merry x-mas!

Cape Girardeau

The Emerson Bridge

the other garden

W.H. Jackson
Tower of Babel, Garden of The Gods (Colorado)
No. 1007 After 1880

a different kind of map

distribution of the name "Reinders" across the U.S.

Mastodon State Park

I found this guy near Imperial, MO

a garden of pixels

garden of the gods

Today, I went to "Garden of the Gods" recreational area in southeastern Illinois. I was shocked to find topography unlike anywhere else in the entire state. These are a few day-of-the-shoot shots that I made with my camera phone. I becoming quite fond of what it does. It's not sharp. The color is wack. It's simultaneously under and over exposed. But it's fast and I can put it directly above my 4x5 lens. something happened to the last shot... looks like the photoshop monster is coming back...

near Herod and Equality, Illinois.

oops.

Globe

the geology museum, UW-Madison

Madison

I went to UW Madison with Nate today to shoot some things that have been on my short list for a while. Nate re-shot a few things too. I've been taking cell phone pics straight from the top of my camera after I shoot the 4x5, thus these instant, day-of-the-shoot pics are on my blog tonight. This globe was a happy accident on the way to the bathroom in the geology building.

inside the geology building

the observatory

a medium sized radio telescope

Nate making his picture

Nate Mathews opening!

My friend and colleague Nate Mathews has a solo-show opening tonight from 4-7pm at the UIC Student Center. Here's the info and GPS coordinates from Nate himself:

The Address is: Art Lounge, UIC Student Center West, 828 South Wolcott Ave. This is the west end of the UIC campus near Damen so you could take a Damen bus south to Polk and go one block east, or take the pink line to polk and walk two blocks west. There is also plenty of metered parking within a block or two walk. The space is in the south east corner of the building so enter from the south doors (near the center of the block) and turn right. The gallery is next to the bookstore in the corner past the stairs.

an old favorite

Sesame Street turned 40 today. This clip is from 1973. Watch the kid headbanging @ 0:38 and 4:11. Probably the best moment in children's television, ever.

delayed

On the way to the Midwest Society for Photographic Education Conference in Minneapolis my flight got a little delayed. 8 hours in all. I arrived at 2am in a deserted airport. As I got off the plane the pilot apologized and a stack of diet coke and peanuts waited for me at the gate. Here's a map of what the plane did. As we approached Minneapolis, the pilot came on and said "they're making us circle the airport until we can land so we're gonna have to go to Milwaukee because we're going to run out of gas." So we flew to Milwaukee, refueled, sat on the tarmac for an hour and a half and then flew an hour back to Minneapolis. A lady got sick at the end. A woman on the plane had to help her and paramedics were called to get her off the plane first. This was hell. And I had to give my first big artist lecture the next day. My friend Heather drove there and beat my plane by over an hour. I decided not to go with her because I wanted to get there early and rest up for my talk. The lecture did go well though. I might of rushed through a few things and I did forget W.H. Jackson's name, but it was pretty good anyway. I showed this map at the beginning of my talk. The second map is all the trips that I've taken so far for my project. It looks like I might be making another one soon. People have told me the coasts look conspicuously empty.

Thomas Ruff

So today I read this article about Thomas Ruff and his project where he pixelates images. A little ways down the author asks why no one else has made "work dealing with the technological impact of digitisation on photography." Ruff says: "there are so many interesting photographers, but why don't they think about the structure of photography? They're young, they're curious, but they're not interested. So I had to do this work because no one else would."

Well, this inspired me. I've let the "pixel destruction" project get a little dusty and haven't really been working on it for the past 8 months. I think I'll start it back up again. I need to narrow down the scope of the project though, specifically what images I choose to "destroy" or appropriate. I've been using images important to the history of photography so far but I am definitely a landscape photographer and would like to somehow integrate or extend this from my previous bodies of work...


Ruff's images are mostly landscapes. He explains "the jpegs are divided into three or four categories: the one I started with was ‘catastrophes created by man,’ then ‘catastrophes created by nature.’ Then I added another category that included examples of nature coming back or conquering man-made creations."

