The Weekly Nude

Last week I read that there is new evidence about the Northwest hijacking from the seventies. D. B. Cooper was never caught because he went to work for the CIA. He retired in Northern Michigan and died a few years ago after telling the author of a new book his story. Buy the book!

Similarly, I have recently shot new photographic evidence of another Northwest legend, Sasquatch. The legend is real; it’s not a hoax. Except he’s a she and she’s not hairy. But like the legend says, she has big feet. Very big feet. Buy the photo!

Last week we had a nude on the dunes by a famous photographer. This week there’s a nude on the dunes by an unfamous photographer. Is that a word?

I took two trips to Oceano to photograph on the dunes. All of the previously shown images are from the second trip. This image is the first image from the first trip which was more difficult.

On the first trip I didn’t know what I was doing, so we stayed in a hotel that I thought was close to the dunes. On the map it looked like it was just a few hundred feet away. I didn’t know about the closed area for bird nesting and the mile and a half walk along the beach, all the while dodging hot rodding off road vehicles, to actually get into the dunes. So we got there a little later, a little tireder, and a little grumpier than planned and the sun was already up and shadows were pretty intense. I wasn’t paying enough attention and most of the images from that trip have obnoxious shadows. Digital retouching to the rescue; it takes more time but those images are starting to appear.

On the second trip, I felt much better prepared. I had noticed that an RV park abutted the backside of the state park. You could walk from the RV park to the middle of the dunes in a minute or two. Really, it’s that close. But the RV park was very aggressive about parking. Meaning, no parking in the RV park and it was two or three miles from any other parking. Looked like another long walk. Except, bright idea, rent an RV space for a day. If it can hold a 40 foot long RV, a car should be easy. So I did.

When we showed up, they were mad that we didn’t have an RV. You can’t stay here with a car, they said, even though I had already paid for the spot. I said, what do you mean, the seats fold down and we can sleep in the back. Ok, they grudgingly agreed. So we took the spot and then went and slept in the motel I had also reserved. Sleep in the back of the car, no way, that sounds uncomfortable. Next morning, we were back before dawn, parked, and walked into the dunes. Perfect. Got there before the sun was up, and the photos were much easier.

I bought a new photograph. Actually, it’s an old photograph that I have been coveting for while. 50 years old. Sea Palms by Wynn Bullock.

Wynn Bullock was the second photographer I really liked back when I was just getting started. Edward Weston was the first, of course. And no, I’ve never really liked the work of their more famous contemporary, Ansel Adams. Loved his instructional books, but was never moved by his work.

The first photography books I owned were “Edward Weston: Photographer” and “Wynn Bullock Photography a Way of Life”. And the first two prints I owned were by Weston and Bullock too. Now I have so many books, I may need to get another house to store them in.

Sea Palms shows an idyllic scene of Palm Trees blowing in a slight breeze above a foggy, coastal canyon. The exposure is long and you can see the trees blowing in the wind. The low lying fog is brilliantly lit by the sun. (The print is far more stunning than the web image up above.) It’s a beautiful scene. Made even more intriguing because all of that description is false. That’s what it looks like, but that’s not what it is. Or maybe I should say more artfully. That’s what it is, but that’s not what it was. Not a recording of the scene, but a transformation. I like that.

Auctions are a funny thing. I’ve been looking for Sea Palms for a long time and it wasn’t really available. There was an auction several years ago in Chicago, but you could tell the print was bad from the online catalog. Then there was a gallery that offered me a print two years ago at a steep discount for only $18,000. They said the print was extremely rare and would sell quickly at that price. I laughed at that. They still have the print. Finally a couple of months ago, a stunning print was up for auction and I bought it. And yes, the gallery’s price is a very, very ridiculous price. Next month a different New York auction house has another print for sale. So if you want one too, …

This is sort of like when Sotheby’s auctioned the “only known print in private hands” of Mapplethorpe’s famous image of the big penis hanging out of a polyester suit a couple years ago. Then the next month, Christie’s sold one too. Oops. Guess Sotheby’s didn’t know much.

