Our Little Book About Our House...

Greetings!

We hope you are all safe, healthy, and happy. We are. We’re so fortunate to be up here in the “sky”, alone with nature. The value can’t be calculated. Spring is arriving here. We saw a big herd of elk yesterday. God! They are amazing animals! We’ve seen some Abert Squirrels too! Anyway, back to the house, book and photos….

Jeanne and I decided to take some snapshots around the place and put together this little (8” x 8”) photo book of some of our work in 2020. We made this little book for Jeanne’s mother and my father. They’re not on the computer and can’t do what you’re doing right now. So, it’s for them but wanted to share with the rest of the family and friends (for those interested).

These are just some of the pictures in the book - Quinn just snapped them with his phone.

Barcelona, Spain - 12 Years Ago!

Pretenses of Civilization

George Bernard Shaw once wrote that “when the angel of death sounds his trumpet the pretenses of civilization are blown from men’s heads into the mud like hats in a gust of wind.”

Homomortalis

“Homomortalis” The eternal man.

Ernest Becker - 1924 - 1973

Cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker asserted in his 1973 book The Denial of Death that humans, as intelligent animals, are able to grasp the inevitability of death. They, therefore, spend their lives building and believing in cultural elements that illustrate how to make themselves stand out as individuals and give their lives significance and meaning. Death creates an anxiety in humans; it strikes at unexpected and random moments, and its nature is essentially unknowable, causing people to spend most of their time and energy to explain, forestall, and avoid it.

Have you ever wondered why human beings can’t stop killing each other? Why is there war? Why is there genocide? Those are the most violent acts of death denial (death anxiety quelled). If your beliefs are challenged or threatened, you will lash out or attack those that are threatening your system of beliefs that are keeping the death anxiety at bay. There are many other ways this anxiety manifests itself; wealth, material stuff, physical fitness, sports, heroes, etc. Most of us have what Becker calls immortality projects. Work we do so that some part of us lives on after we die. Please take a few minutes and watch Dr. Sheldon Solomon’s video at the bottom of this page. He explains Terror Management Theory very well.

I’ve contemplated what I’ve spent over 30 years doing, photographing marginalized communities and ideas, and never really understanding WHY I was doing that. Does that ring true for you? Graduate school provided a method for me to connect the dots about who I am and my work. However, that did not answer the bigger question for humanity. Why do we have marginalized communities and ideas?

Have you ever considered what meaning or purpose your life has? Of course, you have. We all have had those moments of self-reflection, or as Socrates would say, “self-examination”. Did you find any answers? I bet you had a difficult time finding good reasons for your existence. And I’m sure this topic rarely comes up in conversations that you have on a day-to-day basis. I feel confident that I have some answers, or maybe a better way to say it is that I’ve found some very powerful theories that have explanatory power.

That’s what I’m most interested in - exploring and trying to answer the question(s) of human behavior and belief. Why do we do the things we do? And, moreover, what can we do (if anything) to control or mitigate the bad stuff.

We have an epistemic crisis going on right now in the world. People are so influenced by social media and the press, they cannot, or refuse to, think critically. Most have no clue about what they believe or why, they only repeat tropes as they hear them. Confirmation bias, the Dunning-Kruger Effect, cognitive dissidence, all in full effect today; look around.

Dr. Sheldon Solomon sums it up like this, “The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else. It’s a mainspring of human activity: activity designed largely to avoid the fatality of death; to overcome it by denying, in some way, that it is our final destiny.”

How do you deal with your impending death?

Our New Place Is Coming Along: Update March 4, 2021

Greetings and Salutations!

We’ve been staying occupied (more preoccupied) with getting our place ready for the spring and summer. We moved in on January 18, 2021 (MLK Day). We’ve had a few snowstorms and a lot of beautiful sunny days. We hit 57F (14C) the other day (March 3, 2021). We have a weather station (Tempest - Mohawk Station) on our property now. It records every detail of the weather, every minute, and writes to my Google Docs spreadsheet. It’s fun to geek out on it.

What’s next? This month (March), our greenhouse is going up. If you look at the outbuilding pad photo, you’ll see to the right is a pad for the greenhouse. It’s a 9’ x 21’ ClimaPod. We plan to run our first crops this year. It will be our “trial” yeat to see what grows up here and what doesn’t.

Our “outbuilding pad” that will have our 9’ x 21’ Greenhouse and a 20’ x 30’ studio and darkroom for photography.

My studio/darkroom will be going up soon. I've just finalized the plans. It will be 600 sq. feet (20x30) and will have a north light studio at 8,500 feet (2.600 meters) and a darkroom. There will also be a small space to "lounge" in. The UV up here is insane. I'm not sure if there is a "higher" (elevation) wet collodion north light studio, but this space will give me great light and short exposures!
This is exciting! I hope I can make this happen like I did the house. This has been a long journey, I've learned a lot, but I just want to be working in my shop, studio, and darkroom as soon as possible! Looks like it's going to be a great year for my wet collodion project!!

The Studio Q Show LIVE! January 23, 2021

Join Quinn for another discussion on the wet collodion photographic process.

This week Quinn will finish the section in the Alfred Brother's book on making positives. He'll also discuss "boiling your silver bath" - is it safe or not? And the regular recommended reading, and "shout outs".

Stream Yard: https://streamyard.com/tabmz7hi5p

YouTube: https://youtu.be/ieSjYUq-Ce8

(subscribe and hit the bell to be reminded when Quinn goes live)

The Studio Q Show LIVE! January 9, 2021

Join Quinn this Saturday, January 9, 2021, at 1000 hrs MST on YouTube or Stream Yard for an hour of Wet Collodion Photography talk!

