
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Pretty doesn't make it art...
Pretty doesn't make it art. Often we look at a pretty bright oil painting that looks well done. It might be a sunset or an old building overgrown with flowers or a beautiful landscape or sea scape and think how wonderful that is. The artist knows how to paint a pretty scene. And does it over and over until they can paint that scene without even thinking about it. You can look through stacks of these paintings at the "original" oil painting sales, and see the minor differences...sometimes there is a slight change in color tone. I remember when my mother and I, back in the early 1970s, looked through one of those "original" art sales. There were hundreds of paintings many the same scenes over and over. She called it quickie art. Hotels and Motels bought this stuff in bulk.
I saw some of this quickie art out in front of Wal Mart today, and I could see that it was pretty. I remembered Mama and that day so long ago, and I smiled. I think it is fine if someone likes one of these paintings and enjoys seeing it on the wall. Is it art? How can it be art when it is meaningless, emotionless, rote?
We can fall into this trap when we take photo after photo of pretty scenes just as every other person with a camera has already done before us. I like taking pretty pictures but that doesn't mean that I want to stay in that rut for the rest of my life and not stretch myself and learn to do more with my camera.
Digital photography is a whole new world. Taking photos for me in the past was about recording my growing family and the things we did and the places we went. That is important for me...not that the world cares a bit. We don't want to see someone else's family sitting around the table at Thanksgiving. We do want to look at those old photos of our own families. So I would never say that recording is not what photography is about, or that it isn't important. It just isn't art.
With our digital cameras we can do things we couldn't do before. Not because it was not possible, but because we were limited. We had 24 or 36 pictures on our roll of film and because we were not pros had to pay for printing. Polaroid excepted, we couldn't take a photo and then quickly see what we had done. We didn't want to make mistakes. With our digital cameras we can make mistakes until we learn. We can try new things and if they work, fine...if not we can try something else. We can spin the camera, move it to catch an impression of our subject, or change the aperture and shutter speed to catch effects we would not get with "normal" settings. We can create art. We can have fun with our cameras.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Pool



Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Water!
Building is still going on...new houses and apartments or condos...and where is the water coming from to support all these new homes? Is it from the ten percent we must give up? Or does it even exisit? We had a well when I was growing up in Lakeside. I was a grown woman before there was city water down our road. If it were not for city water that area would still be farm land and dairies with a few scattered houses. Now it is wall to wall houses up one side of the road and down the other. It breaks my heart to see it. I'm glad I don't live there anymore.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Lilies and Light






Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Lindo Park


For much of my growing up in Lakeside the lake was dry. There was a lovely boat house with a bridge across to dry land on each side of it. I remember running across that bridge when there was still a little brackish water left in the lake. I was about six or seven so that was in the late 1940s. The boats had long gone. After the lake was dry someone got the idea to scrape the bottom of the lake. Unfortunatly that removed the silt that had worked as a liner keeping what water was left from sinking into the sandy soil. It also was the end of the boat house as it had been. The top was moved and made into a sort of gazebo. For many years water was pumped from a well and that kept a small area near the road wet and full of tulies. We had a very wet winter in about 1952 but even that wasn't enough to bring back the lake. The east half of the lake was made into a Little League field and a raised road way separated the lake in two.
About 1978 we began to have several wet years in a row. It seemed to happen so fast. One day I remember watching the television news show cracked silt in the bottom of some reservoir and then a few weeks later it was raining cats and dogs...We lived in Ramona at the time and I was working down in Escondido. The road between Ramona and Escondido washed out at a bridge not that far from the Wild Animal Park. I had to drive to I-15 and through Poway to get home. The rain poured down so hard I could barely see the road. I was late getting home. After I came up the grade on Poway road it was stop and start traffic. When I got near Mt. Woodson a wrecker was bringing a car up to the road from over the cliff. Then on the way into Ramona the road was flooded over and several cars had overturned. I drove slowly and got through. When I walked in the door at home my hands were shaking and E.R. upset that I was so late started yelling at me.
Lindo Lake filled with water. The houses at the east end of the lake flooded. People got upset. Some water was eventually released from the lake to the San Diego River but not enough to clear the Little League field. Some people wanted the field brought back and others wanted to keep the lake. The Little League field is long gone. The lake had been dry for about thirty years and now the water has been back thirty years or more. People forget.
The park is a beautiful place. Glenda and I met at the REC center. Then drove around the lake and down into the park. Saw lots of geese. Though there seems to be fewer other birds than I've seen there before. Last winter some idiot person with the county decided to drain the lake down. The water is back up but not as far as it should be.

