Yearly Archives: 2013

Meter reader’s nightmare

Photographs

In Cypress Alley.

Nothing is sacred – even the trash cans get ‘tagged’ here:

What is simply intolerable is how beautiful murals will get tagged by zonked out kids. A quick spot of Islamic law would, for once, help things in this regard. Caught tagging? We lop off the offending limb.

Nikon D3x, 20mm UD Nikkor.

Anthony Holdsworth

Paintings, Photographs

Painter of street scenes.


24th Street and Alabama.

“So are you here on vacation?” Anthony asked.

Boy, I thought I would have lost the accent by now.

“Well, not exactly, I moved here in 1977 from London, so it’s been home for more than half my life. How about you?”

“My folks came to the States in 1955 from Bournemouth, and I have been painting all my life. Our ‘special relationship’, huh? What do you do?”

“Oh, I take pictures. I do love the wide angle look you have in this painting.”

“Yes, that’s the advantage we painters have – we can choose our angle of view regardless of the subject’s distance. And, of course, we never have to struggle with dynamic range, but I guess you can always use Photoshop?”

“True, but it’s not a great answer much of the time. How long does one of your paintings take?”

“Depends on how much I have to correct, but generally about 20 hours. I try to do two a week. The Mission District is really changing, you know.”

“You mean the Starbucks?”

“Yup. And it’s driving prices of everything through the roof and driving out the locals.”

From his web site:

“Anthony Holdsworth was born in England in 1945. He was introduced to oil painting in high school by the New England painter, Loring Coleman. Holdsworth embarked on a painting career while working as Head of Outdoor Restoration for the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy after the flood of 1966. He continued his studies at the Bournemouth College of Art in England where he studied with master draftsman Samuel Rabin and color theorist Jon Fish and at the San Francisco Art Institute where he studied with Julius Hatofsky.”

Here’s is Holdsworth’s subject, from close-up to recreate his perspective. As you can see, he was well distant, across the street, whereas I was very close to his subject.

Nikon D3x, 20mm UD Nikkor.

Holdsworth’s paintings of the Mission District, mostly on 24th Street, are here.

Sugarlump

Photographs

Mondrian and Degas

While relaxing over a cup of tea at Sugarlump I was struck by this composition – a mix of Mondrian’s rectangles and pastel Degas lighting.

It a tribute to Lightroom 5’s exceptional Highlight and Shadow sliders (introduced in Lightroom 4) that the very high dynamic range could be tamed and the whole thing made into a picture.

For reference, here’s the unprocessed RAW original:


Highlights totally burned out.

By the way, if you do not use a Mac chances are you will not be admitted here, as the place specializes in good taste.