No Words.
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Of What RemainsâClient Installation
Of What Remains.
You can’t really beat an email from a client like this, from back in January:
Okay, are you ready for thisâŠâŠâŠâŠâŠâŠâŠit is finally done! The picture is absolutely gorgeous and my framer did a wonderful job framing it. Merry Christmas to me!!!!!
-Kendyl
Of What RemainsâInstalled This is a very large printâit measures 48″ long by 16″ high, a 3:1 ratio. By the time you add the mat and frame, the final work is nearly 6′ wide…
Here is the image, click for a larger version:
Of What Remains
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Buddha Tree In The MistâInstalled
This is the type of client email I love to get:
All we can say is wow!!! Â -Vicki
It’s a very satisfying feeling seeing my work hang in someone’s homeâespecially when the owner goes all the way and paints the wall and hangs a light fixture solely for my print.
Close Up 
In Situ It maybe be hard to tell, but this isn’t a small print… it is 22″ tall x 44″ wide. With the frame, it’s roughly 31″ x 55″ and quite heavy. The framer did an amazing jobâI had not considered a black mat with a white bevel, but I quite like it. The organic pattern on the frame is a natural extension of the tree itself. A good frame job really emphasizes the artwork and also makes it look betterâall without drawing attention to itself. This is a really well thought out example of that.
This is one of the images from my Plain of Jars series. Click the image below for a large view:
Buddha Tree In The Mist, Plain of Jars, Laos
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Welcome To Laos: Me, Myself, And A Few Cluster Bomb Casings
Truck-ferry-shuttle bus-plane-plane-plane-truck-overnight bus-minivan. About 50 hours total of travel.
Iâve just arrived in Phonsavan, Laos, a small city on the Plain of Jars. I had gotten my bags out of the minivan and got set up in my guesthouse of choice, the Nam Chai. I decided to wander a bit, which, in the afternoons, usually takes me to the Hmong food market. I grabbed my camera and my audio recorder and set off.
I hadnât even gone 45 paces (yes, I went back and counted them, Iâm odd like that) and came across a pile of American cluster bomb casings, courtesy of my country during the Secret War from 1964-1973.
Me, My Shadow, And Some Cluster Bomb Casings Even with three trips to Laos now under my belt, Iâm still surprised at my reaction when I come across the staggering amount of war detritusâmuch of it Unexploded Ordnance (UXO)âthat remains in this country. A country with roughly the same land area as the US State of Utah.*
As an old friend might say You canât swing a dead cat without hitting UXO in Laos. Of course, you would be wise to, one, not swing things at UXO if you wish to live a long and fruitful life, and, two, leave dead cats alone.
*About 4,000,000,000 pounds dropped on 91,429 sq milesâabout 43,750 pounds for each square mile. Of course it wasn’t distributed evenly, but your mental image should be clear.
Welcome To Laos: Me, Myself, And A Few Cluster Bomb Casings
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That when a photograph of you doesnât look like you…
Robt Sarazin Blake Iâm always interested when a photo of me doesn’t look like me.
Robert said this to me when we were doing a rough edit of the images we had just finished shooting. I had been wanting to photograph him for a couple of years, but the timing was never right. I had had an idea of the exact composition beforehandâI wanted him dressed in the same suit that you can see him performing in here, sitting in a low chair (my friend Walter had this sun-bleached chair outside for several years; when he sat in it one day, a leg broke, so he sawed the other three to matchâIâm obsessed with the color), with his pant legs being pulled up above his boots by the low position, and crouching forward with his arms on his knees. The pose came from the Greek statue called The Boxer of Quirinal, but I always associated with the name Thom Jones gave it in his blunt-force-trauma collection of short stories The Pugilist At Rest.
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Buddha Tree In The Mist Published In PanoBook 2014!
I’m very proud to announce that a panoramic photo I shot in Laos earlier this year, Buddha Tree In The Mist, was one of the 150 panoramas selected out of 1677 submissions for publication in Kolor’s Panobook 2014.
