Robert Lachman, at his blog www.photographyandthemac.com, is asking for photos of old tech items now worth less than a cup of coffee. Well I drink diet coke. But ten years ago I was the volunteer tech support for about 100 computers at my kids elementary school. Do you remember paying up to fifty dollars for SCSI cables and SCSI stuff? I do. Well money was tight then and I discovered Ebay.com. I bought mountains of SCSI and other cables for what seemed ten cents on the dollar! Well today, I doubt the SCSI cable pictured here is worth ten cents!.

Last weekend there were a lot of garage sales. I shot this corner from my car. With the hard times, there seems to be more garage sales and the signs are getting bigger and bolder.

Since I was working today, I took a late afternoon walk around downtown with a camera. My favorite photo is this one of the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Happy Thanksgiving and have a fun filled shopping Black Friday!

An obituary of Anthony Tarracino in Monday's Los Angeles Times caught my eye. I met Tarracino, known at Capt. Tony, on a quick one day trip in Key West in early 1981.

I was working at a newspaper in Naples, Florida. The local airline flew old World War II era DC-3s to many Florida locations. Where else would you fly on a DC-3, but Key West! I booked a morning flight and evening return flight.

After a fun flight on the old twin engine two-seater, I made my way into Key West. After roaming around shooting photos I wandered into Capt. Tony's Saloon (for a diet coke of course!) Tony was sitting on his corner stool and welcomed me. We sat around for about an hour trading stories - mostly Tony's - and I took a few photos of Tony. I don't remember Tony's stories, but yes, they were all on the wrong side of the law, full of four letter words and always ended with a good woman.

I finally excused myself for another walk around town, but Tony invited me back later for a ride to the airport. So at the end of the day, Capt. Tony took me - a total stranger - back to the airport for another ride on a DC-3.

Yes that was a cool day.

Sidewalk chalk mural of Tressa "Grandma" Prisbrey by artist Ruth Villa.

Beginning in 1956, Tressa "Grandma" Prisbrey, began using trash to construct buildings, sidewalks and artwork on her one-third acre lot in Simi Valley. The folk art work included wishing wells, shrines and some 15 full size structures all made out of material found at the local dump. The heavy use of discarded bottles led to Prisbrey's home being titled Bottle Village. Most of the work was finished by 1961.

For years, Prisbrey maintained the site and gave tours. She last last lived at the site in 1981 and passed away in 1988. After 1981, Bottle Village was only open on special occasions and was maintained by friends who formed the Preserve Bottle Village Committee. After surviving threats of removal and some vandalism, the site was badly damaged by the 1994 Northridge earthquake. After the quake, supporters have only been able to clean up the site and maintain the remaining undamaged and partially damaged structures

For much more information, check out the www.bottlevillage.com web site.


Sunday's open house attracted over 500 visitors.



Moorpark College photography instructor John Gray, left, met Grandma Prisbrey years ago after being stopped near Bottle Village for a traffic ticket. Musicians, right, set up inside remains of one Bottle Village structure for Sunday's open house.

Sunday, after 26 years, I finally got into Bottle Village in Simi Valley. The Preserve Bottle Village Committee organized an open house. I and over 500 other visitors found out about the open house in a L.A. Then and Now column by Steve Harvey in the Los Angeles Times. (Link to story.)

The response to Harvey's article overwhelmed the longtime Bottle Village supporters. Committee member Helen Dennert says she has "never seen turnout for event here since the 1980s."

The vast majority of visitors knew little or nothing about Bottle Village. Van Nuys resident Gerald Rose knew nothing about Bottle Village before his visit.

"Great place. Not too many folk art places like this are left anymore," said Rose. "I'm glad I came."

The Preserve Bottle Village Committee did a great job. The Village is cleaned up. The damaged structures are closed off. The loose material from the 1994 earthquake has been collected and stored out of visitors way. The remaining structures, walkways and artwork still gave me a good sense of what Bottle Village was all about - a place of unrestricted imagination not conforming to any expectations.

Link to my Bottle Village photo gallery. Enjoy, Scott

My search of "Alfred Eisenstaedt Marilyn Monroe" brought up this three frame strip of black and white Plus X film that included edge notches and grease pencil "Xs" from the photo editing process. Photos by Alfred Eisenstaedt /Life

On Tuesday, November 18, 2008, Google and Time Inc. placed the first 20% of Time Inc.'s vast photo collection online. The collection includes images from Life Magazine. By early 2009 the ten million images will be completely online available for search through Google. Link to articles at Photography and the Mac.

