"Montana Dead Bolt"

Shawn, guess where I went this afternoon when I got done feeding

cows? Necessity is still the "mother of invention". Thanks for the

visit amigos.

I recognized the latch on the door immediately! I hope you had a very good time there and got some more of your obscene doll images?

The weather was beautiful yesterday and we've got a storm blowin' in today so I thought it might be my only chance to get down to the river this winter. I didn't do any disgusting doll shots, I was there for about 5 hours and didn't really come home with a lot of images I like, I need your inspiration.....come Spring.

Inspiration or partner in crime? 8~)#

 

All permitting, I'll be there in May.

Are you sure that's not the girl on Rocky Top's cabin door? Glad you capture the details in your photos; it always makes them enjoyable. Started that coffee table book yet? Hope you're stayin' warm. I'm afraid I've become spoiled in this Texas heat. Take care. ~Sky

Both Shawn, both. Middle May on will work.

 

We've been having very nice weather for winter in Montana Sky, but that changed today, the wind is howling and there's little dry flakes of snow wafting about.

An interesting "dead bolt," Susan. I don't recognize it now, of course, but I certainly will if I see it again. Regards, Joe

Thanks for the visit Joe, this is a hook on a door at an ol' homestead that Shawn and I had gone to for photography and Shawn posted a really great photo of just the hook and wire, I found the deer leg inside the shed and hung it from the hook for graphic interest and to tell a story.

I really like your conversion here. A nice crisp feel to it. Interesting composition and collection of items. This could easily pass for a Parry Sound

"dead bolt". We have few cattle in these parts but the deer are everywhere. I suppose there is nothing special about that fact. I read recently that there are an estimated 15 million White Tailed deer living in Canada and the US, which maths out to 5 deer per square mile.

Thanks for the visit Gordon. The other day I tried your shooting from a moving vehicle trick, I love the "motion" you capture, but all I got was dust in my face and a blurry image of a semi! Try try again.....! We have mostly Mule deer in this area but it's the antelope that out number the people by a bunch. I see them every day. We had a total white out blizzard today, made feeding cows kinda tough.

Thanks for my morning chuckle. I have a very funny image, in my mind's eye, of you hanging out the window of your truck eating dust. I usually keep the windows rolled up and use a polarizing filter to reduce glare from the windows, although I have been known to try your approach in the summer. The polarizer also helps to slow down the shutter on bright days.

 

No antelope around here, we lack the open spaces. Just lots of deer and moose. Maggie found a set of antlers, recently shed by and 8 point buck, hooked into some scrub at the edge of our forest clearing. She was non too happy to have me confiscate them but I think there must be a photo in that set of horns.

 

Woke up early this morning to a viscous wind rattling my old house and a squall coming in from the bay. The weather man says another 30 cm by tomorrow.

 

This shot of your keeps growing on me more snd more with each viewing. I think that is also an aspect of good B&W. It stands up to repeat viewing and the more time you spend with the image the greater your appreciation for it becomes. I often find the opposite true with colour. Colour has an initial ' punch' to it but then it fades away and I am less likely to be drawn in further on subsequent viewings.

One more comment Gordon, I've been working on editing color work and reediting some work and doing B&W conversions so I can print up a bunch of stuff for a show this year at a small Art Gallery and I've noticed lately that I'll print up an image in COLOR that I really like and the print will sit on my work table for a couple days and I'll actually start doubting it's merits, it just doesn't hold my attention, and I picked up some photos I'd had framed, they were in color too, and I'm just not wild about them now. But the B&W prints seem to hold my interest way longer. Hummmm......

Great photo and interesting conversation. The image packs a punch to a urban softie like me ("Oh, no! Bambi!") but, damn, it's well done.

Thanks for the visit Dave. Poor Bambi has fed many a pioneer and in this case part of him's still functional as "dead" weight to hold down the door hook.

Susan, next time your there, two things would make this more artistically 'correct'.

The cord should have the same wrap as the twist on the hook shaft, it should start over instead of under from the right. Second, the two long tails should be trimmed, each being 1/2 in longer than each other from the shortest tail.

I've spent so much time this past year trying to visualize my end photo (idea to image), I just can't stop, it's driving me nuts.

