Neon and Sin

Neon does seem to be associated with sin, even beyond the sculpting of martini glasses.


This is in Sacramento. Imagine whatever fantasies you like.


This comes from Market Street in San Francisco. There was a queue for this place.


And this piece of excess is from Broadway in San Francisco. The snake with his neon scales is kind of cute.

The Diver

It is curious that she appears to be diving in her high heeled shoes.

Down Home Musicians

This is a record store in the East Bay.

Critique of Software

It is possible to manipulate photographs in various pieces of software. I have avoided buying Photoshop so far and use a combination of Paint (comes with the computer), HP Photosmart Premiere (came with this computer) and Picasa 3 (free download from the internet). Good Bad

Paint lets you clean up the content of the picture by copying from one spot in the photo and pasting to another. I used this to hide things I didn't want to see in the Richard Diebenkorn picture, namely the electric lines crossing the street, and in the Mark Rothko to hide something unexplainable and simplify the image, simplify it in ways that go with what a Mark Rothko abstract would look like. Perhaps this is cheating. You copy one piece of sky and paste it over another. Sometimes I am happy with the results, and sometimes I'm not.

Both HP and Picasa let you straighten the picture with Picasa providing the better tool. It puts a grid over the picture so you can see when it's straight.

Both HP and Picasa will crop the picture, but Picasa wants to think it knows what you want while HP gives you full control. The crop is part of the artistic content of the picture. The Mark Rothko is a crop. Many of these pictures are crops.

Major flaw in the HP software is that if you click too close to the rotation arrows, it thinks you want to rotate the picture and then offers you no way out of this change. Far better that it required you to click directly on the arrows. Or better yet that you did this in the Edit screen.

Both HP and Picasa have redeye functions. I don't use much flash so I don't get a lot of redeye.

HP has a button called Photo fix which changes the image in unpredictable ways and then offers no undo or cancel option if you don't like it. Picasa offers an "I'm feeling lucky" button with similar results. These you can undo. Mary Cassatt used this option with fine results, in my opinion.

I rather like the HP adaptive lighting option which shows you a series of changes and lets you compare and select one if you want.

HP also offers a function to save the photo in a smaller format, a function which has been used for all the pictures shown on this blog.

Picasa has a lot of interesting options, and always includes a cancel button. One lets you add text to the picture. Perhaps this is how operachic puts text on the pictures. This widget offers fonts and sizes. There is even a transparency option.

I haven't figured out the retouch in Picasa. It doesn't do what I would want. I would like to be able to erase something in the foreground and have the software replace it with surrounding background. Nothing does this.

Picasa has a tuning screen with gradients of light and shadow. Picasa also has a screen with 12 different effects. Some just change the color: sepia, B&W, tint and graduated tint. These remove the existing color and then add others. Warmify, glow and saturation modify the existing colors. I would like to see something that let you do things that are more daring in this area.


This is a saturated version of a previously posted sunset called Scenery. Ich liebe Sonnenuntergaenge and Moonset are in their natural condition. Nature provided the saturation.

The soft focus effect makes the edges of the picture fuzzy while the center stays clear.


This lovely couple looks nice in soft focus. They live at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons Hotel and are from a painting by Gustave Caillebotte.

Sharpen doesn't work too well. Film grain simulates the effect of printing on coarse grained paper. It's cute. These are fun and cost nothing.

Picasa takes over your computer in annoying ways.

At the Beach

Art Object

She lives at the San Francisco De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and is made of glass.

Looks Like Richard Diebenkorn

Taken in San Francisco while waiting for the light to change.

Still life with Cappuccino

Lovely relatively authentic cappuccino available at the downtown Java City.

Zurich Window

My copy of Vogue, the one with the Fleming photos, does not show boots like these.

Looks Like Mark Rothko

I think this picture was taken in Sweden.

Tower

This is the Tower Theater on Broadway in Sacramento, the origin for the name of the Tower Records chain. The earlier Records neon probably designated the original location for Tower Records in the same building.

Frederick

The artistic high point of Frederick, Maryland, is this pair of pictures. It's a new take on perspective.


If you stand facing the picture, it looks like this.


You have to look at it at an angle. She is intended to be seen from a window in the building behind.

Garden Buddha

This Buddha lives in Portland.

Gunther's

Gunther's is an ice cream parlor in Sacramento. I tried to photograph it years ago and did a lousy job. I wasn't very careful about framing my pictures. So I tried again. For photographing neon the results can be unpredictable. This one is best.

