Monthly Archives: January 2016

Fallout – Howard Hughes And Mr. House

Posted on by

Mr House post

The House always wins.

A goodly number of “Fallout” fans play through “New Vegas” without ever noticing the incredibly striking parallels between the Vegas Strip’s monolithic figure – the reclusive pragmatist Robert Edwin House – and the real-world filmmaker and aviation magnate Howard Hughes. Looking at the image above, it’d be a stretch to call it a coincidence. Mr. House’s biography draws heavily on the life and career of Hughes in a wonderful homage to mid-century America.

Let’s take a look at a brief breakdown of their respective biographies.

– – –

Robert House: Born to a wealthy tool magnate. He was orphaned at an early age and was cheated out of his inheritance. Despite this setback, he attended the Commonwealth Institute of Technology (inspired by MIT) and founded RobCo Industries, a robot manufacturing empire that plays a significant role throughout the “Fallout” series. His technical genius and prolific business skills made him a leading figure in aerospace engineering, Vegas Casinos & entertainment, and even reacquired the H&H Tool Company from his half-brother.

Mr. House survives the nuclear apocalypse in a cryogenic chamber of his own design. After two hundred years of preservation, however, he cannot risk leaving his isolation chamber; exposure to outside contaminants would prove deadly. He rules the whole of the New Vegas Strip remotely, using an army of security robots (securitrons) and has brokered treaties with regional tribes, who he has employed to repair and re-open The Strip.

In his corporate portrait (pictured above) we see Mr. House standing in front of one of his greatest robotic achievements, Liberty Prime, a building-sized robot designed to assist American troops in fighting the communist Chinese. Liberty Prime, known to anybody who has played “Fallout 3”, is central to the game’s plot. This portrait is a fun hint at the development and history of Liberty Prime that we don’t see until the follow-up game, “Fallout: New Vegas.”

Howard Hughes: Born to a successful inventor and businessman who founded the Hughes Tool Company in 1909. He demonstrated high aptitude in science and technology at a very young age. In particular, he become interested in engineering, building Houston’s first “wireless” radio transmitter at age 11. He used spare parts from a steam engine to make a motorized bicycle, took his first flying lesson at 14, and attended math & aeronautical engineering courses at Cal-Tech.

Both of Howard Hughes’ parents died when he was a teenager – his mother from complications of an ectopic pregnancy and his father from a heart attack. Hughes took his inheritance and became a Hollywood tycoon in the 1920s before forming the Hughes Aircraft Company. He broke several world air speed records, acquired and expanded Trans World Airlines, and revolutionized commercial air travel.

In later life, he began to evince symptoms of mental illness, including obsessive-compulsive disorder. He is remembered for eccentric behavior, impulsive spending, and an unhealthy obsession with germs. In November of 1966, Hughes traveled to Las Vegas and moved into the Desert Inn. He refused to leave the hotel and decided to purchase it in order to avoid conflict with the owners; he made the ninth-floor penthouse his personal residence. He subsequently purchased The Castaways, New Frontier, The Landmark Hotel and Casino, and The Sands.

He would be isolated for weeks at a time, handled common items with tissues to avoid contamination, and become obsessed with underground nuclear testing at he Nevada Test Site. He severely disapproved of nuclear testing, fearing exposure to radiation. Hughes is reported to have died on April 5, 1976, although no definitive record exists. He had suffered from severe malnutrition, likely the result of his obsession with microbes and infection, and a later autopsy stated kidney failure as the cause of death.

– – –

Wealthy parents, tool companies, aerospace engineering, eccentricity, isolation, and fear of contamination. The script writers at Bethesda Game Studios paid strict attention to detail, straight down to the Howard Hughes initials for the game’s H&H Tool Company. Beyond that, Mr. House has a security robot named Jane; we later discover that Mr. House has an unusual attachment to the automaton. This computer companion is likely a reference to Jane Russell, a starlet who was under contract to Howard Hughes for a brief period of time and was also one of his lovers.

Mr. House also has a peculiar hobby collecting snow-globes. There is a good chance that this is a reference to the snow-globe in the opening scene of Orson Wells’ classic film “Citizen Kane.” While not one of Hughes’ films, it is considered an undeniable classic contemporaneous with Hughes’ own cinematic achievements. Additionally, “Citizen Kane” took it’s inspiration from another business tycoon: William Randolf Hearst.