Buddha Tree In The Mist This panorama was shot as part of my upcoming series The Plain Of Jars. It was also the reward for $1000 donors on my Plain Of Jars Project crowdsource fundraiser on StartSomeGood for a small school in Phonsavan, Laos, called the Lone Buffalo Foundation.
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Alex Timmermans’ Escape To Nature
“Flight Instruction” Copyright Alex Timmermans My photographic interests are fairly broad, from modern digital all the way back to the antique or alternative processes. That’s why I was very happy to see this short video Escape To Nature about Alex Timmermans and his wet plate collodion photography. It was shot by Patrice Lesueur, and is beautiful in its own right. Take a look… (more…)
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Robert Sarazin Blake â Workin’ The Crowd
It had been a long time since I had seen my old friend Robert Sarazin Blake play, and I hadn’t yet seen him with his new band The Put It All Down In A Letters. The band is tight and Robert is better than ever. His music used to be described as folk punk, but I always thought of it more as angst folk. That’s a bit different nowâthe politics are still there, but the corners are smooth, the edges aren’t so biting. He’s always been one to work the crowd, but he’s smoother nowâa reliable confidence on stage that is the hallmark ofâreally something more thanâan entertainer.
Robert Sarazin Blake â Workin’ The Crowd
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RIP: Fred Branfman, And An Image In Your Name
I’ve been thinking a lot the last few days. Fred Branfman, a person who I consider a true American hero (and I do not use the term hero oftenâsadly it has become watered down from overuseâand misuse), passed away last week. And, in addition to the sadness I felt, I felt a pang of guilt. Fred and I had been corresponding ever since I got involved in Laos and discovered the horrorâand the millions of still-deadly bombs littering the landscapeâcaused by America’s “Secret War” there. I think Fred was the first American civilian that discovered the brutal campaign we were wagingâand I think he carried that unimaginable weight on his shoulders his whole life. This article When Chomsky Wept (and this obituary, will give you some insight into Fred).
That is why I wanted to have Fred as an endorser for my fundraising project The Plain Of Jars Project (POJP) for the Lone Buffalo Foundation. After reading the book of stories by the terrorized villagers Fred interviewed, Voices from the Plain of Jars: Life under an Air War, I knew this man could give me insight that I could not hope to gather on my own.
Fred Branfman From The Front Page Of The POJP Website Now, Fred was not a person to send you an email comprised of one sentenceâhe wanted to know everything about what you were doing, why you were doing it, and how it was going. I have an email in my inbox from Fred and it is labeled “draft” as I had not finished it, supposedly to do more important things. Here is what Fred asked:
- Are you still in the PDJ? (Plaine de Jarres; from the French)
- How much did you make from you fundraiser?
Then stated:
I am very interested, if you have time, to learn more about what life is like on the PdJ, the life of the people, the degree to which the government cares about the people, specifics on the LBF (Lone Buffalo Foundation), etc. And YOUâhow are you doing?
The man never stopped caring about the people of the Plain of Jars, of the people of Laos.
Now the guilt:Â One day I was at Site 1 of the Plain Of Jars and I saw an amazing view with the sun breaking through the clouds over the jar site below. I took one look and knew that this was an image I was taking for Fred. I sent him the image and he loved it.
Later, I named the image Tribute To FB in his honor. It was the most requested image from the gallery of reward images for the project. I wanted to tell Fred that. I wanted to tell him that an image I loved, he loved, and that I shot specifically for him was now named after him and was the most popular of all my POJP photos.
And I didn’t. I didn’t because other things got in the wayâthings in hindsight that I can’t even remember; things that weren’t important at all. I can’t tell him, show him, because now it is too late. And I’m sad that I couldn’t pay back, in the tiniest way possible, the inspiration I got from Fred.
Thank you Fred. Here is your photo, RIP:
Tribute To Fred Branfman
