Woman of Bee Village II

Woman of Bee Village II

Another photo of this natural model. This will make an excellent palladium print.

Woman of Bee Village

Woman of Bee Village

Our guide introduced us to this lovely woman in a 300-year-old village between Sanctuary Lodge and Gurang Lodge in the Annapurna Protected Area near Pokhara, Nepal.

Near Everest

There's quite a bit of color in the Himalayan range. My interest is in a high contrast black and white palladium print from these images. But one has to remain in awe of the color possibilities as well.

Approaching Everest

This is the spine as you approach Everest. Way down below is the trail used to climb this peak.

Palladium Candidates: Everest

That's Everest on the left. This was taken from a plane that approached within about five miles of this famous peak.

The Catalogs: Books and eBooks

This Blog has served a couple of purposes over the past five years. It is first of all a log of my activities, primarily in creating prints using the palladium printing process from the 1870's. It is also a log of  shows in this area where my prints have appeared.

This includes technically interesting things which go along with shows, such as audio tours, special labeling which includes scan codes (and more), but it includes portals to books and eBooks where one can buy hard copy or digital versions.

Given the many postings, these links are deeply embedded in posts that are now several years old. So in this posting, I want to organize and highlight these links.

The Sense of the Distant Past - containing a full set of palladium prints. It is also the catalog associated with the show of the same name at the SCA Gallery in the Arts Colony in Pomona, California in 2010.

• Hard Copy
• Digital Copy

These links go to the Blurb website to the specific page for the specific version of the book. It's also easy to go directly to Blurb.com and search for "James Manley" which will also locate these books.

Xingjiang: From the Karakoram Highway to Hemu - This is the travel book associated with my trip to far western China in 2010, published in 2012. All color - but still evoking a sense of the distant past.

• Hard Copy
• Digital Copy

The link to the hard copy lets you page through the book - still a very neat feature. It is not enabled on the eBook version, but the images are the same.

Contemplative Spaces - A small catalog I did for a show focused on Tibetan themes

• Hard Copy
• Digital Copy

Not all of the shows have catalogs associated with them. In a later posting, I'll highlight the shows.

Two Images in December SCA Show

The SCA Project Gallery will be having its last show beginning November 14 with an opening from 6-9 pm. It will be up through December 18th. The gallery is located at 281 S. Thomas Street in the Pomona Arts Colony Area and is an excellent exhibition space, which will be sorely missed. I opened my first show there in the summer of 2010 and this Blog really began with that show. I will miss them.

I will have two images in the show. That of the "Cormorant Diving" from Yangshuo in 2012 and "Prayer Wheel" from the Labrang Monastery in Xiahe, both in China.

Cormorant Diving 16 x 20 Ultrachrome Ink - $200

"Diving Cormorant" is a favorite of mine because it is an intersection of several favorable conditions, the most notable of which is that there was virtually no ambient light for this picture. That meant that virtually all of the light was provided by the flash at a favorable 1/10,000th of a second, stopping action. Aside from that, everything was on manual, including focus. I was simply checking earlier photos to see if they were in specs. Otherwise, the auto features were too slow for these conditions. After many misses, I timed this dive correctly. Note the thread in the lower right of the picture. It is the one that binds the cormorant's throat so that it can't swallow anything that it catches. The fisherman permits it to eat after a night's fishing.

Originally, I had intended a much less active image, more along the lines of the meditative composition done by Lisa Kristine. But it was not to be. We didn't get on the river until we had lost the glow of the sunset.

Prayer Wheel 36 x 40 Ultrachrome Ink - $300

This is a well-used prayer wheel found along the "Kora" or pilgrimage route around the Labrang Monastery in Xiahe, Gansu Province, China. I like the tactice "well used" quality. It is large, heavy wheel and I tried to have the image reflect that. In fact, this is "quad" or set of four 16" x 20" images. (You will see four natural dividing lines on the actual print.)

So don't miss the opening on November 14, 6-9 pm. There will be a variety of other good things to see. Bob Pece always does a good job as curator.

This is part of the Second Saturday art walk, so come early to get good parking. I'll be there about 6.