Certainly, much more could be scribbled down about these two – and believe me, I am deeply fascinated with William Randolf Hearst – but these are the major points. It is this level of creativity, appreciation of history, and flat-out whimsy that makes these games so phenomenally fun, and the franchise so unprecedentedly successful. I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for other interesting tidbits during my next play-through.

Cheers.

 

 

January 15 – On A Hill In Bisbee

Posted on by

01-15 Hilltop Bisbee post

“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”
~Aristotle

– – –

I decided to dig through the archives for today’s photograph. I have a mountain of pictures that not only haven’t been published, but have almost been forgotten. I like to sift through old files, look back on all the faces and scenery I’ve been blessed enough to photograph. When my motivation is languishing – when I’m feeling the impulse to create something but don’t know where to begin – going through old photographs always helps.

One of my favorite places in the whole world is the hilltop that overlooks Brewery Gulch and all of Old Bisbee. That old Arizona town is unspeakably picturesque. Years ago, I’ve been told, a local man – I wish I could recall his name – could be seen hauling materials, an armload at a time, up and down the rocky path that winds up the hill. And anybody who visits Bisbee eventually sees the big white cross on the hill. Most folks aren’t able to find the trail without being shown the way.

Local folks have added their own candles, keepsakes, statues, prayer flags and vials of water. A local woman placed her husband’s ashes up there. A small red dollhouse-sized memorial was fixed onto the hilltop when Derrick and Amy Ross – our Nowhere Man and Whiskey Girl – passed away a couple years ago. On the backside of the hill is a makeshift shrine for those who braved the desert heat in an attempt to cross into America. Toothbrushes, children’s shoes, baby bottles, rosaries, backpacks, sunglasses, and clothing have been collected and hung atop the rocks beneath the visage of the Guadalupe Virgin.

I hiked up there several times a week, not often running into other people. I never grew tired of the view. Just thinking about it, I can almost feel the sense of calm in the wind in the summertime, watching monsoon storms roll in from the distance. It is a very special place. I look forward to being there again soon.

PRINTS AVAILABLE HERE

How Gamers Won The Format War

Posted on by

REdBlu post

We all know who was victorious; the war was won almost a decade ago. There was a time, though, when two forces were vying for market share in what would become the next physical home media format. In the end, it all came down to movie studio support and the consumer electronic industry. What many people don’t know is how hard-fought the battle actually was, and the fact that a little black box developed by Sony Computer Entertainment dealt the most significant blow.

The seeds of the burgeoning format war began much earlier, but those seeds only began to take root in the summer of 2005. A discussion began around this time to develop a unified format, and the format war began in earnest when HD-DVD approached the BDA (the Blu-ray Disc Association) to combine efforts in developing these new technologies. When Toshiba and the HD-DVD camp insisted on too many changes to the format developed by the BDA, nascent cooperation transformed overnight into outright competition.

Paramount and Warner – two studios who had initially expressed interest in HD-DVD – were the first major entities to frustrate the competing formats by abandoning exclusivity, opting rather to release titles in both formats. Netflix also chose ambivalence over risk, announcing intentions to make titles available in both formats. At this stage, Universal Studios was the only major studio that remained solely in the HD-DVD camp.

Both formats were showcased at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show. HD-DVD appeared to have a significant time advantage, with an earlier release date by a two-month margin, but many tech-industry insiders lauded Blu-ray’s substantial capacity advantage. At the end of this run, there were a handful of malfunctions with both formats upon their initial release. HD-DVD hardware was recalled and Blu-ray titles presented atrocious film transfers and had significant audio playback issues. Replacements were ordered and film transfers had to be re-coded and discs replaced. These seem to be minor and forgivable missteps with first-gen products, but neither format gained significant foothold.

The true game changer? Gaming consoles.

In November 2006, Sony Computer Entertainment released the Playstation 3. Consumers balked at the $499 price-tag, the highest ever seen on a gaming console. They were also skeptical about the Playstation’s abilities as a Blu-ray player. Keep in mind that playing movies on a gaming console was a new and foreign concept. Playstation’s Blu-ray player ultimately proved to be the most affordable at that time, and out-performed other hardware options. The X-Box 360 – Microsoft’s competing console – required a $199 add-on to achieve what the Playstation had accomplished at the time of its release. The Playstation 3 outsold Microsoft’s add-on five-to-one. The impact of the Playstation 3 influenced the format wars magnificently.

