Jack Ahearn Photography

Catching up a bit on the Spain/Portugal trip

2011-12-19T07:16:00.006-05:00

Limited access to (free) internet limited post at the end of the Spain/Portugal trip. Spent several days in Madrid and Barcelona before flying home via München. Great view of the Alps on the flight from Barcelona. Trip was really an eyeopener regarding the cultural history of Spain and Portugal. Tremendous Islamic influence in the architecture with a long, long history. Old in Spain starts with the Romans, Visigoths, and Moors, new starts with the 16th century.

Of course Barcelona has all of this Gaudy architecture, alongside the Medieval cathedral, the Picasso Museum and other striking sites.

Gaudy's cathedral interior, needs to be seen to be believed.

Medieval Cathedral Nave

View of the Alps from the flight from Barcelona to München.

Spain and Portugal, Toledo

2011-11-05T12:50:00.008-04:00

A few photos from a couple of days ago on our way to Madrid

Ceiling in the Jewish chapel in Toledo dating from the 15th century

View of 16th century windmills on the way to Toledo from Ubeda. Don Quixote thought these were giants of course and they certainly are large enough.

Basset on our city tour of Toledo

View from Ubeda looking at the fields of olive tress that stetches as far as the eye can see.

Spain and Portugal Day 11, the Alhambra

2011-11-04T02:18:00.005-04:00

The Alhambra with the defensive towers and walls.

Left Ronda this am and traveled to Granada to see the Alhambra. The weather was not cooperating as it was raining a lot most of the day and pretty hard when we arrived at the Alhambra. We had a good tour of the Moorish palaces. The Alhambra was started in te 13th century and was added to over the next 200 years by each successive caliph. It was taken over in 1492 by Isabella and Ferdinand and the Moors were expelled a few years later.

View of the Alhambra from the Generalife (garden).

Patio with reflecting pool inside the Alhambra

Spectacular ceiling inside of one of the palaces (adjustment of light level to come later)

Spain and Portugal Day 10, Ronda 2

2011-11-02T12:59:00.006-04:00

Our guide in Ronda, Diego

Had a tour of the old city this morning. Very interesting tour guide named Diego. Lots of witty comments along the way.

Patio lined with Moorish Arcades.

Went into the Church were styles from the Moors, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque were exhibited.

Really spectacular Baroque alter.

The Bull Ring was quite the thing. It dates from the 18th century but is still in use. It is completely circular and the spectators are really close to the arena were the bulls and matadors play out the drama. Diego explained to us the this was not really a bull fight as the outcome was certain, the bull would die one way or another, and it would only depend on how well it was done. It turns out that Orson Wells and Ernest Hemingway attended bull spectacles here (not at the same time). The Mediterranean Sun Coast is close by and the VIPs come over to Ronda to see the bull fights.

Section of the Bull Ring.

Our Parador (hotel) as situated right on the edge of the gorge. We walked down into the ravine, great view back up at the "New Bridge" and a waterfall. From the down in the gorge looking up gave a nice perspective of the location.

Parador a the edge of the gorge.

New Bridge (18th century) from down in the gorge.
Parador is located on the upper left edge.

Spain and Portugal Day 9, Ronda

2011-11-01T13:45:00.004-04:00

"New Bridge" over Rio Guadalevin

Arrived in Ronda around noon today. Will be here until Thursday AM. Spectacular setting of the old city next to a deep, narrow gorge. There are three bridges crossing the gorge, the new bridge (18th century), the Felipe V bridge of the 16th century and an earlier bridge of the ~14th century.

Lots of narrow streets and white washed buildings.

Great view across the gorge at old buildings
with restaurants and other shops and apartments.

A little friend along one of the garden
paths along side the gorge.

Spain and Portugal Day 8

2011-10-31T13:15:00.005-04:00

Mosque in Cordorba, 12th century

Visited Cordoba today. Great former Mosque, now a church. In the ~16th century a cathedral church was put right in the middle of the existing Mosque, bad idea, even though the cathedral is spectacular in it's own right. The Mosque was built in 12th century.

