Gold

I think we are culturally conditioned to be attracted to gold. There is something about the color that makes us want to touch it and hold it. It is also relatively heavy. This makes it seem to have more substance than other minerals. These gold minerals make me wonder how many of these beautiful mineral crystals were melted down to make the pile of gold in Fort Knox.

Chains

If you look at this image as composite and do not focus on individual chains, you will see the texture and color that compelled the photo. There are few things that catch my eye as much as this combination of color and texture.

Pearls

I wouldn't know if these were genuine or not, but they were priced as if they were real. I realize that some people love jewelry and especially pearls, but I guess I am not one of them. I do appreciate color and form. This display caught my eye.

Earrings

Carrying along with my theme of photographs of displays, here is a huge display of earrings. It is interesting to me, that when I was a lot younger, the fasteners would have been all screw mounts. today, screw mounts are extremely rare and all earrings are based on pierced ears. When my daughters were growing up, ear piercing was not nearly as prevalent as it is today and it was quite an issue when they got their ears pierced.

Jewels of Color

One of the things that are right most interested in showing in my photographs is the interplay of form and color. Although my preference is to use natural outdoor examples, I am also impressed by architectural details and in this case by the color and contrast of jewelry. I have mentioned before, the eye do not wear any type of jewelry, but I certainly recognize that wearing jewelry is a cultural phenomena. If you attend a conference such as the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show held every year in February, you will instantly recognize the jewelry is a huge part of our culture.

More Russian Dolls

Quoting from a website entitled Russian Crafts:

The principle of making dolls remains unchanged until the present time, keeping all the tricks of turning skill of Russian craftsmen. Usually a turner uses such wooden materials as lime and birch. Timber that is intended for the manufacture of dolls, usually is cut down in early spring, purified from the bark, leaving in some places of the log rings of bark to prevent during drying cracking of the wood. Prepared in this way the logs are stacked in piles, between them there is a gap for air flow. Usually timber is kept in the open air for several years to bring it up to a certain condition, avoiding not proper drying. Only an experienced master can determine the readiness of the material. Ready to process the logs are sawn into billets for future dolls. The doll blank overcomes though up to 15 operations in the hands of a turner before becoming a finished doll.

If you look closely you will see some of the dolls do not have "Russian" themes.

The Crystal Field

If you don't look closely this table of crystals looks like a tray full of cookies or candies. This is a typical display at one of the larger gem and mineral shows. One year, you will see tables of this type of mineral and the next year they will have all vanished. What happens, is that in mind somewhere in the world will find a deposit of a particular type of crystal which will go on to the market and be bought up by wholesalers. So the entire deposit shows up at one year's gem and mineral show and by the next year they have all been sold or have become so uncommon as to be unnoticeable. We've noticed over the years that it is a really good idea to buy up the minerals that appear to be abundantly available. In subsequent years, we have seen prices skyrocket for the same mineral specimens.

Made in Peru

 One of the interesting things about gem and mineral shows, is the abundance of small and carved stone animals and other figures. Most of these come from places where handiwork is less expensive. I've never been quite sure what the market for these carvings is but it seems like there always a number of vendors selling items such as the one shown in the above photograph. I thought that the photograph was interesting because of the patterns in the colors rather than the subject matter per se.

Russian Dolls

These are commonly called Russian Dolls. The name in Russian is Matryoshka doll.  they are known as a set of nesting dolls made of wood containing identical or differently painted smaller dolls in decreasing sizes. The first Russian nested doll set was carved in 1890 by Vasily Zvyozdochkin from a design by Sergey Malyutin, who was a folk crafts painter at Abramtsevo. See Wikipedia: Matryoshka doll. 

Yellow and More

Not all crystals are well shaped and distinctive. This type of crystal coating is sometimes called a druzy or druse  coating of fine crystals on a rock fracture surface, vein or within a vug or geode. They are actually quite common however crystals of this color and size are at a premium and command rather high prices at gem and mineral shows.

Light and Darkness

These are ordinary string lights that look like jewels on a black background. It is interesting to take such a photo with a handheld camera and have it come out in focus.

Crocoite Delight

This is really a mineral specimen. It is really this color and this particular one was about two feet across. Can you imagine digging this out of the ground without breaking all those tiny crystals? I can't imagine how it is done.

14K Gold

Gold jewelry is interesting to try to photograph. It doesn't look very gold colored because it absorbs the light from its surroundings. This jewelry has a lot of shadows and inset stones so it is not a clearly gold as it might be.

Rough Pearls

There must be many more of these very irregular and rough pearls out there than there are perfectly round ones because these were on sale at very low prices.

Avoiding Leaks

This is one of those images that speaks for itself. What can I say? I am not really into decorating but this sure looked more utilitarian than decorative to me.

Amber Jewelry

In wandering around the huge Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, I decided to try taking some detail shots. These are very eclectic and if you don't know what you are looking at sometimes very puzzling. So here is one of the shots. There are going to be plenty more. I took a fancy to these jewelry displays because I am totally out of the jewelry market. I am way too nervous to wear even a watch any more. So by some sort of reverse psychology I liked the colors and design but would never buy any.

The Heart of the Wood

How much time would it take to turn wood to stone? I think of how many things in life take such a brief moment. Then I think of how long it takes to turn wood to hard, shiny stone. I stare into the heart of the wood and wonder how long it takes to turn wood into red, yellow and brown eternally hard stone. What time I spend thinking is less than the time it takes wood to turn to stone.

Girders

I live by the light of the sun streaming past my window. I watch the ski grow pink in the morning and turn rosy in the evening. Every day is another progression of light and shadow. There are brief interludes of rain and wind and storm, but the sky is always the same and there is a always another sunrise and another sunset. This will continue even when I am gone.

Gilded Leaves

Sometimes when I am walking, I find that the details are more important than the big picture. Our lives are like a series of images played at real time and consisting of details. Everything passes onto the reel and the only thing left is the memory of the details. This day of taking pictures came out in the details.

The Violin Player

I don't really understand the idea of all the skeletons. According to Wikipedia, scholars trace the origins of the modern Mexican holiday to indigenous observances dating back hundreds of years and to an Aztec festival dedicated to the goddess Mictecacihuatl. OK, I'll buy that, but I still don't get the skeletons.

Reflections in Yellow

This building is the same one with the yucca which is located just around the corner out of sight. You might notice that, depending on the light, the yellow color of the building changes from almost gray to brighter yellow. Again, this is in Tucson, right downtown in the oldest section.

Yucca on a Yellow Wall

Here I thought the contrast was the key issue. The blue of the yucca contrasting with the yellow wall is a commentary on the natural color vs. the more complex yellow paint. I took this in the oldest part of Tucson, where the houses and other buildings are at least 100 years or so old with some much older.

Vast Spaces

No photograph can really convey the immensity of the landscape on the Colorado Plateau. Most of the geologic features are canyons and so looking across the empty spaces you see nothing but a low line of cliffs, if that. Of all the places I have been around the world, I feel most at home on this high Plateau in the middle of nowhere.

Colorado Plateau Reality Check

You get so many photos of beautiful mountains and sandstone monoliths. What you are missing is the development and power plants spewing pollutants into the pristine high Plateau atmosphere. This happens to be mostly steam, but the other particles are there and the visibility in the area has markedly decreased.

Patterns in the Snow

I am very visual. I see patterns everywhere. This looks like a person's shadow, standing with his head towards the camera. Snow is quite interesting to an old desert dweller. It seems to be an anomaly, water that doesn't evaporate immediately and is cold rather than hot.