Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Photographs

"To PhotoShop or Not to PhotoShop? That Is the Question."
A new verb, eh?--to PhotoShop--an action verb! I feigned from dabbling in PhotoShop in terms of photographs for a long time and then I got into shooting off building roofs in an almost dark light--and in some instances in actual darkness, so dark I couldn't see through the viewfinder--but I used a flash and then I just used a real-open shutter without a flash--then into PhotoShop I went, into Image--and I experimented around by fiddling and tweaking with color adjusters or using a red background on a blank PhotoShop canvas and then laying the photo in on that getting a see-through-dress effect, and then, like I said, fiddling around with some of the abilities I found while searching beneath the PhotoShop auto actions. Photographers should not write about their work--as Billie said, "Hush now, don't explain." But give a writer a camera and he starts thinking he's writing a story with photographs and wanting to babble about the importance of the eye in writing--hey, I like that...so while I was working on story boards for this cheap-ass backstreet film I'm toying with, I decided to create some photographic images.
This one I call--"isn't that odd, like this is a bird-call--a Bird call--a Bird solo in digital bits"--it's from a series I call Postcards From New York City, 2008.
"One Penn Plaza at Night"--from Postcards From New York City, 2008.
Every half-ass person with a camera in New York City has photographed watertanks--even I; me, because I live in a forest of watertanks. I call this "Thankful Tankfuls of Four Tanks."
I just enhanced the colors on this one--"T'at's mightie purdy," as Gabby Hayes would say--
So I call it "Gabby Hayes's Last View of New York City," just because I can--perhaps photographers shouldn't name their fotos.
http://www.cowboypal.com/gabbyhys.jpg
No, I didn't take this foto of ol' Gabby--but, hey, there he is in his heyday.
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This is from the Postcards From New York City, 2008--it's the most beautiful building, to me, in my neighborhood--I've photographed it from a 360-degree circle of roofs and high windows--it's "The Penn Central Building on West 34th Street (during an August rainstorm)"--...I just took this one from a nearby roof.

This was taken around midnight looking east off my roof--that's the Metropolitan Life Bldg. on the right--that's a swanky apartment building on East 29th on the left--the bldg. in the middle is a bank bldg. on Madison I think. I brightened up the light coming from the lights on these two skyscrapers--with that light, I coaxed out the dark outlines of the other buildings and mixed cyans and ceruleans to turn that light that purple. I'm amazed at how almost black these jpegs look when I download them off my memory card and how these buildings just jump out of that blackness and take neon-like-action form with just some really minor brightening, contrasting, and hue adjustments.

thegrowlingwolf
for The Daily Growler

IN MEMORIAM
http://www.aolcdn.com/ch_bv/bernie-mac-newswire-335a032307.jpg
Hey, I liked the Mac Man--he was a cool dude--sorry to hear he had to depart. So long to Bernie Mac, 1958-2008.
http://www.bmi.com/news/200306/images/urban_isaac-hayes.jpg
And then there passed Isaac Hayes, and Isaac was born in a tin shack on the outskirts of Memphis in 1943. His mother died when he was 1 1/2 and his father abandoned him--he grew up with his grandmother who was poor as Job's turkey but insisted Isaac get an education. Stax Records, baby; some good shit came out on Stax--but it was a tragic label too, the Bar-Kays and Otis Redding going down in planes. But Isaac was one of the coolest dudes to ever sit down at a piano and write hit songs and then get up and sing 'em and become probably during his heyday--the Shaft days--was one of the biggest in the bizness--of course the dude blew millions and got in tax trouble a lot but he came out clean--having a last hurrah as Chef on South Park. Wow, Isaac's dead (it's pronounced Eye-Zack, you know). So let's hear an Amen or a Selah for the great Isaac Hayes.
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