Day in the lab

Museum show is getting closer. Spent the morning running TriX and HP5 negs in X-Tol. Tri-X looks weak compared to the HP5. Flattened and spotted prints using Spot Pens. Really smoothed up the prints. They don't have a lot of trash on them but they are full of little highlights that need calming down. I spotted hundreds of white dots and leaves. Almost ends up being painting in some cases. Going to the color printing lab to consult on the end of the digital files this afternoon. Printing those on Epson enhanced matte paper. 35 total images. Just one session in my darkroom to go.

Clearing Summer Storm, Yosemite Valley, Ca

Clearing Summer Storm, Yosemite Valley, California

With my daughter, Jaye Oliver and Chris Johnson in Yosemite Valley early in 2001. It rained on us for a couple of days and then started one of those classic late afternoon clearings.

Fledgling American Crow

Fledgling American Crow

Sociable and amiable birds blown from a nest across the street from my studio.

Afternoon shadow, Shiprock, NM.

  Afternoon shadow, Shiprock, NM.

  Shadow from the pulpit on the East side.  I shared the pulpit with a healthy-looking snake.

Just-hatched Sliders

  Just-hatched Sliders

  Someone gave me a handful of eggs that I thought were turtles.  They turned out to be Texas rat Snakes.  This bunch turned out to be turtles.  You have to keep the sand slightly damp, by the way.

Candle on Gyro

  Candle on Gyro

  A still life with a little life.  And not so still either.

Feeding Crow

  Feeding young American Crow

  A storm pitched an entire nest of young crows to the ground at the studio.  I had to raise them with crickets and worms.  You had to shove the food down their throats.  I kept them in an upstairs room at the studio with the windows open so their parents could come and go.  These days, I would just put them in bushes and let the adults handle it.

  They were very gregarious and preferred company to solitude.  When I was at the studio they would all walk down to where I was working and sit next to me preening and cleaning their feathers.

  I think of my fellow natives of the Blackfork watershed as my neighbors.  In this case they literally were.

Stacked Box Turtles

  Stacked Box Turtles

  Well-behaved fellows.  The background is paper from boxes of fireworks.

Woodpecker Under Glass

  Woodpecker under glass

  Rescued from the vent line into my Central AC at the studio.  I pitched him into the sky outside and he forgot the whole thing before he flew across the street.

Bull Frog on lacrosse ball

  Bull Frog on Lacrosse Ball.

  Very young and personable Bull Frog on the lacrosse ball.  Amphibians are about waiting and watching.  The run on a different set of parameters than hot-blooded simans.  Tough to get it slowed down.

  Most of these portraits are supported on very ordinary background and posing props.  I think that's a toilet paper roll on the bottom and some kind of plastic lid under that.

  In the studio with 5X7 and flash.  He was released back where I found him.  

South Dike, Shiprock, New Mexico

  South Dike, Shiprock, New Mexico

  Shiprock is a very serious place and no part of it is more serious than the south side.  The energy pulses everywhere but is the most disdainful of human presence here.  I'm careful and reverential around Shiprock but I've had equipment destroyed on the south side...in daylight.   You dare not sleep here.  Poltergeists would shake you out of your sleeping bag and drive away in your car.

  The South dike, looking like a buried dragon.  I'm not sure it isn't.  Overhead, behind and up the face is a malevolent dark rock formation that looks like iron ore.  Copied from a little palladium contact.  Makes a tremendous silver gelatin print as well.

Blue Jay

  Blue Jay

  A never printed negative from the Bestiary.  He was a pet who had broken his collarbone flying into a window.  He seemed to like people quite a bit.