Since Sea Palms doesn’t really qualify for this blog, here’s another Bullock image. Sand dunes and a nude woman. Where have we seen that before?

I’d be retired and have lots of time for projects. As it is, I have a backlog of about ten years worth of projects. There’s furniture to rebuild, a kitchen to redo, and a whole house to build on the beach in Canada. And photographs galore that need finishing and then all the ones floating around in my brain that still have to be shot.

Work keeps interfering with the fun stuff. Why didn’t I become a bus driver? Who knew that the politicians were going to be so out of control that public employees would make more money after retirement than before and public pension costs would soar out of sight. Instead I’ve been working (ok, not that hard a lot of the time) for forty years and retirement still seems a ways away.

Currently, I’m trying to rebuild and refinish a century old desk. Someone in its past did some misguided work on it and now multiple parts, including the top, are warped beyond salvaging. It is a roll top desk with a working, interlocking tambour (not the fake slats of wood glued on a piece of canvas stuff) so I had to buy it.

Last week, I made a new top for the desk out of quarter sawn, white oak, and it is gorgeous. Also it is flat which is an important feature for a desk top. There will be pictures when the whole desk is done, along with the Yucca Valley chair, and of course, a nude model.

On the other hand, bus drivers don’t get to see what I see every day, so maybe it wouldn’t have been a good idea.

I’m also working on finishing the Legs images. There’s a new one above and about 20 in the queue for finishing. One nice thing about this blog, the images don’t have to be complete before posting. There’s so much difference in resolution required for these tiny web images than for a real print.

My office is cluttered with stacks and stacks of prints, mats, boxes, equipment, and (oh yes) postcards. Also lots of junk. But the good kind of junk, you know, the stuff that you can’t bear to throw away.

I’ve spent the couple weeks since getting home from Yucca Valley trying to impose some sort of order. I’ve been sorting and matting prints and making up portfolio boxes for each of the major series. I’m getting ready for the rush of customers who after reading this blog are overwhelmed by the need to buy a print. When they come calling, I’ll be ready.

In truth, I’m trying to get a handle on the situation so I can safely sort through the rest and throw it away. It will be interesting to be able to see the desk top again after a few years. I don’t think I’ve seen it since I got ready for Photo LA in a big rush and left other stuff scattered around.

At this point, I have 8 boxes of 10 prints each. 4 more series to go. Then I’ll be able to safely sort through the rest of the stuff and throw most of it out.

After the office is clean, I plan to clean up my computer and the terabytes of external storage that is full of images. I don’t think there’s a chance of cleaning up my cluttered mind.

Along the way, I’ve made a few new prints when I come across an image that strikes my fancy, and I say, why wasn’t that printed in the first place. Here’s a new Dune image. It wouldn’t pass the postcard-eligible test. I like it.

I told a friend last week that I was planning a book named “My Camera in the National Parks” and he said, whoa, that name is already taken. Yeah, but that was more than 50 years ago and besides my book is going to be different, the photos are going to be in color. Otherwise, just scenes of the wonders of nature.

I’m planning a circular tour of central California to catch a bunch of different scenes. Sequoia for the giant trees, Mojave for the wide open barren desert, Death Valley for the dunes and racetracks, Mono Lake, the Alabama Hills, and back through Yosemite to home. I’d also like to go down to Amboy or up to Shasta to catch a cinder cone, but that may be too far on this trip.

Not sure what I’m going to do in Yosemite. Unlike when Ansel Adams photographed it more than 50 years ago, that park has been so over photographed, that I wonder if there is anything new to do. (I don’t think there are any nudes inside, so you just get to see the cover.)

Of course, I’ll have a nude model with me at Yosemite, so there’s that. Maybe we’ll find an out of the way, unrecognized part of the park. Or I wonder if I can get the woman who climbed Half Dome nude to do it again and pose for photos?

You saw my scene of Joshua Tree National Park several months ago. Here’s a scene on the dunes at Oceano.

