July 19 2022 - From the Air

 

The first aerial photograph shot in Canada was taken over the Halifax Citadel in 1883, when Captain Henry Elsdale of the Royal Engineers attached a camera to a small balloon and sent it upwards. The camera was fitted with a time-sensitive automatic shutter release which enabled it to work at various heights, and at least one vertical photograph taken that day still exists, showing the Citadel from about 1450 feet. And today? What are we photographing from the air?   "Scientists have discovered that ancient cities really did exist in the Amazon. And while urban ruins remain extremely difficult to find in thick, remote forests, a key technology has helped change the game. Perched in a helicopter some 650 feet up, scientists used light-based remote sensing technology (lidar) to digitally deforest the canopy and identify the ancient ruins of a vast urban settlement around Llanos de Mojos in the Bolivian Amazon that was abandoned some 600 years ago. The new images reveal, in detail, a stronghold of the socially complex Casarabe Culture (500-1400 C.E.) with urban centers boasting monumental platform and pyramid architecture. Raised causeways connected a constellation of suburban-like settlements, which stretched for miles across a landscape that was shaped by a massive water control and distribution system with reservoirs and canals. The site, described this week in Nature, is the most striking discovery to suggest that the Amazon’s rainforest ‘wilderness’ was actually heavily populated, and in places quite urbanized, for many centuries before recorded history of the region began.  From the Smithsonian Those are the professionally curious explorers.   Each of us looks at the passing landscape on an airplane flight,  There's a web app that guides you through the landscape you are flying over. Gregory Dicum, the inventor,  said he's currently working on getting his "Mondo Window" installed on planes so that you can get information about what you're seeing below on your airplane console as you're flying.

There's something special about a formal bench in the woods. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Jan 15 2021 - That Darned Public Domain

 

What would be F. Scott Fitzgerald's reaction to this? F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel “The Great Gatsby” is now in the U.S. public domain, meaning writers can mine the characters and plot for their own purposes without having to ask permission. The N.Y. Times says: Expect new adaptations — including a graphic novel and a zombie version. This is the famous last line of the novel:     What else to expect?  “The Gay Gatsby,” by B.A. Baker, and, in the tradition of “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” “The Great Gatsby Undead,” by Kristen Briggs. (From the promotional copy: “Gatsby doesn’t seem to eat anything, and has an aversion to silver, garlic and the sun, but good friends are hard to come by.”) In the U.S. anything that is more than 95 years old enters the public domain - (works of art not people).  What else entered the public domain on January 1st 2021?  Ernest Hemingway’s "In Our Time", and Franz Kafka’s "The Trial" (in the original German), silent films featuring Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton, and music ranging from the jazz standard "Sweet Georgia Brown" to songs by Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, W.C. Handy, and Fats Waller. See a fuller list HERE. Canadian public domain is life plus fifty years, compared to many other countries where it is life plus 70 years (beyond the death of the creator). The U.S. has varying copyright time periods because of changing laws.  Here is yesterday's progress on the multiple exposure technique.  The first image is Niagara Falls' Dogwoods in the Spring, then the Charles Daly Park Weeping Willow in the Autumn,  and the big November snow fall, Vineland.  The last image was taken yesterday - looking out the window at the lilac stems towards the house next door.  In this image, one can clearly see the lacey effect of the multiple exposures. Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Pledges vs Donations

What is the difference between fundraising pledges vs donations?  Over $1 billion dollars has been pledged to restore Notre Dame Cathedral.  The media coverage has boosted the Cathedral's cause.  There's an auction-like atmosphere as each billionaire pledges higher and greater amounts than the last one.  Governments have come together to pledge their support as well.   How much can be expected to actually be donated? Verbal pledges are loose commitments rather than completed actions.  The level of formality of the pledge is to be considered here.  Is a billionaire's  press announcement of $500 million Euros towards the reconstruction of Notre Dame a firm commitment? Is it a written commitment or even a contract? Can you imagine how complicated this is?  A flurry of donor pronouncements and what mechanism and system is in place to keep track of all the information, to confirm it, take details and put forward contracts to make the verbal pledge a real donation offer.   I am cautious about these announcements and commitments - they are being made in the moment of the event and receiving world-wide attention so might be overstated in amounts and actual commitment. I went looking for a default rate on things like this, but haven't found anything quotable.  What I did find is a U.S. example of how corporations feel about their pledges and donations.  Phil Knight, founder of Nike, once announced that he would withdraw a $30 million pledge to his alma mater, the University of Oregon. When Oregon President David Frohnmayer aligned the school with a worker’s rights group critical of Nike’s Asian operation, Knight put his wallet back in his pocket. The $30 million pledge to expand Autzen Stadium was put on hold. The university did not sue. A year later, Oregon ceased its participation and Knight started giving again. Today's image is an invitation to a meet and greet at Hamilton's First Unitarian Church.   There's a show of my work there and this is an invitation to join me on Sunday April 28th to see it.  It would be great to see you there.