During the lead-up to the Consumer Electronics Show in 2008, the two formats still appeared to be somewhat evenly matched, but many rumors abounded that major studios were preparing to drop the HD-DVD format. Just before the show, Warner dropped HD-DVD. Toshiba did not fire back in defense of their flagging product, but instead canceled their showcase altogether. After the Consumer Electronics Show Netflix, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart, all within a week of one another, also dropped HD-DVD.

The Playstation 3 and its owners are responsible for Blu-ray’s victory. Playstation 3 owners were buying Blu-ray movies. Their purchases accounted for a small fraction of home movie purchases, but it was enough to convince major movie studios that the Blu-ray format had the greatest potential. Additionally, the BDA was willing to offer anti-piracy features like BD+ and region coding, industry-protecting features that were left unaddressed by Toshiba. The intent of BD+ was written specifically to prevent unauthorized copies of Blu-ray discs and the playback of Blu-ray media on unauthorized devices. This technology, even today, has proved to stem the tide of pirated high-definition media compared to older formats like DVD.

Certainly, the competition between red (HD-DVD) and blue (Blu-ray) motivated improvements on the winning format. Many pieces of hardware, and a variety of major movie studios, preferred to remain purple during the competition, but one would inevitably win-out. Toshiba mounted a noteworthy effort, and forced the BDA to focus on transfer quality and authoring, intellectual property protections, and price reduction on hardware. Gamers and home-video film geeks responded to the BDA’s improvements and adopted the Blu-ray format, eventually closing the chapter on the debate between HD-DVD and Blu-ray.

Never underestimate the power of gamers. The video game industry has surmounted Hollywood in earned revenue, and the interactivity of game-based story-telling is catching the attention of a larger and larger number of consumers. This gaming industry, at this particular point in time, isn’t just ahead of the curve. It is the curve.

Fallout – Sputnik

Posted on by

sputnik post

One of the more obvious references in the “Fallout” universe would be the design of the game’s ubiquitous “eye-bots.” In “Fallout 3”, these little machines roam around The Capital Wasteland, clustering around developed and semi-developed human settlements. Their only apparent purpose is to broadcast propaganda messages from President John Henry Eden, a mysterious figure during a majority of the game’s narrative. The speeches themselves are inspirational, with themes of patriotism and national resolve; they borrow heavily from the very real speeches delivered by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Fireside Chats.”

There is only one eye-bot in the following iteration of the Fallout series, “Fallout: New Vegas,” which was designed to be a potential companion character.

Of particular note is the obvious similarity to the robot’s design and a little hunk of Russian metal we refer to as “Sputnik.”

Sputnik was the first artificial Earth satellite, launched by The Soviet Union into low orbit on October 4th, 1957. It was equipped with four external radio antennae to broadcast radio pulses. The surprise success of Sputnik’s launch precipitated the American Sputnik Crisis and ignited what would be known as the Space Race, accelerating Cold War tensions between the United States and Russia. The satellite burned-up upon reentry roughly three months later, on January 4, 1958.

Sputnik contributed to a new emphasis on science and technology in American schools. With a sense of urgency, Congress enacted the 1958 National Defense Education Act, which provided low-interest college loans for math and science students. The rise of the “missile gap” also became a dominant issue in the 1960 presidential race. Simply put, the event inspired a new generation of engineers and scientists, invigorated American aerospace engineering, and ushered in the Space Age.

Perhaps my favorite detail is that the word “Sputnik” was modified by writer Herb Caen when writing an article about the Beat Generation for The San Francisco Chronicle. Without “Sputnik,” we would never have heard the colorful term “Beatnik.”

January 14 – Farewell, Alan Rickman

Posted on by

01-14 Alan Rickman post

“Film sets and theatre stages are all far poorer for the loss of this great actor and man.”

~Daniel Radcliffe

– – –

I didn’t expect that I’d be doing this twice in one week. We recently lost three incredibly influential artists beginning with Lemmy Kilmister, who passed away on December 28th at the age of 70. Two days ago we said farewell to another iconic musician, David Bowie, whose final album was released days before his death. Today I opened my eyes and read the news about Mr. Alan Rickman, a remarkable talent in both the theater and on the silver screen. I understand that the wild popularity of the Harry Potter series has cemented Mr. Rickman as Severus Snape for an entire generation of moviegoers. To me, he will always be Hans Gruber.

