Things we shouldn't do

Erin

....but we do anyway.

I was just pouring myself a cup of tea, much like I do a half dozen times a day. And as the little paper fold that is attached to the string went sailing over the cup rim and into the hot water, much as it does a half dozen times a day, I grumped to myself that I would have to stick my fingers in there and fish it out once again.

Now there are three simple solutions so that wouldn't happen. Aim the water so it doesn't land on the tea bag; Hold the string with the other hand; or put the damn bag in the cup after the hot water is in. But I don't. And I particularly aim for the tea bag when I am pouring in the hot water, I guess in hopes it will make tea faster by landing directly on the tea bag, I don't know.

When I am in my car and feel like lighting up a cigar I take off the wrapped and stuff it down between the seat and the center storage compartment. It is a handy way of making non stinky trash disappear.

When I am getting ready to go on a trip, as I am now, I clean out the car and curse the cigar wrappers that are wedged way down in the track area of the seat that I need a long thin stick to get at.

Life would be so much simpler at that point in time if I had placed the cigar wrappers in my pocket, or a trash bag in the car. But no. And I still won't.

Life is filled with things we should have done but didn't.

Then we come along and do things we shouldn't have.

Go figure.

On the road again

Abigail

When you are reading this I should be sailing along on Interstate 90 in Golden Hooves, smoking a good cigar and have a back end full of framed prints and a sleeping bag, camera bag, clothes bag and a handful of goodies. Wallet in the glove box and a treasure trove of fine cigars stashed away for a weeks worth of travels. Life is good.

Next stop, the Windy City to dump these prints off and empty the back out so i have a place to curl up for the night.

Abs

Yummy

***Sigh***

Those that have followed my work, or at least my blog for any amount of time know that I have a special love for Abigail. She is my best friend, girlfriend, pal, camping partner, travel partner, family, and I can now fit into her jeans (finally, because she has some really cool jeans).

When I get to missing her I plug in an external hard drive (any of them) and bring up this photo.

It is not a great art photo, nor is it well posed. But I don't care. It show me the Abigail I know well from a perspective I know well. One that is about to steal all my covers.

Nude art lover/hater ???

Brooke ~ Homeless

This image was taken at the Northrup King bldg. in Minneapolis. Several of us had a joint show there a couple of years ago and Brooke was on hand as some of the images where of her.

At one point she and I broke free from the show and walked up to the third flood of the building and down a corridor where we found this nice wooden bench. It made a nice setting so what the hell.

I made a 17X22 inch print of this image and put it up on the wall just over the bench to see what peoples reactions would be as they walked on by. In the mean time I went for a short walk. When I return about an hour later the print was gone from the wall. Either stolen or torn down by an irate individual, who knows. I never did get to see anyone's reaction to it.

Packing

My good friend

I am beginning to gather all my belongings up for the trip to Chicago. I say Chicago like it will be the only place i am going, but I will be hitting nine states on this trip. I believe I will be fortunate enough to spend an evening with my friend, Dave Levingston while in Ohio. That will be a treat. I have not seen him for about a year and a half, back when he had a show in Chicago and I dropped in with Sarah who was traveling with me to the Kinsey Show.

I need to stick around until the crate arrives home from the Naked in Pittsburgh show to help the UPS lady unload it from her truck. It is a bit heavy, weighing in at several hundred pounds. I was told by the gallery that one of the cast aluminum handles had been broken off during shipment to them, which will make it that much more hard to handle. I'm afraid if I am not here she will simply push it out the back of her truck onto the ground. It may not hurt anything but why take the chance. I'm curious to see if the gallery puts all 38 screws back into the cover. Ha!

I'm departing here with 13 framed prints that are 28X36. That is all that I can get into Golden Hooves.

Speaking of Golden Hooves, this may be her last "Walk in the woods" as they say. She will turn 350,000 miles on this trip and she is beginning to feel her age. It may be time to retire her to the pasture and use her just for zipping about around home. I will make that decision upon my return, but I won't let her know I am thinking about it. I'm not sure she would understand.

My father turned 90 this week also. I think Golden Hooves is in better shape.

