under the freeway

May 27, 07
Old Sac, warm
"Freeway Garden"



Checking out what the Jazz Jubilee has to offer for free, which turns out to be precious little. We end up hanging outside a venue under the freeway, listening to the blues band playing at the "Freeway Gardens" venue, too poor to pay the $100+ that it would cost for our family of four - singin' our own blues.

memorial elms

May 25, 07
midday
downtown Sacramento
Memorial Auditorium Elms

part of the newly forming Legacy Trees project



Some of these old elms, in the neighborhood of one hundred years old, have gotten too old and too weak to let stand. For safety's sake they have to come down - posted with notices to the public.



Yesterday James Cooper called me up to tell me about the Legacy Trees project. It started with a 120-year-old tulip tree at Capital Park that another artist friend of his had seen ready to come down. That friend happened to be a wood worker and saw alot of raw material headed for the chipper... Long story short, there is now a sort of group that is recovering the wood of many of Sacramento's legacy trees which are coming to the end of their life cycles.



These elms will be the third set of trees in the project, which I now hope to catch on film before they come down.



These front shots of Memorial Auditorium don't have any posted trees in them, but I couldn't come shoot here without some pure beauty shots.







Lovely elm in front of Sacramento's historic Memorial Auditorium - between traffic to emphasize it's timeless beauty.

late morning

May 17, 07
late morning
North Natomas
along Truxel Road/Natomas Road @ Del Paso Blvd
warm, clear, light breeze
(more of my crazy woman on the side of the road series)



Even over the ebb & flow of the traffic noise, a song bird manages to sing out loud and clear, hidden away in the huge palms.



I've been admiring these palms ever since they were brought in to adorn the intersection in this new part of town. Yet another place that I can say that I remember when it was nothing here but fields.



Of course, many people can say that about North Natomas.



At any rate, I finally have made a trip just to shoot the palms for the Visions of Heaven project. (http://www.heavenartproject.blogspot.com/)



I can just see these huge fan palms in the New Jerusalem, fronds swaying in the gentle breeze.





Later - after school I get Deidre to hold the tulips that I got for Mother's Day up in the air in the backyard. I shoot slides that will become part of a series of Polaroid transfer florals...

michigan bar road

May 9, 07
Midday
Michigan Bar Rd, Sacramento County
sunny, clear, warm
shooting with Wendell Minshew

We've been driving around looking for places to shoot - it's all quite photogenic around here, but we're also looking for somewhere that Wendell can photograph me - we get some portraits in an open rocky area, then hit dirt roads and find places I really love -



here the barbed wire fence has become deeply embedded in the tree - The tree has simply incorporated the wire into itself -


Wendell has me squat down by the wire hugging tree and then I see this shot -

We drive aorund more and find our way back to the same area with dirt roads again...

A little later on Latrobe Road
a little more breezy

signs along the fence proclaim
"Oak Woodland Preserve & Working Ranch
www.sacramentovalleyconservancy.org"



This is such a lovely area, but tough to get just the right shots in midday sun - if only we had the time today to hang out and wait for evening light! Oh well, we'll just have to come back again.


I hug some barbed wire myself to get this shot.


Wendell's trusty 4 wheel drive

As we're heading back, we have to stop for a couple more shots -





(the prints are very high key but negs will be just wonderful)


Post Script
A couple shots Wendell took of me working...



You can see more of Wendell's work at http://www.wendellminshew.com/

May 3

May 3
morning
clear, sunny, high sixties, light breeze

Go up for a flight with Scott, just over to Folsom Lake and back. I took my 35mm and shot the last of my roll of slide film - I'm eager to see what kind of Polaroid transfers the low-level aerial shots will make. I've always loved low level flight. After we come back, a mocking bird becomes quite curious about what might be inside the hangar & would have gotten himself closed inside if we hadn't been watchful of him. As soon as he was out & our hangar was shut, he flew down to the next open hangar to see what was inside there...


Old time zero film creates an overlay of pattern on the image.



the rare transfer actually made the same day it was shot