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

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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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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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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?

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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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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.

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Postcard from Tucson

This massive aircraft is the SR-71A Blackbird Long Range Strategic Reconnaissance Aircraft, on display at the Pima Air and Space Museum here in Tucson.

Its job was to fly military and CIA spy missions from 1964 to 1998. There were only 32 of them ever built, only 20 of which survived. 12 were lost to accidents and none were ever lost to enemy action. It could fly as high as 80,000 feet at speeds of Mach 3+. If a ground missile was ever fired at it, it could easily outrun it, which probably explains why none were ever lost to enemy action. It once flew from from Washington to Los Angeles in just over 64 minutes.

The Pima Air and Space Museum houses hundreds of aircraft from all over the world. A few have been featured here in this blog. A few more will be featured in the future. For a sneak peak at some of them, check out the brand new section of my web site entitled, “Weapons of War.” Here you will find some of my best photos of aircraft from the Pima Museum as well as a tank and missile launcher from the Yuma Proving Grounds…all artistically rendered, of course.

In case you are wondering, I did play with the above image a fair amount using Photoshop and a couple of plug-ins. I was going for art, not accuracy. Hey, I am allowed to have fun! In any case, I am very proud of this image and happy to share it with you.

For more, very in-depth information this airplane, check out the Wikipedia Article on the SR-71.   

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Postcard from Chicago

Here is one photo from downtown Chicago I‘ve never shared before. Not sure how I missed it, but I did. Obviously I got a little creative here. The tilt effect was not done in Photoshop.  Oh no! I did the tilt on site. Every once in a while, especially when shooting architectural scene, I like to tilt the camera slightly in one direction or another. It gives one a different perspective in looking at a scene. Try it sometime…it works with any camera.

The tall red building in the background is known as CNA Plaza. It stands out in the Chicago skyline because of its red color. Its only 44 stories tall, short compared to other buildings in Chicago, but when looking at the skyline of downtown Chicago, your eye is drawn to it because of the color. FYI, it is on Wabash Ave, just one block off of famous Michigan Ave.

It was completed in 1973 and it has a bit of a history, both good and bad. During a 2004 renovation of the lobby the entrances were hard to find for pedestrians. So the entrances were clearly marked with "Enter Here" while other portions of the black plywood wall were marked with a yellow dashed outline of a person and the legend "Don't enter here. You'll get splinters."

In 1999, a shard of glass fell from a 29th floor window and killed a woman on the other side of Wabash Avenue. The ensuing investigation revealed the window had been cracked for months and the building had a history of cracked windows for more than 20 years. The glass couldn't cope with the level of thermal expansion it experienced and when the accident occurred, more than 40 windows were cracked. The building's owner paid a huge fine to the city, settled a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family, and replaced all 3,000 windows in the building.

As for the other two buildings in the photo, Google Maps says the building on the right houses the Chicago Department of Revenue. The other building appears to be an apartment complex…my best guess, anyway. What makes this photo work is that all three buildings are completely different styles of architecture…and having one of them be red is a major plus. Chicago is indeed a playground for a photographer.

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Postcard from Yosemite

If you follow me via this blog for any length of time, you know I don’t do a lot of wildlife photography…in fact, almost none. But, I could not help but photograph this little fellow while hanging around Yosemite Valley on one of my many visits.

This is a Steller’s Jay, often mistakenly called a Blue Jay. You will find them all over Yosemite, especially if you are eating. You see, these birds will get real close and let you take their picture…if, of course, you drop them a tasty morsel of whatever your eating. The more you give them, the closer they get. So you don’t need a long lens to get a good picture…just a quick trigger finger to catch them while still. They like to move their heads a lot.

Actually, they are a very smart bird and are a bit fussy about what they eat. Many, many years ago, I was on a picnic in the valley with a girlfriend and were feeding the jays. I decided to have a little fun and dip a small potato chip into some very spicy horseradish dip. The little fellow snatched it up and took off. A few minutes later, while wondering how he liked the dip, he flew back and dropped the chip and dip…right on my head. True story. And yes, my friend and I had a good laugh. So watch what you feed them.

There is another reason I showed you this photo today. A few days ago, a fellow artist, photographer and friend, who specialized in wildlife photos, passed away from pancreatic cancer. Don Graham, who lived in Moses Lake, and I did several art shows together each year in various Northwest locations. He was a good friend, a nice guy and I am sad at his passing. Because of distance, I am even sadder that I cannot attend his memorial service. Rest well, Don. 

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Postcard from Glacier

I photographed this small creek on a hike I took in Glacier National Park. Take the two mile trail from the main highway to Avalanche Lake and you will find it. In fact, bring your camera as you will find many wonderful, small places to photograph along the trail where nature shows off some of her finest work.

But make sure you have save room on your camera for the lake itself. It is spectacular! Several cascading waterfalls come down off the high mountains and flow right into the lake.

