Puzzle Bread

  Not finished, but this idea is the way I am going next.

River House, Comb Ridge.

  Just two proofs from River House on Comb Ridge in Utah.  Many more shots to come but these two just came out of the only film boxes processed so far.  All the minus development and plus dev is done.  The real bulk of the film still waiting.

  Wanted to shoot this scene since a friend of mine sent an iPhone of it to me a couple years ago. It was as good as I thought.  It got a little plus dev on HP5.  HP doesn't plus much, so it just moved a little.  Pyrocat HD.  I shot it as soon as I arrived and reshot it again as the last shot.  This is the second round.  I'm sure I was seeing better after a couple of hours there.

  Love the feel of these inside corners in the ruin.  Going to be careful printing, with pre-fogging for the outside tones.  What a place this must have been.  Both 5X7 HP5 with a 120 Super Angulon.

Fighting Knives with Ice.

  Continue working this idea to see if anything emerges.  One of these could be it, but the assembly is still in the freezer morphing.  I love following a new idea around, in fact, the idea is the most important thing to me:  Have idea, build it out, follow.  Images never before seen in nature or culture. Two, (or sometimes three), iconic elements mashed up in a new way.  Making Man Ray...blink.

Pieces of mirror fall off...I weld them back on, then keep carving with hot water.  In the freezer, ice slowly evaporates as well.

  The Magic & Logic portfolio is getting full, but has hardly ever been shown.  Six pieces in a two-man show at the Blue Star contemporary in San Antonio.  That show moved up to San Marcos in a little university gallery.  Kinetic still life.  Something is melting, burning, balancing, moving, et.  They aren't still.  They require a camera to be seen.

Image flow: Spring Still Life work.

  Images and ideas flowing smoothly.  I'm on about a 25-sheet-box-of-8X10-HP5-a-week pace.  Many more ideas than here...I'm constantly lagging behind my proofing, where most of these iPhone files come from.  Testing fireworks in front of the lens, found a close supply for minnows...

Reshot this already- trying a darker background to make it glow.  Started taking it apart.

In church, I had the idea of imbeding dice in bread I've had sitting around for a year.  Then: puzzle pieces.  This is the next-to-the-last idea, blocked with iPhone.  Such a rickey arrangement that there was cursing in the studio.  I think that's why my dog Lucy doesn't like being in there with me.

Another iPhone image of the next-to-the-last idea.

Hated to let the Spring bloom go by without a wave at it.  This image currently winning the wall test.

These scissors sat around on the prop shelf for 30 years.  Finally getting some work.

Spring Break Part V: House of the Moon.

I had long wanted to see House of the Moon.  The Park Service limits visitors to 20 per day.  Permits available at Kane Gulch Ranger Station about an hour from Bluff.  They opened at 8:00.  The first 12 can be reserved by phone, internet, et and the last eight are saved for walk-ups.  

I was up early and on the road.  I got the last walk-up permit at 8:05.

Moon House in McClure Canyon.  I drove my 4-Runner all the way to the 4WD parking, cutting a mile-plus off my walk.  That, and the reputation of the trail down keep many folks away, but it really was an easy hike.

Moon House famous for the interior painting.

 I was the first person on the site that morning and had two hours before anyone showed up.  I don't think the whole 20 permits were exercised, though there were lost people wandering all over the mesa.

Portholes in the exterior wall.  They look at every approach to the site.

  More painting outside the ruin.  A volunteer site monitor showed up.  He said the zig-zag was a sign of the Eagle Klan and seen at other sites.  Usually snake motifs are a calendar with 13 bends corresponding to the 13 full moons in a year.

Watchtower at the corner of the ruin.

 Trail comes down a rockslide on the left and up the rockslide to the right.  The notorious pour-off feature on the trail in has a reputation as a tricky spot, but it wasn't anything.

Many other small ruins up and down the canyon.

Turkey tracks painted on the roof of a ruin.

Back wall in a four-room ruin down canyon. 

Trail crosses this pour-off.

  Glad to be able to visit.  Carried a Fuji 6X9 camera with 65mm wide-angle built in.  I shot off a tripod and used a level.  I was put off carrying 5X7 because of the reputation of the hike in and the trail down and across.  I started to go back and get my 5X7, but I was more interested in the visit that making an image.  I think the 6X9 was enough.

Spring Break, Part IV

Recapture Lodge was full of interesting folks, mostly there to hike, see new petroglyphs, visit indian site and tour the area.  I had a very interesting breakfast every morning in the map room.  If I hadn't had my own agenda I would have begged my way into one of the groups going out.

I ate dinner at the Comb Ridge Bistro.  The menu was a little too vegan-ey for me, but I thought I would try the meatloaf.  Every once in a while you have an experience that makes you suspicious that you have died and gone to heaven without noticing.  The meatloaf was that experience.  It was transformational.  As I ate, I kept thinking, nothing can be THIS good.  But it was.  I tipped the cook 20 bucks.  If you are in Bluff, Utah and find yourself at the Comb Ridge Bistro and expresso bar, try the meatloaf.

After dinner I walked out behind the lodge to the river to visit the Ellen Meloy memorial there.  Her books are a treasure.  Jim who owned the lodge was a good friend of Ellen and her husband.

  Memorial sculpture based on one of her drawings of a petroglyph of a Stone Sheep in "Eating Stone."  I offered up the appropriate prayer.

Spring Break, Part III

That evening I scouted out the trailhead for Progression Panel.  I hadn't seen it since last century.

When I stepped off into the wash it was 36 degrees, but comfortable.

Gorgeous as ever.

I had about two hours there alone.  Early in the morning.  

I wanted a negative of a piece of the panel, I think.

 It was an important place.

After coming off Progression I went up the road a mile and walked in to Monarch Cave Ruin.

Shot a couple of negatives and once again had the place to myself most of the time.