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 DeRussy's Plot, 2007 DeRussy's Plot Last February I photographed a candlelight tour of Fort Point. A group of twenty met a National Park Service Ranger at the Warming Hut at dusk. As we walked along to the old brick fort our guide Maureen relayed stories of the Golden Gate. Stories of dynamited cliffs, stolen canons, and eminent domain land battles. About halfway down Marine Drive Maureen pointed to the hillside above and told us of Colonel Rene DeRussy, the chief engineer in charge of constructing Fort Point. When DeRussy moved to San Francisco in 1854 he couldn't afford a home for his family in Gold Rush rich San Francisco (some things never change). So he built his house on a windswept bluff near the fort site overlooking San Francisco Bay. He toiled for two years from that house on a cold and foggy hill. Elderly and sick with tuberculosis he spent the last years of his life planning for the protection of the San Francisco Bay. Our guide said although the house was gone there were still trees from his orchard now growing wild on the hill. The story was so sad that I had to find the place and photograph it. Today if you walk the Bay Trail, near a switchback bend with a breath taking view, you can just see his little flattened plot with its wild twisted apple and pepper trees. On a lighter note I would like to invite you to two upcoming events. The first is a show of my work at Rayko in San Francisco. Thirteen of my Presidio images will be on show along with some fabulous work of other artists who have created some stunning contemporary landscapes. Landscape, other
Views Outside Convention Opening Wednesday, June 11, 2008, 6-8 PM Exhibition June 10 - July 14, 2008 Rayko Gallery 428 Third Street, San Francisco, CA For those of you in the South Bay, Modern Book Gallery will be hosting a book viewing and signing party Thursday, June 12, 2008 in Palo Alto. I will be there to show a prototype of my book Presidio: Portraits of a Changing Landscape along with nineteen other very talented photographers and their wonderful photo books. Book Viewing & Signing Party
Thursday June 12, 2008 7-9 PM Modern Book Gallery 494 University Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94301 |
The announcement for my group show at Rayko is online and I am excited to be in such good company. Check out the other artists in the show here...
Have you ever, after hearing or reading a science or nature story thought to yourself, that is so cool...?
I am having a lot of those moments lately listening to Quest, Science Friday and my all time favorite Radio Lab. Sometimes I just can't stop thinking about them and they turn into photographs in my head. It's just the way my brain is wired.
I am in awe of the people that work to figure these things out. Take planet hunters - who knew the way to find nearly invisible undiscovered planets was to look for stellar wobbles - that you find the planet by seeing a star "wobble" in the gravitational pull of an orbiting planet. Wow.
So my question is what is the coolest science thing you know?
