H&A International

Downtown Victorville, on 7^th Street, is where H&A International used to be.  The building is still there but a new business has moved in.  That’s a good thing.  Change in the way of the community coming back.  It’s a long way to go but it’s the right direction.  But this is not about that.  I like this #image – its symmetry, its balance that is really asymmetrical, the colors, the over saturation of the colors, the use of the negative space – I like this image because I’m not finished with it.  I thought I was but realize that I’m not.  Truth be told, I want to see more than what we see at the moment because more is going on that what is seen.  And this is #California – so very much California but not the California known by most.  There is so much to see.

A Store

A famous photographer, Andreas Gurski, created an image, "99 Cent II Diptychon", that gained fame outside of the art world because of what it sold for at auction – over 3 million dollars.  Mr. Gurski is still alive.  I have often dreamed of selling an #image for 1 million dollars.  And I have dreamed of winning the lottery too.  I have dreamed about #Halle Berry being my girlfriend.  I have dreamed about a lot of stuff – but that’s cool, dreams.  But I pretty much keep myself planted in reality – go to work, be a father, keep working on my photography.  I work on my photography in an effort to make it better.  But sometimes I just photograph things just to see what it looks like.  This is not Andreas Gursky’s "99 Cent II Diptychon".  It’s just me in the store with my phone looking at colors.  I did no post production on these, no Melisandre, the red woman, magic to make them look like this or that – just taking a picture for the sake of seeing what it looks like.  It’s a snapshot, nothing more.  But, truth be told, I wouldn’t mind it if this “piece” commanded a million dollars at one of those auspicious art events and Halle Berry was there on my arm full of admiration at what I have created.  Now that’s a dream.

Train Depots

Back in 2011 when I was an early photography student at California State University, San Bernardino, (I love saying the whole name like that – go Coyotes!) one of the projects we had for our documentary #photography class was photographing some Inland Empire train stations.  We could capture others but some were on our “have to photograph” list.  I thought it was a good challenging #project that made you think how you would do it different since you knew others would be photographing the same structure.  I have since gone back to some of these train depots to use them as back drops or as the subject of the shoot themselves.  But these images are some of those from Prof. McGovern’s class (he is an incredible teacher and photographer in his own right).  I should make some full size prints of these images.

 Colton

 Pomona

 Redlands

 San Bernardino

 Union Station, Los Angeles

Union Station, Los Angeles

The Parking Lot

So, I really need to catch up in my post production for my images. There is so much I want to do but can't until my images are ready to go.  I guess every photographer has that situation.  Oh well, this is a shot from my phone in the Target parking lot in Apple Valley, CA - where I live.  No post production, just the shot from the phone because I thought the clouds were really dramatic looking.  Truth be told, I think it is fine as is.

Art Work

So I changed my website a little bit.  I want to give a go at moving my art work into something that can sustain itself.  It’s kind of like letting the art do the work.  That was silly but you know what I mean.  I will be updating it with more current work and getting back to competing too – I’m referring to art contest.  We’ll see how this turns out but in the meantime the link is to the revamped website.