I have decided to create another blog of just erotic work and keep this blog spot for my non erotic stuff.

The new one will not have ramblings of an old fart, just an image posted from time to time.

If anyone is interested in following this new blog it can be found here:

http://tknickers.blogspot.com

Gobble gobble

Abigail

Enjoy

Abigail

I have two sets of friends that have arrived from other areas for Turkey Day in the northwoods.

One set travels about 1200 miles for this event, but then they do every year. Good food and good friends.

Hope all of you have an equally good day tomorrow.

Lost vision

Abigail ~ The Diver

I was having a bit of a discussion with Bill Ballard about photos where the model has eye contact with the viewer the other day.

I have never liked a photo where it was suppose to be art where the model was looking at the camera (the viewer). Once she knows I am watching all intrigue in terms of art is lost for me.

I do on occasion take a photo with the model looking at the camera, but it is not for art sake, it is for my own enjoyment so I can look back on the moment and remember. My own personal snapshot of the time we were having. I may or may not share that photo with the world, but if you see one here or elsewhere where the model is looking at the camera you will know I took it for me because I wanted to remember something that was happening right there and then. It could have been something funny; it could have been something heart warming; it may have just been that I liked her smile. But what it was not was a photo that was suppose to be art.

i can go along with just about any glance right up to where she is looking at the serial number on the from of the camera body, but as soon as the eyes hit the lens it is over. Done. The moment is lost for me in terms of a good image.

When I am looking at artwork the thing I don't want to see is a model staring at me.

I have juried a couple of photo shows in my time and I can assure you your work would not get past me if the model is looking at me. That should be saved for family snap shots on a beach in Acapulco, not for an art show.

Feds need to get out of the road and let the people get by

Artistic Physique ~ "Not Happy"

Alabama

Utah

Indiana

Arizona

South Carolina

Hmmm. Seems the good old boys are gaining momentum that is pissing off the Feds.

Of course if the Feds did their job there would not be an issue here. But they don't and they don't want anyone else doing their job because it would show the world they were slackers that didn't care one bit about what the laws say. Nothing new there either. The Federal Government is one big money laundering club for a handful of idiots that don't care one bit about the people they are suppose to represent. ***Off my high horse***

I would have to sell them for 85 thousand dollars if you counted my time

Abigail ~ "The Wrestler"

I am wrapping up the COAs for the framed prints. All the dust jackets are on and I even remembered to sign each print beforehand. Odd.

Today I will be working on the price schedule for each. Not an easy thing for me as I attempt to make somewhat of a living at this.

If I figure in my cash outlay for the year that was spent on photographing I would have to have an income from print sales in the neighborhood of $12,700. thus far for 2011. Ha!

That of course does not include my time, which I write off as free.

Of course I have not made anywhere near $12,700. on print sales this year so I either have to sell a few of these or I will once again be in the hole. This will be the third year in a row for operating in the red.

But this is Chicago and that is were my avid collectors are located so I am hoping for an end of the year sweep that should bring me back to doe, doe, doe, dough.

My favorite print in this show is one of Thyia that I took the second shooting with her done in a forest preserve in Cook County, just outside of Chicago. It is an edition of one and I am hoping it does not sell so I can present it to her after the show. I actually would like it hanging on my living room wall but I think she would truly get as much enjoyment out of it as I.

I usually present the model with one of the gallery prints from our work together and have one in Pittsburgh that I will be getting to Artistic Physique when that show is over.

But now....on to my price list. It awaits.

I'm beginning to be a mat and frame expert.

Abigail

The bar tender say, "I don't allow neutrinos in here."

Two neutrinos walk into a bar.

I have been cooped up in my studio for the last week framing and matting prints for the Chicago show. Just about done.

My trip to Chi Town will take me through Iowa to shoot with an amazing looking gal from the farm fields. It looks to be a very interesting time.

Then I drop off the work and head to Ohio for a few days to work with a gal from there. That also sounds like it will be fun. We will be doing some strange stuff and will adventure into areas I have not gone before. Then again it may turn out to be crap.

