Outside Lighting In

Bixby Bridge HAER and acronyms like A.P.I.W.A.T.W.

Poison Oak be damned, it's nice when a 5x7 large format (LF) photography trip for a HAER photo documentation works out. It almost makes the two weeks with a rash worth it. I'll forget about the rash, but in the spirit of the HABS/HAER/HALS* programs these photos will endure in cold storage at Fort Meade in the LoC P&P* storage facility. Two weeks of itchin' & scratchin' for 500+ years of public benefit... So worth it.

If you decide to get out of your car on Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) and photograph in this area watch out for those little Poison Oak plants with red leaves, "leaves of three, let it be." There are a million pages on the WWW about Poison Oak and they are all over the Big Sur hills. If I ever write a magazine article about photography in coastal CA (California) there will be a section about Posion Oak, so be careful.

1000-360    Bixby Bridge HAER-CA-2297  Two-part panoramic photo of bridge deck and south pier. ^click photo to zoom

This brings to mind the adage: "A picture is worth a thousand words," (aPiWaTW, OK that one's ridiculous) It's actually two pictures, so maybe it's 2000 words, plus a couple hundred to describe the itching and the perfect weather conditions, and it's a panorama (not quite 360° degrees, but who's counting). So in this vain I think the acronymic photo title should be: 1000/360 now I just need to get a magazine to run it. And for those of you who stumbled upon this BLOG (Web log) and photo on the WWW and have never heard of all these silly letters:

* The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), The Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), and the Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS), are historical documentation collections administered by the National Park Service (NPS) Heritage Documentation Programs (HDP) and available in the Library of Congress (LoC) Prints & Photographs (P&P) Reading Room. The collections of thousands of heritage buildings, bridges, tunnels, and parks can be keyword searched on the Library of Congress website:  http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/hh/ 

The Bixby Bridge images from this itchy outing will be sent to HDP in late 2012 and should be searchable in 2014. I can now join DATIC, the official club of people who: Drop Acronyms to Increase Credibility.

HABS Photographer Stephen Schafer Selected for Best of ASMP 2011

 

I'm excited to be one of twenty photographers chosen from more than 150 projects submitted by my peers for the seventh annual Best of ASMP 2011 (and the first HABS photographer).

The American Society of Media Photographers, founded in 1944, is the premier trade association for the world's most respected professional photographers. Promoting photographers' rights and providing education in better business practices.

The selected 2011 photographers run the gamut, from documentary to digital shot using a remote-controlled helicopter... and beyond. The twenty photographers have some pretty interesting stories about how and why they chose to execute their photographic vision, I'm just glad I could round out the mostly digital group with my state-of-the-art-1933 approach to HABS photography on the Ahwahnee. The interview has some fun photos of SF County Jail #3 along with photos of the Kaufmann House and Ennis House that will be donated to the Library of Congress HABS, HAER, HALS photography collection in the future.

The 20 Interviews at this link:  ASMP Best of 2011 Link

 

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Swiss Family Indian?

The next time we have out of town guests we're takin' them straight to Palmdale!

    The most amazing place to show off Hollywood, the American Dream, the desert landscape, and Native American Culture is the Antelope Valley Indian Museum State Historic Park. It may look like a Swiss chalet but the Swiss would never imagined this – it's classic folk-art-Americana. I expected to see Charles Phoenix there with a Disneyland tour.

  CLICK ON IMAGES FOR A LARGER VIEW>>>

    Howard Arden Edwards, a Holywood set designer, self-taught artist, and avid collector of Native American artifacts, originally conceived of the 1928 building – a cross between a Hollywood set, a Swiss chalet, a rustic craftsman house and the Batcave. More info here: http://avim.parks.ca.gov/ 

    

    Schaf Photo was commissioned by architect John Lesak of Page & Turnbull to photograph the site and show the thoughtful stabilization of the building. After a four-year rehabilitation, the AVIM is open with a discrete new geothermal climate control and an intricate cable-stay system, designed to hold the flimsy, set-like building together and keep it from blowing away in the relentless Antelope Valley winds. This was a digital color documentation and not a HABS/HAER project but this National Register of Historic Places site is worthy of documentation in the Library of Congress Historic American Buildings Survey collection. Perhaps in the future.

    

    

I hope our photos tell the story, but you have to

climb up the uneven stone stairs between the historic rooms

and see it yourself to believe it.

 

THIS JUST IN>>> Antelope Valley Indian Museum receives a prestigious 2011 Preservation Design Award by the California Preservation Foundation! 

Sunrise Ahwahnee Hotel Yosemite

I thought I'd share the moment when the sun crests Halfdome and lights the east side ofthe Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite, The site of my latest HABS project.

Click the arrow and see the sun come up...

 

My Family Homestead, Bad Laasphe, Germany

One side of the family had great taste in slate siding and a view of the whole Bad Laasphe Valley. Alas the house was sold long ago... but as soon as I have an extra million Euros, I'm buying it back as a summer getaway...