Night Gaunts by H.P. Lovecraft

Out of what crypt they crawl, I cannot tell,

But every night I see the rubbery things,

Black, horned and slender, with membranous wings,

They come in legions on the north wind's swell

With obscene clutch that titillates and stings,

Snatching me off on monstrous voyagings

To grey worlds hidden deep in nightmare's well.

I finished my framing job for my picture that will be in the show. I even finished the back with kraft paper like a real pro.

I used all museum quality archival material in the presentation. Rag mat board, foamboard backing and sealed the image with paper to keep out dust. The print is done on fiber paper, gold toned so it should last a long time perhaps hundreds of years if taken care of.

The announcement for the show is here.

1973

"Time it was, and what a time it was, it was

A time of innocence, a time of confidences

Long ago, it must be,

I have a photograph

Preserve your memories,

they're all that's left you."

Simon & Garfunkle Bookends.

Office with a view. For now I have a nice view from my desk. Since I bring a camera with me everyday and didn't get time to go out at lunch I snapped this nice view of sun on autumn foliage with dark sky above.

Various images found while looking through old photographs. Starting at the top; My Wisteria taken around 2003-004, a public beach on Maui in 1985, and my garden in front of this great apartment I once lived in at the corner of 21st and Taylor.

After cutting some mats I decided to go from a 16x16 frame to 12x12. I liked the frame but the picture just didn't fit it..

Getting a picture ready for a show. First had to do some retouching.

Young man, there's no need to feel down. I said, young man, pick yourself off the ground. I said, young man, 'cause you're in a new town

There's no need to be unhappy. Young man, there's a place you can go. I said, young man, when you're short on your dough. You can stay there, and I'm sure you will find Many ways to have a good time.

It's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a.

It's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a.

They have everything for you men to enjoy, You can hang out with all the boys ...

It's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a.

It's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a.

You can get yourself clean, you can have a good meal, You can do what about you feel ... Young man, are you listening to me? I said, young man, what do you want to be? I said, young man, you can make real your dreams. But you got to know this one thing! No man does it all by himself. I said, young man, put your pride on the shelf, And just go there, to the y.m.c.a. I'm sure they can help you today.

It's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a.

It's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a.

They have everything for you men to enjoy, You can hang out with all the boys ...

It's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a.

It's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a.

You can get yourself clean, you can have a good meal, You can do what about you feel ... Young man, I was once in your shoes. I said, I was down and out with the blues. I felt no man cared if I were alive. I felt the whole world was so tight ... That's when someone came up to me, And said, young man, take a walk up the street. There's a place there called the y.m.c.a. They can start you back on your way.

It's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a.

It's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a.

They have everything for you men to enjoy, You can hang out with all the boys ... Y-m-c-a ... you'll find it at the y-m-c-a. Young man, young man, there's no need to feel down. Young man, young man, get yourself off the ground. Y-m-c-a ... you'll find it at the y-m-c-a. Young man, young man, there's no need to feel down. Young man, young man, get yourself off the ground. Y-m-c-a ... just go to the y-m-c-a. Young man, young man, are you listening to me? Young man, young man, what do you wanna be?

Red Maple Trees against the sky.

A Sunday afternoon in Lone Fir with a digital camera.

If I designed a digital camera it would function more like a 60's era range finder. A fixed but high quality lens with a focal length of 35-40mm and a greater apeture range with a viewfinder that worked with split image focusing. Instead of the large video screen I'd go with a eye-piece that would make working in bright light easier. Perhaps this is the way a DSLR works but I like the compact size of the smaller point and shoot digitals like the Nikon coolpix. On all of these pictures I used the manual settings on the camera to better affect then if I had shot them on an auto-setting that would have probably over exposed.

A dark writer for dark times.

"Some lives...leave a grain of memory, like a grain of sand, in the depths of another mind, a grain of sand which is like the constant irritation under an oyster's shell, eventually to grow with coating after coating of disguising beauty into a pearl. Sometime this memory would be pried loose, in its rounded beauty, to stand by itself as an object of delight." from 'The Road Through the Wall' 1948.

"My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I would have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead." from 'We have always lived in the Castle'

I recently found a collection of three of the earliest works of Shirley Jackson, one of my favorite writers, at Camerons my favorite Portland Bookstore for lunch hour perusing. Small and packed with the familiar and the obscure. Almost all of my reading this year has been from books that I was not looking for but found on the shelves at Camerons. This included the Andy Warhol Diaries, a biography of Walker Evans and these three great tales from the dark mind of Shirley Jackson.

The first book "The Road Through the Wall" was a look at a small suburban community over a Summer that begins with the last day of school and ends with a tragic event that shatters several lives and brings to an end the era of the particular group of people who are the characters in the story a "community" of isolated families and individuals.

The second book "Hangsaman" was my favorite of the three. The story of a young girl leaving her extremely dysfunctional family to go to a womens college where she begins to mentally unravel. A very dark and chilling account of one persons descent in to madness. The dramatic ending which may be all a hallucination reminded me of 'Carnival of Souls'

The third book "Birds Nest" was very disappointing despite being about a character(s) with multiple personalities, or Disassociation Identity Disorder. It probably is the worst thing I ever read by Shirley Jackson which makes it still better then a lot of what passes as reading these days. The book was made in to a film which came out the same year as 'Three Faces of Eve".

An excellent review of Jacksons book 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle' can be found here.

Written for the NY times book review by Joyce Carol Oates.

Miranda Gardens.

The entrance to the place we stayed at in the Redwoods in August. I meant to take a picture around dusk in color of this sign but never got around to it. It was nice neon.

Moonflower pictures taken last weekend and developed and printed this weekend. Film used Agfa 100, and printed on Zone VI glossy paper.

Practice does make better. The top picture is one of my first attempts at plant photography done back probably in 2002. The one below I did yesterday.

Developed two rolls of film yesterday. If you look close one of the rolls appears to be a bit underexposed. I discovered after shooting this roll the shutter went out on the lens in my Mamiya Twin Lens. Appears to have only one shutter speed and the blades seem to be sticking. I really like that camera and that lens is very good for closeup work. I may consider buying another used one on e-bay or getting it repaired.

I printed these images using this Zone VI paper I purchased. It appears to be a cold tone paper, very nice though. I loved the tones in the paper.

I shot some film today of Moonflower buds. I used my Mamiya C220 with Tri-X Pan.