Rebuilding the Past

I've always enjoyed restoring vintage photographs. For many years I was the photographer for the Nevada Historical Society, with access to vintage photographs ranging from government surveys in the mid-1800's, to the rise and fall of silver-mining towns, cattle ranching, and the growth of tourism. It was exciting to work with the negatives and prints made from large format cameras, where an enlargement could reveal details from the past never seen before. It was especially pleasing to be able to bring a photograph back to life that had faded almost to invisibility.

The last few days while recuperating from a hospitalization I've been exercising those old skills on some photographs taken in the late 1930's by my father's family. A beautiful album with a hand-painted cover includes some fun snapshots taken during a 1937 road trip that took in Yellowstone Park, the Garden of the Gods in Colorado, and the Jackson Hole Country in Wyoming.

What caught my attention this evening was a little loose print that slipped out: it was dark but looked to include a promising image of my Aunt Helen just before she was married. She is sitting in the back of a car with a girlfriend, both looking very happy. A nice-looking young man with his arm around her looks to be my Uncle Paul. Both long deceased, and in my memory as older people. So it was worth some time to bring Helen out of the shadows, and reveal a young, vibrant woman I'd never seen before.

Helen Mindling Thompson, about 1937

Montana in the Morning

A senior portrait sitting.

Beautiful early morning light on an Indian summer day down at the Marshal Gold Discovery State Park in Coloma made for some satisfying photographs. Having a lovely lady named Montana as a subject didn't hurt. Taken with my venerable Nikon D300, mostly with an 85mm f/1,8 lens used wide open.

Ambiance and the Blue Refrigerator

Back in the day, when the mother of my young boys and I lived in a little old rented house, we had a kitchen with a blue refrigerator. If you are supposing that a major appliance of that color would have been found in a kitchen in the late 1960's your sense of color chronology is pretty sharp. The refrigerator lived next to our oak kitchen table, passed on to us from my folks to help establish the furniture of our early married life. Next to the table in our little old house - probably pre-1940's vintage - was a high kitchen window that faced to the north. Now likely you have acquired the information that artists like north light. For good reason. Our window always avoided direct sunlight, thus banishing harsh shadows and highlights. instead it gathered skylight, that soft light reflected from the sky that gently wraps itself around whatever you place in its path.

At the time I was a geologist, but in my heart a photographer, and thus had some sensitivity to the quality of light. As a result I learned to appreciate the magic light at that table. And that blue refrigerator? Its role was to provide, as rendered on black and white film, a clean dark gray, almost black, background.

Perhaps due to the lovely light through that window, or the blue refrigerator, just plain laziness, or more likely a complete lack of business sense, I have never acquired the skill for properly using artificial light (although I have deep respect for those that can mold light to their will). But I think I do have a sensitive awareness for nice ambient light.

Here are a couple more  photos, recently dredged from the 1967 archives, that took advantage of that ambient north light, the blue refrigerator, and the texture of our old oak kitchen table.

Hike No. 17: Going with the Flow

June 1, 2013
5 miles


Well, no, I wasn't walking on water, but I figure 5 miles of paddling is enough of a workout to count it as a "hike". We were camped at Dolphin island Marina on the Noyo River estuary way in the back of Noyo Harbor at Fort Bragg, California. I'd learned that the Noyo was tidal and paddleable as far as the railroad bridge crossed by the "Skunk" railroad, a mainly tourist train that runs between Fort Bragg and Willits. One morning the tide was right to catch the flood which eased my way up river to the bridge. There, where the Noyo becomes a live stream. I enjoyed the sounds of birds and the clear flowing stream, watched the train go by, then drifted and gently paddled back downstream. I shot this video and recorded the sounds of the stream and forest with my little Panasonic GH2 in order to recapture a bit of that peaceful morning.



Going with the Flow from Anthony Mindling on Vimeo.

Hike No. 16 - Bluffs and Beaches on the Mendocino Coast

May 31, 2012
2.2 Miles


About 2-3/4 miles south of the bridge over the entrance to Noyo Harbor at Ft. Bragg is a little-know coastal access trailhead. Tucked just off of Highway 1 on Ocean Drive near the sign for the Pine Beach Motel, there is room for at most three cars, but I was alone when I arrived on this crystalline clear day. Walking the trail provides little hint of the spectacle to come, other than perhaps a faint distant sound of breakers and the whistle buoy off Noyo harbor on a day when the sea is up, as this one was. The sweet little trail and the beautiful day, the relaxing ramble over bluffs and across beaches with not another human in sight inspired not only photographs but a few words as well.

To The Beach

The little path

wiggles carelessly,

reflecting a feigned indifference,

as if its destination

was no big deal.

