Up, up and away

I've always found travel exciting. It mixes well with my photo hobby. This shot was taken in the old days when the pilot would leave the door open. I leaned into the isle with my fastest lens and snapped this off.

Thankfully flying has never bothered me. On my first flight I remember looking at the wonderful aerial view so I didn't think about being several miles in the sky above the clouds. I've also been on a seaplane in San Francisco, a few air balloons, and helicopters in lots of places, including my own home town on a life flight, but the view sucked on a body board.

My early college summer trips to Virgina Beach were road trips with my brother and a few close friends. Then came my business trips by air. Working for a University, I had 4 weeks vacation. So I took the 50/50 business trip, 1 week business, 1 week vacation. As my tradition I worked hard and played hard. During the business trip, I might collect info for fun after the week, but when I was on the business trip it was all business. I crisscrossed the nation and got to know the major cities very well. Almost like second homes. It's kind of funny returning to some of them, that I have spent so much time at that I know my way around instinctively.

I've had trips that were pure pleasure too. Not as many as the 50/50, but some none the less. A group trip with my ex where I was the party tour guide to Chicago (a second home city). My proposal to my ex on a Grand Canyon, Lake Powell, Bryce and Zion vacation. Honeymoon in Cancun. A few trips to Niagara Falls. The trip to the USVI, to witness my brother's wedding. Our tense trip to Orlando, the last "family" vacation where I was constantly taunted about the divorce. My ex can be a cruel bitch.

And of course my two month long trips to Europe, the first was a bus tour with my brother. The second was free form with my ex to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary. I wish I had taken the opportunity while in college to go, its hard as a working adult to get the time off to take a leisurely trip. There is so much to see. We can forget that in the US where a century home is a big deal compared to a normal occurrence in Europe where its possible to see things a thousand years old. I do find the 8-9 hour flight a bit disconcerting, you become paralyzed from the waist down and have severe cabin fever.

But this bird's wings are clipped. My ex has got me listed on the state dept watch list and my grievance hearing is not even scheduled. My latest review of child support shows I am one month ahead plus a partial overpayment, just as I have been for over 2 years. I think its going to be time to escalate to the state agency again to get the enforcement actions revoked that never had any other merit besides false accusations being made and the assumption of guilt against the divorce looser (me).

So I look forward to the day when I can fly free again. My birthday is coming up, six months after the final decree. With a lot of effort (surprisingly so) that will be my goal, to have resolved all the divorce bullshit in the 91 page orders, and all the enforcement actions and penalties taken against me. I've been grounded far too long, it's time to fly free again. I can hardly wait. What a wonderful birthday gift that would be, just to be free, I would be so thankful.

...Down the Hill

At age 7, we moved from the city at the lakefront and to a suburb, with a little more land and a better school system. Our house was on a street on the top of a hill. We don't really have mountains in this state, but we have some big hills and changes in elevation.

From the second floor bathroom window you had a nice view of the city toward the lakefront. In the winter when the trees were bare you could see all the lights stretched out ahead. I never compared it side by side, but the view was similar to one I had photographed over looking LA from the Griffin Observatory. No tour of our house was complete without taking the surprised guests into the bathroom, closing the door to see out the window and shutting off the lights. LOL

But the feature that no kids could resist was the hill. After a modest sized backyard of grass was a retaining wall and then the hill covered in trees slopping moderately down to the street. This hill was part of our own private property. Ours was the widest and least overgrown on the street. Everyone on our side of the street lived on top of this hill and had at least 300 feet behind their yards as private property until the end of the street where the metropolitan (public) park started. But some were quite overgrown, hard to get through with fallen trees, eroded banks, and poison ivy.

Well thanks to my Dad, the poison ivy was eradicated on our part of the hill, fallen trees were cut and removed, ground cover planted (Pines, Orange Lilies, Ferns) to prevent erosion. That meant that we had our own private park, our own woods. No making noise in the house or yard. If you were looking for us, we'd be "down the hill". Exploring, making forts, blazing trails. If you wanted to play hide and seek or war, this was the place, lots of places to go. Of course my brother and I could get through the trails the quickest, we lived there, we made the trails. Our friends couldn't run over this terrain as well as us.

