“You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water“

21-24, I. The Burial of the Dead

It was clear that my Hanging Tree (a crape myrtle in my parents’ front yard) would at some point be the subject for this line. With the way the weather was, I feared for an early spring and decided to shoot it in February. Unfortunately, I cannot remember when I shot this and have yet to double check my notes. It’s not much of a crape myrtle, as far as that goes, but it does look wonderfully moody in the winter.

Straight off, I hated the shot. I tried to manipulate it, but lacking proper tools and know-how the manipulation did it worse. The only logical thing to do was to let it fade to black and then pop it in the window. Several months later, this is what turned out. And now, at last, I like it.

“I think we are in rats’ alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.”

115-116, II. A Game of Chess

I decided that my week five shot would happen on the Caliber photowalk. Unfortunately, it was my first time shooting normal ATZ and I wasn’t really sure what I was doing. As soon as I saw this alleyway (which leads to the backside of a fish market), I knew that it would be perfect for the line.

Unfortunately, the shot itself didn’t really capture the full effect of that alley. I know that one of the advantages of medium format is not having to sacrifice horizontal for vertical and vice-versa, but I really feel that my 3:2 digital shots did this thing more justice than the SX-70. And I don’t often say that. It was a bit of a frustrating note on which to end the month.

Anyway, the sky was getting blown out like crazy when I started shooting this morning. All it needed was a little pick me up. In the form of Lightroom. It ended up with kind of a lo-fi feeling, which I can get behind. And yes, I do know how ridiculous the vignette is.

Pas si simple.
I like that I shot this all crooked. To be honest, I did try to fix it in Photoshop, but it looked silly. So tilted it will be.

And I feel so much depends on the weather. (UTW Campo dei Fiori)
Let’s be fair: the weather was not actually that bad that day. But the processing, that’s what it did.

So that you might save me. (UTW My Very Own Garden)
Appropriately, the title is from a Gutter Twins song. Which was the obvious inspiration. Anyway.

All you had you wasted. (UTW ’stu figghiu miu)

This paint-by-numbers life is fucking with my head, once again. (UTW Last Flowers)

Votrophillions of Populations (UTW Last Flowers)

Haunted by my better days. (UTW My Iron Lung)

High and Dry (UTW Treefingers)
I am a sucker for brick and fire escapes and laundry. Sucker.

30 30 (UTW The birds, the birds, the birds)

32-B (UTW Bodysnatchers)
I like this one more than I should. There’s nothing particularly good or special about it, but something about it gets to me all the same.

I Looked Away. (UTW Bodysnatchers)
Got him twice.

Jenny’s Flower (UTW My Very Own Garden)

“There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying ‘Stetson!
‘You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
‘That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
‘Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
‘Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?”

69-73, I. The Burial of the Dead

January was rainy and I struggled to find the energy to get out and photograph. This shot ended up dead and melting, which seemed quite fitting for both the poetry and the weather. There’s something so profoundly melancholic about it. What a drama queen. (The polaroid, not me!) At the same time, there is a subtlety that I can appreciate. (And, yes, I’ve begun to talk in abstracts like I’m a marketing person. Apologies.)

It was actually the thought of the corpse that caught my imagination, but I think the idea of the bloom leaves me the corpse notion to play around with later in the year… if I find something worth it. This is a pretty corpse-y weed, as they go.

A continuation of this post.

Stuck in the middle with you.
Those guys, they were not part of the photowalk. Not on purpose at least.

Glasses. (UTW Fixing a Hole)

Pyramid 2.0 (UTW Siamese Dream)
It’s actually Pyramid 2.0 and Language of the Birds 2.0, but who is keeping track?

Model + Photog. (UTW Bullet in the Head)
I.e. Frank and Troy.

Shooting Gallery (UTW Bullet in the Head)
Can you name all the photographers? Because that’s not creepy.

Laughing Squidkeh (UTW Brain Dead)

Tonight I’m tangled in my blanket of clouds. (UTW Fixing a Hole)

E (UTW Bodysnatchers)
E as in Mark Oliver Everett. As in eels. Yes, I often try too hard. It passes.

