Its spring once again in Southern California and with some good rain recently, I was hoping that the wild flowers out in the high desert would be in full bloom and decided to head out towards the California Poppy reserve, by Lancaster.
Carpets of Tansy Phacelia (Blue), Yellow Coreopis, Blazing Star (Orange) covered the south facing hills along Gorman Post Road off of Rte 138. The Poppies along the lower lying valleys began to close as the cool winds picked up, but still provided plenty of color to see.

I needed a day away from the grind and a little road under my wheels and a quick trip to recharge, and knew it was worth the gamble. The time alone and with nature not only did the trick but afforded me some incredible reason for pause and appreciation for ole Mother Nature once again.

A few years back I was running around the tundra by Sable Pass in Denali National Park in Alaska photographing a full rainbow which stretched from one end of the valley to the other. I remember wanting something even more than what I had to shoot and had the nerve to ask (anyone who would listen to me) to give me a Grizzly to add to all the magic I had been viewing unfold before me. When I got the bear, it prompted my blog “sometimes you have to ask for it.”

Once again, I found myself in a situation that maybe I could be revealing myself as a little ungrateful, but after shooting flowers all day, I began to look for something other to shoot. I found a hawk drifting over the red carpet of poppies and began to chase it as it drifted away from me. The shots just didn’t do it for me. So I “asked for it’ again.

Once again was rewarded or at the very least distracted. Now this particular wild flower was far away, in the direction the hawk took me, and the background, distance and even the model would not have been exactly what I would have ordered a la cart, but was a great chance to view the poppy field in a more dramatic landscape. I was in a public place so I snapped a few shots and thanked again the set of attentive ears that had listened to me once again.

Nike ad

I just saw the latest Nike ad with Tiger Woods deceased dad talking to him and asking him questions which refer to his decision making lately. Is it just me or have they explored a whole new level of “creepiness” in their marketing campaign to push their products?

I’ve played sports all my life and other than the “just do it” moniker they hit pay dirt on, I have never connected with many of their ads. This one, however seems to “just over do it” as far as I’m concerned. The ad continues to magnify Woods issues and stoke the fire as well as pull his dad into the mix who is very well knows for his philandering outside of his own marriage as well. It’s just creepy and wrong. What does Tigers mom think when she sees this ad, I wonder?

Great job Nike! You are doing your best to derail any class and legitimacy in branding your sponsors in place for your 5 minutes of TMZ fame. You would think a multi billion dollar company would “just get it.”

Zion~-The real meaning to me

Two carefully chosen words Merriam-Webster Dictionary uses to define Zion are “Heaven and Utopia.” Although, these references represent more of a symbolic idealism based from Judaism, after hiking for the second time through the grand cathedrals of colored sandstone walls, I think it is safe to say, this reference can easily be shared amongst many faiths.

Morning greeted us with shades of blue in the sky we simply don’t get in Los Angeles. With the absence of clouds, thoughts of flash floods quickly evaporate in the 110 degree heat as did the residual stiffness left from the seven or so hour long drive from LA.

Another colorful greeting came to us riding the warm current of air above the river on the wings of Monarch Butterfly’s as they fluttered about through out the hike. They lead us down into the winding torrent of small rapids, springs, waterfalls and

golden reflected pools of surrounded by hanging gardens of shooting stars, evening primrose, larkspurs, monkey flowers even orchids to name a few which sprung from seeping water from

the confluence of the canyon walls. The contrast is stunning for an otherwise hot and arid desert terrain and is highlighted with colorful oasis blooms throughout the canyon.

Entering the shade provided by the Narrows combined by soaking in the cool Virgin River away from the dry, skin cracking heat of the surrounding Valley, was very much Heaven. In fact, it was the word that popped into my mind first as the temperature dropped immediately. The word utopia was not far behind it either. In an instant, sore legs and toes began to tingle with life once again. Suddenly I’m prepared to continue through the next leg of the 16 mile journey as the chilled water swirls around my calves in a soft massage easing the burden of the pack pulling from my shoulders as well.

The river leads us into the cool cover of shadows cast by breathtaking walls as high as 2000 feet and with widths of only 20

feet in some parts. It becomes

increasingly hard to move swiftly into the winding corridor as the footings is anything but sure with moss covered rocks underwater and the views that are mostly above

.

It is truly a feast for the senses and the eyes are continually seduced away from the next footprint I will leave as they are constantly scanning the expansive rock formations etched by flash floods, runoff and snowmelt.

Spring fed waterfalls, outlined with local flowers..

It’s easy to look around and see how millions of years shaped this place into what it is, but the canyon is still being sculpted as I walk through it even today. The river carries sediment and large rocks as well as small grains of sand which make their way down the river, grinding and carving new formations all the time. Add wind, ice and rain to the mixture and the result is a living, evolving creation which goes straight through your eyes into the depths of your soul.

