it hit an artistic home run, at least in my mind. I titled the image, “The Old Chicago Scrapbook.” But it is not a photograph of a real book. It is the pure invention of an artist.      

Thank you for letting me puff out my chest and brag a little…I hope you understand. I would be interested in hearing your views on this image, if you care to share them.

(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.

Postcard from Tucson

Spring is bustin’ out all over…to paraphrase an old, old song. It also describes perfectly what is happening now, here in Tucson. The wildflowers are out in abundance. I live in the western foothills above Tucson, and the hillsides are carpeted in yellow and pink. On Monday, I ran an errand…and there they were. Surprised the heck out of me! I was out and about two days before and didn’t see a one. 

Frankly, I am surprised to see any this year. I wasn’t sure we had enough winter rain to make it happen. Last year, we had no wildflowers to speak of. But, it all must have come together because we are loaded this year.

I will let you in on a little secret…this picture is from 2010 when we had a banner wildflower year. But, right now, it looks just about the same. I haven’t been out with my camera yet, but will shortly.

Spring is a special time in southern Arizona. Not only are the wildflowers in bloom (and soon the cactus flowers), but the temperatures are just perfect…it was 72 yesterday and will be 77 today. Baseball has already started, college games are underway; major league teams are in camp and will start the Cactus League games shortly. Even though we don’t have any teams training here anymore, there will be three major league spring training games played in Tucson in March.

In a couple of weeks, we have the Tucson Book Festival, one of the largest of its kind in the nation. And of course concerts and lectures continue. The UofA Jazz Festival will be in two weeks. Spring is an amazing, wonderful time here in Tucson, and you can bet I will be taking it all in…in shorts and a t-shirt of course. 

(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.