I will head back to Chi Town and see if I can talk Thyia into a days worth of fun.

Then the show opening where I suspect I will bump into DL Wood and his lovely wife once again. With some luck we will drink too much wine and I will slosh a glass full all over the place like I did last time.

Then onto Minneapolis where I will be working with, of all things, a porn star. I know. But she is an all natural porn star, and I don't care what she does for a living, she looks terrific and wants to work with me.

Then I will head on home once again after having been on the road for two weeks. Home will look good. It always does after being gone so long, naked women or no.

If Abigail is still in Michigan I may see if I can stop in for a quick visit with her on my way back from Ohio. That would be nice.

For those of you who think I may have been drinking when I wrote those first two lines...

Part of Einstein's theory of relativity is that the faster you travel the slower time is, and at the speed of light time stands still.

Neutrinos (tiny particles) have been found to travel faster than the speed of light, which seems to blow Einstein's theory right out the window.

I never understood how we can agree with Hawking that time is a man made invention that really does not exist and also agree with Einstein too. Seems like a contradiction there.

But anywho, I thought this nerd joke was a hoot.

Working vacation

Abigail

Since I will be delivering my work to the gallery for the December show in Chicago, and I will hang around for a week until the opening, I decided to make this a working trip as well to kill some of the time I will have on my hands.

Currently I have four models lined up to work with during this time and I may limit my eight days to no more than five models. That will give me some time to visit with my son and to get some work done on editing that I am so far behind on.

After a shoot I edit the images so they look good and get them off to the model fairly quickly. What I don't get a chance to do is edit them for myself. That may entail cropping into a very small portion of the image to get just a fold of skin, or converting to a monochrome because I liked it better that way. Usually I find some hidden treasures amongst the work that I had not noticed when the shots were taken. Usually about two years later.

This trip looks to be about 50/50 Shadowscape Studio/Confidential Photo work. Confidential Photo being the erotic side of my personality.

What is yours?

Yours truly & Cheryl ~ "Sold Soul"

Humans have to do something in excess. For some it is drinking, others smoking, some eating. religion, gambling, shopping, talking on the phone, hording, cars, sports, sex,on and on. But each of us seems to have to be able to do something in excess or we can't survive life. It is a built in pressure relief on humans. Thus, none of us are in good condition. I smoke way too many cigars. Probably in the neighborhood of eight a day. At 10 to 22 dollars a pop it can be an expensive excess. Wish I was addicted to sex so it did cost so much, but then I could see where that might run into big money too. I'll stick with my cigars.

I could easily go back to scotch as an excess but my wife is much happier with my cigar excess. I guess I remain more of a person to her liking when I smell of smoke. The personality change with scotch takes hold and things do not always fair so well. I do like it however but will keep those moments for special occasions these days.

But back to the excesses people have to have in their life. I don't know of anyone who does not over indulge in something. And if that is given up it is substituted by another. An alcoholic will go sober but then be a chain smoker, or an over eater, or something.

It would be nice if we could channel our desire to go overboard on something healthy, like exercise, but then there are some who do that and they would not stand out in a crowd if everybody did it. I guess we should let those few bask in their healthiness.

Me? I need a breakfast cigar.

If it tasted good farmers would raise them

Abigail

My father-in-law is one of those old timers that think going out and shooting a deer is a manly thing one must do every year. The fact that he can't get up in his deer stand without help, see once he gets up there, and can't find his way out of the woods doesn't stop him one bit. Trouble is everybody else suffers.

I got a call opening morning because he shot his deer. At least that was out of the way. I had to skin it and clean it. He had a big gash across his nose because he holds the gun far away from his face so he can make something out in the scope and it smacked him in the nose when it went off.

I hate the smell of a deer (I will take a rotting human carcass any day), fresh or cooked, but I got it dressed out the way he wanted it. He doesn't understand how to hang a piece of meat for a couple of weeks in order to make it a little more palatable, he wan'ts it whacked up right there and then and it does no good for me to try and talk him out of it.

Guck! Why anybody would eat a deer after it has been living on cedar branches all year is beyond me.

