Photographers feel guilty that all they do for a living is press a button. - Andy Warhol
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
West Hills Woods III
Photographers feel guilty that all they do for a living is press a button. - Andy Warhol
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
West Hills Woods II
Sometimes I enjoy just photographing the surface because I think it can be as revealing as going to the heart of the matter. - Annie Leibovitz
Monday, August 20, 2012
West Hills Woods
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| Mexico City Woods : Desierto de los Leones |
Desierto de los Leones (Desert of the Lions) National Park is located in the Sierra de las Cruces mountain range west of the city center with an area of 1,867 hectares, representing fifteen percent of the entire Valley of Mexico. The area was used as a retreat for a religious group, thus the name Desierto (Desert) means not "arid place", but not populated. The "Leones" part of the name does not refer to the animals, but rather to the original landlord's lastname.
The park's altitude varies between 2,600 and 3,700 meters above sea level, giving the area a relatively cold and damp climate. It is a forested area primarily with pines, oyamel firs and holm oaks with many brooks, ravines and waterfalls. The park is considered to be the oldest protected biosphere in Mexico.
The park's name, Desierto de los Leones, is largely due to the Carmelite monastery situated just north of its center. Carmelite monks called their residences “deserts”. But the exact origin of “de los Leones” is not known. The first monastery complex was constructed between 1606 and 1611. By 1711, this structure had deteriorated greatly. It was demolished and a new one was built in its place adjoining just south of the original complex.
By the end of the 18th century, the cold, damp weather and increasingly frequent visitors forced the monks to move their monastery to Tenancingo in 1801. The monastery was declared a national monument on 16 May 1937. The 18th-century structure has a number of areas that have been restored and opened to the public. In addition to the old monastery, the park attracts visitors for the nature that surrounds the complex. The park offers activities such as day camping, overnight camping, hiking, and mountain biking. [Wiki]
Sunday, August 19, 2012
El Caballito
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| (iPhoneography) Horse Head or The Little Horse (sculpture by Sebastian) In the background Caballito Tower - SAT Office (IRS) [Taxes Office]
Sebastián (born
Enrique Carbajal on November 16, 1947) is an artist based in Mexico, and is considered the
country's foremost living sculptor. His smaller scale work includes jewelry,
sacristies, garden sculptures, and painting. However, he is most known for his
monumental structures constructed in iron or concrete, which decorate cities
throughout the world, from San Antonio, Texas to Osaka, Japan.
Sebastián was born
in the small town of Santa Rosalía
de Camargo, Chihuahua, Mexico
on November 16, 1947. He lived in Chihuahua until he began studying in the
Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City
in 1964.
When studying in
Mexico City, he survived by working at restaurants and buying clothing to sell
it for a profit in Chihuahua.
He studied in the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas (National School of
Plastic Arts) at the Universidad
Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). Persisting with deep
appreciation for Henry Moore
and Pablo Picasso,
he won first place in the 1965 Annual Exposition of the National Plastic Arts
School at UNAM.
In 1968 Sebastián had his
own show featuring his ceramic work in the Museum of Art of Ciudad Juárez. After
completing his formal studies he continued his work with short-lived schools
and movements such as the "Salon Independiente". He put on his second
individual exposition, where he displayed ostensibly simple paper carton works
that he called "desplegables" (folders). These seemingly small works
became the base of ideas for his later monumental works made with tons of iron
and concrete. [Wiki] |
Friday, August 17, 2012
Moon Hooch I
Wenzl
McGown and Mike Wilbur, saxophones; James Muschler, drums.
Spawned from New
York City’s subways in 2010, the busking trio Moon Hooch seamlessly blends
house, dubstep, drum & bass and jazz into a style aptly coined “Cave
music.” Moon Hooch creates frenzied foot-stomping bashes with nothing more than
two saxophones, drums, and the occasional contrabass clarinet. Their
self-funded, self-released debut album ratifies the wild praise heaped upon
them by a dedicated–and rapidly growing–following. [Discover Jazz
THE CURRENT CHALLENGE
Fri Aug 17, 2012
This week's
challenge:
'Summer Colors'.