Cordoba has what is termed a Jewish district, very narrow streets like a labyrinth, easy to get lost.

Heliostat tower shinning brightly in the distance. Mirrors too far away to see.

On the road to and from Cordoba we saw a Heliostat in operation. Mirrors focusing the sun into a central tower that then is turned into electricity by steam turbines.

Spain and Portugal Day 7

2011-10-30T14:38:00.007-04:00

It's been really busy and limited internet access the last several days. We're now in Carmona, Spain and using the Parador (old name for a hotel) here as a base for trips to Seville today and Cordoba tomorrow.

I will post a few photos from today's visit to Seville below and try to catch up on the last couple of days later tonight. Seville seems to have every building in the old section looking like a work of art. Strong influence of the Moors on the architecture. The Moors were defeated here in 12th century but the Spanish kings really liked their architecture and hired the Moorish craftsmen to build there Cathedrals and their Palaces.

Cathedral tower. Lower part is original Moorish tower associated with a Moskque but was made into a Christian church tower starting with the bell tower.

Hose and carriage in the central square of Seville.

This is the panel at the Spanish Square that was build in the 1920's. Each Spanish region had a panel, and this one shows Don Qixote and Sancho Panza, the mythical figure from Cervantes novel.

View from inside of the Alcazar Place showing the Moorish architecture even though this was built by a Christian King.

Spain and Portugal day 3

2011-10-27T03:12:00.002-04:00

Had an interesting day today. City tour of Lisbon. Palace, Cathedral, and then went to a great museum. Fado music in the evening. More to come.

Portugal and Spain

2011-10-25T16:49:00.003-04:00

Arrived this noon in Lisbon after a long flight from Boston to Frankfurt and then on to Lisbon. Took a walk in some of the older parts of the city and am posting several photos that I made on the walk. We had dinner tonight with the tour group and are now ready to start the tour in earnest tomorrow mornining.

Rail Trip, from the east, to the west and back again, Day 1

2011-10-11T20:17:00.010-04:00

In mid-September (starting on 9/11) Susan and I went on a little trip starting in Amherst; we flew to St. Paul, MN and boarded an Amtrak train to meet up with Susan's sister and her husband; went eventually to the West coast (Seattle), with a stop in Glacier National Park; turned north to Canada after getting to Seattle; stayed in Vancouver, BC for a couple of days and then turned back east through the Canadian Rockies; stopped in Jasper, Alberta for a couple of days; and eventually ended up in Montreal for two days before heading south to Albany, NY, were we rented a car and drove home. All of the trip was accomplished on the train except for our flight to St. Paul and our rental car ride home. We ended up back home on 9/24.

Of course I made "snap shots" along the way with my point and shoot camera. The following is a description of our trip on a day to day basis starting on 9/11.

9/11 Sarah drove us to the Manchester airport for a 7:00 am flight to Minneapolis. Took a taxi to the Amtrak station in St. Paul. Our impression of the St. Paul station was that it was situated in the middle of a desolate, run-down area.

As we were at the station mid-morning and the train to the west was not due until 11:30 pm we thought we would sight-see either in Minneapolis or St.Paul. The Amtrak agent told us we could take bus 16 in one or the other direction and we would eventually end up in downtown St. Paul or Minneapolis. We chose St. Paul and that's when our education of the underbelly of St. Paul society began. Number 16 bus (on a Sunday) has all sorts of folks on it going from home to a shopping center or back, apparently shopping for food or other stuff. It was jammed and we were on it for an hour or more so had a great look at this slice of the St. Paul population.

We did eventually reach downtown St. Paul and had a nice walk around. After a nice dinner in St Paul we took a cab back to the train station, having seen enough of the people on bus number 16 for one day at least.