Figure in the cost of the license and then he will have a lot of it made into sausage, it should run him about $11.00/ pound. I can get good Porterhouse for less than that and I don't get covered with bloody deer guts and tallow.

But I'm glad it is over for him so I don't have to go through this for another year. It should have been shot and left for the foxes and other critters that are not so fussy. I don't have a problem with shooting them, as a matter of fact I think we should shoot them all, I just think we have progressed to where we have grocery stores that sell cows and pigs and no longer should have this instinct to kill deer as though it were some good source of food.

I would no sooner cook venison in my house than have a beer farting party in there. Smells the place up like something died behind the wall.

Time for people to move on and quit this pretending venison taste good. Shoot the hell out them, but then leave them for the carnivores out in the woods that don't have a CUB Foods.

Creeks vs Cricks

Erin

When I was growing up we had a crick near the house that we spent much or our childhood playing in, at or near. The crick was the life blood to the farm land that encompassed the area.

Farmers would dam it up or make wide spots in it to create stock ponds for their cattle. It was also the source of most of our entertainment as it was the only area where there were trees. On both side of the crick there was a fifty yard bank of willows and elm trees that created a get-away spot for farm kids to hide out and escape the flat farm lands. Tree forts and war games with sticks used for guns, and hunting safaris for wild, dangerous animals were played out.

The crick held carp and bullhead fish and was the home of muskrats and other critters such as snakes. The crick was everything a farm kid needed to pass the time.

Cricks are different than creeks. A creek is a small stream that runs through a city park. A crick is a raw watershed that runs mainly through farm land and is polluted by fertilizer and cattle excretion. A creek looks like a quiet, peaceful place to sit and listen to the water flowing. A creek on the other hand looks like a negative taken of a severe wound. Imagine a gash on your arm. Beautiful skin with an ugly, nasty bleeding gash. A creek looks like ugly, nasty land with a beautiful gash and live trees with greenery growing on its banks through flat brown farm fields.

Many hours as a child were passed swimming in the stock ponds created by farmers to water their cattle. We had no knowledge back then of pollution and cared little that the banks were places one had to dodge cow pies in order to get to the water. The only serious events associated with swimming was getting to the ponds without being trampled by the Angus cattle who guarded their watering holes as though they were stockpiles of gold. They had but one though on their mind...kill whatever it was that might steal their water. They could smell an eight year old boy from a mile away. And eight year old boys, when properly stomped into the earth made good fertilizer for growing fresh grass to eat.

My son lives in the house I grew up in. When I was visiting him this summer I took time to explore the creek. There I found remains of old tree forts; tiger pits; and bridges that we had constructed some fifty years ago. There were no signs that anyone had been there for many years. Not a single tree new tree fort had been built or tiger pit had been dug. No trails through the woods. Nothing.

I wondered what they kids do to pass the time who live in that area these days. I guess they sit and play with electronic games and text for fun. Seems like they are missing out on being a child.

You got something running down your chin

Abigail

It may appear uncouth but if you don't drool when you are lighting your cigar you probably are not enjoying the moment. Unlike cigarette smokers who light up a stick without giving it a thought because it is a habit, a cigar smoker (I'm talking a real cigar smoker and not some convenient store five pack bought for deer camp) savors his cigar long before lighting it. My joy is a dark, oily maduro wrapped Nicaraguan or Honduran, handmade beauty with a 85+ rating. The salivating begins as I spy it in the humidor. Then it is carefully lifted out and studied. Usually they are in some clear wrapper that begs to be removed so the aroma can fill your nostrils. Then there is the feeling of that oily maduro wrapper in your fingers. It seems like it will impart a substance on your hands that will be slippery, but it doesn't. You smell it with your eyes closed and picture a girl of about 22 with long black hair and sweat running down her arms as she rolls the cigar to its perfect form. Years have gone into making this cigar. The leaves may be 60 years old or more. Then it is aged after it is made so the fillers blend, much like a good scotch.

Now you grab your cutter or punch and open up the end as it has been sealed for all these years by several caps of these fine tobacco leaves that make up the covering. You now place it in your lips and savor the taste of that oily maduro leaf. It is wonderful.