Portrait

Mudflat Art

At one time in the San Francisco Bay it was popular to create art installations in the mud flats. These were my favorites.

Moonset

I stopped and got out in the middle of the Richmond-San Rafael bridge to take this picture. If I have descended into sunsets, I must be nearing the end of my photo discovery journey. It's been fun.

Looks Like Roy De Forest

These are dogs at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. This is more an homage than an attribution, but they do look cheerful like De Forest's dogs.

No one will play my art game with me, but I keep doing it anyway.

Scenery

These old pictures seem to deteriorate in an unpredictable way. San Francisco. The point of view can only be from a ferry, probably the Berkeley ferry.

Are they busking?

This is San Francisco.

Zurich Window

This is Musik Hug on the Limmatquai in Zürich where I recently bought my copy of Opernglas.

Frida Kahlo

I went to see the Frida Kahlo exhibition at the SF MOMA, and subsequently decided that my eyebrows were almost bushy enough. In case you didn't figure it out. Her face grows on you. Would she have had the great career if she looked like me?

Cop

It's not a very good picture, but it's the one I have. I rode the bus to work across the Bay Bridge to San Francisco for years--I wrote most of my technique book on the bus--and every day this woman stopped the traffic for us so we could cross into the Transbay Terminal.

Looks Like Caravaggio

I think Caravaggio looks more like this, with the bowl and rotting fruit.

Store window

I don't remember anything about this.

Maxi

Below is a hair salon in Berkeley.

Or what about this more chaotic version?

Neon

I regret to report that I have found my neon pictures. Above is the Fog City Diner in San Francisco.

Photographing neon means standing around in the dark, meeting a certain type of person. Maybe it's a little like busking.

Jan Vermeer

Still Life with a book of matches.

Some of my attributions are just silly. I think my favorite is Mary Cassatt. Sometimes long after the fact I think of someone--Mary was one of these.

Masaccio and Leonardo Da Vinci are also favorites. And Mondrian.

But does something look like Braque because it's badly out of focus? Maybe. Vermeer was chosen for his domesticity.

Busking

Busking refers to making a living by street performing.


In Central Park in New York City I happened on this man who might be a garden gnome but is instead Blackwolf the Dragon Master-- he has his own my space page. Is he busking or merely hanging out?

I know that I have heard some marvelous people playing in the street and am fascinated by the idea of photographing them. I thought I should try busking myself, but I think it is too late.


I photographed this group in Florence who are definitely busking, but didn't post it because I didn't think I photographed them very well. He's playing a kind of zither, plucked or hammered, I'm not sure which.


In this photo from San Francisco my friend Mark is next to the "World Famous Bush Man," a busker who jumps out from behind his bush and scares you. Great pains were taken so that I would walk past him.

I'm so proud. I was commented by the saw lady the same day I heard her on npr.

Reproduction

For years I have been trying to reproduce this painting.


This is as close as I've gotten.



There's a building right behind where I'm standing. Maybe the painting is from one of the upstairs windows. This is at the top of the Spanish Steps in Rome. The Villa Medici looks about the same.

While we're doing musicians

This was an excellent concert for clarinet quintet in the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence.

Musicians already posted

Amplified street musician in Florence.


Unamplified street musician in London.

Georges Braque

These fuzzy pictures are really growing on me. This is a piano quintet practicing in the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, a building designed by Palladio. The Baroque stage set is built into the building.

Looks Like Edgar Degas

Rome.

Street Musician

Padua. The white spot in front of his face is a cigarette he is smoking.

Portrait

Why post this? His look is so studied, and it would appear that it is doing him no good at all. Rome.

Looks Like Paul Cézanne

On second thought, this particular still life is much more Paul Cézanne than Caravaggio. My friend has quite photogenic apples in her yard, so I took their picture.

Here they are hanging on the tree.

Loggia

A significant architectural feature of Florence is the loggia, a covered space for walking in case of rain or heavy sunshine. Here is one that isn't attached to anything.


This one is on the outside of a building.


This one is on the inside, in this case the Palazzo Strozzi in the rain. There is a cafe inside.


This is a kind of loggia that's upstairs in the Palazzo Strozzi. Only the living quarters for the family are enclosed.


You can enjoy the sunshine without sitting in it.


The side aisles in the Duomo also look rather like loggias. The Duomo is generally Gothic.