022720: My New Phone

Well, new to me at least. My old phone died a few weeks ago and, of course, it needed to be replaced immediately! (How could any of us survive without…!) While describing the new one to a friend I referred to it, not as a phone with a camera, but rather as a camera with a phone! It was a genuine slip of the tongue. It was also quite accurate. I suppose this is nothing new but I am continually amazed at the rates of advancement.

Today was my first opportunity to play a little with this new camera/phone – just a stroll around my studio on a foggy day.

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Never thought I’d ever post a cat picture – “Jack”

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I’ll close with a couple of paintings that are works in progress:

Untitled 1 (60″x36″)

Untitled 2 (80″x65″)

 

Thanks for the visit.

020620: Gastropods Part 3

A few weeks back I posted some images of  Devonian gastropods – all local, all approximately 387 million years old. Today’s images of gastropods are from a different place and a different time.

These go back a bit further to roughly 460 million years ago, during the Ordovician Period, and are found in the earliest reef system known today. The Chazy Fossil Reef is located on Isle La Motte, one of several  islands just below the Canadian border in Lake Champlain.

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Gastropods weren’t the only creatures inhabiting that reef. Crinoids, trilobites, cephalopods and other marine invertebrates rounded out the scene.

Since 1998 the Isle La Motte Preservation Trust  has worked to conserve significant sites of the Chazy Fossil Reef.

There are two preserves on the reef, Goodsell Ridge and Fisk Quarry. Specific information on visiting can be found here.

It’s a great place to visit any time of year.

Fisk Quarry during Autumn. Reach down for a fallen apple and find more gastropods. They do show up everywhere.

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Best wishes to all my ILM friends. I look forward to our next visit!

010920: Gastropods

A good friend of mine is currently writing about gastropods, Devonian ones in particular, for a chapter in a book. He recently asked if I could provide some of my gastropod images to accompany his work and I happily agreed.

That got me to scour my libraries. I managed to come up with these ten (and many more). As they accumulated in a folder I began to create other categories – particular favorites being one of many.

So today here are ten different looks at the local 387 million year old gastropods.

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The remaining five images are from that other new category – personal favorites – a subject that I might dip into more and more as time goes by.

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Thanks for the visit.

112119: Old is New

It’s been hard to focus on the blog this week with all the hearings going on. I did have the time to put together this grouping of images that have been sitting in my earliest fossil library – images that had not ever been addressed before. So, even though they were originally shot twelve years ago, it was only yesterday that I finally got around to processing them.

It is a mix of various fossils – all Devonian marine invertebrates (387 million years old) and all found locally.

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Thanks for the visit.

101019: The Local Quarry

On Tuesday I visited my local quarry. I usually stay away during the Summer months since hornets often make their homes on the undersides of loose rock. So, with Autumn now in residence, it was time. And, thanks to recent digging by the owner, new areas of exploration have opened up.

What I found was that a transitional layer of rock became available, leaving loose rocks that exhibit an interesting mix of the different layers.

The image above is a fine example. The shaley, brittle rocks of the lower level, often laced with colorful staining, seldom have much in the way of fossils.The surrounding rocks are from the upper layer, where the fossil “motherlode” usually resides.

The opening image, with a well delineated brachiopod sitting next to a yellow streak of chemical oxidization, exemplifies that mixing.

So, I was struck by colors and fossils, sometimes separately and sometimes together. I even found a couple of images (at the end of today’s grouping) that display the unintended handiwork of nature!

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Thanks for the visit.

091219: Respite

Last week I showed a few images where I mixed my local fossils in with rocks along the Maine shore. This week I decided to flip the script, so to speak, and mix a few Maine rocks in with fossils here in my studio.

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A few more images of seaweed (I have so many !)

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The remainder of today’s images – also continued from last week – are the results of a game/experiment/amusement(?) I engaged in while exploring the rocky shore.

With a bag full of dried scraps of acrylic paint, a shoreline full of wonder, my camera, and a sense of curiosity, I found respite from a maddening world.

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Thanks for the visit.

092018: A Devonian Sampler

For today’s post I have gathered together a selection of images of fossils found in the vicinity of my studio in Catskill, NY. Those viewers familiar with the subject will, I hope, enjoy these images, some new, some reworked.

For those new to this blog, perhaps a brief explanation of the subject matter is in order. The Devonian is a period in geological time that ran from app. 420 to 359 million years ago. In my “neighborhood” one can find fossils from the Middle Devonian (app. 387 mya). And this  mix here is all marine invertebrates, mostly coral and brachiopods. One more note – at the time these animals existed this land resided well south of the equator. Thank the enormity of the time frame and land movement due to plate tectonics for that.

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Thanks for the visit.

080218: August

Seems like summer has barely begun and all of a sudden it is August, to me at least. I’ve been so busy in my studio that I’ve barely been outdoors. I thought of that as I was putting this post together. I started off with some fresh fossil images but soon veered away toward images from past forays in the car and on foot – simply put, I needed to remind myself that there is a world beyond the studio!

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So here we go outdoors – from an old locomotive to a hummingbird et al.

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Thanks for the visit.

062818: Afternoon Light

Like everything else outside my studio, my deck (where I often photograph) and its railing is always covered with fossil rocks. I try to keep new finds and old favorites close and in view. Different times of day, different weather conditions, even different seasons seem to imbue each fossil with “different personalities!”

Late afternoon sun was the trigger for this week’s images. A hard, warm light catches the deck and rakes across the rocks, providing definition and a little drama.

Once again, these are all Devonian Period marine invertebrates (app. 387 million years old), all found within a few miles from my studio! As if just living here in the upper Hudson Valley isn’t enough!

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I’ve been busy in several directions lately. So I thought I’d include a couple of mixed media pieces from the week past.

Thanks for the visit.

062118: Continued

I couldn’t resist using last week’s backdrop again for this week’s images. Today’s fossils include gastropods, brachiopods, crinoid ossicles, coral, and various trilobite parts (including the one below – a Moroccan trilobite I bought in a Florence flea market). All the rest make up a nice little Devonian sampler.

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Thanks for the visit.