My father George Waldman is a very accomplished freelance photographer. He's new to Maine, and has just put up his local web site. Photojournalist portraiture is a great strength of his work.
If you are an artist needing shots of yourself working, a gallery interested in showing photography, or an organization in need of an excellent photographer (light-stalker) I hope you'll give him a call.

http://mainephotojournalism.com/

Brief Highlights:

Since moving to Maine George has had this image of a dentist working in Bath appear in The New York Times
He did some "action shots" of Charlie and I in the the studio that we have used in all our Press and promo. They can be seen on my blog

Yesterdays "after" is Today's "before":

Here we go again! a second wave of wall abolishment has begun. Spring is in the air and thaw has spurned us to rip out walls that kept us so snug and warm through the winter, and let the sunlight in. Our river whose huge flats of ice could be heard breaking, cracking dramatically these past two months have finally thawed and in the morning huge chunks of ice wash out to sea. It's a tidal river so in the afternoon this unwelcome flotilla returns. Other things have thawed as well. Our tenants relationship broke with a seismic "F-YOU" which boomed out and could be heard throughout all houses. this was speedily followed by an exodus people (not all pets), and bare neccesities (any one need a chainsaw,TV, and computer? we'll handle the dog poo).
Crocus sprouted and their sunny blossoms followed today. There may be a blizzard in N Dakota, (and it actually snowed last night 45 min's inland of us), but right here and right now it is mud season, and it is glorious. Sunny and above 35 degrees with the prospect of other tulips and bulbs to follow. I stood outside yesterday surveying my Queen-dom. Feeling satisfied I dubbed it lovely. Eagles soared overhead, and in the distance I could hear the sound of mired wheels spinning as someone fought to extricate themselves from some muck. AH YES!

I have all kinds of respect for the Eskimo today. I already liked Inuit art work, now I realize I liked their architecture too. I've been thinking about building an igloo lately, and went online to get some tips...Wow. I'm not sure I'm up for it. There is exertion involved.
I now know why these guys were fine with eating whale blubber. According to our narrator they build this in 40 min.

Eat your heart out Andy Goldsworthy...it's a great design...
Anybody ever seen "living is round" ?



how about "fishing with John" ? This is where Jim Jarmusch got the narrator .

He describes igloo building at one point as a "ticklish situation".

For those of you who love art, animation, quirky stuff, are a wee bit compulsive,lack a day job let me introduce you to something I love:
from Amanita Design Team (creators of Samarost) comes (sometime soon I hope...first it was late 08 now expected early 09) :
http://machinarium.com/
http://vimeo.com/1627388 check out the video!

I thought I'd post this picture just to alert visitors to this cool treehouse slide show I found online. Just to the right in "what I've been reading" links:

Lately I've been reading about Pyrolysis which is basicly a way of breaking down organic material that is carbon neutral at least and actually carbon negative at best. Yes, for all you green people out there even your compost off-gases (less with worms).
Many gardeners are already into this technology in the form of "bio-char" My link to the right takes you to a project where they are trying to make fossil fuels with rubber and plastics...I ran this by my friend Eddie Bernard a glass-blower and equipment builder who runs his glass studio off chicken poop
The doggie is from his site...
He mentioned "gasification" which is when you drop a piece of paper in a glass bubble you've just blown. The bubble is still quite hot so the paper combusts with a curious effect: because of lack of oxygen gas is released through the opening..


It is really winter here now, and I find myself doing what I did last year at this time: researching plants and planning gardens. It's a nice time since you cant do anything else...well, snowshoeing.

Channeling:

I've spent quite a bit of time since moving to Maine noticing how water moves. We live on clay at the bottom of a hill on the edge of a river. Whatever comes down that hill rolls right past us and off into the river. We also have a lot of roof area which means we could be letting 50,000 gallons of water run off our roof. That's a conservative estimate. I've been studying the way the water moves down the hill, and it's just amazing.



Since we have clay it just digs itself these super highways underground.The gound dries up suddely and then you see a little fountain shooting up somewhere lower down. I've started to do some irrigation and plan how to move all this water we have through areas where have plants that love water. I'm interested in lessening the run-off.
I'm very much aware of how many people in the world die because of bad water. We have this amazing amount of it that pours right past us.
I've been reading about how to move water around and store it. Most amazing are landscaping practices where with a berm or a swale you create and area that holds water (like a camel). It actually could be easily made by accident by someone making a swale to lead water off their land.
We have dug a ditch here to help us out with this river we live downhill from. It works hard and takes alot of water off our property. I'd like to feed plants with it. I've left the ditch open because I can see it working, and also it slowly fills with clay. There are ancient systems of french drains, and irrigation.
I think we will have ours be "living" Willows and other thirsty plants.

Gaultier I frigging love you!

Oh, I love paris in the fall! I imagined myself giddily telling someone "I'm going to Paris for the Fall fashion shows". Hey I've got the NYTimes!

I haven't been able to keep up with all the shows, but I find the new stuff outrageous, and real exciting. I know your thinking "what does this have to do with gardening?" Well, I'm not really a gardener yet. Learning! Stay tuned...

ooh comme de garcon this year! Cest Super!