The cab driver was from NYC. He apparently came to the U of MN in the late 60's or early 70's for grad school in Geology and ended up staying. Did not ask how he ended up in his current position as a cab driver.

The following photos are of St. Paul and the station before our departure on the train at the end of day 1.

Lucy and Charlie Brown chatting

Flowers and construction in St. Paul

Tall buildings and clouds in a blue sky

Sky and cloud reflection

Modern buildings in St. Paul

The St. Paul Library

View from the Library toward the Mississippi River

Library ceiling

Inside the library

The "Heritage" Building

Inside the library

Garden view from the library

View from a window of the library

St Paul Church

St Paul Building

Silhouettes in the Science building

St Paul Station (not too busy)

St. Paul station before the train arrived

Sharon Arts Center selects my Shell proposal for their Share program!

2011-10-11T16:45:00.004-04:00

Not having made any entries in my blog since the Guatemala trip in early February I thought it would be of some interest to post some photo news.

I submitted an entry into the Sharon Arts Center call for entry in their CSA program (http://www.sharonarts.org/call-to-artists-csa.html) and was honored to be chosen (http://www.sharonarts.org/exhibitions/csart-artists) as one of the contributing artists. I proposed to make a folio of five images of shell photographs, enclosed in a folio and with a title, statement, list of images, and colophon booklet. This will be a limited addition of 50 folios plus five arts proofs. The images will be selected from the portfolio of shell images on my web site (http://jackahearnphotography.com/shells.shtml).

The status so far is I have designed the folio and had it die cut at a local die cut company. It is waiting to be debossed with some decoration and my name. I have chosen the images and will post them in a couple of days (my desktop computer is currently down and I expect to be up and running again by the end of the week and will be able to get access to the image files at that time). I have also completed the test pages for the insert to go along with the images. Paper for printing these should arrive by Thursday so should be able to print these then if my computer is back and running. I have printed a set of 20 images so far, need 55 to complete the edition.

Shares for the CSA program can be purchased at the Sharon Arts Center website, http://www.sharonarts.org/exhibitions/buy-a-share-csart

Shell images and photos of the folio and text pages should be posted in the next week or so.

Guatemala Photos

2011-02-05T21:57:00.004-05:00

Top photo shows one of the many stellas' of 18th Rabbit, the ruler of the Copan city in about 750 AD

Second photo shows a view of the Copan Mayan site looking down from the top of one of the temples.

Third photo shows Macaws in entrance to Copan Hondurus Mayan site

German Photographs (cont. 2)

2010-07-31T16:54:00.006-04:00

This continues my comments on photographs I was recently archiving from our West German stay in 1971-73. Traveling in Germany during the stay, a passing rain shower was clearing and I stopped to make a photograph of the sky "drawing water". The landscape was rather flat with farm fields surrounding and a village in the distance. The resulting photograph is simple but serene:

I made another photograph of the landscape with the village in the background and then noticed a biker approaching with his dog by his side. This reminded me of a photograph I had seen, probably in Beaumont Newhall's "History of Photography." Perhaps something like a "photo echo" as Aperture Magazine has published in the past. I looked for the photograph in my copy of Beaumont's book, and sure enough these is a photograph by Bill Brandt that triggered my recollection.

I found that the photograph with the village in the background and the biker could be combined into a larger field of view image showing the wider extent of the landscape (as below).

The following Bill Brandt photograph is the one that triggered my "photo echo."

German Photographs (cont. 1)

2010-07-28T16:04:00.003-04:00

An additional pair of photographs made during our stay in Göettingen of the Kaiserdom in Köningslutter were pieced together to display a fuller view of the ceiling leading down to the alter and the stained glass windows. Presently the Kaiserdom was just restored and you can compare with my photographs made in 1972-73 with the present restored version by going to the Kaiserdom site (http://www.koenigslutter-kaiserdom.de/default.asp?LNG=DE&NAV=66).