Fried Deliciousnesses
Actually not making fun of Chinese speaking English, but Italians speaking English. At a restaurant in Rome, the menu had sfizi fritti translated as the aforementioned fried deliciousnesses. And 煎堆 are about as delicious as it gets. And 油條 too. Okay, hungry now.

Highlight clipping is for losers.

Steaming hot 糭子
And Southern style no less. Can’t really claim to represent Guangdong, but still. My people make ‘em prettier than people from Northern China.

Gourmet Delight B.B.Q. (UTW Down with the Red)

I took more pictures than I expected, fewer than I ought to’ve, and they’re all pretty much crappier than I’d like. But they’ll do. Here are the first of many. If I used presets to process, they’re in the parentheses. And, yes, it’s kind of sad that I have to include my username in the preset names. Lame.

BART Freelensing (UTW Bullet in the Head)
Admittedly, a cheat. Dig the 50mm.

Hobart (UTW Fixing a Hole)
I ‘roided the same shot. The light was truly beautiful, but I think neither shot did it any justice. This one is going for a Photoshop bath at some point.

and to follow their rightful occupations without fear of molestation.
I think the flag needs some dodging, but I mostly like the image. The title is from the proclamation of independence of the Bear Flag Republic.

Lonely Swedish (UTW Siamese Dream)

Oh, a storm is threat’nin’. (UTW Fixing a Hole)
This one might end up on Flickr. I kind of like it.

Photogs.

Frank Chu. (UTW Fixing a Hole)
Still pretty stoked that I got to meet him. And his sign kept me from getting lost!

Dottie shoots Polaroids.
I love that Dottie brought a pack film camera to a photowalk. That takes real dedication.

Connect the dots. (UTW Bullet in the Head)

Bleed in your own light. (UTW Siamese Dream)
One of the few of my pictures of the Transamerica Pyramid that I can actually say I really really like looking at. It’s all about the preset though, I think.

Bovis Lend Lease.
Scott shooting.

Great Hunan Restaurant.

More photos here.

“A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings”

377-80, V. What the Thunder Said

My father fiddles. It’s something he picked up a few years ago. The results are hit and miss, but we have a very photogenic violin in the house to shoot so I can’t complain. I knew I was going to take this shot eventually.

This is one of my favorite F2B shots so far. I wiggled taking it (my own fault for not grabbing the tripod), but the result wasn’t terrible. I didn’t feel like opening it up, so I put it in the scanner and came back every now and then. This scan was about two hours after the picture was shot, I believe. It’s dark now, but sits in my window with the hopes that it will become a viable image once again in a few months.

“What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water.”

19-24, I. The Burial of the Dead

Golgotha of mine, as it were. I would wager that this “son of man” is used in the Old Testament sense. But I’ve been wrong about Eliot before.

Shot on a bench at the Sunol Depot.

The Polaroid itself is probably my favorite picture of mine of that utility pole and I’ve shot it now on about four occasions. The hill is annoyingly difficult to climb with gear in hand – the rocks are always slipping and sliding around and it’s easy to lose footing. I was pretty close to the pole for this shot and I just like how the composition turned out.

I decided that this would be the alternate because the other shot from week 2 captured the feeling of the poetry and this one was a bit of a cheat. I will admit that I like it more.

Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

38-41, I. The Burial of the Dead

When I don’t know where or what to shoot, I return to the scene of the crime – or so it’s become in my head – the Sunol Depot. It has fantastic afternoon light, train tracks, and a crooked utility pole on a hill that reminds me of Golgotha after the Deposition. Without the thieves. It’s truly an odd image to occur, but I think it every time. The Golgotha of my imagination is more hilly than that of painters’ and probably than the real thing.

This wasn’t at all the shot I had in mind for the snippet, but when I looked out into the light I knew that it was perfect for it. Was a bit wary of shooting into the sun with the SX-70, but I think it turned out just fine.

I took the shot before the start of a photoshoot and so didn’t have time to separate the positive and negative. It ended up being a little bit overdeveloped by the time I finally got to it. A picture of the Polaroid was taken on my 5DMII a couple minutes after it was shot.