6-30-2010 Repairs to the Pipe, the Search Ends

We finally tracked down the source of leakage in the pipe. Or that is to say, my father found it when the loose soil caused by the leak tried to eat his leg. We dug out a canal to drain the water from the hole, we didn't turn the pipe off because that would cause it to fill with dirt and nasty crud. So we spent some hours (I lost all track of time) in digging out the hole and trench to patch a simple nickel sized hole. But that was just this late afternoon.

This morning I was on Scott Hurran's property using a gas powered hedge trimmer to devastate blackberry bushes that had completely overgrown our water pipe, some parts were about twenty feet tall. That was some madness. I have a longstanding hatred for blackberries, so when I have to trim them I tend to behave as if I am engaged in mortal combat. The bottom left image is only a part of Scott's property. He collects stuff. Carburetors. Golf carts. Insulation. Radiators. I saw half of a van. There are some lanes between all the stuff, and I find it quite peaceful. Bottom right is some street photography from Auburn. I was waiting for my print guy, Pekka, to get back from lunch as I had some prints to pick up. The square in the image is a newly redesigned chunk of downtown. Now it has a bonfire pit. And a tall thing for photographers to stand on.

Arbus and Reflection

Diane Arbus said about photography "The process itself has a kind of exactitude, a kind of scrutiny that we're not normally subject to. I mean that we don't subject each other to. We're nicer to each other than the intervention of the camera is going to make us. It's a little bit cold, a little bit harsh."

Now I may take issue with her claim that humans need cameras in order to subject each other to harsh scrutiny or cold exactitude or any combination therein, but that intervention is something I felt today.

Earlier, while walking around some ravines with my father and our neighbors, Carl and Frank; Frank kept ending up at the end of the group. So did I. There were dappled shadows caused by the oak trees and small inclines that I couldn't help but be drawn to compositionally when Frank walked slowly down them in his straw hat. But I wasn't talking to him. I didn't ask him if he minded his picture taken. I was running about, climbing trees and scurrying up gravel hillsides to find my preferred vantage point. I wonder if I missed the larger human element by shutting up and talking with my lens.

I felt that coldness. It was a documentary feel, as if I wasn't truly there taking the picture. Almost a feeling of being inside the camera, an invisible being responsible only for examining light and aiming for the most interesting frame.

6-29-2010 Frank, Hank, and the Search for Water

We spent some time today looking for the pipe that brings water to our house from a canal. It is an interesting prospect, the one thing we need above all else is piped underground some 500 feet to our house from a simple cement ditch that again is sourced from somewhere far away. The two men pictured in the driveway are my father Michael (left) and our neighbor Carl, our pipe runs through his property and Michael is convinced we have a leak, so Carl was showing us around in an attempt to find the leak.

























The dogs name is Hank. It is a perfect name for such a huge lummox child dog. See that thing he is chewing on? It's a fence. I'm smitten. Such is my sentiment for every dog I've ever met.











The other man in the pictures is our direct neighbor Frank Herrera. He is either first generation or immigrated from Mexico. Frank worked for Union Pacific as some type of machinist for thirty years. They transferred him all the way to Denver a few years before he would be eligible for retirement, but they couldn't shake him. He called their bluff and they transferred him back quickly. Now he spends his days driving to various dumps and scrapyards, buying more stuff for projects around his house. He built a fence in the middle of his asphalt driveway, just to use the parts and for something to do. Some people never truly retire.

06-28-2010 New School Newcastle Grafitti

This blows my mind. I found this single run stencil in my hometown of Newcastle CA, population 1,000. The only culture here is a blues club and the volunteer fire department. It is a small place.

That there has ever been street art in Newcastle, ever, even once is completely cool and bizarre. This piece could be a tribute to George Bush, but as long as it's a god damn stencil in god damn Newcastle I would be for it. Oh yes.









My father and I spent most of today repairing and testing the pipe that brings us ditch water. We were dirty, sweaty and annoyed.

The season being summer in California, we have many fires. These fires cast an orange tint in the air, this combined with my contrast boosting orange filter made our work shoes invariably epic looking.

Wanted to send this to Jones Soda, but their website keeps glitching on me.