We took photos and had an enjoyable time. We drove over to the far side of the lake and parked where we had a good view of the lake. The boat house was moved back to a spot in the lake where it might have been originally. There is a built up island for it and a dirt walkway to it. Not ever the same as it was though. That didn't make some people happy either as it was a nice place to sit out of the sun where it had been for so many years. I took this photo of the boathouse a few years ago.

Glenda is a lovely person and in no time we had spent an hour and a half. Time to leave, but looking forward to more photo outings.

This is a painted with a camera version of the same leaves.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Neighborhood Watch
A couple of months ago I went to the Eucalyptus Hills Home Owners meeting. Good place to learn what is happening, but while there I found an even better place to find out...The Neighborhood Watch email list. I signed up.
I finally managed to get my computer started up. It is sometimes tempermental...wonder if that is because of the cat sleeping on top of it...and I read the emails from the neighborhood watch. Seems that it was a domestic violence situation. The girlfriend is the one that escaped from the house and that they were bringing in the swat team. Sounds about right as the helicopter was gone about the time the emails were sent...Anyway all is quiet now.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Geocities
Geocities was not my first web page. I had one at Prodigy and then switched to America Online and a separate personal web page on Netcom. AOL limited online time. Netcom gave me forty hours a month! Netcom was sold to Mindspring and that became Earthlink. My main website is still on Earthlink.
As I got away from the computer graphics that I had been creating I stopped uploading to my Geocities site. Must have been a premonition or something because last February I took all my things off Geocities. Now Yahoo is closing them down...will be all gone sometime in October.
It is sad to see the demise of Geocities.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Saturday Evening

I sat out and had some coffee and enjoyed seeing the birds fly back and forth. The hummers are always there because of the feeder. We have a hooded oriole that likes to sip from the humming bird feeder. He is shy and will land on the top of the folded umbrella when I'm out there but will not land on the feeder. I got my camera but he didn't come back. I did get a couple of shots of the house finch at the bird feeder. The sun is all wrong but I like taking back lit photos. I took these with my 200mm lens and then cropped the photos.


Friday, July 10, 2009
Rokkor Lenses


Sunday, July 5, 2009
Capturing the Light
In the Botanical Garden at Balboa Park, I saw an interesting plant...or flower...I don't know what it is. The sunlight was shining down creating shadows and splashes of bright color. We were doing bw but I knew that this one was going to be color. I took a few photos and then the sun slowly moved to light up the edges of a greenish leaf with a bright red rim. I had to capture that. I snapped away and was lucky to get one that I liked...I was not using auto focus and with my eyesight getting a clear photo is sometimes a problem.

Then the sun moved a bit and the light no longer fell just right to illuminate the leaf edge. Still I had captured a moment in time that may not ever be there again. I haven't gotten to where I can easily set up lights and create my own scenes though I have done so. I don't usually see in my mind what I want to photograph before the fact and when I do I am often not all that happy with the results. I may get there someday...
A child's smile, a certain rose, the light falling on a leaf, we can find these again but maybe not quite like the first time. If I have a passion with this thing called photography it is capturing the light and a moment in time.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Saturday Afternoon
We saw some back country on the drive which is always nice. Though every trip to the back country we see more and more new homes. On the way back home we drove through Guatay along the old highway 80. Then we took a detour through Blossom Valley. Some beautiful houses there. We wanted to see Lake Jennings. They have the parking lot blocked off, though we could drive along the shore. Jackie said she used to walk her dog along the path around the lake but now there is a no dogs allowed sign. Things change. When I was at the storage I sometimes used to buy fast food and drive up to that parking lot and eat my lunch and enjoy the view of the lake. Peaceful.
Saturday Morning
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Del Mar Fair

My sister got us separated back when we were teens living in Milton, Washington. We went to the Puyallup Fair with some high school friends of hers. She had a bad cold that day. While I was not paying attention, Barb decided to leave the group and find a phone and get a ride home. Those girls walked off and left us. No phones at the fair, and we couldn't find the girls. We walked and walked. Finally we walked outside to a drugstore. My stepfather was a fireman...worked twenty four hours on and twenty four off. It was his working day and my mother didn't drive. Barb was totally not thinking straight. My stepfather's brother in law agreed to come get us when he got off work several hours later. Barb wanted to wait at the drug store. But I took us back into the fair and we went to the grandstand show after I bought a box of Kleenex! That was one long day.
Ashley
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Wednesday
Went to my Flash II class last evening. Lots to learn...I tried to go over some of it when I got home. Looking forward to the next class. Tomorrow is our trip to the fair.