John's Blog

Alone On The Ferry

After a day of frustrating travel on the North Carolina ferry system, we were one of only 2 cars taking this late night ferry. It is odd being on a ferry with virtually no one else, on a dark night in the middle of the ocean. I thought the moisture on the windows was really interesting. I stepped out of the cabin to take this picture and thought somehow it was appropriate.

Playing In The Surf

This is an image I took of my friend Jason. He retains many child-like qualities I have lost - like playing in the surf in street clothes. I think this photograph is a little window into his soul. The weather throughout most of the week on the coast of North Carolina was rainy. For me it was a pleasant change from the ever-present blue sky you see day in and day out in Phoenix. It was late afternoon, the tide was coming in and the sky was clearing from a rain storm.

I learned you can take image after image on the beach when the waves are crashing in and every one will be significantly different from the one before.

Christ Church - Interior details

Here is another image from the Christ Church in New Bern, North Carolina. I love the arches, shadows and the fine wood details. New Bern is an amazing town and I wish I had more time to photograph here as there are many grand building that have been restored.

Christ Episcopal Church in New Bern

I visited this church yesterday and was fortunate enough to be able to tour the grounds. Christ Church located in New Bern is one of North Carolina's earliest congregation - the first church was finished in 1750. The craftsmanship is superb and if you didn't know any better you would think it was new. This staircase with it's magnificent stain glass windows is quite grand, leading upstairs to the balcony and the pipe organ comprised of 1397 pipes.

Power Lines

I happened onto this scene in Mebane, North Carolina in the early morning while the fog was still lifting. The little white flowers in the field gave everything an interesting light quality, a luminescence. Power lines are not something I would normally photograph but the contrast between nature and the man made steel structures were striking. It was a very serene place - nature wins.

If you look closely you can see a black cow in the distance, hardly visible at this size.

Making Bread

It is fascinating to photograph in Mexico where so many things are done the old fashion way. On my last trip to Alamos, Sonora Mexico we took a short walk from the alameda into the barrio where we were invited in to a local bakery. It was dark, humid and everything was made by hand. The bread was cooked in a wood-fired oven and the finished goods delivered door to door by a young boy on a bike at 2:00pm, mas o menos.

A Pair of Crosses

I warned you earlier I have a thing for crosses - I find them wherever I go. I like the symmetry of the two crosses and the far near effect. These crosses can be found at Tumacácori National Park outside of Tucson Arizona. Tumacácori is perhaps the most mispronounced word I know of - so don't worry about pronouncing it correctly because nobody does.

The Tumacácori Mission was established in 1691 by Father Eusebio Francisco Kino. It was established one day before the Guevavi Mission, making it the oldest Jesuit mission site in southern Arizona and there are some really cool things to photograph there.

30th Street Station

I am a big fan of the Art Deco style and the inside of the 30th Street Train Station in Philadelphia really sums it up for me. The whole interior gives you the feeling you are back in the 1930's. Wait a minute - I was not alive in the 30's but that is how I imagine it looked. The statue is beautiful and really intimidating; the wings on the back are elegant and frightening at the same time.

Tempe Center For The Arts

I love to photograph buildings with interesting architecture. This is the Tempe Center Of The Arts in Tempe, Arizona. There are a lot of cool things around there and the time of day can really influence how it all looks. I am smitten with the light poles in the parking lot; that is what caught my eye.

Piñata

I found this beautiful piñata in a resort in Sonora Mexico. Maybe I have led a sheltered life but I was taken by the craftsmanship and had really never seen one this nice. I liked the fact it was signed on the back by the collar too. I never got a chance to find out how much one of these costs or what they are stuffed with. If I go back I think I will have to buy one and there were many to choose from.

Canon Beach

This is from my trip to Cannon Beach, Oregon about 5 years. I had the opportunity to photograph some landscapes on the last day after it stopped storming. Unfortunately this negative was severely underexposed and was unprintable in the darkroom. I gave up trying to print it and the negative actually ended up on the floor of my darkroom for several days before I picked it up. It became severely scratched but for some reason I kept it.

I ended up scanning the negative about a year ago and was able to recover enough density and fix all the scratched to make this image.

Walt Disney Concert Hall

This is the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. It is quite an amazing building and literally looks different from every vantage point. It is fun to photograph and they are very friendly about letting you go all over their property to take your images. I found it best in the early morning. I decided to drive over to Los Angeles in the middle of the night to get to the building by sunrise. I left Phoenix about 1:00am very tired and woke up going 80 mph off the road in the desert. Moral of the story, never drive when you are tired!

Chihuly Glass Exhibit

This image is from the Chihuly Exhibit at the Desert Botanical Garden last year. I found the glass sculptures very challenging to photograph - it is just really hard to capture their beauty in 2 dimensions. I have other images from this exhibit that I may post at a later date.

Tactile Skyscraper in a Monsoon Storm

This building should look familiar as it is the same one I posted an image of yesterday just under very different weather conditions. This was taken during a late afternoon monsoon storm. With very little depth of field mixed with the dust, rain, in black and white with a little bit of toning takes on a very different feel.

Tactile Skyscraper

I love the look of this building, one of the few interesting ones in downtown Phoenix. The contrasting materials used in the office space and parking garage make it a very tactile visual. When I saw the horizontal lines meeting the sky, and the sky reflecting back into the glass I had to stop. This building looks nothing like this until late in the afternoon when the setting sun is reflecting warm light back into structure.

Steele Indian School Park

I took these images at Steele Indian School Park in Phoenix Arizona yesterday. I was excited when I saw the shadows on the wall and hoped I would like it as much when I got a chance to look at it more closely later. It is still very hot out here even though we are already into September. That sun can make you feel old and weathered if you stay out in it long enough, so I decided to make these photos look the same way I felt. Actually, I thought this was a fitting finish for photos from a historic site - maybe the way it might have looked if photographed back when it was built.

The circular wall image with the tree shadows is found on the east side of the park. The image of the building is the beautifully restored Memorial Hall, built in 1922.

An Excerpt from Wikipedia About Steele Indian School Park:

"The park is on the site of the Phoenix Indian School, one of several boarding schools owned and operated by the U.S. government, designed in the late 19th century to socialize and assimilate Native Americans into the dominant Euro-American socio-cultural system. These schools became controversial in later decades for the alleged mistreatment of their students, as well as the suppression and prohibition of the students' indigenous culture and languages." 

A Goat Portrait

This guy really wanted to have his picture taken. Goats act more like a child than any other animal I am aware of. They are playful, mischievous and not to be trusted. You learn that shortly after you are first rammed - but I think it is all in good fun... This image will stay in my mind forever. As my father got closer and closer to the end of his life, when he saw an animal he would often say "I think we say we are all on the same trip", meaning all of the worlds creature have a lot more in common than meets the eye and that they are all wonderful. He said that when he say this image - I hope he is with them.

Barbed Wire

I just discovered this image taken a short while ago when I was last in Philadelphia. I like the abstract quality of the coiled wire and no depth of field. I have since started a whole series on barbed wire and will share them as I get time to work on them.

Trifecta

I have never been particularly religious but I must admit I have a thing for crosses. They both fascinate and scare me - perhaps that is why my cross images always seem to have a foreboding feel. I made this image in mexico, drawn to the symmetry and repeating pattern. The crosses mark the graves of three family members, the earliest dates back approximately 70 years.