newtarpchronicles

[newtarpchronicles]

taillights 

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my blogs the last few weeks and reached the conclusion I’m just not feeling it anymore.  

the last four years took a lot out of me, and while I’m in a pretty good place these days, there isn’t much in the way of edgy stories or wacky anecdotes waiting to escape my fuzzy gray matter.  it’s usually more appealing to hide away in the garage and futz with cars or what have you.

I’ll post occasionally on https://photographyrich1965.tumblr.com/ as it seems to be my default address.  probably reconstruct it into more of a general purpose blog.  this one and “a mercy killing” are now as abandoned as my favorite houses.

oh, I’m also somewhat active on Instagram as “alcyonedad”.  

thanks for stopping by and hoping your 2021 is wonderful !

Rich

[newtarpchronicles]

[newtarpchronicles]

one nation.  divisible.

I don’t blame Republican or Democrat voters.  the scam, perpetrated by the oligarchs and capitalists has been incredibly effective.  keep us, the people, angry and occupied with overblown threats while they loot the vault.

look into the type of monies the corporations absorbed during the last stimulus package and contrast that with the reluctance to give the most needy a measly six hundred bucks.

maybe someday the curtain will tumble, exposing the true source of rot and discord’s external catalysts.  more likely the gears of democracy keep picking up grit, until it shears the teeth becoming a new animal.  there’s no guarantee it’ll be tame.

[newtarpchronicles]

best of the rest

I’m glad the photography bug is back in my bonnet.  took fewer pictures in the last two years than I have since rediscovering photography in the early oughts.

in twenty nineteen my life was highly structured leaving me precious little time to get out.  a year later my options were open yet I felt artistically constipated, preferring to work in the three dimensional realm of automobiles and fabrication.

finally, for the first time in a long time, I feel a balance.  I’ve been trying to get out on the streets at least once a week.  it’s a work in progress.  many of the places I used to go are no longer there.  razed and replaced with dirt lots or new construction.  

it’s mostly a cop-out to plead subject exhaustion as there’s always another project waiting.  be interesting to see how the list looks in twenty twenty one.  maybe the best way to find my next muse is to stop looking altogether.

[newtarpchronicles]

#1 sign of the times

in this rain soaked December it’s hard to remember a time the state was burning down.  it was happening, and only a few months ago.

we drove towards the flame on a trip to see Leslie’s parents.  she stayed to visit and I drove even closer.  Pateros to be exact.  I never saw the flame, but I took in a lot of smoke.  nothing says apocalypse like the witches brew of pandemic and cloying combustion byproduct.  I drove through town and found this lake view, the opposite shore almost non existent.

guess I’m an outlier in that I find odd things photogenic.  it’ll give me solace to know the world as we know it is changing, yet documenting it will never be dull.  

[newtarpchronicles]

#2 homeless in Kirkland

this old house, only a few blocks away, refuses to vanish.  I’ve been through it many many times.  more recently its been more thoroughly “squatter proofed” with plywood coverings over the shattered apertures.

yes, the back door is penetrable and tempting - on this October afternoon I chose to keep my distance as this the rotting food part of the house.  not to mention three years ago, walking up to this very door, a extremely sharp nail went full pierce through heavy boot sole into my tender footsie.  

a panicked rifle through my tetanus records and round of prophylactic antibiotics short circuited the crisis, although the strong meds blew up my immunities causing me to look like a hormonal teenager on a trip to Vegas a few days later. 

[newtarpchronicles]

#3 blanket solution 

one evening, early in the spring, I walked under the freeway in Chinatown.  the light feeble and rapidly fading.  this car caught my interest.

think it was an old Checker taxi cab.  a guess on my part as any yellow had long since been covered with dull beige paint.  likely the hardware store home exterior type.  shot a cool picture of light coming through the side windows - yet this one, with the unkempt yet tidy blanket covering the ravaged bench seat hit a more vibrant chord.