Okay, for all you sticklers, that’s not a national park, officially it’s the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area. It’s like a dog park, but for off road vehicles. If you have one you can let it loose there to play with the other vehicles. And they play like dogs, running into and falling all over each other. Carnage multiple times a day. Sort of like NASCAR.

I’ve got a lot of postcards:

Not sure what I’m going to do with all of these postcards. They’re pretty good quality, but, wow, there are a lot of them.

I wanted to have a variety so I ordered 100 of 12 different designs. I received 250 of each. Now I understand the postcard pricing policy. Ordering 250 postcards doesn’t cost much more than ordering 100, because you get 250 in either case. I wonder if that is always true.

Maybe they print these on large sheets and if anyone ordered 250 they have to run the press for that long. And then they just cut them and give them to you no matter how many you ordered. Or maybe it’s too hard to keep track of how many were ordered so they just always make 250 for everyone. I kind of like this last idea. It’s too hard to keep track of what was ordered, so always do the same thing.

In any case, I now have 3000 postcards. I’ve given away about 20, so only 2980 postcards to go.

I’m going to the SF Art Book Fair, and the Anarchist Book Fair in Oakland, and the SF Zine Fest this year to sell books and postcards. Last year, some people thought my business cards were bookmarks and wanted to buy them. This year they can buy postcards. $2 each, all 12 for $20.

One of my blog posts from last October received 109 comments last week. Sounds exciting, right? Well actually not. They were all spam. Do the spammers really think that people click on suspicious links embedded in comments on blogs. Really?

Surprisingly the comments weren’t all for porn sites. The vast majority were for payday loans. In a distant second place were car insurance offers. Followed by porn in third place. Maybe that’s because you don’t have to go somewhere else for “hot nude girls”. Here’s one now:

I’m back from the desert. Sorry I neglected my faithful readers for so long.

In my long running quest to sell more art I’ve decided to make postcards. If zines at $20 sell better than prints at $400, maybe $2 postcards will be the big winner. A couple of thousand postcards and we’re talking real money. More likely, I’ll end up with a couple thousand postcards in the basement.

It’s real easy to get 50, 100, 200, or 500 postcards printed. Pricing is such that 100 don’t cost much more than 50, 200 not much more than 100, and 500 not much more than 200. The price falls exponentially. There isn’t an option to print 1000 cards, probably because they would be free at that point.

But how many postcards do I really need? Factor in that I didn’t want them all the same. 500 cards each of 10 different prints would be enough postcards to last a millennium. So I settled for 100 each. We’ll see how this goes. I’m going to the zine fest again this year, so I’ll have lots of merchandise in case there is a run on nude art.

The first sample cards looked and felt pretty good but the shadows were too light. Turns out the general Internet wisdom on the right profile to use to convert to CMYK for digital offset printing is completely wrong. If you use the Photoshop default of “US Web Coated (SWOP) v2”, the printer won’t have any problem with your files, but the results will also be washed out.

For the second batch, I tried “Coated GRACol 2006” after reading a couple of graphic arts articles. The total ink load is increased from 300% to 339%. That should be a lot blacker. The printer has not complained about the ink load. I’ll let you know how they turn out.

But they complained immediately about the subject matter. The Oakland office said they wouldn’t print my job because they don’t print genitals. Whoa, hold on a minute. While I don’t shy away from genitals in my work, I can read, and having read their policy, nothing I sent them contained any genitals. A couple of the images got very, very close, but none of the important parts were showing, except a couple of nipples and they don’t have a policy against nipples. Unlike those big Internet companies.

So I called their customer service number and ended up having an interesting and pleasant conversation about genitals with Melissa in their Kansas City office. Turns out the Midwest office knows more about the subject than the Oakland office. Melissa approved all of my images and was planning on calling the Oakland people to tell them the definition of genitals. Wish I could have heard that conversation.

Here are a couple of the suspect images.

The second one isn’t even close. Unless you can find someone whose genitals are down around the knees.

For White on White, I got rid of the blacks too. As the name implies, the tones in these images are all white. The blacks are gone as well as most of the grays. The content is familiar.

These images remind me of a ski hill. Down the steep chute, over the bump, and into the wide open bowl.