The restoration of the Dom is really remarkable and worth taking a look at. I made other photographs of the Dom using my 4x5 view camera, these were of the Kreuzgang and are included on my web page under the "Heritage" portfolio. Other photos were made of the outside decoration but are not on the web (photographs of the restored outside decoration are also shown in the Kaiserdom web site). A comparison of these would be of interest even though they are not of the same exact area.

German Photographs

2010-07-27T10:39:00.013-04:00

Recently I was reviewing photographs made in (then West) Germany during our stay in Göttingen in 1971-73. The activity was for the purpose of scanning color transparencies so that they can be more available, easily printed with digital printers, and to evaluate the photographs to determine if anything of current interest might be hiding there.

In several instances I found I could use Photoshop to combine two images that had been made because my camera could not take the entire view. One instance, the facade of a church (Elisabethkirche in Marburg), one of the upper portion and the other of the lower portion were combined into a single image. The field of view of my Mamiya twin lens camera was not wide enough to encompass the entire facade(with 80mm lens). Using the digital techniques I was able to put the images together to show the entire view.

Wild River Maine Photographs

2010-06-11T08:13:00.004-04:00

On our way back from The Forks, Maine we stayed over a couple of nights in the Gorham, NH area where I revisited the Wild River in Maine to make photographs. This is on the New Hampshire - Maine border. I have previously photographed this area and was looking forward to the revisit.

The weather only cooperated for a day as there was a lot of rain the other day we were there. We went to the Wild River area in the evening, around 5:30 and stayed until about 8:00 pm, taking advantage of "quiet light." I learned the term "quiet light" when taking a John Sexton workshop at Anderson Ranch in Colorado in 2000. The light is directional and can emanate from a large area such as the sky. Generally there is no direct sunlight present.

Two images made during this time are shown:

River Rocks, Sand, and Branches, Wild River Maine, 2010

Fern and River Rocks, Wild River Maine 2010

Moxie Falls and High Dynamic Range Imaging

2010-06-10T08:36:00.008-04:00

Figure 1. Moxie Falls, Kennebec river valley.

Making photographs of Moxie Falls in Maine provided an opportunity to use "high dynamic range" imaging because of the extremes of the lighting. The top of the falls was in full sunlight and the cliff sides was in deep shade. So I made three exposures, one to insure detail in the shadow, the sunlit water was blocked. A second intermediate exposure was made and finally a third exposure insured that there was no blocking in the sunlit water but of course there was little shadow detail.

Figure 2. Exposed for the shadows (Zones 2-4), blocked highlights.

Figure 3. Exposed for the intermediate scale (Zone V).

Figure 4. Exposed for the highlights (Zone VII-X).

Figure 5. Combining the three exposures into a final image.

The same approach was used for the full view of the falls (Figure 1)

Color vs. B&W Rendering

2010-06-09T07:16:00.001-04:00

The color image of the previous post is rendered in B&W. The forms in the image remain the same of course but there is a different sense conveyed by the green rendition vs. the B&W. I would say that the B&W has a more ominous, mysterious feel compared with the green rendering. The exploration and exploitation of this difference is certainly worth pursuing.

Recent trip to Kennebec river valley and Wild River Maine

2010-06-07T21:44:00.000-04:00

We (Susan, Tucker and I) recently made a short (four day) trip to the Kennebec river valley in north central Maine with the view of making photographs of the north woods, waterfalls, ... The weather was a bit of a hindrance as it rained two of the days. I made color photographs of the hemlock trees and mist outside our cabin(see photograph) using my point and shoot camera, and B&W photographs with my 4x5 field camera(not yet developed). I turned the hemlocks into a long narrow panorama (top image).

On the return home we stopped in Gorham/Shelburn NH and I visited the Wild River in Maine to photograph. This is an area were I have photographed before (see http://www.jackahearnphotography.com/new_england.shtml) and comparing these new photographs with the previous ones should be insightful. These photographs are not yet developed.