Common Themes

In the spring of 2000, I drove around Houston, TX taking pictures of space-named businesses, signs, street names, you name it — I think I was aiming to make a collage, but it never happened, and a lot of the pictures (taken on my 35mm) weren’t really large enough or sharp enough to do much with. (I’d love to go back and try again, digital!) In any case, I have to admit, I never found anything as spectacular as this sign, captured as a Lomo print!

A dramatic and fun 8″ x 8″ Matte Photo Print of my lomo lc-a photo “Apollo Liquors” featuring a space age vernacular sign on the streets of the Austin, Minnesota!

I shot this colorful photo using my Lomo LC-A Camera and Kodak Ektachrome e100g film, then cross-processed it for this dramatic color and light effect! This is not a product of Photoshop; the results come from the magic of darkroom cross-processing and the beautiful Lomo camera!

This is a great sign, a fantastic photo, and a fairly accurate rendition of an Apollo Command & Service Module combo. I don’t know what Apollo has to do with liquor, but there you go.

At first glance I thought this art print was a watercolor of space. Turns out it’s not space, but ice:

This photograph is actually of bubbles rising on a frozen lake, but I’ve always imagined it to be a view of outer space.

Today’s Perspective post is of Pickering’s Triangle, as imaged from Kitt Peak, featured on APOD earlier this week.

Explanation: Wisps like this are all that remain visible of a Milky Way star. About 7,500 years ago that star exploded in a supernova leaving the Veil Nebula, also known as the Cygnus Loop. At the time, the expanding cloud was likely as bright as a crescent Moon, remaining visible for weeks to people living at the dawn of recorded history. Today, the resulting supernova remnant has faded and is now visible only through a small telescope directed toward the constellation of Cygnus. The remaining Veil Nebula is physically huge, however, and even though it lies about 1,400 light-years distant, it covers over five times the size of the full Moon. In images of the complete Veil Nebula, studious readers should be able to identify the Pickering’s Triangle component pictured above, a component named for a famous astronomer and the wisp’s approximate shape. The above image is a mosaic from the 4-meter Mayall telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory located in Arizona, USA.

As the Apollo 11 landing crew looked down upon the approaching landscape, 38 years ago today, I bet they never dreamed they’d see that view on these ties! A lunar alternative for next Father’s Day, perhaps?

Handmade with 100% silk, this tie features a detailed portrait of the moon’s surface across a black background. An excellent necktie for any space enthusiast!

Happy moonlandings!

HubbleSite — the public website of the Hubble Space Telescope — just won a Webby, which delights me. Moreso, I was delighted by their (new-to-me) Wall Murals gallery section, where they offer not just large-format downloads to print and hang on the wall, but full instructions on how to go about it, tips for printing and even framing! The first mural offered (at two sizes, at that!) is of the Carina Nebula, home of Eta Carinae, in black and white. It’s amazingly striking, and I hope this isn’t the last image they offer at this size!

I’ve been planning to take the large-format images I’ve downloaded and print them on giclée canvas (for stretching and hanging), but I like this idea of pieced murals just as well. Neat, neat neat neat!