I was required to send four digital photo's to my art professor. The task parameters were a portrait, not showing the subjects face, that should tell a story of the subject. So I enlisted my yoga instructor and she graciously let me photograph her. So I snapped a ton of really great pictures of her, with all the "shadows" and "values" and what not. They really turned out great. As an after thought, I enlisted another student to snap some pictures of both Wendy and I. I submitted the pictures and the professor, much to my shock choose the bottom picture. I thought first sure the others were of much better quality. Well, what do I know, apparently the shot of Wendy and I in handstands happen to fit the process much better than the other pictures I submitted.
Here is how I "made" the bottom prints. The professor takes the digital picture and transfers an 8x10 onto an actual old school piece of film. I then transferred the image from the film onto a piece of cooper that has film emulsions on it via this gizmo that beams high intensity blue light onto the cooper. Then I gingerly did a bunch of rubbing and drying of the cooper and coxed out the image. Next step was to roll ink onto the cooper, then again gingerly rub off excess ink to bring out the image. Lastly the inked piece of cooper is placed face down on a thick piece rice paper, then rolled through this gizmo in the shop, basically two metal rollers. Waaalaaa! Now you have the inked image on the rice paper. Very cool! I'm getting my art on. The one below left I did in black ink and the second I did in purple ink. We will do a total of eight prints, so I will now will get as creative as possible and mix up some colors. Pretty cool stuff. I've never been much of an artist. I've always thought it is an innate talent, but like everything else in this world with some instruction and lots of practice one can become good.
Below is a picture I took of Mount Tamalpais looking northwest into Mill Valley, California. There are a few things I dislike about California. The politics and the taxation of this state is over the top in my view. However, the sheer beauty of the Golden State helps me to blunt my irritation when it arises. I am a real creature of routine and stick with said routine until the routine becomes way to routine. Then I shake things up, establish a new routine and ride that wave until the cycle needs repeating. Routine for me is good. In fact, while writing a paper recently about my life I flushed out this pearl of wisdom regarding my sailing voyage. I figured out that the military life provided such sound structure and routine (which became overbearing and extreme for me) that when I went sailing the loss of routine and structure was unsettling leading to unhappiness. In other words, as Latitude38 pointed out, total freedom for me was disorienting. I'm no longer disoriented.
I took the picture below because the Mount Tam dominates the San Francisco Bay Area landscape for a great distance. In fact some of the best views of Mt Tam can be seen from east bay over at UC Berkeley. I see it just about all day, and my eye is constantly drawn to it, kind of like how the Pitons of St. Lucia dominate. I also took it because I journey to Mill Valley just about everyday to take my yoga class at Red Dragon Yoga. This is part and parcel to my routine that provides the stability I seem to require at this juncture of my life.
Remember I'm a philosophy student now, thus I have deep thoughts routinely.
Capt Chris
PS: Please send me a message or leave a comment. Love to hear from old and new hands!
