California - north coast

The California coast north of San Francisco is a drive everyone should take, the land dives into the ocean, via huge cliffs, sea stacks, and always lots of sand. The ragged shore on the left could split apart like the rocks on the right, and eventually become the sand at the bottom. The planet has gone thru many changes since you and I arrived, and will continue on, ad infinitum. Amen.

One of my favorite stops - Trinidad:

That time of year again

You can see Mr. Claus' presence in the Mojave:

Have a great holiday season - i got plenty up my sleeve

for 2018.

More sand... and recording devices

The sand is a constant recording device.

It is washed clean with the the next high tide.

The earth itself is a recording device.

But you'd need to talk to a geologist to decipher it, and get an explanation. 

And it would only be temporary, geology is always open to revision.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangea

Let's enjoy our short time here.

Climate change is for real.

We are polluting the planet beyond beyond any immediate repair.

...............

More sand - an Ocean Beach sculptor is at work

So here's this chunk of quasi-sandstone, fallen off a crumbling cliff at the beach. Someone has decided it's face is a canvas, so they carve - a palm tree.

Sand is a long time in the making, and has a long life cycle.

I remember my Mom taking us three kids to uncounted destinations in Maine north of us, and on the way back we stopped many times at 'The Rock Shop'. No music here, just rocks, of all kinds. There was always a tumbler at work. Nature has a tumbler too - it's called the ocean.

On a more serious note:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/29/the-world-is-running-out-of-sand

Excellent article, read it.

BTW, if you like the image at the top of the page 

(which was done in a traditional chemical darkroom and then handcolored), 

you should check out my website:

http://www.bobbennettphoto.net

After many years of making darkroom photomontage (since the late 80's), and not being able to get arrested for it except for a few appearances in competitive group shows, and some assignment illustrations in various magazines ....I am designing & publishing books I make at Blurb with 'Bookify' - two of them are on Amazon, one is at Blurb.

'California Beach Trip':

On Amazon:

www.amazon.com/dp/1364579138

'Desert Trip'

On Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1367900190

'Seeking the Vibe'

On Blurb:

http://www.blurb.com/b/6834807-seeking-the-vibe

Previews of all at:

http://www.bobbennettphoto.net/BB_Books/index.html

I haven't run out of sand images quite yet....... stop in again :-)

Moonrise...

...and a love declared.

Humans use the sand as a canvas. (Check out April 18 post too.)

The only limit is imagination.

Personally, i think mother nature is a whole lot more creative.

Smooth wet sand, Ocean Beach, San Francisco

Wet sand on a beach at low tide becomes a canvas.

.... which then becomes a maze? or perhaps a map? 

Much of life is a matter of 'it's all in the eye of the beholder'. 

Is the glass half empty or...?

Is it a map to the way out (or in?)... or a maze to become lost in?

And where does the ladder go?

http://www.sfchronicle.com/art/article/Rake-artist-uses-beach-as-canvas-11014950.php

The artist shows up when conditions are right, which probably isn't often.

This is the cover of my self published book:

That same wet sand is a canvas for very shallow waves that bounce off each other, creating a network of ripples.

'Seeking the Vibe'

On Blurb:

http://www.blurb.com/b/6834807-seeking-the-vibe

And of course there's much, much more at my website:

http://www.bobbennettphoto.net

New topic/theme - sand

What is this blog about? In a nutshell, it's about black and white darkroom photomontage, and occasionally some digital montage. Every few weeks, a new image with a few words about it, kinda poetic, philosophical. 

For more details - check out the archive, the first post, April 26, 2015.

If you like what you see here, go to: www.bobbennettphoto.net

Also check out my self-published books:

Desert Trip: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1367900190

California Beach Trip: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1364579138

Seeking The Vibe: http://www.blurb.com/b/6834807-seeking-the-vibe

Previews of all at:

http://www.bobbennettphoto.net/BB_Books/index.html

---------------------------------------------

Let's move on to a new visual theme/topic: I've chosen sand. Yes, that's right, sand! 
It comes in any color you can imagine, and any texture you can imagine. White to black, as fine as flour, as textured as gravel. It is amazingly malleable, and can create a multitude of forms and sights. It records the weather, the waves and wind, and the creatures that pass over it.

So here's a few photo-montage images to start off the new theme. 

They are a great transition from the previous topic (time) to this one.

(This one is digital)

A single blade of dune grass is blown by the wind, 

makes circular grooves in the sand. 

It is a clock of sorts, a measure of time. 

Part of a sundial miraculously appears. 

Reset your watch if you feel it necessary... this event will not last long.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This/above is darkroom.

How many photos of sand do I have in my archive?

