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

kaseberg creek

4.24.07
Late afternoon
near Kaseberg Creek & Pleasant Grove Blvd
warm, clear, sunny, no wind



I've been seeing this old fallen tree as I drive through West Roseville to friends' and on errands - so finally today I come out on no errand but photography -



The prints come out hot but I know the negs will be good and strong. Plenty of birds are attracted to the vernal pool here, even in the midst of growing suburbia - red wing black birds, and egret & unknown songbirds - the pool and its surrounds form a sort of nature-oasis for the soul.





After a while in the knee-deep blooming grasses and vetch, my nose begins to itch, even on antihistamines. But thank goodness, without modern medicine I'd be too sick to enjoy this at all.



Dirt paths wind their way along the creek and among the oak woods near the creek - the sunlight hits some spots just so.



dancing tree...

front porch

April 24, 07
morning on my front porch
sunny & warm, I want to go out but need to test my camera first -



My own tiny tree story - one of my precious Japanese maples, should probably prune it to encourage a stouter trunk.

And yes, all is well after my rollers trashed film last week and completely aborted shooting. Time to head out again.

4-22-07

front garden

April 16, 2007
afternoon in my front garden
warm, sunny & clear
bees buzzing around quite industriously
a couple birds chase each other noisily flapping through the big ash tree



I get out the SX70 and one of my last precious packs of Time Zero film - better to use them before they expire than to save them and finally discover that they've gone bad.



My garden is largely unkempt right now, some roses never even got pruned and now flower quite lavishly. Lucky for me some plants can actually thrive on neglect!

easter sunday

April 8, 07
Easter Sunday afternoon
Uncle Butch & Aunt Linda's property in Shingle Springs
warm, no wind, light clouds


some iris not yet budding by the fence

Plenty of birdsong - chirps and twitters - the howling of dogs from down the hill, a horse snorting, a mosquito buzzes near my ear.



The earth is covered in green grasses and wildflowers no more than 18" tall, some taller and slender, some low and crawling.



One of the cats pounces on something in the dry moss on a rock outcropping. A strange long bug with wings lands on one of my drying photos, seems to get a little stuck, but I'm able to blow it off and it flies away.









The sun fades behind clouds for a few minutes, then breaks out stronger again. Birdsong ebbs and flows in the trees all around.

hike to feather falls

April 6, 07
warm, clear
afternoon hike to Feather Falls
Leave trailhead about 12:30, later than I wanted -

Deidre and I hit the trail, looking for the "old trail" and "new trail" I read about in a Sac Bee article - maybe half a mile along, the trail branches, marked "3.3 mi" to the left, "4.5 mi" to the right - we know the 3.3 is shorter but harder, a good way to go in - crosses Frey Creek & follows it for some time -


Frey Creek where trail crosses




Farther along Frey Creek - Dee is glad to look before sitting, so as not to sit on a 3" long slug!

Away from the creek, along the trail a way, we can see Bald Rock - but it's not particularly good for a photo.


Leaning tree along "old" trail

finally the old trail meets the new trail - .5 miles to the falls.


nearing the falls

Coming up the trail to the falls, I like a spot & start to shoot it - but someone starts coming down, and someone else, and someone else - at long last I get the shot.

At an overlook just before the falls, we get a view of the middle fork of the Feather River, a very familiar-seeming view, then we come around to glimpses of the falls & it finally dawns on me: my photographer friend Connie Saint has been here this past year and has taken these shots, I've seen them on gallery walls when we showed together - so my shots will be different.


First a view looking away from the falls,

Feather Falls


then a different shot of the falls,

then film that begins to self destruct, too many people on the viewing platform, too hot in the direct sun, a second pack of film that trashes itself, dogs barking, I even get confused & fog the mio film -


ridge along falls

I take some shots with slide film & the mio & decide that it's time for us to head back.



Away from barking dogs, hot sun & other people, Dee & I get a chance to sit and relax, I finally get the film pack problem fixed and use my next to last piece of black & white - saving the last in case something spectacular comes up.


Dee takes a mio photo - then a slide of the same.

Heading back we take the longer, newer trail, with the knowledge that it will be easier for our return trip, which we need.

Along the way we see many little blue belly lizards, one great big alligator lizard, hear plenty of birds, see a few - then I come around a bend in the trail and nearly step on a three-foot-long garter snake - I let out a little shriek of surprise, startling Deidre and the snake. I get a shot of him on slide film before he compeletely runs away.



Plenty of bugs, too - big black butterflies that love red wild flowers, a gnat that flies into my eye, mosquitos that pester Dee but not me.



Several kinds of wildflowers blooming, as well as dogwood trees.

We can tell it's getting later but don't check the time til we get back. It's 5:30 p.m and we've come nearly ten miles total.