I wonder if the cloth is scratchy, or just densely pilled.  makes me think of Clint and the spaghetti Westerns.  the only high plains drifting this robust old car will be doing, on the mean streets of South Seattle. 

[newtarpchronicles]

#4 Barrel on the beach

Discovery Park is a fantastic destination.  world class views, rugged old buildings, an extremely photogenic lighthouse.  not to mention a long walking loop, forcing you to go the distance if you ever want to see your car again.

this barrel - a la buoy - has been in a lot of my pictures over the years.  and for that matter so has the creme house.  in every other shot the barrel is far offshore.  a mere blip of dark blue in a literal sea of pastel cyan.  on this afternoon our friend the buoy gets to air it out on the sand.

not really a framing sort of picture, I mostly like the weather worn texture and fades... nature may abhor a vacuum, it also seems to abhor colors far outside its domain, the bright blue aligning itself with the same hue as the sky is proof enough. 

[newtarpchronicles]

#5 tried by fire

in Skykomish, far out on a two lane country road, rests an early seventies Chevrolet pickup.  bed full of garbage, cab burned and rusted.

only once one stops pondering why a desirable classic Chevy truck has reached the end of the road in such a sad way can we appreciate how the rapid oxidation process of extreme heat has nullified all but essential steel.

cloth, plastic, rubber, vinyl... all gone.  any vestige of protection removed from painted surface, leaving it exquisitely vulnerable to the misty Western Washington outdoors.

all but the most dedicated restorer will pass on the burned carcass of a truck.  the photographer, on the other hand, would never pass up such a rich petri dish of sensuous color and texture.  perhaps not a marriage of resurrection, sometimes a one night stand of documentation combined with a breakfast of appreciation is the best that can be wished.

[newtarpchronicles]

#6 West Seattle, low bridge

I’ve done this so many times !  I buy a telephoto lens, shoot with it a few months, get several pictures I like, and somewhere along the line decide the extra reach is a crutch to make a mundane scene interesting.  so I sell it only to review the pictures months later and decide they stand pretty well on their own.

rinse and repeat.  the moral of the story, buy used so the sunk costs are low.

this was a unsettled weather night during an unsettled time.  thunder in the distance I made it back before the downpour.  one of the few rainy nights the equipment and I escaped unscathed.   

[newtarpchronicles]

#7 capsize

to continue our nautical theme, we have nautical gone wrong.

I’ve no clue what’s happing at this boat ramp off Marginal Way.  the trailer appears much too small for the bewildered and beached sailboat.  leading me to suspect we’re looking at a couple unrelated abandonments.

I run across a lot of decrepit boats.  most are subtly left in the tall grass bordering estuaries.  not sure I’ve ever seen one blatantly blocking a ramp.  so maybe this is an authentic catastrophic trailer failure.  

this kind of situation makes me happy I’m only there to capture the moment and not a boat owner... as they say, that ship has sailed. 

[newtarpchronicles]

#8 Port of Tacoma (tie)

when I’m going through periods of discontent I’ll often preoccupy myself with shopping and buying different cameras and lenses.  it hardly ever ends well as once the “new” wears off the same problems remain.

did it big time last year.  not that the new/used equipment was faulty.  quite the opposite, it was great - except it was also quite heavy and large.  now that I’m in a better place I took advantage of the moderate resale value to swap back to my trusty Canon DSLR.  

for whatever reason the Canon’s value had tanked so I found a nice example, plus quality zoom for less than I had sold the replacement.

this, the first time out, landed me in a very misty Tacoma.  a bit amusing as the seller pridefully mentioned the camera had never seen outdoors.  er, now it has. 

[newtarpchronicles]

#9 duality

sure, you see a bike with a trailer here and there.  a fancy Porsche ?  dime a dozen in tech rich Kirkland, Bellevue, and Seattle.  a Subaru XT, not so much, but since it’s mine it doesn’t count.

so then the question, how many times do you see pairs of two of the three at any one time ?  

