Todd Rundgren

I posted an image of Todd Rundgren several weeks ago that garnered several response from his various fan clubs and online blogs.

In particular props go out to Keith Milne who noted that the guitar Todd played in that image was the same one Eric Clapton used in Cream. As Keith mentions this guitar is a double cutaway Gibson SG.

Keith's reply is below:

'Here is a bit of trivia I see in that photograph -

The Gibson SG Todd is playing is the very same painted guitar that belonged to Eric Clapton from the Cream days. It is a VERY famous instrument and many replicas have been made of it. I can also tell by the color of his hair that this was probably taken around 1978 when the album "Todd" was released. The paper album liner has a photograph of Todd created from names of people who responded on a postcard included in the previous album "A Wizard, A True Star". Of course, my name appears on that liner. :)'

Hence the second Todd image today from the same outdoor concert in Central Park, New York City. This image is a reproduction from an existing print that I photographed this morning.

I really love the way music connects people even after so many years..........'confluence' comes to mind...

John Mellencamp

As you all know I was a tour manager in the music business for almost 40 years. One of the artists I worked for was John Mellencamp.

Sometime in or around August 2000  John came up with the idea for The Good Samaritan Tour, meaning we set up and played acoustic shows in various cities around the country. We carried the smallest of sound systems, and John was backed up by only two musicians who played various instruments including the fiddle....

The tour started in Philadelphia and ended in Bloomington, Indiana. Literally we just pulled into town, went to the local park, set up and played, sometimes for two hours.

After the concert in Cleveland I was waiting by the bus when I saw this amazing scene moving directly at me. Always having a camera is a good thing - I really like this image - reminds me of that time back in the 60's when protest events were happening across the country.

Death Valley

'The clearest way to the Universe is through a forest wilderness'......John Muir

My buddy Al Hernandez and I went exploring Death Valley last March and ran into Kevin Raber from Phase One who happened to be at the same hotel in Furnace Creek.

At any rate one day while we were out exploring Death Valley with Kevin we turned onto West Side Road on the backside of Badwater which is where this image appeared.

Got to run today - New York City is calling....

The image in the header is also form Death Valley...

Outakes

I was browsing through my library today looking for something to post when I saw these two images. I have always considered them outtakes at first but something keeps making me return for another look.

Today, after some post processing, I decided to put them on the blog and get some feedback.

There is surely some unconscious reasoning that keeps attracting me to religious imagery. For years I have stopped to capture images of churches, crosses, graveyards and side-of-the-road tributes to lost souls.

Maybe it has something to with disappearing America - those simple ideals that have been lost forever like a classic piece of architecture being torn down or the local mom and pop business that needs to close and make way for progress.

Maybe writing this will help me understand why I make these images.

Both of these are from route 17 that runs from Virginia down into Florida - the Route 66 of the east coast....The BBQ shot in the header is also from Route 17.

Labelle

Patti Labelle, Nona Hendryx, Sarah Dash and Cindy Birdsong were a group called 'The Ordettes' circa 1960. When Birdsong departed for the 'Supremes' in 1967 they eventually morphed into 'Labelle'.

Originally this was shot in color for Rolling Stone in 1973. I much prefer the black and white conversion.

The new header image was captured on Route 17 in Woodbine, Georgia..

Little Beach, Falmouth, MA

      Recently while in Death Valley I was totally captivated by mother nature's ability to draw, so to speak,  'lines in the sand'. If one was lucky enough to catch a stiff wind the night before the dunes would take on an entirely different persona from the day before. The footprints would disappear and the lines in the sand would form new patterns that appeared to be maps to some unknown treasure -  the actual treasure was being lucky enough to be out at sunrise to see the pristine shapes and lines that nature had bestowed on the  dunes overnight.
 

 Last weekend up on Cape Cod I had the same feelings at Little Beach located in Falmouth. Albeit I was there in the middle of the day (not the usually golden light photographers usually chase) the light created the most pleasing patterns in the wet sand just beyond the jetty that separates the bay from the ocean.

Makes one start thinking about.........

'In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks'.......John Muir


The top image is from Little Beach - the other below is from the Dunes at Stovepipe Wells, Death Valley.

Quissett Harbor

Last Saturday in Cape Cod we were rushing out to Quissett Harbor to capture the sunset. As we were running late the plan was to park and rush out to the beach ( a short hike) to get set up. The sky had the most fabulous clouds and our hopes for sunset were elevated.  However, on arrival at the parking area, the boats in the harbor were hard to pass up with the reflections from the cloudy blue sky reflecting in the still water.

The capture above is one of the boat images...

PS: We did manage to get out in time for the sunset and it was as expected. Sunset images another day.