Lighting up a good cigar is not such a simple operation as you need to get the entire front of a 50 or so ring gauge cigar all going. You gentle draw in as it begins to burn with a little bit of a puff back through the cigar so as not to create a heat build up. This makes like a blast furnace at the tip which aids in the uniform lighting.

If you can achieve this point without drooling down the front of your chin you are either not enjoying the experience or you have a good command of your face. Cigar people would never comment on another cigar person drooling down their chin. It comes with the territory.

If wives or girlfriends wanted more attention from their cigar smoking others they would wrap themselves in a nice Connecticut Broad Leaf before heading to bed.

More City Assholes

Abigail

Just chased two City deer hunters off my property. What part of Private Property they can't read I don't know. Maybe they can read and just don't give a shit, which is more likely.

I really am getting to despise people from cities. All of them. They are worthless human beings that waste good air reasonable people could be breathing.

I wonder what would happen if all the rural people descended on the Cities and ran around in their yards with guns. Just because our yard is bigger than your postage stamp size lot doesn't mean it is okay for you to tramp all around our yard shooting at anything that moves. No wonder there is a movement to take away peoples rights to have guns.

I am in agreement with, if you live in a City of more than five thousand people you should not be allowed to own or have a gun in your possession because you don't have enough brains to use one properly.

Abs from one of our single light studio sessions.

They are here

Abigail

I have survived the first week of northern Minnesota deer hunters, odd as that might be considering the crazy idiots from the Cities who come up here and blast their guns blindlessly into the woods not knowing what lay fifty yards beyond where they are looking.

Two more weeks of dodging bullets flying about by drunken hunters.

God must have created deer season in Minnesota in case eternity proved to be too short.

Worst TV show in history

Abigail

Here is another reason FOX News is a worthless piece of crap as a news agency.

The school does not want to state the reason. Leave it alone and quit digging up dirt for dirt sake. I know the limp wrist liberals want to know, but tough. They don't need to know and FOX News just digging into it for the sake of these limp wrist liberals makes me want to hurl.

If anything should be banned from television it is FOX News.

Sign of ???

Abigail

One one, one one, one one. This date must be good for something.

Up and running

Erin

I have managed to get just about everything loaded back into my laptop now. A few small bits to put back in but for the most part it is back up and running.

I plum forgot about a show I have in Chicago opening on December 9th and am busy scurrying to get that put together so I can deliver it in about three weeks.

Good news is I will get to see Thyia and hopefully we will spend some time shooting. I have had this nagging desire to work with a prop.

I know, I don't like props, but this prop is not exactly a prop per say, but more of an addition to a feeling or mood. Actually I am excited to give it a go. I'm not sure Thyia will be as excited as I am but we shall wait and see.

In the mean time I need to get my butt in gear and get matting and framing.

Go Wisconsin

Abigail

Here is an idea. Let the people decide.

Life would be so much better if Government didn't run the whole show and tell us what we have to do as though we were a bunch of little children not able to make decisions for ourselves.

It is time people fought back against mandated, unnecessary bullshit this Big Brother Government is trying to enforce.

This is stuff parents need to educate children about, not schools. And certainly not forced upon our children by Big Brother.

Let's get back to teaching children how to read and write instead of how to butt fuck the kid sitting next to you at recess without getting AIDS.

We graduate kids from high school that can't read. That should be telling us that we made a wrong turn somewhere along the line and we need to back track and start over.

Of course the limp wrist liberals probably think teaching children how not to get AIDS in the school parking lot is more important than reading. But then all you have to do is look at their children and you can see why.

Naked in Pittsburgh show

These images are courtesy of my good friend, Dave Levingston and the beautiful gal in the images is that of Artistic Physique who is in the photos on the wall.

Seems I had entry placement into the gallery, which is always a nice thing.

Dave L. also had four images of Artistic Physique in the same show, but I will let him show those to you.

It appears to have been a good opening with lots of people. I am sorry I could not attend.

She is beautiful, isn't she. That is not a question, but a statement.