As for this photograph, I was fortunate to find a bend in the small creek where colorful rocks happen to be. I did not set this up, this was the way I found it. OK, so I did push the colors a bit in post-processing, but that is what artists do...or so I am told. Still it is a good image and is close to what I saw.

 

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Postcard from Oxford

I call this photo "Tyrannosaurus Rex Mans the Information Desk." And that is where the bones of this ancient dinosaur are...right above the information desk of the Oxford Museum of Natural History. This was not meant to be one my artsy pictures, but rather one of wonder and humor. After all, it is the only photograph I have of T-Rex. 

The Oxford Museum of Natural History is a unique experience as it houses countless specimens of animals past and present. From dinosaurs to butterfly's, they are all here waiting to be viewed. Intertwined with this museum is the Pitt River Museum, named after General Augustus Pitt Rivers, who collect thousand and thousands of anthropological items from all over the world. 

There are two museums (both built in the 1800's) as 19th-century thinking declared it was very important to separate objects made by the hand of God (natural history) from objects made by the hand of man (anthropology). Today, one is not sure where one museum begins and the other ends as they are so intertwined. Wouldn't that scandalize those valiant thinkers of the 19th century.

Besides T-Rex, the museum has the only complete skeleton of a single Dodo. Its true that other museums have complete skeletal remains of Dodo's, but they are made up of several individual Dodos. I bring this up because a fellow named Charles Dodgson used an artist's painting of this Dodo as a character in one of the most beloved books of all time. You see, Charles Dodgson's pen name was Lewis Carrol and the book is "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."

I have a few more photos of the the place which I shall share in the future.  

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Postcard from Eastern Washington

Highway 25, the road from Davenport, WA to the Canadian border is filled with abandoned trucks like this. They are everywhere. I shared some of their images here before. And this is just another one, left for dead in a lonely field.

Still, as I drive by each one of them, or, in this case, stop and take a photograph, I wonder how it got here to its final resting place. And why here? Why not a wrecking yard? Why by the road? And of course, how long has it been here?

Each abandoned vehicle has its own story, serving their owners for many years, then abandoned and left for dead. Now, its only purpose is to rust among the weeds and bushes that surround it. Without shelter, it must survive the best it can while being pounded by wind, rain, and snow. No doubt it gives shelter to many small animals. At least it has some purpose. 

The motor is gone, the flatbed in back is gone, doors and windows are gone...all that's left is a hulk...a remnant of a once new and proud vehicle that did its job to the best of its ability. But, it had one more purpose in its long life...to sit and wait for someone like me to make a picture of it...turn it once again into something beautiful, and bear witness in writing to the fact that it once was special to someone. Maybe someone will remember me that way when I have served my purpose in this world and moved on to the next great adventure.   

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Postcard from Tucson

Downtown Tucson is very much mixed in with Old Town Tucson. It just happened that way. Here you will find Tucson's tallest structures next to a historic Spanish Hacienda home. They are just intermixed. 

This sign is from the 1950's and is still in place, even though the hotel is long since gone. No one would dare take it down as it is an historical landmark and loved by the locals. Although the hotel is gone, the building has been renovated and now contains law offices. And though the sign cleverly advertises a pool, it also is long gone, having been filled in back in the 90's. 

So, pretty much everything about the hotel is gone...but the sign still survives...a remnant from the historic golden era of motor travel. 

It seemed like a perfect image to render in black and white.

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 Leavenworth

Recently, I told a friend of mine that I really miss seeing Iris growing all over town. She replied that if I want to see Iris, just go down to Trader Joe's. Sorry, not the same thing. Now don't get me wrong, I love the variety of flowers that grow here, but I do miss certain flowers that flourish up north...and of all those, its the Iris I miss most.

Fortunately, I have a very large collection of Iris photos taken over the years...a few of which you may have seen here in past issues. But I wanted to publish another one with a little bit of a twist. Since the Iris is so tall and slender, I decided to crop the picture in a long and slender mode. I think it turned out well. 

I found a poem about the Iris, oddly enough written by a member of the Tucson Area Iris Society (I guess that means there may be some Iris flowers somewhere around here besides Trader Joe's). It says pretty much how I feel about this beautiful Spring flower.

Iris, Most Beautiful Flower

Iris, most beautiful flower,
Symbol of life, love, and light;
Found by the brook, and the meadow,
Or lofty, on arable height.
You come in such glorious colors,
In hues, the rainbow surpass;
The chart of color portrays you,
In petal, or veins, of your class.
You bloom with the first in Winter,
With the last, in the Fall, you still show;
You steal the full beauty of Springtime,
With your fragrance and sharp color glow.
Your form and beauty of flower,
An artist's desire of full worth;
So Iris, we love you and crown you,
MOST BEAUTIFUL FLOWER ON EARTH!
 

- Edith Buckner Edwards

 

 

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 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.

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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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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.

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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.

(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.

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