'Summer Colors'.
- Take 5 and Enjoy! -
⇑ - Soon... a video of that great session! - 06/28/2012 - ⇓
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Liquid Eyes
 |
|
Memory
demands an image. ~ Bertrand
Arthur William Russell
|
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
The Triumph of Marius
The Triumph of
Marius
Giovanni Battista
Tiepolo (Italian, Venice 1696–1770 Madrid)
Date: 1729. Medium: Oil on canvas. Dimensions:
Irregular painted surface, 220 x 128 5/8 in. (558.8 x 326.7 cm)
The
subject of this triumphal procession is identified by a Latin inscription at
the top of the canvas from the Roman historian Lucius Anneus Florus (Epitome of
Roman History, 36:17): "The Roman people behold Jugurtha laden with
chains." The African king Jugurtha is shown descending a hill before his
captor, the Roman general Gaius Marius. A youth beats a tambourine while other
figures carry booty, including a bust of the mother goddess Cybele. The
thirty-year-old Tiepolo included his portrait among the figures at the left.
The procession was held on January 1, 104 B.C.
The picture—a masterpiece of Tiepolo's early maturity—is from a series of ten
canvases painted about 1725–29 to decorate the main room of the Ca' Dolfin,
Venice. [The Metropolitan Museum of Art]
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
The Sax Player
Monday, August 13, 2012
Tenacious
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Break
 |
|
Photography is nothing -- it's life that interests me. - Henri Cartier-Bresson |
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Rainy Afternoon
 |
[iPhoneography] |
Friday, August 10, 2012
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Into The Woods
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Games
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Marketing
 |
| iPhoneography |
“One wants to tell a story, like
Scheherezade, in order not to die. It's one of the oldest urges in mankind.
It's a way of stalling death.”
~ Carlos Fuentes
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Snap Shots
 |
| iPhoneography |
music+image
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Noteless Staves
Friday, August 3, 2012
Imminent Storm
« Le plus beau
sentiment du monde, c’est le sens du mystère. Celui qui n’a jamais connu cette
émotion, ses yeux sont fermés. » ~ Albert Einstein
[ The best feeling in the world, it is the sense of mystery. He who has never experienced this emotion, his eyes are closed. ]
[ The best feeling in the world, it is the sense of mystery. He who has never experienced this emotion, his eyes are closed. ]
music+image
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Africam Safari VII (Last)
... adieu and some reflections :
Animals give me more
pleasure through the viewfinder of a camera than they ever did in the
crosshairs of a gunsight. And after I've finished "shooting,"
my unharmed victims are still around for others to enjoy. I have developed
a deep respect for animals. I consider them fellow living creatures with
certain rights that should not be violated any more than those of humans.
~Jimmy Stewart
It is inexcusable for scientists to
torture animals; let them make their experiments on journalists and
politicians. ~Henrik Ibsen
Non-violence leads
to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop
harming all other living beings, we are still savages. ~Thomas A. Edison
Heaven is by favor;
if it were by merit your dog would go in and you would stay out. Of all
the creatures ever made [man] is the most detestable. Of the entire
brood, he is the only one... that possesses malice. He is the only
creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain. ~Mark Twain
The indifference,
callousness and contempt that so many people exhibit toward animals is evil
first because it results in great suffering in animals, and second because it
results in an incalculably great impoverishment of the human spirit. All
education should be directed toward the refinement of the individual's
sensibilities in relation not only to one's fellow humans everywhere, but to
all things whatsoever. ~Ashley
Montague
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Africam Safari VI
9 young elephants find new home in
Mexican zoo
June 11, 2012
PUEBLA, Mexico (AP)
— It was the stuff of a major film studio's next animation project: Nine
African baby elephants orphaned after their parents were poached, but then
miraculously rescued to a wild game park in Latin America. In the highlands of
central Mexico, pee wee pachyderms the size of Volkswagen Beetles could wander
around, wide-eyed as they munched on tortillas and donned sombreros in their
new home.
Except that the
government of Namibia, where they came from, says it didn't happen that way.