Screw The People. Let Them Eat Cake.

Artistic Physique ~ In My Heart

Now we have Obama saying this Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to Texas and across to Illinois will be good for the economy.

Yeah! Another major impact on the U.S. for the benefit of the oil companies.

Nothing Obama has done has been good for the economy. Nothing, although he sounds good when he says it will be.

So this pipeline would create short term jobs for a bunch of people who build pipelines. How does this help America? The oil company however will make billions in long term profits. The people of the U.S. will have to suffer for decades.

Just as is reported here, we throw the people's money at oil companies.

But then, Obama watched Chenney rake in mega money with his Halaburton company that profited from America suffering at the hands of government. Why shouldn't he get in on the action. After all, he is an Illinois politician.

Thank you once again to the assholes who campaigned hard to get Obama into office. You have proven your worth.

_______________________________

Midnight caller

Jasmine ~ "Thinking Of Six Pack Abs"

Or so she told me.

This was from a gal that stopped at my hotel room when I was staying in Hamilton, Ohio for the night. I had gotten in late and was going to pick up Artistic Physique in the morning but was wound up from the long drive so I contacted this local gal and asked if she would like to stop by for a quick shoot.

She arrived with two duffle bags full of clothes. I guess she didn't quite get a grasp on my notion. So I explained that she should just strip off everything and flop on the bed and I would take it from there. Within a few minutes she got the hang of what I was looking for and we managed to get some reasonable images for the effort.

I asked her what she was thinking about during this set and she said, "Six pack abs."

Obviously she was not thinking of me, which was just as well.

Getting to be that time of year

Abigail & I ~ "Making Sand Castles"

It is that time of year when I should warn people of the dangers of wanting to build their own fish house so they can fish all winter in comfort and quiet on the frozen lakes. TV shows make it seem like a dream come true with small villages of people enjoying a community of social activities out on the ice. Truth be told...

Fish Houses

Fish houses. Fish houses.
Let me tell you about fish houses. If you retire and move to Minnesota you will probably have thoughts of building a fish house so you can pass the time in winter in a nice warm house while catching fish. Maybe even equip it with a portable TV so you can watch the Vikings football games while you fish.
I will save you the trouble of going to all that work by explaining what a fish house means.
Come Thanksgiving you will be anxious to get your fish house out onto the ice. One more week and it will be time. You can hardly wait.
You spent most of the summer building this contraption. It has a stove, bunk beds, gas lights and a large heater. You have a table for playing cards should you have company and a place to keep your beer cold since it will be 75 degrees in your toasty warm fish house. You rigged a TV antenna on the roof so you won't miss a game and you even hung pictures on the walls of Walleye and Northern Pike.
This is going to be great!!!!
About a week after thanksgiving you decide it is time. You have been testing the thickness of the ice twice a day and you now have at least four inches.
So you enlist some help from your friends and pull it out onto the lake with a 4 wheeler, as the ice isn't safe enough for a vehicle yet.
You need to make some holes in the ice and you bore a few with the new power auger you bought. Still, it would be nice to have a big square hole to look down into and watch what is going on below so you cut a 3X5 foot hole with your chainsaw. Man does that throw the water around.
You move your house over the holes and light up the stove. Life is good.
For the next five days you sit in your house, drinking beer and watching the only channel you can get which happens to be soap operas during the day and reruns of the Price Is Right in the evenings. Doesn't matter, you are warm and life is good.
At the end of the five days you are a little concerned that you have not even seen a fish, let alone caught one. So you decide to move the house.
It slid out there so nice you figure you can do it by yourself so you get the 4 wheeler and hook it up. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Rrrrrrrrrrrr. Wheels spin and it won't budge. She has frozen down to the lake.
So you go back home and get a pry bar. Jamming it under the house and lifting up you manage to gash up the house something fierce but it won't come loose. About four inches of the house have sunk into the ice and it is encased.
You remember Merle telling you about the time his fish house froze down and he shot the ice all the way around with his rifle to break it up and then he pulled it out. You are not quite that desperate and figure you can do OK by using your chisel. So you start chopping with the chisel all the way around. For two hours you chip and chisel. And you have gained nothing. You think that maybe you are having a heart attack and you sit down on the ice and re think.
A few minutes later you are on your way back out to the fish house with your deer hunting rifle and three boxes of shells. In about twenty minutes you have done three things: 1) You have shot up $60.00 worth of shells, 2) You blew that spider out of the barrel that you saw going in there the other day when you were eating your waffle at the breakfast table, and 3) You made sure you will have fresh shells next year for dear hunting.
The house is still stuck.
The next morning you ram the side of the house with the four wheeler in an attempt to break it free but all you manage to do it bust up the siding that you will now have to replace.
Around noon you return to the fish house with chainsaw in hand but find you can't even pull the rope because the rewind mechanism is encased in ice from cutting the hole. You head home and put the saw on the dinning room table to thaw it out. At four pm you head out again and attempt to saw the ice away from the bottom of the fish house, but after about a half hour you once again think you are having a heart attack and call it quits.
Next morning you are having trouble getting out of bed. Your body aches all over and you realize you have pulled every muscle.
Around noon you manage to get dressed and you head out to the god damn fish house with the chain saw once more. Only this time you decide to give into the ice and let it keep the lower four inches of your house. You saw the house off at the top of the ice.
Free! Free at last. You drag the reminence of your once wondrous ice palace back to your shore line and up onto land. The floor and lower four inches of your house will forever become a part of the scenery on the lake, lodging itself in some obscure place with the spring winds.
You will never again open the door to the hulk that will sit on your shore line for years to come as a reminder of your younger, foolish days.
Someday, years from now one of your great grand children will pull open the rotting door and peer inside. "Man, I bet great grandpa had some good times in this o'l baby."
He then will be bitten by the fish house bug and start construction of his own to be launched come next Thanksgiving.

