Well, my plans to hit the salt today got rained out, more or less. We had high winds and cloud cover...and even a little rain, both in Taylorsville and Wendover/Salt Flats. The courses are set up, tech is open and inspecting cars (got this from landracing.com ) but it'd be kinda hard to get the full moon shot with clouds in the way. So I stayed home.
While sitting around, I expanded on the castle theme, using numerous shots I'd taken in 1968-70. I spose I'll put 'em on raytherat.com eventually. Mostly I did stuff like changing backgrounds, converting from a photo image to a painting-like image with various techniques (watercolor, oil, pointillism, pastels, etc) and generally creating new images from old and current ones.
One of 'em that's attached is the another in the series of "groovy" shots of a friend's wife in the Kohlenberg castle ruins. I took the second image a bit further...I replaced the sky with a contemporary stock photo of sky and clouds (clouds seem to be fascinating to me lately...I dunno why but whenever I see an interesting cloud/sky and have my camera with me, I get a coupla shots for stock usage like what I did today), then made another layer with the image of Gina and saturated the color a bit and placed it on the original shot which had a much lower chroma and contrast level. I dunno if it's any good, but I liked it, so I guess that's all that matters.
As I was digging thru these images that I'd shot 40 years ago, I found one I'd shot in the ancient town of Moron de la Frontera in Spain. As I looked at it, all I could think of was Mars. It just reminded me of my conception of an abandoned structure on that planet. So I replaced the sky again (my arms are gettin real tired from doin this sky replacement...it's heavy!) but realized that the sky on Mars probably wouldn't be blue (although there seems to be some controversy about this) and I thought that a pink sky (what most images seem to show) wouldn't have worked with the reddish stone. So I invented a yellow sky. With white clouds, of course. Why? I dunno. I spose I could have done a green sky like the one referenced in an old Jefferson Airplane song, but yellow's what I ended up with.
Now. A little more stuff on this....which may be boring as hell to most people but...whatever. In 1973, the group, Emerson Lake and Palmer released an album called Brain Salad Surgery: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_Salad_Surgery One of the tracks is named Toccata and is Keith Emerson's interpretation of a classical composition...well, here's what Wikipedia says about it: "The instrumental "Toccata" is based on the Fourth Movement of Alberto Ginastera's 1st Piano Concerto, arranged by Keith Emerson with special synthesized effects."
The first time I heard this track, I was...let's say, "exploring higher consciousness ala Carlos Casteneda" (ok, I was high on weed) and an image was burned into my brain that still exists....I visualize it every time I hear that piece. I suppose you could call it a science-fiction music video in my head. I really wish I could bring that to life via video. Anyway, it's a battle between different factions on Mars with laser weapons and people running through tunnels and...well, it's what ya might expect if you visualized a battle in a stone structure on that planet.
When I saw the photo I'd taken in 69 in Moron, it instantly brought that mental image to my mind. This was the stone structure in which the battle had taken place. It was a building on the campus of the University of Mars and the photo showed the ruins long after the battle had taken place and laid it to waste. So with the yellow sky and some watercolor effects, I have a start on that imagery.
What is it really? It's the remains of a Moorish castle...or fortress called the Alcazaba that was abandoned sometime between 1212 and 1492. There's more info on the Moors and their occupation of the Iberian peninsula here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MoorsI have several photos of the ruins and I spose I can make a whole series of images representing what ELP and Ginastera burned into my brain in 1973.
Ok. Enough of that. But while I was doing some research on Moron, I found a Wikipedia entry that referred to Diego del Gastor, the best-known of the Gypsy Flamenco guitarists in Spain. There were no photos on that entry. Well, since I'd been at a fiesta in a small bodega where Diego and his nephew (also named Diego, but known as Diego de Moron) and several others performed. At the time, I had no idea that I was experiencing a part of musical history. But even back then, I was shooting photos, and for several of both Diegos on Tri-X Pan film (black and white for those who don't remember it.) So I added 'em to the Wiki page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_del_GastorBig deal, huh? Well, it's kept me from going nuts while waiting to head out to the salt flats. And if ya made it this far thru the post, thank you for nearing with me. I think I'll try to get a few more of those photos converted to "Martian" so I can wither print 'em and/or put 'em on my website.
I hope my next post will be from the salt flats. Later, Ray
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