Below, ghost like formations serve as a reminder of what the elements and father time does to us all. In this case though, turns solid rock into an art form.

No matter what journey brings you to Zion or how you feel before you enter the Narrows, one thing for sure; you will feel closer to whatever your particular notion of Heaven or Utopia is long before you leave it.

To me Zion is a slice of Heaven

Thanks to my Three Amigos for enhancing this experience as it is always better to share paradise amongst the special ones in our lives.

Please check into wildsidegalleries.com in a week or so for more photos

~Chris

Something about a wild animal who locks eyes with you that seems to freeze everything external in animated suspension. There is a moment when being the sole object of their focus that really sends a message that conjures what I would think are some of the very first primordial emotions we experience as humans that range from a child like fascination to outright fear.

I always choose an animal that has some emotion in the eyes and provides the viewer with a more personal connection with the piece. The connection can be completely their own and is primarily why I am so drawn to the eyes.

This Cheetah is a 11 x 14 scratchboard, colored slightly with transparent inks.

Snow Leopard Scratchboard

After just a few attempts at this new medium, but I am really becoming attached to the process of learning here. Scratching white on top of black really forces me to think deeper into the lighting, negative space and composition of the subject. It is almost completely opposite from years of rendering onto a white background. I thought I would post the transitions here in the event others may want to see them . I know this type of thing helps me and I always love to see how other works of art become the ultimate expression of the artist vision.

Allison's Sunset

My legs were somewhat sore from a rather ambitiously paced 13 mile run earlier in the day. The couch felt so good as I propped them up and settled to watch the MLB playoffs and curse the Yankees even before the first pitch was thrown. I was in no hurry to go anywhere fast.. The late afternoon is also the favorite time in my house as the low sun glows through the front windows and throws long golden rays of warmth across the wood floor and catching all the glitters from miscellaneous shiny object in its way. It's the warmest my house is all day from ambient light and the living room is my favorite place to be.

Something though kept telling me to keep a watchful eye on the sky as there may be a special sunset due to light cloud cover. I also had some other things on my mind and the beach at night is a good place to see them for what they are worth a little clearer. As the sun sank and the streaks of filtered light crawled deeper in to the dining room I began to get real fidgety. My legs were happily off the ground but the rest of me was unsettled...I said screw it, “it's only the Yankees” and grabbed my camera and hoped in the car. Besides I knew it would be my last chance to catch the ocean sunset before my trip to the Netherlands the next day.

There are a few places I like to go to shoot pictures of the sunset here in the South Bay, but for some reason, also beyond me I took a drive through a never ending stream of stop lights and signs to get to South Redondo vs the straight shot I had to Manhattan Beach Pier...I also parked up on the ocean side of Catalina Ave. and the only significance there was that just on the other side of the street it was free parking and I would not have needed to dump several quarters in the meter for the time I would need.. For some reason tonight I could not be bothered with the few extra steps even though the shots I wanted were down the long set of stairs and down the beach a way.

The air was clear and there were enough low clouds to give me the colors I look for on the really good nights for shots that are a bit more than special. I was able to corral a few images I liked down below at ocean level and the melted into the horizon. A sailboat even gave me the prototypical sailboat in the sun shot. I decided to head back up top to watch the glow change the colors from a higher perspective and shoot until the light was gone.

After the sky was relegated to the very last whispers of red veins across an otherwise lifeless sky, I began to slowly walk to my car. It was at this time a car pulled up behind me. There was a woman driving and she looked panicked and began to ask me something through a half opened window. She proceeded to park right where I was walking so I stuck my head in the window as I could not hear her, but could see that she was visibly upset. There were no tears, but there was something wrong.

She asked if I had seen the sunset and took pictures of it. She proceeded to tell me how she had tried to get down here on time but just couldn’t make it. I slowed her down and told her I had her covered and that I got a few decent shots. She went onto tell me that I must think she’s really strange and I told her she had no idea who I have in my life already and that strange is a relative term. She half smiled and went on to tell me that her daughter’s favorite thing was the sunset at the beach.

A chill went down my spine as the word “was” the only one that suddenly mattered here.

She proceeded to tell me “today’s her birthday” and she died seven months ago. If there was anyway I could send her a few shots…. I stopped her mid sentence and told her she could have all of them if she wanted and that I’d send them to her before I left for Europe in a low-res format and the hi-res images would be ready for her when I got back on a disk.

She continued to thank me and I had to almost stop her again so I could thank her. However exactly it was I got to this exact spot to be available for her, was truly an honor and the reason life keeps me feeling like there is so much more going on than we know.

Photography has already given me so many gifts back that I can never truly put into words. To be able to help memorialize a person I have never met and help keep Allison’s spirit alive in this way is the truly the pinnacle for me. To whatever degree I make it as a photographer in my life, I am pretty sure the few simple shots I took tonight will be the ones I am most thankful for.