Only a very small percentage of the Life Magazine images were published. What this means is tons of OUTTAKES!

Time to begin Monday morning quarterbacking, i mean photo editing. Here is the Google/Life site: Try searches like "Alfred Eisenstaedt Marilyn Monroe" or "Eugene Smith Country Doctor." Now you can second guess the original photo edits and see if you agree! On a serious note, this will actually be a great learning tool for young photographers and photo editors. We now can see many of the images that did not make the final edit.

Last night I pulled out my copy of "Great Photographic Essays from Life." I searched W Eugene Smith's Country Doctor and Spanish Village. There are currently many outtakes for Country Doctor, but few for Spanish Village. I also searched several other essays from the 1978 book. Some have outtakes, others none. Hopefully when the full 10 million images are online, more outtakes will appear.

Workers Gary Cooper, left, and Kevin Kneedler seven stories up repairing the clock hands.

Thursday the clock on the First Street side of the historic Los Angeles Times building was reinstalled. The clock had been removed about a month ago for cleaning and overhaul. The clock's entire electrical mechanism was rebuilt. The work was done by Sign Industries, sub contractors for Federal Signs Inc. The clock was originally installed in 1935. A twin clock on the South side of the building was rebuilt a year ago.

Workers Gary Cooper and Kevin Kneedler spent the day on top a 135 foot aerial lift reattaching the clock hands and repairing the neon light bulbs. The clock sits above the 6th floor the Times building at the corner of First and Spring.


Kevin Kneedler working on neon bulbs attached to clock hand.


The rebuilt clock photographed at dusk on Thursday.

Newbury Park players rush to mob Edgar Nunez, bottom photo on right, after his PK kick won the Championship.


The Newbury Park U19 Boys B team wins the AYSO Section 10 regionals in Bakersfield this last weekend. Dotphoto Album. The team went 3-1-1 for the weekend. The finals against Ojai ended in a 1-1 tie with Newbury Park winning on PKs. Saturday scores were 4-0, 2-0 and 1-2. Sunday Newbury Park won the semifinals 4-0.



I posted over 150 images at Dotphoto - link. Enjoy Scott.

With Mervyn's, Circuit City and other stores closing, today's news was an actual store opening! Fresh & Easy opened their 101st store in Newbury Park and the crowds showed up. Thanks to a local mass mailing with great coupons, between 200 and 300 shoppers arrived in the first 45 minutes of the 10 am opening.

The Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is located in the Conejo Gateway Shopping Center at the corner of Wendy Drive and Old Conejo Road. What is most unusual, I believe the location was once a locally owned grocery store from the 60s until closing in the early 80s. The 60s era shopping center had received a major renovation in the last year.

PHOTO GALLERY

Sunday was spent revisiting the Civil War. The Moorpark Rotary Club every year sponsors one of the largest Civil War re-enactments in Southern California. This last weekend some 800 costumed Civil War enthusiasts recreated five Civil War battles at a recently harvest corn field at the Underwood Family Farms south of Moorpark.

For Sunday afternoon, the battle of Malvern Hill was fought again. First the Union took control of the corn field, only to have the Confederates counter-attack and sweep the Yankees back across the field. The South's attack was stopped by Union artillery at the south edge of the field.

The real The Battle of Malvern Hill took place on July 1, 1862, in Henrico County, Virginia,. The Union won when Gen. Lee's attacks were repulsed with over 5,000 casualties.

My real enjoyment is covering this re-enactment was in post-processing. I wanted to recreate the mood of Civil War photos. So Sunday evening, I started by studying Civil War photos by Mathrew Brady and other photographers at this National Archives web site.

Civil War photographers produced wet-plate collodion negatives that had exposure times of 5-20 seconds. This was the process used by high-end photographers in the 1860s as multiple copies could later be made. The tintype, also known as a ferrotype, was also available, but it's a one at a time process where the negative is converted to a final positive copy on the original metal plate.

Photographer Robb Kendrick (http://www.robbkendrick.com/) is doing a major tintype photography project on modern cowboys. The videos accompanying his National Geographic project really explain the process. Videos link.

Because of the slow exposures, there were no action photos - everything was posed. Ok, I cheated here - I just shot away at 1/500th a second with lenses Brady never had.


