LookingLand

yesterday gwyn_hwyfar asked me if my old photos were real and so i thought i would share one of my "realest" photos with you. this one is from 1859, given to "Rose" by her brother "Will". although the image itself (an ambrotype) has a fracture (which was how i managed to get this cheap once upon a time), the rest of the case is in pretty sweet condition. the case is gutta percha (a very early form of plastic), which didn't tend to hold up well. the note behind the picture is written in pencil in the tiniest print imaginable (the case itself is 2 x 2 inches ~ very small!). the lock of hair is light brown, baby-fine, and tied with a piece of brown thread (which is exceptionally well preserved).




closeups under the cut and a transcription of the note (though it's pretty legible, i think): ( i wanna see the pixtures! )

i wonder what happened to Will. he's a young fella. did he go to war? was he a yankee or a reb? who is the mysterious "S" he refers to? a girlfriend? a pal? always fun to speculate.

and as we drift along
i never fail to be astounded by
the things we'll do for promises
and a song....

the bad news is my home internet is still being a butt. i can get online, but doing anything is pretty much a test of patience. the good news is, without the distraction of the internet, i am getting a lot of other work done (ha!).

decided that regardless of my pitching and rolling about writing vs. drawing, etc., i am pushing forward with Reconstruction in its sorta adapted sequential form (oh why not?). though i feel that my limited drawing skills and impatience with the progress make for alarmingly irregular panels, there are some things that just seem to me more starkly obvious in the comic-version as opposed to the written one. for instance, the fact of Lewis being so dang small, which i don't think gets emphasized enough in the book-as-written thus far (i will be see what i can do to remedy that).

See, Lewis is small. really really small. not only small because he's just sixteen, but small for sixteen, even. he could easily pass for 13 or 14 (leastways that's how i have always imagined him: downright runty at the outset). He's small enough that Morse develops a habit of resting an elbow on his shoulder as though he were a podium when they are lollygagging around camp.



unfinished inked sketch (with a quick tint thrown over it)
of Lewis in the Richmond arcade with brokers O.B. and Payton.
in a drawing, it's hard to miss the fact or allow yourself to forget how small he is.

in other project news: i've been thinking about In Pursuance of Said Conspiracy. i've been rather hard on it and myself (pawing through the last three drafts i see it's not nearly as awful as i thought it was). i don't like reading historical fiction about real people and i don't like writing it about real people. but i think i could do this without disrespecting the history if i stick mostly to the facts. i don't mind presenting the story in a context that has an agenda, but i would like to make sure it's an agenda supported by facts. dunno when i will go back to work on this. maybe in the spring when i can count off another 82 days.



sometimes images become so iconic that you
stop thinking of the people in them as real people.
these very rare images of Booth remind me that he was
a human being, whatever his (rather serious) faults.
quoth GAT: "None of the printed pictures that I have seen
do justice to Booth. Some of the cartes de visite
get him very nearly"
i don't think i would ever write a story about Booth specifically (as a living person). there are often days when i think the whole cast and crew ~ from the man in the funny hat to the least witness at the trial ~ has been abused quite enough down throughout the age.

most of my friends who are innerested in this sort of thing have prolly seen it already, but it being thanksgiving and monday being the anniversary of the gettysburg address, i thought i would share this article (brought to my attention by the fabulous christastrophe).

for those of you who feel skeptical about the fidelity of these images, the 19th century photographic process has the sharpest resolution of any, ever. even today's technology cannot beat it. you can make a billboard from a 19th century image and it will retain its crispness. also, one point they make in the article is to note how rare pictures of lincoln are. comparatively speaking, that's not entirely true. yes, they are rare, but having 130 images of anybody in that era was pretty rare. certain famous (and/or vain) people were enormously photographed (gen. custer, edwin booth). lincoln was the first president who was really widely photographed. so 130 isn't a bad number, considering.

so check out these new exciting possible lincoln finds right here and judge for yourself (go to the link where they show the images) whether you think it might truly be the man in the funny hat amidst the crowd at gettysburg on that hallowed day. i think there's a pretty dang good chance that it is. and even if it isn't, there's a ton of wonderful little details throughout the image ~ like a young boy holding a rifle closer in the foreground, soldiers hanging out chatting, mounted officials on horseback with fancy sashes, etc. just really cool stuff.

