A slow recovery: The Woolsey Fire

December 25, 2018 Paul CervantesLeave a comment

The Woolsey Fire’s destruction is widespread and sobering. But, the slow recovery has already begun as evidenced by the wisps of grass that have sprouted throughout the burn area.

There is our time.

There is geologic time.

Then there is the time the Earth takes to heal after a fire. It falls somewhere between the two extremes but it surely comes more slowly than we would like.

It will be interesting to be a witness to the recovery…to see what species come back the most quickly and in greatest number and density.

Nature is stubborn and clever and I look forward to seeing her work in these areas I know so well.

My novel is done, done, done.

December 23, 2018 Paul CervantesAmsterdam, Creative Process, Creative Writing, ebook, Heroin Addiction, Ideas, Kindle, Novel, Self-Publishing, Steve Earle, Writing2 Comments

My novel is done. No, you can’t go buy it yet.

I’m preparing it for submission to a handful of publishers and it turns out they don’t fancy looking at books that are already in the throes of a self-publishing campaign.

I’m quite certain that’s where my book will end up and that’s OK by me. I’m glad I wrote it. It took a lot longer than I had hoped but I learned so much about the kind of long-form writing thought that a novel requires that I now regard the span of time as something of a necessity. That’s another way of saying I’m a slow learner.

I had written a great deal over a very long period of time before I decided to write a novel. Now that I’ve done it, I want to do another and to do a better job of it. I can look back on my book and can see it clearly for its good and bad. Something about writing it broke away a kind of resistance that had set in to that kind of writing ambition. Suddenly, writing a book seemed like something I could do and do with meaningful results.

I think often of Steve Earle’s dark years in Amsterdam when he was addicted to heroin. When he had finally clawed his way back into the light, he had a creative boom of sorts, making records and writing books and plays with a speed and intensity he never showed before. He attributed the burst of work to his release from smack.

Even though I wrote for both pay and fun I avoided the idea of writing a book until I hit my 50s. Rather than being addicted to heroin I had instead succumbed to the belief that I didn’t have anything to offer; that I wasn’t that kind of writer. It turns out that I am…

So, I’m grateful that I simply had the idea to write my book. Obviously and as always, it is the idea that made everything possible.

Now I have another idea and it’s led me start writing my second next novel.

Here’s hoping it moves along faster than the first one.

Horizontal Banding in Untitled 29

December 23, 2018December 23, 2018 Paul CervantesFlickr, Flickr Explore, Horizontal Banding, UntitledLeave a comment

Someone at Flickr was kind enough to point out that Untitled 29 suffered from horizontal banding. I hadn’t noticed it, to be honest, but there it was staring me in the face.

Kind of…

Actually, even after the banding’s presence was called to my attention its presence didn’t really matter to me. Still, I fooled around with the photo for a while in an attempt minimize the banding’s impact.

Untitled 29 Small

Nope, it’s still not close to perfect but I really don’t have a preference between the original version and this one. The photo still means what it means to me. It would be the same if it had been shot on film and the negative was scratched. Absent its qualities and faults I still like the photo and, to me, the photos of an amateur photographer only need to please one person and I think you know who that is.

Obviously, I’m not one to hide work that might be less than my best. I believe we learn from our successes but often much more from our failures. I try my best with each photo I take in the very same way I try to use words to precisely convey my thoughts and feelings, yet knowing my efforts will often fall short.

I once heard a writing coach say something that I think about often.

I’m paraphrasing here but this is the essence of what he said:

Let’s say that in your career as a writer you will write seven novels, three of which you will eventually regard as good. There’s a natural temptation to ask, why did I even bother to write the four novels that turned out badly? That’s missing the point: The bad novels had to be written so that the lessons that created the three good novels could be learned. Try as you might, you cannot decide or decree to only do good work. You can only work and hope for some success.

I take writing seriously. As much as I love photography, I know somewhere in my bones that I will never reward it with the kind of devotion needed to create genuinely good work. Still, that’s what is so cool about photography. You don’t always need to be that good to take enjoyable and sometimes beautiful photographs. And, sometimes, the rewards for a humble photograph come as a happy surprise long after it was taken.

And, so it is with Untitled 29, horizontal banding or not

Untitled 29 is in Flickr Explore

December 10, 2018 Paul CervantesCartago, Cartago Wildlife Area, Coso Range Wilderness Area, Death Valley, Eastern Sierra, Flickr, Flickr Explore, Nikkor Micro 60 f/2.8, Nikon, Nikon D300, Untitled, US 395Leave a comment

I missed this one somehow and now that it’s managed to catch my eye, I actually rather like it. It has a certain geometry of composition that fits with the way I doodle. It would seem that what my brain envisions as a doodle sometimes works its way into my photos.

No idea if that’s good or bad.

Interestingly, it was shot with my beloved if humble Nikkor Micro 60 f/2.8. This is a somewhat underrated lens that I find to be wonderfully balanced. It’s lightweight, sharp and the front element is set so far back from the end of the barrel that it’s never even crossed my mind to put a filter on it.

Flickr’s Explore algorithm snatched it up yesterday and for once I concur with its inscrutable judgment.

Untitled 29

Testimonials

December 5, 2018December 5, 2018 Paul CervantesLeave a comment

Even more so than my other photos, these three are presented not for their photographic competence but rather as testimonials to what beauty remains after the Woolsey Fire.

I have not yet had the courage to head into the burn zones, to see what can be seen beyond the 101 freeway but I know the destruction is both awesome and terrible.

A good friend of mine spends much of his day riding (or is that racing?) on the canyon roads between the valley and PCH. The other day he told me he was depressed and without thinking I asked him why.

He said, “Because it’s all burned.”

I wanted to hit him with a philosophical way of looking at it but I stopped myself. In my heart I knew that I and many others felt exactly the same kind of deep loss that he did.

Others, of course, have lost more than can be imagined.

It all got me thinking once again about what we still have here in our corner of Los Angeles County. The answer is that we have a lot. The best of it now feels even more fragile and under threat than it did just a few weeks ago.

Anyway, I present these three images as small and humble testimonials to the beautiful hills and grasses and trees that are still here for us to enjoy.

Healing takes a long time.

Testimonial 1 Testimonial 2 Testimonial 3