This week, Quinn will do a reading from the Alfred Brothers book, "The Manual of Photography" (1892). You'll LOVE this! Great info!

He'll also do a short segment on Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland) as a Wet Collodion Portrait artist.

And finally, he'll take questions and review some emails he received over the past week.

Stream Yard: https://streamyard.com/ca69bai8b3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/snUYMB2cK54
(SUB & HIT THE BELL TO BE REMINDED)

Mountain Home Build Update - December 29, 2020

We had some snow fall last night. About 2” (4cm) of snow this morning and bright sun with blue skies. Our weather here is strange. It can be almost 50F (10C) in the middle of winter and dry. Then, every once in a while, we’ll get some snow. It always melts and the sun comes back. We have over 300 days of sun here a year. And at 8,400 (2.560 m) feet above sea level, that means a lot of (warm) UV light.

Our house is slowly being finished. The drywall guy has a couple of days left. The floors are completed and we need our power. The local energy company (IREA) said we should have the power installed in about 6 - 8 weeks. We just entered week 9 - hopefully soon. The holidays didn’t help our timeline and COVID hasn’t helped either.

The “struggle” (waiting for our house to be complete) is good in a lot of ways. We’re so used to having things “immediately” or “now!” that when you come back into reality (move to the mountains), you find things take longer up here. Sometimes, a lot longer. For example, there is no such thing as “two-day” delivery here. On average it takes a week to get an Amazon package. There is no “cable” here or “fiber” internet. There are a lot of places here where your cellular phone is a doorstop; there’s very little or no phone connectivity. We are very rural. So, having your house completed when you want it takes a little bit longer. Patience has never been a strong suit for me, this has been good for me that way. Jeanne handles it a lot better than I do.

December 29, 2020 - The mountain home and snow.

We designed the house. The layout and arrangement of everything. It’s perfect for us and our needs.

Entering the garage. We only have one truck. The other side is for my forge.

This is our “guest house” - a 24’ Wildwood Lite camping trailer. We lived in it when we first moved here in June. It’s very nice. This shows the views (from the back of the trailer) of the mountains and their elevation. Looking south-west.

You can’t see them here, but you can from the house and coming into the property. These are the “views” we have here. They are AMAZING!

Mountain Home Build Update - December 23, 2020

Are we there yet??
We’ve been on a rollercoaster trying to get our house finished. It’s been very difficult being so close to “moving in” and yet so far - not knowing when this contractor or that contractor will show up and if they’ll complete the work. Overall, it’s been a great experience even with the few bumps we’ve had to deal with.

The entire year we’ve been working on this project. We started in January when we put our house in Denver/Aurora up for sale. It’s been non-stop since then. The COVID-19 virus has created a lot of unexpected problems too. I had no idea the supply chain for certain products would be affected as much as it has been. And I didn’t realize how many companies were working with “skeleton crews”, meaning they had laid off at least half of their employees or are working limited hours. Limited materials and limited manpower make it difficult to build and complete a house. There are some good things about all of it too. One of those is time. This has given us time. Time to think through things, time to contemplate things. All good.

I can’t say when we will occupy our new home, but it should be soon. It looks like sometime in January. The holidays haven’t helped our schedule at all either. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and now the new year. Fingers crossed it will be soon!

We have learned so much this year. I’m not sure I would want to do it again, but if I did, I know I could do a great job. There are so many things we never think about when we live in the city or suburbs. How our power, water, septic, and infrastructure works. What it takes to bring those to a remote mountain in Colorado is a feat of significant proportion. And you better have a lot of cash on hand. This stuff is not cheap. I probably went 30% - 50% over budget on this build. In other words, if I projected that X would cost $100, I should have been prepared to pay $130 - $150 for it. If you ever do this, add the 30% - 50% onto your final number. And if you get lucky and you don’t use it - buy something nice for your new home!

And HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Jeanne today! I wish I could have given her a new home, but it will be soon!

Jeanne and I built a “water system” shelf in our utility room. This holds our 52 gallon compression tank and filtering system (not fully installed). The top shelf will house our router and WiFi stuff for the internet. Below, under the tank, will have Moshe’s litter box. A little private bathroom for him.

We completed (almost) our garage floor. We decided NOT to do concrete but opted for sand and then a later of 3/8 gravel. It’s very nice! (sorry for the poor light/shadows).

Our little shop/garage. With new gravel compacted floor.

Mountain Home Build Update - November 26, 2020

I hope this note finds you healthy and happy.

We’ve been very busy, or consumed, with our home getting set up. It’s on its way to being finished. We have hit a couple of rough patches, to be expected, but we’re getting there.

Right now, the house is set (on it's foundation and secured) and “dried in” - meaning, the weather will not affect the rest of the work. We have the “stitch and finish” crew working to finish inside now. The plumber and utility people will be here next week. The holiday and some weather stalled us for a couple of days. We are technically three weeks behind right now mostly due to not being able to get the home up the mountain and then into our property. It gets really complicated moving a fully built house and garage in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

It’s not too bad considering this is a complicated mountain home build and there are a lot of moving parts to make this happen. We are very thankful for where we are right now. The house will be finished in the next couple of weeks. We can’t wait.

Getting ready to set the crane up to put the house on the foundation.

Half of the house (about 50 tons) flying in the air! This was incredible to see. Amazing technology!

Half of the house coming into our foundation area. Our driveway is almost 800’ long. We have a very private lot - 12 acres. No one can see us here unless you’re in the air!

The other half being lowered into place. Almost there!!