Terrible sequels aside, Die Hard (1988) is a fantastic film, with technical innovations and a thoroughly entertaining plot. It was one of the first R-rated films I ever saw, too. The forbidden fruit of violence was deeply appreciated by a much younger version of myself. I was too young at the time to concern myself overmuch with the biographies of the actors. I was all about the action, the adventure, the story. This particular film has proved to wear well with age, too. I watch it a couple of times a year, I’d say, and it has yet to lose its luster. As a matter of fact, it may just have a seat at the top of the all-time best Christmas movies. But that’s just me.

Reading through biographies and obituaries today, it appears that he lived a scandal-free life. was well-loved by his colleagues, and was incredibly generous with his heart and with his time. He will be sorely missed.

As with Mr. Bowie, I have decided upon an illustration of Mr. Rickman in my favorite role (and one of his first major film roles).

Farewell, good sir. I know what I’ll be watching tonight.

PRINTS AVAILABLE HERE

Fallout – Bugsy Siegel

Posted on by

Bugsy post

In an enormously detailed alternate universe, a tapestry of historic allusions provides the skeletal structure for Bethesda Game Studio’s phenomenal long-form “Fallout” video game series. Woven into the story are a remarkable number of period-specific references. Such references serve to make game-play interesting, dynamic, and rewarding to the player. In this, the first of many posts, I think that the “Fallout: New Vegas” antagonist, a charismatic villain named Benny, is a decent jumping-off place.

Benny, voiced by “Friends” alum Matthew Perry, drives the player character into the surrounding world. Having been shot in the head by Benny and left for dead, the player character survives and begins to explore surrounding communities, hunting down the would-be assassin. The narrative architecture revolves around an alternate history, and “New Vegas” exists in a retro-futuristic depiction of 1950’s Las Vegas, borrowing heavily from the popular culture of 1950’s America. There’s little doubt that the casino chairman, gangster, and smooth-talking Benny is inspired by famed mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel.

– – –

Bugsy Siegel has gone down in history as one of the most feared gangsters in the history of organized crime. Founding member of the infamous “Murder, Inc.” group, he accumulated a significant monetary warchest in the east coast during Prohibition, earning a wage as both a hitman and enforcer. Once Prohibition was repealed in 1933, he turned his attentions to gambling, leaving his native New York in 1936 for the American Southwest. Handsome and charismatic, he aligned himself with developers of the Las Vegas Strip.

If the story feels familiar, look to Martin Scorsese’s 1995 film “Casino.”

Desiring a more “legitimate” lifestyle, Siegel relocated to Las Angeles, with a keen eye on a burgeoning adult playground in the Nevada desert. He had initially seen an opportunity to provide illicit services to crewmen working on the Hoover Dam, eventually assisting in the financing of a number of Las Vegas’ original casinos. In his most monumental coup, he eventually took over operations at the Flamingo Hotel in 1945 when its initial developer, William Wilkerson, ran short of funding. Bugsy’s lieutenants, during this time, were tasked with working on a business policy to secure all gambling in Southern California – a venture that never came to fruition.

With the Flamingo, Siegel would supply gambling, liquor, and food, and worked to land the biggest entertainers possible at the most reasonable price. He was confident these attractions would lure not only high rollers, but countless vacationers and businessmen. Wilkerson was eventually coerced into selling his shares under threat of death; he went into hiding in Paris soon after.

On the night of June 20, 1947, Bugsy Siegel sat with associate Allen Smiley in his girlfriend’s Beverly Hills home. He was reading the Los Angeles Times when an unknown assailant opened fire from outside. The assailant fired at him through the window with a thirty caliber military M1 carbine, striking him multiple times. He was struck twice in the head. Nobody has been charged with the murder, and the crime remains officially unsolved.

In “New Vegas,” Benny has similar ambitions. He is revealed to be a character with a ruthless past. He is comfortable with violence, and he has his eyes on ruling the whole of the New Vegas strip. A mobster in Las Vegas, silver-tongued and ambitious, it’s the checkered coat that seals the deal. The world of “Fallout” is populated with detailed references to our history, and this is just one of many, many others.