No killing for food

Abigail

So, now will every farmer who goes out in his barnyard and lops the head off a chicken get arrested? What is going on with this world? Can't kill animals how the heck we gonna eat.

Granted the guy sounds like a dirt bag, but that doesn't make him a criminal. If that were the case all attorneys would be in jail.

For those of you in the Pittsburgh area I hope you will attend the opening of, Naked In Pittsburgh at 2112 Sarah Street (south side) this evening. Opening is 6-9pm.

I will not be there but a portion of my work will be, along with Dave Levingston's.

Computer woes

Abigail & I ~ Dance Session

(Sorry I cut the top of your head off, my dear)

I'm in a non shooting funk at the moment. A goodly session between shoots always does that to me. Winter does that to me. Lack of money to travel to warmer climate where I can shoot models outdoors does that to me.

Winter time brings studio work into my life, which I really don't get a charge out of unless the model is staying with me for several days and we get to horsing about. A few hour studio session is much like having your teeth pulled and I avoid them unless circumstances dictate I must. I also find one day studio work to be mostly boring. The models want artistic lighting that they see on my portfolios of other models. Been there, done that, and it is boring work. The image may look grand, but it become just another artistically lit shot. I refuse totally to light a model fully. What is the point there? If I can't have at least half of her in shadow I don't have any interest in taking the photo. Let the gazillion other so called photographers that don't understand artistic lighting do that.

So I will spend my winter months much as I always do, working on gallery shows. This winter I may explore the south as venues as I have not touched in that area in the past. However, naked women in trees and on rocks near water probably is of no interest to people who live in dirt with a smattering of cacti as landscape. I may have t go south east and get into at least Mississippi before I have a venue.

For those who have any interest in news about my hard drive problem...I got a new drive and installed it. Tried to boot up the recovery discs and the damn thing said it will not accept those discs with this computer.

H.P was kind enough to mail me a factory set of recovery discs that I am now waiting for via Fed Ex, which will take at least two weeks based on all other Fed Ex shipments I have dealt with to this area. So the damn thing is still a pile of useless components.

Don't forget the Naked In Pittsburgh show opening is tonight from 6-9pm if you are anywhere in the Pittsburgh area, 2112 Sarah Street (south side).

!!! Stolen Artwork !!!