The only answer can be 'countless'.

Sand dial #2

What is this blog about? In a nutshell, it's about black and white darkroom photomontage. Every few weeks, a new image with a few words about it, kinda poetic, philosophical. 

For more details - check out the archive, the first post, April 26, 2015.

If you like what you see here, go to: www.bobbennettphoto.net

Also check out my self-published books:

Desert Trip: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1367900190

California Beach Trip: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1364579138

Seeking The Vibe: http://www.blurb.com/b/6834807-seeking-the-vibe

Beach grass out of the frame serves as the gnomon, casting the shadows on the sundial's face, a digital concoction, only four hour numbers necessary, this is not a finely tuned instrument, minutes don't matter, perhaps even the hour is debatable. In times and places where most people didn't have watches or any time piece, time was spoken of in varying terms.  In spanish, the word 'manjana'  + 'mañana' in my Mac's translator, is a soft and uncertain term - "we'll get there, when we get there".

The study of time is called horology - hora is the latin root for the word.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_of_time

Many ancient societies were obsessed w/ time, measuring it, marking it, using it to guide anything from spiritual celebrations to planting crops. From Meso-America, to Chaco Canyon, to Stonehenge and well beyond, to Asia - their work was infinitely more difficult than ours. 

Somehow they they figured out how to erect carefully built structures w/ small openings that let the sunlight fall on an opposite wall,  to tell them the exact moment of the a solstice, for instance. They weren't a whole lot more advanced than hunter/gatherers, but they figured this out? I guess they were a lot more interested in these things than they were in other more mundane things.

We can buy an almost infinite number of watches in a heartbeat on the internet. When i click on the 'dashboard' on my Mac, i get a clock, second hand ticking away.

Carpe diem, dear reader. 2016 will soon be history, the big ball will drop in Times Square, you celebrate in whatever way you wish. To quote a great songwriter, Warren Zevon:

"Time marches on, time stands still, time on my hands, time to kill. We contemplate eternity under the vast indifference of heaven"

Don't let 'the vast indifference of heaven' slow you down much. Warren sure didn't.

'Matter of time'

Another image in the 'time' series

I could also title this one 'Measure of time', either title would be fine & fitting. 

The fog recedes long enough to let sunshine throw great sharp shadows from this half man-made / half nature-made time piece. A small root from some dunes grass spins in the wind, making concentric grooves in the sand, a compliment to the two hands of a clock. A small creature of some kind leaves it's trail. All the elements here are on different measures of time - circles on sand, trails left behind, a clock that keeps ticking, ticking, ticking relentlessly on, fog that has a schedule all it's own. And sand that is the end result of who knows much rock building and then grinding 'til what was once VERY large (perhaps covering continents) and heavy becomes the consistency of table salt. In one of John McPhee's books about the geology of the US, from east to west (a marvelous series of books, ending w/ 'Assembling California') he writes: The top of the Himalayas is made of marine shale - hope you didn't miss that - marine shale, made in the ocean, now at 25,000+ft elevation. Now that takes some time doesn't it?

Desert time

The last post was long, the next few will be short, hopefully sweet.

Mottos for this one might be:

"Self-dependent power can time defy, as rocks resist the billows and the sky."

or Latin "Pulvis et umbra sumus. (We are [dust and] shadow."

The Golden Gate Park sundial now sits not on a stand, but on the broad leaf of a prickly pear cactus. What does this say about time? Perhaps that just like the cactus we have no choice but to keep hands off, unless of course we like pain. 'Leave time alone, don't mess with it. You think you won't get old? " 'Fuhgeddaboutit', as they say in New York City - it can't be changed anyway".

The gnomon (which casts the shadow) is instead a tree which will grow, casting a slightly different shadow as the years go by, slightly longer every year. But the hour, the time told, will remain the same, only the shadow gets longer, as yours will too.

(The gnomon casts a shadow; the shadow shows the time.)

There's a hand-colored version of this one:

If you like my images, check out any of my three self-published books:

'California Beach Trip':

On Amazon:

www.amazon.com/dp/1364579138

'Desert Trip'

On Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1367900190

'Seeking the Vibe'

On Blurb:

http://www.blurb.com/b/6834807-seeking-the-vibe

Previews of all at:

http://www.bobbennettphoto.net/BB_Books/index.html

Please do stop by again - every 2 weeks, somethin' new :-)

Take a seat...

Take a seat on an abandoned decrepit chair on the beach. 

In a surreally oversized driftwood shelter. Let your thoughts wander. 

Watch the fading sunset light. Did i mention your cell phone should be turned off? 

Well, now i have.

