Happy Birthday, Bü!

I love these photos of my father-in-law (left) with his older brother, Peter, on or around his 2nd birthday (or perhaps on the 25th anniversary of the family bakery). Second oldest brother with 10 siblings, Friedrich celebrated his birthday again yesterday, on April 3rd. Here's a big shout!

The family business was making Michel Brot in Remscheid, Germany: hence the baker's caps and aprons. They worked a lot (too much) as children in the bread factory (maybe those little guys even made that cake;-) and Bü decided not to continue. I am always fascinated by the old family photos of the aunts and uncles when they were young.

Bü certainly knows good bread, though, which (by the way) is better in Germany than anywhere else I have ever been. The last time we visited, we had dinner in Freiburg im Breisgau with Bü's sister Ursi – devouring a loaf of "root bread" (shaped like a giant horseradish) that was perhaps the best I've ever tasted.

Friedrich enjoys yoga, photography, denken, listening to classical music, art (especially Chagall and Picasso), travel with Marlies, and conversation. Here's a Picasso to help send out our best wishes! (PS – in the sailor suit photo, his "I'm thinking" gaze is so totally like Jack's at that age...).

Gus Foster Panoramic Photography

A couple of years ago I was able to tour the studio of photographer Gus Foster, thanks to my friend Nor, who gathered together a group of artists and friends in Taos, New Mexico, where Gus lives. Yesterday's panorama view of Freiburg im Breisgau reminded me of that rich experience.

Born in Wausau, Wisconsin, Foster was curator of prints and drawings at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts before moving to Los Angeles (1972), and then Taos (1976), to work full time on his own images. Now he is a world leader and innovator in panoramic print photography, inventing cameras and darkroom equipment that allow him to make limited edition prints remarkable for their size, scale, and technical virtuosity. While the web gives you a sense of the geographical range of his work, it doesn't do justice to the images. Made from 5"x 25" negatives, they are as large as 36" x 144", mounted on a 100% rag paper substrate; even the process of mounting images that large requires extraordinary effort, equipment, and skill.

But what seems almost surreal about Foster's artwork is the effort that goes into getting those images into his specially-designed (not-at-all lightweight) camera in the first place. To photograph the highest mountain peaks in the United States he spent many years learning survival skills: tracking, map and compass navigation, swiftwater rescue technique, rope work, wilderness medicine, and "all the common sense 'do and don't' skills that often make that critical difference in the outdoors." He raised his own dogs to help him make the trips, and formed relationships with other mountaineers. Once in a while he'd climb to the top of a mountain and weather conditions wouldn't allow his camera to function, so he had to deal with dramatic disappointments of that kind, too.

Foster also made two "X Marks the Spot" walking tours, trekking across the United States to create a visual pun on the phrase "cross country." He walked from Mexico to Canada from May-September 2004, and then from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico from July to December 2005. There is a made-into-sculpture collection of coins and bills picked up along the road in his studio.

Foster probably knows the physical landscape of the Rocky Mountains as was well as anyone. He's also photographed fields of wheat, cranberry bogs, woods filled with aspen, the Rio Grande, and mountain peaks in other parts of the world. One of the panoramic images I found most interesting is a recent one of himself in a car on a highway with a truck bearing down, an old buggy, a motorcycle, even a walker along the side of the road (if I remember this right) – a visual history of real-time road travel caught in one still image, complete with a rare self-portrait of the photographer as he catches that fleeting 360+º moment in time.

What became clear to me during the studio tour is that Foster is a conceptual artist as much as anything else: he plays with very subtle and sophisticated notions of capturing time and space. Panoramic photography shows the movement of a camera in a full circle over time, so that the left and right edges of the image meet and overlap slightly, on a flat plane, after a time lapse.

Foster has an image of the Vietnam War Memorial, which is also designed as a physical panorama with overlapping edges in time: the entrance at either end of the tapered wall happens at a midpoint date in the war; to make the full circle you need to loop around. You walk to the deep center angle of the wall to find the point where the beginning and the end of the conflict meet.

Here is an image of Point Sublime in the Grand Canyon, Foster's Year 2009 Poster/Calendar; it makes a great gift.

The Web at its DIY Best: Make a Booklet with a Pocket

Every time I feel the need for easy breezy inspiration, I go over to Jessica Jones's website, How About Orange. I am never disappointed. Despite an irrepressible penchant for language, interest in inquisitive cultural criticism, and devotion to complex, psychologically edgy writers (those I would call the Shakers), I take my ease with the Makers: the patient, clever craftspeople of the world. Brilliant visual thinkers who get lost – and found – in the flow of construction and design.

It was a study of Jessica's website that first made me want to launch my own blog, where I imagined I would offer tutorials for various artful projects. It hasn't turned out that way – I am easily diverted and driven down more cerebral or abstract avenues of pursuit, by the Shakers. Nonetheless, I feel that Makers offer examples of the interweb at its best: they are generous, inspirational, and they know how to teach. Maybe elenabella can be a bridge between these two blog spheres. (Jessica has a cool Monday Giveaway at her site today: purchase a pack of her new birthday cards and get a free set of postcards, available through her Etsy shop.)

Last Friday, Jones posted instructions for making a booklet with a pocket. She scoured the web for good ideas, finding this one at Curbly, another good DIY site. She revised the project template slightly, and offers it here, a nice freebie. Both Curbly and How About Orange link to Peter Baumgartner's Atelier Für Papierdesign in Freiburg im Breisgau, Deutschland, where there are many more projects, as well as videos about bookbinding. You can even sign up to take classes there, in beautiful Freiburg, where Andreas went to University, and where beloved Tante Ursi lives.

Baumgartner's silent zen-like tutorial about making the booklet is very calming and nice – take a look! He has others as well, for a magic briefcase, bookbinding, Japanese bookbinding...the possibilities are endless. You could even make a booklet containing this cool panorama of Freiburg, with the famous medieval Freiburg Münster at the center. Or one featuring Jessica's postcards. (She has an exquisite instinct for color, doesn't she?) Enjoy! Such pursuits are very peaceful and pleasing.