"Willow River"

If you happen to come across this photograph, please let me know. It is a 17" X 22" print with an edition of one (1) that was stolen. It was in an art gallery on Chicago's north side, near Wells and Huron.

Any sighting of this print would be greatly appreciated.

Dave's list of memorable movie quotes

Predator's Kitchen

Not your typical list of famous movie quotes, just ones off the top of my head that should have been famous but weren't for some reason.

"They are farmers. All they talk about is fertilizer and women. I never shared their enthusiasm for fertilizer, and as or women I became indifferent when I turned ninety two."

"I was just about to make some ice tea and split the atom, but it can wait."

"The last echo will give us the direction. 186 degrees south, south west."

(Don't you just wonder why he had that contraption in his back pack?)

"Let's play something else."

"Which watch?" "Ten watch."

"There just ain't no ignorin the situation."

"Eh, what trouble?"

"Yeah, small town, it was something to do."

"Rooooooxanne."

"Then four firing switches to be used in missiles for second stage boost."

(I've heard that line more than fifty times and it still makes me laugh so hard my stomach hurts)

"Think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?"

"I love you?! What bloody good is that?" "I don't know. I wasn't going to use it myself."

Random thoughts for the day

Artistic Physique

I will leave Manchester Connecticut off the list of places I will ever visit again.

Let's go back to women's bathing suits that had pants for god sake.

Put the snow plow on the 4 wheeler today. A sure sign that summer is over in these parts. Lets hope I won't have to use it for a couple of week more.

I was reminded today by a comment I received from someone just how our ideas of what is art and what is not varies between us. This person is a nude art model but made the comment that what I have been putting up on my blog lately was not something they cared to look at, and did so with an attitude that gave me a bit of a shock.

Each of us has our own idea about what is art and what is not. We each like some things and not others. I think Picasso's work was a joke on the world but do consider it art, joke or not. I think Weston couldn't take a decent photo of a nude woman, but it was still art, at least to him.

My thoughts on that subject for the time being.

As humans we are breeding a species that will wipe itself out. Evolution for millions of years has weeded out the sick and the inferior of the species, but humans, with modern medicine and healthcare breed the sick and the diseased in our species. We treat and medicate only to allow more to be breed of the same or worse. immune systems are failing due to antibiotics given to us in an almost uncontrolled fashion. We get a cold and we get an antibiotic to combat it, thus never allowing our system to build up its own immunity to the germ.

But I fear that we shall wipe each other out with violence before we wipe ourselves out from disease. But one way or the other we won't be long on this planet.

Do as I say, not as I do

Me

I have never asked a model to do something that I was not willing to do. And sometimes a demonstration is in order to get the idea across as what is I am asking them to do. I figure if an old man like me can do it, it ought to be a cake walk for the models.

Now grant it that I don't look good doing these things, and I often tell them, "Do it just like this but make it look good.", which they usually can do much better than I.

This image is from one of those times and was shot by Artistic Physique while I was attempting to explain how I wanted her to hang upside down from this vine with her arms out.

We did get some good shots of her hanging from this vine but not inverted as I was. I don't think she grew up sliding down a rope head first, with no hands from a tree fort like I did.

Ah the times she must have missed out on.

It is November and soon the City Idiots will be invading the north woods dressed up like giant pumpkins with guns. They will sit in the bars and drink themselves into a stupor and then get up at 5am and grab their rifle, still drunk and head out into the woods to blast a deer. Or at least blast at a deer. Most of them couldn't hit a barn wall if they were standing on the inside of the barn. Hunting, they call it. Deer waiting is more like it. Sit on a deer trail and wait for the deer to walk by. The hunting part has long disappeared from activity they do.

They will walk all over other people's land and shoot holes in houses, road signs and mail boxes. It never changes from year to year. Dads will take their sons hunting (use the term very loosely) and teach them to blast road signs and walk all over other people property without asking.

It is a city mentality. That is why we need a wall around every city larger than 5 thousand people. Keep them locked up where they can't infest the rest of humanity.

Three weeks worth of city idiots. God help the north woods.