I've thought about using images from my previous bodies of work and sending them through my machine to see what happens. I think this could be productive or at least put to good use images that would otherwise not be seen. I think the concept could also stem from the previous projects in that the images would have some element of Romance or Exploration- exploring the boundaries of what we've already discovered or alluding to what we might discover next... but then- it just becomes pixel garbage :)

the yield

Grant Ray, Athens, Ohio: Shadow of its Former Self. Electric Ouija Board for Trees

Here's some new work from an old buddy from skool. Check out the show that he and a few other mates are in @

Heaven Gallery
1550 N. Milwaukee Ave. 2nd floor
Chicago, IL

Opening Reception
Friday, October 23, 7-11pm

Saturday, October 24
Open gallery from 1-5pm

more VLA

crater

Meteor Crater, AZ

count the telescopes

The VLA

Rifle II

Rifle, CO

meteor crater

Meteor Crater, AZ

US 66

Tucumcari, NM

wait and you will receive

the vla

this one's on the site now. It was a tough 2 weeks that I had to wait to see it but... the rewards of shooting with a 4x5.

backyard

Creve Coeur, MO

the view hotel

The View Hotel, Monument Valley, AZ

rifle

Rifle, CO

The first of many to come. Made 15 scans today, mostly from the middle of the trip. Will probably do 15 more tomorrow.

arrrggg! and re-shots

I learned last night that the crate I made to hold my frames had a bit of an accident somewhere on the way to Wyoming. The gallery director called me and said she didn't even know how it held together. This upset me. I built that thing by hand with a good friend who knew what he was doing and we put extra effort into it to make sure nothing would crack or even move. But I guess it must not be that bad because it only cost $80 to repackage. Lessons learned: One: make crate out of light weight, indestructible titanium or carbon-fiber. This way you will just have to spend thousands up front for the crate but there's no way FedEx could deliberately destroy it in transit. Two: have a better than good chance to sell the work and spend nothing for new packaging. I don't know how to do this and I don't think anyone else really has a clue right now either. Anyway, here's some re-shot pics from the trip. I think they're pretty recognizable and I'm glad I got the best shots the first time I went there. I get the first negs back today and should have the rest done next week but I still think it'll be another 10 days or so before I get something scanned.

i'm giving away a secret in this one...

nice ride

My trip out west was made possible by two close patrons that loaned me the use of their 2007 Subaru Impreza all-wheel-drive wagon. In total I tacked on 4340 miles in 9 days and took the car off-road a number of times where I really grew to appreciate its design and engineering. The Impreza hauled over dust-ridden, pebble-filled roads and flattened mountain climbs that took it to 12,029'. The only problem was when I encountered boulders on an "off-road" course in Arches National Park outside Moab, Utah. I decided it was probably not the best idea to test the undercarriage on a quasi off-road AWD car that wasn't mine and that just got brand new performance tires. All an all though, I highly recommend this car and really want one for myself. It got 30 mpg on average and kept cool; the engine temp gauge didn't rise a hair when I drove it 800 miles in over 100 degree weather.

mom's 2007 impreza after 3 days of dust-road driving

rear view

where I decided to turn around

contact

VLA Radio Telescope, middle of nowhere, New Mexico

On the third day into my road trip I decided to take a bit of an unplanned detour. I was in Santa Fe and going to head further west when I said, what the hell, mike. you have to see this. it's perfect for your project... and low and behold it was. I got goose bumps when I saw it come into view. It is the Very Large Array Radio Telescope as seen in the movie Contact (which I've been fond of since I was 13). I was surprised to find out that the scientists do not actually listen for whatever it is they're searching for like in the movie. The movie people just made that up for dramatic effect. I spent a little over a day at this site, a bit more than I planned but the 4x5s I snapped of these babies will be spectacular. I can't wait to get them back.

surf's up

Robert F. Bukaty, AP

I'm interrupting my trip photos for this image from today's news about Hurracaine Bill off the coast of Maine. It'd fit nicely into my project if I could have been there...

monument valley

the view hotel

denver

from red rocks

enjoy now!

canyon kids

no fence.

sketches from the trip

I'll be posting the digital shots from my trip out west over the coming weeks. Although all the sketch shots are digital and aren't 4x5, I'm really glad I was able to make these in between shooting with the 4x5. I haven't worked this quickly in quite some time.

uh oh.

a sketch for an idea i've had. from here.

40 years ago today

by Neil Armstrong