Even our neighbors who had their own hills preferred ours, especially as we got older and improved it even more. It got so good it needed to be defended, but I'm getting ahead of myself. And then the neighbors who didn't have their own hills, of course they came to play at ours. Pretty much if you were looking for anybody they were down our hill. Occasionally we'd have multi hill battles, that's where advance scouting and map writing came into play so you could get to the enemy quickly. Can't run down a path and trip over roots or come to a dead end or to where the pond drained out to make you a muddy mess.

No need for video games (there weren't any, I'm from the pinball era) we had real games. And then we started building... Improving the trails, patio, picnic table, and the beginning of the best fort ever. It started as "the platform", 4x4s buried deep by my Dad, on the side of the hill and a wooden floor up off the ground. In the middle of the woods, with a perfect view everywhere. The front was about 3 feet off the ground, the back was over 6 feet off the ground.

Then the improvements - a tarp A-frame roof, a (drawbridge) plank entry, then a wooden roof, then walls, front door, a back screen window. Then electricity, a long line strung through the trees from the garage. Now we could have a radio, fan, lights. So it wasn't just a day time play area, sleep outs, sometimes large ones, involving little sleep.

My parents stretched their budget a bit to afford that house, but they had some foresight on what a fun place it would be for growing up. They liked the woods and the double level patio area we built. A little wildlife so it didn't feel like crowded city living.

Must be why I bought the house on a wooded lot. My house is barely visible from satellite images. It's not as big as my parents, but it's in the best school system in the state, just as theirs was back then. My son has seen where my fort stood, it didn't survive all these years. We walk around my back yard talking of where I might build something for him.

Maker Made Photography...

...Old School

My earliest memories of photography was as a young child, seeing my Uncle's darkroom, dim safelights, odd looking equipment, black and white 8 x 10s drying.

Years later in college I took photography classes and worked in the darkroom. First in BW, then later in Color. Displayed here is a photo I took of the college darkroom, enlargers on two walls and a large sink in the middle.

Back then you sent your film out for developing and printing. If you did it yourself, you entered contests in a special category - maker made. And believe me, maker made meant something. It was craftsmanship, hand made. BW contrast or Color Correction were done with test strips and colored gel filters.

The college darkroom was set up for BW, doing color was difficult, the BW safelights are not safe for color. So I had to ask the others to go to total darkness when I was exposing color materials. How can you do anything without any light whatsoever? Just like a person without sight, by memorizing locations and sense of touch. Don't put things in the wrong place! After a while as I liked doing color prints I setup a darkroom at home. I have an enlarger with continuous gel filters built in and a light sensitivity meter connected to the exposure timer to help speed up the process. I have foot pedals that control the programmed timer unit. A paper safe is light tight and ejects one sheet of paper each time you pull the handle down.

My Uncle did not live to see his influence grow to be a serious hobby of mine. And I've often wondered how things would have been if we could have shared the experience, the growth in photographic technology over the years. In the twenty years since my youth, color chemistry and processes became so much more accessible than they were when BW 8x10s were the standard in my Uncle's time.

What would my Uncle think of my first maker made color contest winner entitled "Curious Squirrel"? As a Photojournalist and Professional Photographer he would be looking at so many things beyond the cuteness of the photo. What was the technique that made the squirrel stand up, how did he happen into the narrow focus plane?

I set up a tripod mounted camera with a 50' electric shutter release. The camera was aimed at an active spot for visiting squirrels and seed and nuts were left as an enticement. Sitting back well out of sight and smell I waited patiently, the squirrel came within camera range, I started pressing the shutter release, click, click, click the motor drive made a foreign sound and it had no scent, the squirrel became curious, looking, standing, staring, at the odd sound, click, click, click. In focus, standing, staring directly at the motor drive that is slightly under the camera lens.

I have hundreds of maker made prints in the 20 years following college and been through a lot of equipment during that time, much of it Canon, first the AE-1, then the top of the line A-1, then the T-90. I have so much Canon FD compatible equipment I bought a second T-90 as they were going out of production phasing in the auto focus EOS line.

But it is a new era, digital photography is firmly entrenched, but I will discuss that in another post...

I still have the maker made equipment, it is harder to find the materials (chemicals and paper) as they've been replaced with digital processes. But I hope to at least be able to demonstrate the lost art of maker made photographic chemistry to my son. Just so he can see how lucky he is to be born in the digital age. My Uncle would truly marvel at it, just as I do at times, realizing the history of how it was done.