251 | Field Trip: Courtney Halowell

1988 | Point Loma Large-format Outing

I had to let Courtney go far too soon. He’s been living in my heart since long before his passing in 2011, and I recall him far more frequently than in these moments when he turns up yet again in my pictures.

Courtney was a high-energy guy. He came to my photography class with experience from his high school courses, but with quick expectations which seemed to shake his focus from learning at the next level. He did love custom trucks though, and vigorously poured his energy into his arresting but still roadworthy creations.

In one class, Courtney was only occasionally working, on a series of portraits, and he had gathered a few very fine ones. I had specified that the final portfolio (due in just a few weeks) was to be submitted as a fixed-sequence bound album of gelatin-silver prints, comprised only of photo paper. I encouraged him to make a few more portraits and try to get a good book done in the time he had left. And I reminded him that as a book, I expected him to give his project a title.

At his best under a deadline, he grabbed my young son’s refrigerator magnets from my office and ran into the darkroom. In a few minutes he came out with a photogram (“shadowgraph”) of the pieces of alphabetic plastic, darkly translucent like an x-ray, spelling out “2 OR 3 PEOPLE NOT KNOWN 2 ME” — the finished book, brief but bright, became an instant treasure in my mind.

During the next semester, Courtney's patience was tried in the large-format class which required him to work more methodically against his rapid-fire creative nature, and this really stretched him. He did make headway though, and one day he came to class enthused about a big custom car show soon to be held in Las Vegas. I encouraged him to take a view camera along and try the difficult task of rendering the fine reflective surfaces which his fellows fitted and finished onto their custom vehicles.

He came back with an immediate magazine cover to his credit, and then quickly rose into relationships and editorships with several automotive magazines. He made time to start up truck and car clubs, inspiring and assisting a great number of people in their art and craft and lives.

You just never know who is going to emerge from under that black focusing cloth…

250 | Cuernevaca

1979 | Cuernevaca, Morelos, Mexico

It was a special treat to drive the entire length of Mexico, from Arizona through the heartland, the capital, across the Mexican ishmus at Tehuantepec, and then up onto the ridge and into Guatemala, where the political boundary matched the ruler-straight change in topography; the neighbroing country to the south rose up vertically from a plain as we made the crossing. I remember seeing roadside farmers just after that, reaching out horizontally while weeding their steep fields.

▹ Two new books arrived on a pallet today: AVALON ORIGINALS: Catalina Island Survivors (following the evolution of tiny houses), and OB WALKABOUT: The Curious Neighborhood of Ocean Beach (a resident’s view of memorable details in a small coastal town).

These and others are available online at https://www.mixeddocuments.net/books

249 | Returning to Chapultepec

1979 | Mexico City

Here’s another old one from that trip. A fine drizzly day.

I remember exiting the Metro station at Parque Chapultepec, carried along by the dense, vibrant crowd, with no room at all to make a picture. I asked my experienced companion Alberto what kind of event might have been scheduled: “Is the Pope coming to town today?”

“No,” he said. “It’s Sunday.”

1979 | Chapultepec, 2022 scan

▹ It’s nice to be able to find these bits of film and run them through my “new” scanner. It’s almost as old as the Nikon model I bought in 2004 for the first scan at top, but several orders of magnitude finer. My intuition suggests that the Imacon was engineered for NASA to digitize the many thousands of rolls from the astronauts’ field work. I’ll look that up.

248 | Back to Chapultepec

1979 | Mexico City

Here’s another old ‘“extra” Kodachrome. Over the years, it has been difficult to edit those things in their little cardboard mounts with the nifty bundle-loader on my vintage Carousel projector, or on a wonderful modern LED light panel. Inspection and comparison felt awkward and inconclusive to me. So I’ve been scanning the “maybe” slides one at a time and trying to see what might truly be there.

This one turned up recently, a context view of the family group I < posted earlier >. It has really grown on me; now it strikes me as much more than an establishing shot.

▹ Most of us discarded our out-take transparencies early on, as they always seemed to get in the way. Unique among artists, the brilliant Bob Matheny (1929-2020) came up with this solution. Flabbergasted, I bought the piece.

247 | I Don't Know

1978 | Borrego Springs, Eastbound on CA-78

I’ve been keeping this old transparency around for forty-four years. I haven’t held onto too many of these, but when I found it again today, I thought it would be good to give it another chance. I remember pulling over, and seeing the light going as soon as I set the handbrake, but I wandered around in the feeling of the time in that space, making a resigned, quiet effort.

What I feel today is that I seem to have gotten a good picture — one that crystallizes not the scene, but the experience of seeing it.

246 | Light Work

2022 | Studio City, California

It’s good to know Charles Roberts, a fine architect who deeply understands that good projects are designed to be lived in. For us, a large part of that living is the air flowing insensibly from the garden through the house and refreshing the upper level. And even more essential to our lives, all through the day, is how the light comes in and plays its games on the interior surfaces.

▷ My friend Rex Heftmann, a graphic designer of great invention and clarity, expresses success in two, three, or four dimensions in this way: “A good design is better than you think.”

245 | Across the Line

1991 | View across the Colorado from Bullfrog City to Laughlin

The Lower Colorado River marks the state border between Arizona and Nevada, and even lower down, between Arizona and California; Nevada is a geographical wedge driven between the two others. Historically, Laughlin was the first place travelers could stop to gamble on their way from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. The little town there was purchased by Don Laughlin, who started out with twelve slot machines, and earned enough of other people’s money to build access highways, a substantial bridge, and an international airport to support his growing enterprise.

Recent reports show that the Laughlin casinos bring in almost half as much pit-gaming revenue as the downtown facilities of Las Vegas, and even greater slot-machine revenue than downtown.

244 | Curiosities

2021 | Ocean Beach

I have been walking around Ocean Beach for fourteen years now, often with a neighbor who enjoys seeing the changes in the town she has inhabited for forty-four years; she often chooses a route to include a favorite detail, and I always see other things as well. The streets are engaging, but the alleys are particularly intriguing, with evolution always on display.

This material, easygoing but not casual, has accumulated into a significant archive. I think there might be a book here…oh, wait, it’s going on press next week!

243 | Avalon

2011 | Santa Catalina Island

The little village of Avalon, a planned square mile on a seventy-five square-mile island, twenty-two miles offshore, has been under development pressure ever since its compact layout was originally established.

The present surviving structures are not the original buildings of the old tent-on-platform tourist accommodations, but they clearly feel the wealth of greater Los Angeles flowing across the San Pedro Channel. It’s not easy for a photographer to keep up with the updates to each building, its changing neighbors, and looming hillside projects.

242 | Off-Side

2021 | Ocean Beach

San Diego has about twenty-eight miles of alleys, and they are common in the older neighborhoods. Some are rough, some utilitarian, some spare, some beautified. It’s all in the eye of the beholder.

But all of what you see in the back is not in the front, and residents enjoy a genuine street prospect with no garage blocking the view out, or the light coming in.