Final Day!

Is it just me or did it seem like this semester went by REALLY fast?  Personally, I’m still trying to get over how fantastic the book turned out!  It’s better than I expected it to be.  It just makes me so happy to see the book here, in my hands and not just on the computer screen anymore.  Furthermore, I’m amazed at the fantastic quality the images and book itself turned out to be.  Everything about the book makes me happy:  the pictures, the writing, the cover.  I was just so overjoyed when I saw the package outside and greedily grabbed it up and rushed back in the house, giggling like an idiot!

I had a fantastic time in the class, it was so much fun and a new learning experience.  I’ll never forget it.Final

Deborah Small food photography

Thanks to Emily, I got a ride out to Small’s house for the food photo-shoot.  I must say the ride out to our professor’s house had a very, as well put in “Murder By Death”, ‘Treacherous road like fresh mushroom’.  I was so scared that we might accidentally fall over the edge or get hit by falling rocks!  (very unnerving to me!)  But once we got there, it was actually very fun once we got there and took the photographs of all the cooking.  I had heard of chia before but didn’t know what it was used for.  Most of the other dishes I had heard of.  But one I would not touch even if my life depended upon it.  The cactus salsa…  I had a BAD reaction to cactus in an odd little can of chili a long time ago, and my lips swelled up badly the next morning.  Anyway….  I loved watching the cooking and taking the pictures, although I would rather had been cooking than taking the pictures, since I obsessively watch The Food Network all the time! But I am very pleased with the way some of the pictures turned out.

So, without further ado, here they are:

 

(Photographers) Michael Kenna & Gregory Colbert

I want to share with you all two of my favorite photography artists:  

First, I want to show you all the stunning B&W imagery of Michael Kenna’s Nazi camp images.  They are so haunting and captivating; they really show the isolation and now abandoned horrors of these concentration camps.  I even went to an art gallery at the Cannon Gallery in Carlsbad that featured his work.  It was so amazing seeing these large prints and how dark and foreboding they were.  It’s so chilling to think that human’s could be so cruel and heartless to their own kind.

Now for a more uplifting artist, Gregory Colbert is fascinating!  I got to go to an exhibition of his up in La Jolla, I think (?) and it was so unique!  The confining space was nothing more than a bunch of large cargo bins linked together.  All his pieces were hanging from the ceiling in large canvases.  Ambient Hindu music played in the background and created a beautiful and soothing environment surrounding his large-format photographs.  I really liked the calming sepia tone he used to simplify his pieces.

 

• Michael Kenna

 

• Gregory Colbert

Second To Last Class!

Alrighty!  I am just now finishing uploading all my images onto my thumbdrive to bring in tomorrow.  The only problem is that there are so many pictures I took, that it’s taking a long time to upload!  This whole class may have been very painstaking with going out to these odd little farms and reservations in these odd places, but it was worth it to get all these amazing photographs and creating this fabulous book (which I hope will arrive tomorrow!).

This class has really exposed me to just how special California’s native foliage really is.  These are so many beautiful and beneficial plants in this environment that it’s a real shame to see so few places that still have them around anymore.

Well, it’s really late right now, so I’ll see you all later.

Getting the book!

The book is completed and is on its way!  I am really looking forward to getting it in my hot little hands, hopefully soon.  This project was so  interesting, learning about the various native plants and how they were used by the Native Americans in creating their homes, medicines, and just using certain plants even in recipes.

The one thing I enjoyed was actually taking the pictures.  There were so many beautiful and unique plants that I had never seen nor heard of before.  Most of them were pretty bland looking, but a few were absolutely gorgeous.  I am quite pleased with the few pictures that I did get.  They made my day at those fiend trips.

Indian Rock Native Garden

I think I’m having deja vu from this!  Lemonade berries, deer weed, sage!  Oh my!  The desert mallow (alkali mallow) (Sphaeralcea ambigua) was a beautiful new attraction to behold.  The delicate yellow-orange of the mallow was subtle yet breath-taking.  The snapdragons were beautiful, even if they weren’t native.  But mostly, there wasn’t anything all that new or interesting to really note on except for the mallow.  I simply feel like I’ve lost my talent for writing these “reviews”, so to speak, but I more enjoying taking the photos than writing about them.  My artistic skills surpass my writing ones.