Surfacing Attention

Yesterday's picture became a topic of conversation.  The term I used for it is 'grunge'.  It describes abstract images based on everyday wear and tear - scratches, bumps, and bruises in the environment.  Peeling paint, rust and decay blossom into new forms.  To create these abstract images, one has to be on the alert in everyday places.  Often one has to use a macro lens and look really closely.  And there is the requirement to compose the image. Where are some of these places? The turquoise image is the edge of a donation bin box in my Toronto neighbourhood.  I found several of these boxes around Toronto, so have a mini series.  The one beside it is from the side of a transport truck.  What about the squares?  They are graffiti on a parkette chess table at Bathurst and Bloor.  The angel wings were on a Toronto city truck on Victoria Avenue.  I saw that truck a few times.  And the winter trees - a recycle bin that is bruised.  What about the Vogue Model?  She was on a pylon in the street in Montreal. The black, red and white peeling sign was a real estate sign in Grimsby.  The green bubbling paint was on a dumpster in Grimsby that had been set on fire.  Cement shows interesting wear, and the last image is a handicapped parking sign on the road.  The car wrecker's yard south on Victoria Street in Vineland had many old cars with good peeling paint, and the boat yard in Port Dalhousie has hulls with worn and weathered layers of interesting colours of paint.   The patterns of landscapes, trees, hillsides, clouds, and interesting curves and angles are consistent in the wear and tear.  Waves in the ocean and peeling plastic seem the same patterns.  Suns, moons and stars start to appear, along with rainbows on burnt metal.  Rust is its own topic - new rust makes the angel wings, so is highly desirable.  There are a number of rusty sheds in Niagara - particularly at Calamus Winery.  The Flat Rock Cellars has named one of its wines after its shed - The Rusty Shed. It has been an interesting exploration.  I named these series Urban Extractions and Surfacing Attention and wrote an article on the experience.  It is posted on my Redbubble site HERE.

Photo Finalist March 2016

There are bees boxes in every orchard that I looked at yesterday and I spent quite a bit of time looking at orchards.  I have something in common with bees -  I can imagine the experience a bee has with the thousands and millions of blossoms.  It is a good thing bees love to be busy.  Today's image is a Finalist in this month's Betterphoto (BP) contest.  The contest has 6400 entries each month with just under 600 finalist photos.  There are some remarkable winning images - here's the link to the contest results.  There's an 'all time' contest underway there, and I've been getting notifications of pictures placing in the Staff Favourites, etc. So something to look forward to there.  Participants on Betterphoto are primarily U.S.-based. So there are mostly images from the  United States - each day the scenes vary across the country, giving one the experience of a living travelogue.   Redbubble, another photography site, originated in Australia, so there are many Australian members and we get to see their distinctive landscape.  Right now we we move through Spring and they move through Autumn, so there's a contrasting experience in the seasons and landscape. I think of Marshall McLuhan'a expression 'The Global Village' and realize this is it.

Run The Gamut

Gamut is the complete range or scope of something - 'the whole gamut of human emotion'. In photography, we work with the colour gamut -  the range of colours that a colour system can display or print.  This has never been a problem with my printer - it has wonderful colour rendering. However, I  uploaded some images to Spoonflower.  It is a site that prints on fabric, wallpaper or gift wrap.  I wanted to make sure my prints would come out the way I put them in.  So I got busy in Photoshop and tested the colours with the fabric print profiles that Spoonflower provided.  Fabrics include many organic cottons, linens,  stretch and sport fabrics and real and poly silk. The gamut warning looks like the first photo compared to the second one.  The out of gamut colours show as gray in the display.  In this case, when the lavender was adjusted to be within the gamut range, it washed out to a greyish pink.  You can also see the pinks, blues and greens were too bright to print as well. So this image isn't a good match right now - it needs conversion to colours that are within the gamut range rather than just  adjusting the saturation and hue in Photoshop. In the next two photos, the greens become more subdued to account for what can be printed on Spoonflower fabrics so these are a better match for printing. Take a look at the creativity on Spoonflower: www.spoonflower.com

'Symmetry in the Grasses' Gets Feature Today!!

What a great start to the week!  The weather is so warm it's like April, and I find one of my images is featured on the homepage of redbubble, the site where my work can be purchased.  I'm at the bottom right with 'Symmetry in the Grasses'.

Here it is as it would appear framed for your wall.

Last Fruit Standing

These rows of old apple trees are near Ralph Suttell's place in Beamsville.  Ralph is the dahlia grower whose dahlias have been showcased here and on my website.  These photos were taken on the weekend - the first time in December that I can remember everything still looking like autumn.  The late afternoon light made long shadows across the field and turned everything golden.

It's All About Lilies

So far in July, there have been a number of delightful surprises and there are Lily events coming up!

The first was finding a stand of Candidum Lilies near my brother's Lilycrest Gardens field in St. Catharines. There were probably 30 or 40 plants blooming and in that large a group their colour become so clearly the dominant quality. They are an amazing white - so clean and pure - no other colours on the petals. And the plants were large and healthy - so unusual in Candidums in our area.

The second surprise occurred as I visited more of the front gardens on the OpenGardensToronto 2009 tour. I mentioned this organization in an earlier post. Many of these beautiful gardens are close-by in my neighbourhood so I took the opportunity to visit a few of the front gardens from a previous tour day that I had missed as I wasn't available. Up the street from the Winston Grove garden, I happened upon a front garden at its full peak in full and perfect bloom. It had a beautiful combination of Lilies and Lavender that I'm posting - what a gorgeous colour and form combination!

The Ontario Regional Lily Society Annual Flower show is this weekend on Saturday and Sunday. It will be in the atrium at the Royal Botanical Gardens main building on Plains Road. I will be looking forward to seeing the show in this new venue, and being able to take some scenic photos this time.

Magnolia Sieboldiana

The house at the corner has a very large Magnolia Sieboldiana.  This member of the Magnolia family is typically not hardy here (zone 6 in Toronto).  The hardy varieties, e.g. Star and Saucer, bloom before their leaves are out.  The Sieboldiana blooms in June, after the leaves are out, and over a long period of time - about a month.  The scent of these blooms is somewhat different than the other magnolias.  Their scent is a combination of melon and lemon - wonderfully refreshing.  The Sieboldiana has an additional floral element of lilac and jasmine. It is quite divine, so worth searching out!

Here's a portrait I did earlier in the week.