 

 

January 13 – Ars Gratia Artis

Posted on by

01-13 Ars Gratia Artis post

Art for its own sake. It’s a cavalier expression that has ascended the mantle to cliché. I understand that it follows, perhaps correctly, that this is the motto of the unserious artist or hobbyist. The expression is employed almost as a throw-away, to explain away unimaginative works. It can even seem dismissive, like the art student who mutters these famous last words after the critique: “You just don’t get what I do, man.”

I’ve met many artists who cloak themselves in intellectualism & self-aggrandizement, and gravitate towards the hot-button political issue of their day. If you dislike their work, then you must not be intelligent enough to appreciate its brilliance. Go to any university art department, throw a rock, and you’re bound to hit one. Their passion and intensity disappear pretty quickly once they leave the classroom. That great big world out there, and the time spent trying to cobble together a living, extinguishes the ambitions of a lot of young artists. This is a sad fact of life. But consider the possibility that it also separates the wheat from the chaff. Some people go to art school because it’s the cool thing to do before graduating and going to work for the family business. My studio art classes were filled to the brim with people who had no interest in pursuing a career in the arts, and my education suffered because of them.

That being said, I believe in art for art’s sake. It’s a declaration that has lost its meaning through repetition, possibly the result of our current social or political climate. Our leadership often disregards the arts as being impractical, unproductive, and unimportant. The National Endowment for the Arts has a long history of falling under attack. Attempts are made, routinely, to defund arts programs; in public education, it’s generally understood that when budgets are cut, the arts are the first to hit the chopping block. The arts aren’t mentioned on capital hill much, either. When discussing education infrastructure, our leaders have been focusing heavily of STEM education (science, technology, engineering, and math). What we fail to realize, time and again, is that creativity and creative problem solving are integral to each one of those disciplines.

Trying to make something where there was nothing before requires a kind of risk. Risk of failure and embarrassment. But risk is critically important in order to develop skill. The act of creating – be it a haiku or a bar napkin doodle, a piano melody or The Mona Lisa – is an instinctual behavior. It’s part of what makes us human. When we talk about culture, we typically aren’t talking about politics or GDP – usually we’re talking about music and dance, architecture, literature, religious artifacts and great big paintings and sculptures. We are all artists, but our creative instincts are all-too-often beaten out of us by our education, by a political and social climate that devalues or disregards it.

Today’s picture is a photograph intentionally taken out-of-focus. I layered another photograph on top to add texture. It is a photograph in the most basic sense, in that it’s a two-dimensional image of color and light. Like all abstract artwork, it is in no way functional, and serves no other purpose than to be looked at. The hope is that my audience finds it interesting to look at. The hope is that it sparks a memory or stirs an emotion. The beauty part is that this image can mean a million things to a million people, and I can appreciate that kind of ambiguity from time to time.

Until tomorrow, I hope you have a creative day.

PRINTS AVAILABLE HERE

January 12 – Shawnee At Dusk

Posted on by

01-12 Edge Of Town post

“Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.”
~Henry David Thoreau

– – –

The light is different in the winter here in Kansas. The earth grows cold and colorless. Leaves fall and die. The grass turns grey and lays down. We wrap our bodies in cloth and strap on boots; we remove ourselves from the world, burrow in, shutting the elements out. Having lived in the Southwest for the past ten years or so, I really had forgotten what it’s like to watch the world transform around you. The tempo shifts in Arizona, too. The light is different there, too. But the colored orange landscape remains largely unchanged.

I don’t care much for the kind of intense cold that comes with a Midwestern winter, but at dusk there is a kind of magic that’s unique to this place. The ground is cold ice and  the sky, ablaze. Looking at the fire and ice reflecting off each other in the growing darkness makes you feel small. Not in a bad sense, mind you, but in the kind of way that genuinely inspires adoration and awe. It’s no wonder our ancestors worshiped the sun; the nuclear color and the distant promise of warmth while stumbling, shivering through the cold, would be enough to bewilder any sentient being. Winter makes you feel alone. It awakens a dormant primal emotion. Heat becomes everything; a feeling of safety from the crushing force of nature. Like an evolutionary twitch, surviving the night feels oddly like a task, rather than a given.