The nine elephants
that made a big media splash last week lumbering off a cargo plane, on their
way to a reserve in Puebla, were the result of a commercial sale. Despite
reports to the contrary, the creatures had never been truly, fully free. They
also aren't babies, but youngsters ranging from 4 to 10 years old, said Boas
Erkki, deputy director at the Namibian Ministry of Environment and Tourism.
The elephants were
sold by the original owner, a farm, to the Namib Game Services private reserve
and their mothers were not poached, Erkki told The Associated Press on Monday.
The Namib Game Services sold the animals because they didn't have enough space
to keep them, he said.
Even without the
poachers, the elephants had a pretty good tale. They spent 24 hours in tight
quarters as they flew over the Atlantic in a chartered jet. They had stopovers
in Brazil and Chile. Then a two-hour truck drive to the city of Puebla before
they arrived at their new home at Africam Safari, a 900-acre wildlife preserve
whose name is a combination of Africa and the family name of the park's owner —
Frank Carlos Camacho.
The delivery was the
brainchild of Camacho, whose preserve is just south of Mexico City.
The unlikely African
acquisition began when Debbie Olson, director of the International Elephant
Foundation based outside Fort Worth, Texas, learned of nine young elephants in
Namibia that needed a new home. She put out the word to her board of directors,
which includes Camacho.
Camacho had always
planned to add a couple of elephants to his wildlife preserve, where ostriches,
lemurs, giraffes, zebras and monkeys roam in spacious containment areas to the
delight of visitors.
What appeared to be
a marketer's dream come true soon soured, when the government of Namibia
complained that news reports wrongly said the elephants were orphaned and
Camacho was rescuing them.
Camacho denies
telling journalists that the elephants' parents were killed by poachers. But he
did use the term "rescue" and that has proved controversial.
"In no way can
this export be considered to be a 'rescue' mission, nor were these elephants
orphans," said a Namibian government press release. "These young
elephants were in good condition at the time of leaving Namibia and were not at
risk of being destroyed by this Ministry."
Camacho said he
learned that the private preserve was offering up the animals because it was
too small to maintain them. In May, Camacho flew to central Namibia to check
out his little herd, and discovered they already had become a family.
The oldest elephant,
about 10, is the size of a minivan and had been nicknamed "Big Boy" —
clearly the leader of the pack. The youngest, "Chico," or
"Little Boy," is 4 years old. The pack included one other male and
six females.
The next step,
getting them to Mexico, turned out not to be that difficult. Camacho
successfully navigated through two government bureaucracies. He chartered a
plane big enough for his precious cargo.
Getting them onto
the plane was another matter.
"It would have
been much harder if they were adults," said Cecilia Geiger, a spokeswoman
for Africam Safari. The elephants obediently boarded on their own, with Big Boy
leading the smaller ones up a ramp and into the cargo bay, where the elephants
were put in big crates.
Camacho accompanied
them, listening to the elephant chatter as they crossed the Atlantic.
"We could all
feel that they had a special connection," he said.
During a reporter's
visit Friday, the herd looked happy enough, playing outside in a huddle near a
muddy watering pool, tossing sand with their skinny trunks, their white tusk
buds barely visible. Eventually, those buds could grow into 8-foot long tusks.
The elephants will grow two times their current size.
"Elephants can
do just fine on their own as long as people can substitute for other
elephants," said Ted Friend, professor of animal behavior at Texas A&M
University. In captivity, a human trainer usually takes on the necessary role
of the female elephant, he said.
As for the nine
elephants at Camacho's zoo, Friend sees no problem with their environment.
"It'll be a little different than what they would have had in the wild,
but in a situation where they're controlled by people, then I don't see a
problem."
While the Namibian government
said the elephants are not orphans, and did not grow up in the wild, their
origins remain a mystery. It isn't clear where the elephants' parents are, or
even if any of the nine are related.
There is only one
way to find out, Camacho said. He pointed at his elephants.
"You have to
ask them," he said.
___
Associated Press
writer Armando Montano reported this story in Puebla and Emoke Bebiak reported
from Johannesburg, South Africa. [The Examiner]
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