Stop. Sit. Think. Pay attention to the real world. 

The chair, the driftwood, the sunset.

After many years of making darkroom photomontage ( since the late 80's), 

and not being able to get arrested for it 

except for a few appearances in competitive group shows, 

and some assignment illustrations in various magazines 

....I am designing & publishing books I make at Blurb with 'Bookify' 

- two of them are on Amazon, one is at Blurb.

'California Beach Trip':

On Amazon:

www.amazon.com/dp/1364579138

'Desert Trip'

On Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1367900190

'Seeking the Vibe'

On Blurb:

http://www.blurb.com/b/6834807-seeking-the-vibe

Previews of all at:

http://www.bobbennettphoto.net/BB_Books/index.html

Ascension

Climb the steps in a forbidding desert landscape ...your final destination - unknown.

As you climb, an apparition appears in the sky - 

'there are many answers to all questions'.

Is this advice of some sort?

A riddle?

A paradox?? - stair-steps against a vast nothingness?

Here's what my Mac's thesaurus has to say about that:

I used this in another montage, equally mysterious:

Yes, 'many answers to all questions'.

Also?...'ask me no questions, i'll tell you no lies'.

Put both in yer pipe and smoke 'em up, real good.

Come back again in a few weeks for more of whatever it is i have been delivering up...

Visual riddles?

Paradoxes?

:-)

Dunes Music

What is this blog about? In a nutshell, it's about black and white darkroom photomontage. Every few weeks, a new image with a few words about it, kinda poetic, philosophical. 

For more details - check out the archive, the first post, April 26, 2015.

If you like what you see here, go to: www.bobbennettphoto.net

Also check out my self-published books:

Desert Trip: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1367900190

California Beach Trip: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1364579138

Do you think perhaps artists might be able to make images that say something about the world that they are not even aware of? Do we somehow manage to channel a deeper source?

Far be it for me to claim such, but...I printed this over 20 years ago, for 2 reasons:

1 - A walk on the beach is full of all kinds of music, the surf, the waves, the wind, the sand - they all sing a song, carry a tune of sorts.

2 - The organ pipes blended nicely into the columns of eroded sand.

I printed this image long before i heard about 'singing sands'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singing_sand

"Singing sand dunes, an example of the phenomenon of singing sand, produce a sound described as roaring, booming, squeaking, or the "Song of Dunes". This is a natural sound phenomenon of up to 105 decibels, lasting as long as several minutes, that occurs in about 35 desert locations around the world. The sound is similar to a loud low-pitch rumble. It emanates from crescent-shaped dunes, or barchans. The sound emission accompanies a slumping or avalanching movement of sand, usually triggered by wind passing over the dune or by someone walking near the crest."

----------------------------

"At roughly 30 locations around the world, sand dunes seem to sing, producing haunting and baffling sounds. Marco Polo noticed the phenomenon in the Gobi Desert. Ancient travelers have heard it in the Sahara. Even Charles Darwin puzzled over it in the Chilean desert. For centuries, no one was able to explain why it happens. Now, engineers Melany Hunt and Christopher Brennen of the California Institute of Technology are on the case. Their theory is that the booming sand dunes act like enormous musical instruments."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/booming-sands.html

http://www.livescience.com/24268-singing-sands.html

Hhmmmm... the world is a pretty interesting place, ain't it?

let's hope we don't destroy it all too soon.

Window to soul

What is this blog about? In a nutshell, it's about black and white darkroom photomontage. Every few weeks, a new image with a few words about it, kinda poetic, philosophical. 

For more details - check out the archive, the first post, April 26, 2015.

If you like what you see here, go to: www.bobbennettphoto.net

The title is actually multiple choice:

• Window to soul

• Window to your soul

• Window to a soul

These might seem to be similar but if you think about it, they are not.

Read closely, and think.

This one blew in on the west wind, dropped into my head one night in a dream.

The window, shot somewhere in the Mojave, an old abandoned building. 

The cloud, shot from my 12th Ave SF rooftop/5th floor deck, many years ago.

The synchronicity, how & why these two came together? i don't know where it comes from, it just arrives, i am happy for that. Perhaps the window is letting this strange cloud into your vision for a reason? Does the window have some strange mystical properties? Your guess is as good as mine, it can mean whatever you think it may mean, photos are like that, any art is like that, it's all in the eye of the beholder.

I did two versions, one in the darkroom (above), another as a photoshop sketch (below), low res, but a rather interesting version, colored w/ pencils.

Check out my self-published books:

Desert Trip: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1367900190

California Beach Trip: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1364579138

'Seeking the vibe' is still working it's way thru Amazon's system - it'll be there soon... i hope.