As she drove away, I walked up the car and took one last look at the sky…There was one last streak of pink all alone across the horizon



Call me crazy, but I couldn’t help but wonder….

Insignificant or not

Painting and photography offers me greater perspectives of me and the things that surround me even when I am doing neither at the time. There is always an image, a feeling or an idea in front of each of us that has some importance. The trick is fitting that missing piece into an uncompleted part of your life-puzzle.

Here’s one such instance when life unfold its truth to me and left me feeling warm on a cool afternoon.

Like most of my longer training rides on the bike, the goals are simple. Ride until eventually my body learns to the art of minimizing my muscles demands for oxygen to metabolize an increase in blood lactate and increase overall aerobic thresholds. Usually my journey begins with pain in the legs but usually ends up taxing everything from between one ear to the next and back. Tonight’s ride should be no exception.

As turmoil has been a steady companion of late I guess I should have known better. After 2 plus hours of burning the quads with several climbs, I suddenly noticed one of my favorite things in life. The sky was turning all shades of red and blue and the South Bay was preparing for a spectacular show as the sun fell behind the sea. I glided to the end of Hermosa Beach pier and just sat there in a now cold sweat, watching the sky and the water try to outdo each other in a duel of master painters. It was chilly and I was wearing nothing more than swim-bike shots, lycra form fitting vest and arm warmers. But there I stood shivering and stared at the show like a kid at a first circus waiting for the next act to unfold.

Then the inevitable began to happen….I began to think…Shit, too late now as this ball had already started to roll and out of control. I stared deep into and beyond the swirls of color mixing the waters currents and then upwards beyond the colors of the sky until the colors were all but gone. Suddenly I could see a star shining over the horizon and it did not appear to be a planet. My astrology is lacking so I can’t tell which star it was, but it caused me to do what most of us have done one time or another; feel really, really small..

I began to think about time and space and my place in it. And in the end how do my problems even matter? How could they? But to me, they freeze me in my tracks…

A “first down” in football is ten yards and it takes light to travel that far in about 30 nano-seconds and light can go 300 million yards (or 30 million first downs) in ONE second. Sorry Reggie Bush, but you ain’t got nothing on that!

The same little beam of misguided light would take 1.25 seconds to get to the moon and a full 8 minutes to arrive to the sun (which is BTW 109 times the size of the Earth).. Hang with me, there is a point.

Jupiter is further out and would take 40 light-minutes to feel the love and Pluto is a whopping 5 ½ hours away for the train to reach its station and far too many first downs for me to figure out.

Now for the part that keeps me with the look of a perpetual 1 year old peering up at swirling black and white dangling objects from the crib.. That twinkling and insignificant wobble in the sky is no less than 4 ½ years away for that wayward beam of light to arrive. Beyond that, my head just really begins to hurt. It must be from slamming it into that brick wall they built in the back of the Universe back when the UFO’s also build the Pyramids of Ghiza. It’s enough to imagine our little hub of insignificance in all of this expanse too large to wrap my mind fully around.

But if I were to try…..

The nearest cluster of Galaxy (the Virgo Cluster~only remembered because I am one) is 50 million light years away and to totally blow the top of your head off, the visible edge of the universe is 13,700,000,000 (yes, billion) light years away. Or as Cal Sagan would have said “beillionn.”

So back to our little flickering and dim light in an otherwise endless forest full of Sequoia Christmas trees we have to ask ourselves the same question. Do we count? Do we matter at all in the end?

From warring nations, to even the little kid crying because Santa’s gift this year wasn’t what was wished for and everything else in between, it’s just a pimple on a pimples ass in the end of a flea no less. That is if fleas actually could get a pimple of course. One day again, it will be dead silent here and really dark and cold. Somewhere zillions of first downs away and even more zillions of years something will be crawling out of the mud to choke on its first breath. Or two overzealous leaf bearing zealots will hook it up again,…That one I leave up to you.

Whatever happens, will they eventually stand at the end of a pier one year and look out to the sky and begin to feel just as small and even insignificant?

As I turned my bike around to ride several, but not too many first downs back to my home, a father and son ( I presumed he was his son) approached me for a picture. I said sure and suggested we use the faded light of the ocean for the background. The father said no I did not understand, it was his son who wanted the picture with “me.” I just stood there and didn’t know what to say. I was sure they thought I was someone else. It’s happened plenty of times before. So I kept on saying nothing and smiled for the photo with my arm around the kid.

The smile on the teen aged kid was enough to answer my question with out a word being spoken. Hell yes, I mattered.. Or at least the guy they thought I was did... If this was not significant in any big pictures and about my place in it, then what does that say about me?

I glided back down the pier with my bike.

He glided back down on his wheelchair