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here,
but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here
to the unfinished work which they who fought here
have thus far so nobly advanced.



lincoln at gettysburg?
november 19, 1863



the original photo ~ very poor contrast here
he's way, way in the back on the horizon.
otherwise happy thanksgiving to my american flisters! (and thankgiving in general to all!) i am shutting down for the holiday and i leave you with washington's original thanksgiving proclamation ~ because i love it so: click me and read me!

see you next week!

: D

well it's come to this:

i found Preston day before yesterday (insert long explanation of how i'd somehow lost him in the move). as i set him on the shelf with isaac and hollis, the last two peeps to come into the fold, it struck me like a wet trout between the eyes: the gang's all here. i've managed to get the full cast assembled. finally. after 18 years.

and having, just last week, at long last answered the age-old question of "who's hollis?", i feel that i am plumb out of excuses to put off finishing this project and getting it off my table. narrative pov is no longer an issue. i'll mishmash if need be. or just write it straight. who cares ~ it'll come out as it comes out.

so the absolutely final question is how to write this bugger in terms of scope. and i'm gonna let you decide (way to take the pressure of responsibility off my shoulders ~ wooo!).

: D

[Poll #928167]



from Gallery Tokyo.com

tomorrow is pay day and i have a long-standing tradition of blowing my first paycheck. unfortunately i have so many bills that this is not going to be feasible this time around.

however ~ my contract paycheck will be coming by next week and though i can't afford to blow most of that either, i have judiciously decided that i can at least uphold a promise i made over a year ago, and set forth to adopt Hollis into my fold.

he'll cost me all my mad money and i will feel guilty for doing it, but i can't not have him (this is my compulsion, see?)

( more about Hollis than you ever wanted to know ~ and a picture )

anyway, i sent the site who's got him an email saying i wanted him. let's see if he's still available.

(crosses fingers)

~ i've been goofing off (naturally) ~ and i just had to post this because it's so adorable.



i'd forgotten how cute they look together. i did a wee bit of touching, but it really didn't need much.

: D

somehow i knew if i just sat still, had some fried cheese, and stopped being a spaz, it would come to me: the one "special" nook i might have tucked the photos into.

~ and sure enough, there they were in the secretary, all neatly piled and waiting to be put away proper (begging the question: why didn't i put them away proper to begin with?) ~ hahahahaha.

anyway, i ran a quick scan of the very very very important tintype and managed to get a better image (not perfect, but you can see the beers on the table better, and that they are holding cards, etc.) ~ i love the tinted pink cheeks in this image. they all look so rosy for being a bunch of pipe-smokin' thugs.

expect to see this picture in a redux when i get done making "adjustments" to it for the story. mwhahahaahaha ~

: D

~ let me count the ways.

i've had this image laying around the house forever. it's a tintype circa 1860s (definitely wartime, since the subject is in uniform). like most images of this era, it's dark, discolored, and i don't expose it to light and the elements very often (keep it in a case, put away). i'd been wanting to scan it forever, but have been wary of taking it out of its case, etc.

today i got bold and scanned it, casing at all. the scan came out okay, but very dark. i took it into PhotoShop and brightened it up. the color tinting on the original image is incredible (complete with gold flecks on the buttons, etc.) ~ much of that, i desaturated out, however since i didn't want it in this particular scan. i saved a copy of the actual image (on the right, reduced), and this is the PhotoShopped version which is not only distinguished by the toning down of the color and lightening the image, but, most notably, i removed the subject's hat.

now, this is not an easy thing to do. But I have a carte de visite of this particular man and his wife, likely taken in the late 60s or early 70s, so i was able to reconstruct his head and hairline, etc.

it's pretty flippin' amazing what you can do with a Wacom in PhotoShop.

the constrast isn't perfect on this, i'm still tinkering, but i just wanted to squeal a little since it's taken me so long to do this and the results have me very pleased.

: D