Anyway, here are just a few pictures I took at the native garden that I thought were most decent.

Rincon Reservation (edit: with people)

Is it just me, or are these field-trips getting less and less interesting with each visit?  By far, the Tree of Life Nursery was my favorite, but I feel each consecutive trip has been not so much about the plants themselves as much as the historic values and uses for them.  It was very difficult to get some good pictures of the plants at this particular reservation for the most part, because I spent most of the time either planting the plants or having someone else take pictures of myself for the book.  And the problem of having dirt on my hands did help at all either.  Luckily I had my little bottle of hand sanitizer with me so that helped a lot, so I could be free to take more pictures.  So, here they are:

Pechanga Reservation Nursery

Let me start off by saying that this was not as fun as the Tierra Miguel farm trip.  The “great  oak” was an utter disappointment.  I thought it would be much bigger!  It just didn’t seem as stunning as the Moreton Bay Fig in Balboa Park.  Anyway, I mostly took pictures of the tree and the teepees around the reservation.  None of the plants really interested me.  Maybe I was just not feeling good?  Tired?  Sick?  I don’t know.  Aside from that, the only thing that I really thought was interesting were the Indian teepees scattered around the reservations.  I liked the different structures of them, the way the word beams leaned against each other, the different shapes and sizes, and how much or little light got through the cracks.  Simply fascinating!  The plants and other herbs in the reservation seemed really minimal compared to The Tree of Life.  It didn’t seem as fruitful or appealing, but some of the plants were interesting nonetheless.  So, for now, here are a few pictures I would like to share:

 

Quail Botanical Gardens

This was the very first time I had ever gone to the Quail Gardens.  What a new experience!  It was amazing to see so many native plants (many of which I had never even heard of).  Most of them were quite exquisite.  Ironically, I  enjoyed the non-native plants the best.  The African plants and flowers were just gorgeous, so rich and vibrant in color and form.  But back to the native plants:  I’m not sure if I had seen an actual floral bud growing on a cactus before!  That was simply beautiful!  One plant that I thought was gorgeous was the “Chalk Dudleya”  (Dudleya pulverulenta).  It formed a symmetrical  circular pattern (as you will see in the picture) and had the most gorgeous shade of pale blue-grey.  It reminded me a lot of the aloe vera plant, but much prettier.  I also saw more of the Manzanita plant around (arctostaphylos glandulosa), which I happened to have taken a photograph of earlier at the Tree of Life Nursery several weeks ago.  Another favorite that was especially gorgeous was the Yerba Santa (Eriodctyon crassifolium).  These delicate purple flowers, more specifically the grey, felt leaves, were used medicinally by the Native Americans.

 

Sally Mann (part II)

I still find myself quite disturbed by Mann’s art (that and the fact that there is an actual forensics lab in Tennessee where they have dead bodies around to study the rate of human decomposition!).  I still notice that I shudder at the macabre sight of death.  No matter how many times I’ve seen CSI or even a real person and a beloved pet die before my eyes, I am still not used to it.  All I can say for certain is that thank goodness there were no more images of her children without any clothes on in this segment.  But, to make up for it (of course!), there were images of one of her dogs that had died (of natural causes, I assume) and then she had the dog skinned to take a picture of the animal’s hide!  I could have lived without seeing a dog’s skin laying across a table.  I think it is almost blasphemous to do something like that to an animal after they’re passed on into the next life.  I have a great love and respect for animals and I myself would be dead before I were to do such a thing to my own dogs!  I cannot fathom doing such a thing to my pets; they’re like family to us and we treat them with the utmost respect and love.  Well, I’m going off on a tangent about my love of animals so I’ll just shut up now and leave off on a light note.  When I get home, I am going to cuddle all over my dog, Arrow, and no never let her forget how much I love her and the rest of our animal family!