I love to drive the little old Subaru up to Darrington.  it’s the perfect distance to listen to music and enjoy the twisty roads without too bad a case of highway butt.  on top of that I find it very photogenic.  grunge with a mountain backdrop.

none of the pictures on this day were anything great.  yet this one, with the bikes and Porsches (heard coming miles away) floated my boat.  the Noah’s Ark on opposite ends of the transportation spectrum... and judging by the scarce availability of Subaru XT parts... well, it got swept away in the flood. 

[newtarpchronicles]

mantra

I’ve been thinking about the saying, “good is the enemy of great”.  most commonly it refers to a failure to achieve the highest possible outcome, as once “good enough” is reached there’s less incentive to strive for perfection - or if not perfection, greatness.

this begs the question, is there a corollary... is great the enemy of good ?  

spending all those years selling auto paint I developed a mindset strongly favoring high end, catalyzed auto coatings for their look and durability.  the idea of using hardware store spray paint wasn’t just unappealing, it was fundamentally distasteful.  

fast forward to several months ago when I re-discovered the satisfaction of playing with cars - these cars being old, needing various bits and pieces painted it made perfect sense to source materials from my old hunting grounds.  imagine my surprise when the old hunting grounds mirrored my hospital hours almost exactly.  and the Saturday mornings they used to be open was no longer a thing.

when my staycation finally arrived and I was able to visit during the week, more harsh realizations lay in wait.  namely prices ain’t what they used to be.  twenty years of non consumption added up to one whopper of a price increase.  not to mention working there back in the day allowed a modest amount of “free sampling” and store use allocation.

all this leading up to a Rustoleum raid at the local Ace Hardware.  in the end there’s no shame in eschewing the toxins and expense of bodyshop caliber paint for the convenience of rattle cans.  Welding and coating my little steel doodads I’m more productive than I’ve been in a long time.  

yes, the parts might need touching up here and there.  whatever.  in my world of constant mind and design change there’s no great or perfection, only good.  like anything in life, if it looks less than perfect - step back ten feet.  that’ll get you great.  or close enough.    

[newtarpchronicles]

#10 blue car

I found myself strolling around a deserted Pioneer Square some weeks ago.  a little bittersweet, the last time I occupied these particular Seattle blocks was with Di on an art-walk.  so much has changed.

the evening light spilling through a nearby alley really turned the 3D effect to eleven.  combined with the condo’s image reflected on the hood it’s a photograph that turned out better than I expected.

[newtarpchronicles]

#1 birthday treat

well here it is... the long teased, top of the heap, people picture of 2020.

finally got around to showing this photograph to mom and dad in the form of an anniversary print, matted and framed.  mom thought it was funny, although her glasses were pretty fogged.  poor dad didn’t see the humor.

hopefully mom convinced him he doesn’t look like a pervert, only a guy making a little pre photo adjustment... one that all of us dudes are familiar with when the family jewels get tangled.  most are done subtly - not captured by the son’s exposure testing.

to tell the truth I had no clue I’d even captured this Kodak moment until the memory card dumped the bits into Lightroom.  

so smitten was I by the image I knew it’d be the best candid of the year if not decade.  it captures perfectly mom’s mix of feigned surprise and indignation, not to mention dad’s impish mischievousness.  a dynamic played out many a time as I grew up with these characters.  a duo that gave and continues to give the perfect example of a love that not only endures two individuals idiosyncrasies, but stays strong because of them.    

[newtarpchronicles]

top ten “non people” pictures

yes, yes... I know I haven’t posted the top pict in the other category.  blame it on the pandemic and related absence of family gatherings.  my favorite people picture of the year is so perfect, so spot-on, uncannily accurate, I’m waiting to give it as an anniversary present and would rather it’s seen by the recipient(s) in person as opposed to the cold blog link. 

in the meantime lets pull the tarp off a few scenery pictures and expose what I liked the most.