I walked along the shores of the Kansas River today and watched the sky slowly turn from blue, to red, into purple. On the edge of Shawnee, a couple of miles from the Interstate, few people walk the pavement. At rush hour, the highway is a maelstrom of anxiety and noise. Just a short distance down the road, and you can sit on a rock and watch the starlings dancing from tree to tree, looking for a place to rest for the night. It feels like another country altogether when you can get away from the huge thoroughfares. I watched the five-thirty train roll along the line, carrying it’s freight westward. I watched my breath drift up into the darkening veil.

You know what? It’s true what they say about the value of a good walk.

PRINTS AVAILABLE HERE

 

January 11 – Farewell, David Bowie

Posted on by

David Bowie post
“I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.”

– – –

I couldn’t sleep last night, rolled over, and saw the news on my phone.

I suppose that age hardens some people. I’m certainly not one of them. As it happens, I find myself growing increasingly sensitive as I move forward. When bad news hits the airwaves, the wind gets knocked out of me. I find myself unable to explain exactly what it’s all about. David Bowie died yesterday, and the world woke up today and learned about it. Like a lot of you, I’m sure, I spent my entire day revisiting old records. And it dawned on me earlier today – for the first time, maybe – what a real impact he had.

From everything that I can gather, he wasn’t in the business of collecting enemies. If anything, he was wholly magnetic, and drew inspiration from everything. If you were to sift through the endless hours of live concert videos online, he was a thankful performer, eternally appreciative of his audience. He was always quick to smile, make jokes, laugh. That’s the kind of weirdo we all need in our lives. Color, personality, passion, and laughter.

My knowledge is not encyclopedic. I was never a super-fan. I just knew that he was out there, and we occasionally collided. I watched “The Labyrinth” for the first time when I was twenty years old; my girlfriend at the time couldn’t believe I had missed out. Quite frankly, neither could I, especially after viewing it. He was the soundtrack to the 1980’s that I remember, “Let’s Dance” appearing in a collection of film soundtracks and inspiring a parade of imitators. His work on the “Lost Highway” soundtrack, collaborations with Trent Reznor, and appearances in goofy-ass movies like Zoolander – I’m confident in assessing that he had fun with his life. Whatever it is that he figured out, I hope I get there, too. It’s terribly depressing to know that he’s gone, but what a fun ride it must have been. What a fun ride it was for all of us.

Rather than a photograph today, I sat down to make an illustration in memory of the departed.

I think I’ll get back listening Seu Jorge, that Brazilian fellow who did all the acoustic Bowie cover songs in Wes Anderson’s “The Life Aquatic” soundtrack. If you haven’t seen the film or heard the music, I would recommend hopping online and giving it a listen.
Good night.

PRINTS AVAILABLE HERE

January 10 – Bisbee Snow Days

Posted on by

 

2012(12-31)-13

“Winter is a season of recovery and preparation.”

~Paul Theroux

– – –

True bitter cold has arrived in Kansas. It was bound to happen eventually, and mother nature appears to be making up for lost time. It is a surreal scene, to look out the window and see green lawns in the neighborhood and sunlight punching through the clouds; it almost looks pleasant. It is far from forgiving outdoors. It is downright freezing. It’s days like this thst remind me why I moved so far away, all those years ago. I would trade a desert for the Midwestern Winters without a second thought, and without regrets.

The cold weather front that delivered this icy change was a little further West a few days ago. The storm brought some of the only snow Southern Arizona has seen in almost three years. My news-feed has been flooded with beautiful photographs of the snow-covered Mule Mountains. My heart aches, to think that I’m not there to take-in those panoramas with my own two eyes. I am, at the very least, thankful that I live in an age where I can see everybody else’s happiness, even if from a distance. And, knowing that there’s little utility in dwelling on it, I decided to look back to some photographs I made those three years ago, when I actually was there.

Bisbee is a beautiful and well-kept secret along the Mexican border. It’s a wholly unique town that arose from a copper mining camp that fueled the local economy until the mining operation shut down. Low rents attracted artists and vagabonds – and other…unpredictable types – and the character of the town transformed from saloons and whorehouses and mining to just saloons and whore houses – and one hell of an arts and music scene.

After the weight of the snow, the slippery steps and fallen tree limbs, I hope that the handful of people I know and love out there are enjoying the view just a little bit extra, for me.

VIEW THE EXTENDED GALLERY HERE

If you are interested in prints of any of the images, please contact me via Facebook messenger. Thank you.