In lightroom, I played with several presets looking for a good but quick method to age the images. I settled down to use the pre-installed "Creative - Antique Grayscale or Antique Light" presets combined with free "Edge Darkening" presets from NAPP's Matt Kloskowski. For each image I finished by adjusting exposure/brightness sliders.


I posted 48 images in a Civil War flash gallery. Enjoy. Scott

Friday saw a doubling of lines and business for Los Angeles Times election edition newspapers/posters/press plates. Two lines of about 200 each snaked out of the Spring Street lobby all day. The sale is going to continue Saturday 8 am to 4 pm and Sunday 10 am to 4 pm.

Over 350,000 extra copies of Wednesday's "It's Obama" headline paper has been sold. One street vendor set up shop outside the LA Times selling Obama T-shirts and caps to the crowd.

Sandy Banks has written an excellent piece on the entire super sale.

Let's see, since 1963 I've worked at newspapers. In these 45 years, I have long ago seen it all.

Wrong.

Wednesday was a publishers wildest dream! Crowds demanding multiple copies. Citizens angry at empty newspaper racks. Vendors screaming for extra bundles. Young men hawking papers on street corners. Extra press runs not able to keep up with demand. Its history in the news.

All because Senator Obama was elected President of the United States!

Every newspaper has increased their Wednesday edition press run. USA Today is up some 500,000 copies. Chicago Tribune over 200, 000. Washington Post 350,000, Los Angeles Times 300,000.

Newspapers became the election souvenir of choice. But not the only souvenirs. The Post is putting out a special 26-page extra edition. The Los Angeles Times is selling posters and replicas of the front page printing plate.

Wednesday one Los Angeles Times customer purchased 1000 copies. The AP is reporting that Thomas Baldwin purchased 10,000 copies of The Bellingham Herald (Wash.)

On Thursday thousands came to the Los Angeles Times to purchase the historic front page. Many purchased full bundles of 50 copies straight off the press. Friday looks like another day of big sales. And there is still the January, 2009, inauguration.

For a few days, the print edition is king! Of course many copies are already up for sale on Ebay.


Images from Thursday newspapers sales at the Los Angeles Times. Bryan Fillmore, of Inglewood, top photo, carries off over 100 copies of the November 5th edition of the Los Angeles Times. From early morning to after 3 pm, a constant line of over 100 stood outside of the Spring Street entrance waiting to purchase copies of the election edition.

What a great day. A historical election and congrats to President Elect Obama!.

Lost in all the excitement is the case of FCC vs Fox TV. As reported here the Supreme Court today - after 30 years - is looking into the FCC ban on certain words that are not allowed in broadcasting. For background information I recommend this YouTube video:



WARNING! YOU CAN ONLY WATCH THIS VIDEO AFTER 10PM AND WITH NO CHILDREN PRESENT.

Thank-you George Carlin (1937-2008).

At 2 am, I found the note on the kitchen counter. No soccer on Sunday. The AYSO championship match was cancelled because of a little rain. Damm, I was looking forward to shooting soccer on Sunday. Not a good note after working the midnight shift.

So Sunday, I did my old News Chronicle routine - just cruised for a couple hours around Thousand Oaks looking for wild art.


Homemade Yes on Prop 8 sign at the corner of Olsen and Moorpark Rd at the north end of TO.


Hannah Freund, of Newbury Park, left, and Jen Camomile, of Newbury Park, below, demonstrates against Prop 8 at the corner of Hillcrest and Lynn. A dozen protesters were at the corner Sunday afternoon. Another dozen were at Borchard Road and Michael. On Saturday a knife and threat was made against another Prop 8 demonstrator in Thousand Oaks. Ventura County Star story.

I heard reports of pro Prop 8 rallies around Thousand Oaks, but was not able to locate one to photograph. At the corner of Hillcrest and Lynn, No on Prop 8 supporters honked car horns. Others ignored the signs. Only one voice of foul language was heard.


Goodbye Mervyn's!

Mervyn's Thousand Oaks is closing. My family purchased many clothes and holiday presents at the store for something like 20 years. Bummer. But at least I had a couple of non-election signs to shoot. Oscar Juarez, left, holds closing sign on Moorpark Road.

My old friend Craig Aydelott sent me this Australian government interview regarding an oil tanker accident. At first it appears real, but it's not.



The actual incident occurred on July 21 1991. The Greek tanker Kirki lost its bow off the coast of Western Australia. Link to official report. From the quality of the YouTube video, looks like a 1991 skit on an Australian version of Saturday Nite Live.

Just way too funny.