Thanks for the ideas about being "artistically correct", not sure what Art book you found that info in but I see your point....but I sorta like it just like it is. Stop over anlyzing your work before the men in white coats come and drag you off. After the success of your Storm Watcher image I'd think you'd be very confident in your abilities. Hope you're still having fun on Flikr.

"Artistically correct" -- now there is a scary concept. This conjures the notion of 'politically correct' ie: more concern for what the majority hold to be true than following ones own head and heart.

 

The haphazard nature of the elements in this image is in part responsible for its charm. Non conformity seems to be the point, it certainly is part of the weirdness of the scene. I still cannot figure why anyone would pound in a nail beyond the reach of the hook and then use wire to connect the two together? This utterly defeats the point of a hook and eye as I understand them to be.

I think Gordon you'd have to see this place to believe it, it's a remote abandoned ranch that I have permission to go to for the purpose of photography. The last family to live there had a bunch of hardy men that liked to invent things, there's acres of machines that one can see were obviously "recreated" for specific jobs. But the whole place is a hodge podge of a mess and things are "jerry rigged", so the latch makes sense....maybe. I think the original "eye" for the latch is gone, note a bit of leather below the leg, it may have also been a closure of some sort. It's always prudent to make sure a shed door stays closed to keep the critters out so I think once the "eye" was gone someone grabbed a bit of wire and fashioned a method of keeping the door closed, although it doesn't take much of an effort to "break and enter" this building. Of course I added the leg for graphic interest but I created an additional story, the leg adds weight to keep the hook down?! So goes life out West.

It sounds like a fun place. I love scrounging around old abandoned trapper cabins, logging camps and the like in my own neighbourhood. The piece of land I live on has been inhabited for around 150 years even though the house is fairly new (1940). I am always finding strange contraptions half buried in the bush around the clearing my house sits in along with old bottles and other 'junk'.

 

I am pretty handy at jerry rigging stuff myself, my barn is filled with old junk I collect and half the time something breaks down around here, I can go out to the barn and find at least some parts to keep life up and running until the next time I am heading into town for supplies. I'll have to take a shot of the latch on my barn and post it. No deer hoof but there are some nice gouges from a black bear trying to get in to eat my chicken feed. I have also discovered that bears are quite fond of trout pellets, one tore the planks out of the wall of my shed one night last summer to get inside and dragged off a 50lb bag of fish food.

 

I did notice that little tag of leather in your shot and I was trying to speculate how that fit into the general scheme of things. You can never have too many kinds of wire around. There a few better ways of connecting object "A" to object "B" in a pinch :)

....that and duct tape!

Fun? Was this all suppose to be fun?

OK, back to our real world. My comment about the twist of the cord comes from my climbing years. The cord twist, very well done but going against the twist of the metal. Placing a load on the cord would or could cut it.

Nothing to do with photography.

We will be down near 0 tonight, for our area, that's pretty darn cold. Well, cold anywhere. Dave

Ahh yes duct tape. I do not know if you have heard down there of a Canadian comic Red Green? He uses duct tape to build everything under the sun.

 

 

is my idol! I broke the camera plate on my tripod--if it weren't for duct tape I'd be screwed.

Dave D., yup, this is fun and always very interesting when folks lay out their take on an image and then we find out a bit about that person. The cord twisted one way or the other would certainly depend on a person's life experiences, I'm glad you pointed that out. When I cinch a saddle the first loop of the latigo goes OVER the cinch ring, not under, so when I wrapped this cord around the hook I naturally did it the same way I'd cinch my saddle! But truly it has nothing to do with ART....well that's not true 'cause I thought the addition of the coiled cord would add a lot graphically to this image.

 

Gordon and Dave, no I haven't heard of your Canadian super hero Red Green, but I can just see him though in his pursuit for justice yelling out "duct tape to the rescue"!

This is a great image, Susan! Even without the interesting, um, deadbolt, it would be a great shot ... the rope in a spiral and the latch and the grain in the wood. Great!

 

I am including a couple of shots I took in Alaska a few years back. This was a town with population 13. There was this guy talking with our group about subsistence living. While he was talking he sort of moved the group from one side of his home to the other ... to show us his vegetable garden (north of the Arctic Circle ... 24 hours of sunlight ... BIG cauliflower!!) Anyway - my jaw just dropped when I went from looking at all of the skulls to looking at all of the legs. Apparently from the same animals, I would have to assume. The guy ran trap lines in the winter.....