The State of Utah Wine Affairs Bureau, 2008

We are happy to present the state of the Lamberti Bocca Noir grape harvest for the 2008 growing season. One of the most successful harvests in recent times, we pulled in a hair under 150 pounds of grapes, de-stemmed and crushed for 16.6 gallons of must for the initial fermentations.

This is up from 70 pounds in 2006 (a late season hail storm damaged about a quarter of that crop) and 48 pounds in 2007 (birds, heat, and ???). This year the protective nets got on early, and the vines were well maintained. For the record, Growing Degree Days (10 C base, March 1) was 3165 at time of harvest (Sept 28, 2008). Heating Degree Days (SLC station since July 1) cumulative was 27 at time of harvest compared with 7 last year. For what it's worth. More stats to come.

Likewise, a good turnout of wine grape pickers, destemmers, and stompers. More photos of the 2008 Wine Stomp can be seen below:

The Passion of the McCain

To celebrate my short film "The Passion of the McCain" breaking 60,000 combined views across YouTube and Machinima.com, this post will mirror some of the design decisions and content for the film. The recent increase in views is largely due to the inclusion of the film in the 2008 Cambridge Film Festival, where "Passion" was invited to be screened as part of a special program on machinima styles and techniques. Reviews so far have been mostly positive.

It is interesting to read the comments on YouTube, et al where available. Those who approach the film from a typical machinima's viewer's perspective (i.e. a typical gamer) tend to not like it, because it hides the underlying video game characters and style. they tend to prefer films made wholly within a particular game's reality, which is nonsense, as most games tend to have a fairly boring and conformist world-view. Shoot this, dodge that, escape[ist] here. I, on the other hand, believe that because it hides the underlying game, it is inherently better than stock characters in stock situations. Halo's Master Chief doesn't event have a visible face, so how can he act?

Regardless, the film was fun to put together. Take a look for yourself here, here, here, or below:

Men Sawing Lumber

Abstract Photo #5

One in a series that I put together a long time ago, when I did more film and darklab work.  Anymore, such an image would be produced entirely in Photoshop.  Even design work that ought be created at least from "real" elements are more quickly and efficiently made from scratch.  Is this a good thing?  Probably.  I'm no purist.  Here the trick is figuring out how I accomplished the image entirely analogue.     

Late Summer Dragonfly

The Odonata order comprises dragonflies and damselflies.  Dragonflies are well-regarded in Japanese culture - on par with Japan's and other cultures attitude towards butterflies.  In western cultures and in early United States, the dragonfly was understood to either sew your eyelids shut during sleep, or simply pluck your eyes out entirely.  There are no documented reports of anyone ever waking up to his or her eyelids sewn shut, but one must be ever vigilant.  These creatures of the "night" are only waiting for their chance, and then it's off with our eyeballs. 

Full Harvest Moon

Also called the Wine Moon, the Harvest Moon heralds the coming harvest and the autumnal equinox in one weeks time.  The hops are growing heavy, the grapes will be crushed in two weeks, and grappa and apples in the time afterwards.

Comb Ridge Panorama - Southern Utah

From National Geographic: 

Geologically speaking, the Comb is a monocline—a single fold in the Earth's crust created by a cataclysmic slippage of deeply buried tectonic plates some 65 million years ago. That upheaval has left a scar slashing across the desert landscape of the Southwest: a sharp ridge of sandstone that stretches almost 120 miles (193 kilometers) unbroken from just east of Kayenta, Arizona, to some ten miles (sixteen kilometers) west of Blanding, Utah.

The scale of the Comb is not colossal: Its ridgeline looms only from 300 to 900 feet (91 to 274 meters) above the plains, and shallow washes surround it on either side. But what the crest lacks in height, it makes up in ruggedness. No smooth arête, the ridge swoops to sharp summits and dips to V-notch cols with relentless regularity. To hike the Comb is to run a gauntlet of up-and-down severities, always at an ankle-wrenching, sideways pitch. There is not a single mile of established trail in the Comb's reach, which is one reason why no humans, to our knowledge, have ever traversed its length. We thought we should be the first.

Read more about Comb Ridge, or see a photo gallery of the surround southern utah area, including Arch Canyon, Mule Canyon, and Valley of the Gods.

Native American Woman on Horse with Travois and Child

This is an incredible image, that shows a Native American woman on a horse, pulling a travois and child.  There are not many other details in the image to suggest a time and place, other than the (relatively) modern building and corral in the background.  I image 1900's-1910's given the timeframe of other photos in this batch, but other than that it is anyone's guess.

At The Sideshow (Utah State Fair)

Not featured in the sideshow, but present nonetheless: fanatic evangelic scrapbookers, a AK-47 carved out of wood, $16 lemonades with nary a lemon to be found, 9-5 pencil mouse pushers from Midvale thinking they have better lives than carnies, funnel cake, bulging dairy cow mammary veins, someone singing a capella at the Crest Toothpaste booth, all the booths by the main sponsor - an LDS apocalyptic (i.e. The Second Coming) preparedness organization - featuring food storage buckets, generators, and emergency scrapbook supplies to document it all.

If you survive it all (the fair, or the apocalypse), this is your reward:

Montana Panorama

I have a feeling Springhill Ranch leaves their sprinklers on all day for dramatic effect. Not really needed, but a nice touch nonetheless. Overlooking Bozeman, Montana, the foothill of the Bridger Mountains can be seen to the left, with the Hyalite Mountains in the center, and the Spanish Peaks range in the distance on the right.