It keeps its secret

first brushed by marsh grasses

then through scraggly pine woods,

past clumps of violet irises,

footfalls silenced 

by a carpet of pine needles.

All the better to hear

nearby birds,

a distant whistle bouy,

plaintive like a seasick dove,

and a faint roar

like a distant freeway.

It rounds a low pine

pruned by the sea wind

to display blue and white,

the faint roar now a

rush and crash in 5.1 surround sound.

Here the path widens a bit,

as if to throw open its arms,

to finally reveal

its secret, and proudly say,

"There now, how about that!"

Hike No. 15 - Zen-Walking in Russian Gulch State Park

May 24, 2012
6.5 Miles

Our mix of sunny and gray days here on the Mendocino Coast delivered an overcast one this morning, perfect for photography in the woods, and a re-visit to the lovely waterfall in Russian Gulch State Park. This park is one of the little jewels near the town of Mendocino, and extends inland from a narrow beach in a deep cove bordered by cliffs and a sea stack with a wave-cut cave. Headland trails lead to a giant collapsed blow hole, and vistas of waves surging against cliffs and rocks. But today my trek took my up the trail along a creek into the redwood forest. I was carrying my hiking outfit - a Lumix GH2 with 14-45mm and 45-200mm lenses and a light tripod. New in my pack was a 20mm f1.7 Lumix lens. It is referred to as a "pancake" lens for its squat profile, but to me it's more of an Oreo lens. Whatever, it is nearly weightless and sizeless, so a nice addition to my hiking setup. Especially useful this day because of the dim light in the woods under overcast skies. 


The goal of the outing was to re-photograph the falls, which tumbles about 40 feet alongside a redwood log deposited there by a flood long ago. Spray nurtures a vigorous growth of ferns on the old log, and provided me with a fine photo way back in the film days a few decades ago.


My new little "Oreo" lens was a great help in gathering the dim light, and the large aperture also enabled the use of shallow depth of field. An added benefit of the lens is its close-focus ability. The images were processed in Lightroom 4, with occasional help from Nik Color Efex 4 to enhance - or reduce - detail in keeping with my interpretation of the lovely woods.


Lovely in the sense of a Japanese garden, with carefully placed mossy stones, and just the right amount of water cascading into pools to create the perfect effect. These woods were completely logged over, of course, in the 1800's. I can only imagine these canyons prior to the loss of the huge trees, and devastation resulting from dragging them down to the cove. The trail passes huge stumps, notched for the stout boards the loggers used to climb up to the 10 to 20-foot height above the ground where they perched with the huge 2-man saws to fell the trees. Vintage photographs show proud-looking men posing on these rickety scaffolds, but one imagines that some must have had a twinge of remorse for the destruction of the lovely glades and ponds, not to mention the magnificent 1,000-year-old trees.

Redwood Sorrel

Rhodendron

Zen Garden

Buggy iris

No redwood hike is complete without an encounter with a banana slug, here having its lunch

Columbine

Five-Fingered ferns

Clintonia

A Hanging in Georgetown

Friday morning I attended my first hanging. It turns out this event occurs on a regular monthly basis in El Dorado County's old gold rush town of Georgetown, when members of the Art on the Divide Gallery Coop convene to rearrange their works in their bright little gallery space on Main Street just south of Orleans Street. That's the part of Main Street that gets divided off into a quaint separate lane by a row of trees and shrubs from the main part of Main Street. Maybe that setup evolved to protect impaired folks emerging from the Miner's Club Bar just down the block, or to keep things quieter for gentle conversation in Betty's Barbershop next door.

Anyhow, I thought it best to show up to help this Friday for the monthly freshening of the exhibition, seeing as I am now a proud member of the group. It really was great fun to meet a few more of these friendly people, and see some of the new works they brought in. The photo shows Dick helping Chris hang her sweet watercolors. As the featured artist of the month, Chris gets a whole wall on which to display her work.

I got in some ladder time, myself. As one of only three men in the group of about 20, it is kind of my duty to help out with macho stuff like climbing ladders and hammering. At the end of the day, though, I felt my main accomplishment was avoiding breaking anything, having watched pottery teeter on the cabinets I tried to use as a boost into some awkward position. I did take a moment to peek at the garden out the back door, where I found a wonderful still life of a weathered broom and rusty garden implements.

C'mon up and see us - the gallery is beyond Cool. Really - just 12 miles further up Highway 193. And Cool is only about 6 miles off of Interstate 80 from Auburn. Albeit an interesting 6 miles.

This image was processed for enhanced for tone and color in Lightroom 4, enhanced detail in Color Efex 4, processed with the artistic filters Watercolor and Posterization in Photoshop CS5, then back to Lightroom for touch up of color and tone.