Blake and Mortimer “La vallée des immortels tome 1” final version of my 24×36 acrylic painting.
I finally completed the final stage of the 24″ x 36″ canvas of Blake and Mortimer , “The Valley of the Immortals, Volume 1“. I had hoped to finish the whole thing before the summer, but other more pressing obligations disrupted the planned schedule.
The whole project will have taken around 200 hours and required the creation of some 130 colors in an attempt to imitate the album, at least in part.
I deliberately lightened the original work, especially the left-hand side, as I hang the painting on a wall and found the scene far too dark. My version respects the idea of chiaroscuro while adding a little light. Painting the canvas yourself also lets you play with the different shades of the bricks on the left-hand wall.
Painting of Blake and Mortimer : la vallée des immortels.
For the progression of the various stages over the past year, click on the link to the graphic novels and comicson my blog. There are several publications in that section, but you’ll get there gradually.
Airmail – First flight cover Hong Kong to San Francisco with the China Clipper in 1937
This cover was in the first airmail flight between Hong Kong and San Francisco. A Martin M-130, the Pan Am China Clipper, carried the mail. The aircraft left Hong Kong on April 28th, 1937 and arrived in San Francisco on May 4th, 1937. Many stopovers were part of the route and are indicated on the cover.
The China Clipper was destroyed in 1945 when its double hull ruptured due to a collision with an obstacle in the waters of Port-of-Spain, Trininad. The aircraft sank and 23 people were killed. There was only 7 survivors.
Airmail – First flight cover Hong Kong to San Francisco with the China Clipper in 1937. Back of cover.
This picture of a group of Chinese women playing cards was taken during summer 1990 in Jade Market, Hong Kong, before the island was retroceded back to China.
Street photography requires that a photographer does not prearrange a scene, in order to protect the natural atmosphere. This is where the real information stands. Those women, totally absorbed by their game, offered a superb opportunity to capture a normal day life scene.
It was important to proceed quickly to avoid that one of the ladies looked at the camera and changed her attitude. That way, the natural effect was maintained.
The picture was taken with a Pentax SF1 camera equipped with a film made to be developed for slides.
For other street photography pictures posted on my site, click on the following link:
This picture was taken with a Pentax SF1 camera during a one month trip in the area of Hong-Kong. Other pictures relating to this 1990 Asian trip are available in my photo gallery sections under the title “Asia”.
The period when this picture of the Chinese junks in Tai Po was captured corresponds exactly to one year after the 1989 Tiananmen Square events. The South China Morning Post had written that about 100,000 persons had marched to commemorate the tragedy. I could even see the crowd from my seat in the Cathay Pacific Boeing 747-200 when we overflew Hong Kong for the final approach towards the Kaï Tak airport.
I used some time to travel on the South China sea and when our ferry started to navigate between islands, I saw those beautiful wooden junks and captured the scene.
For other boat or ship photos posted on my website, click on the following link:
Photo of Chinese junks taken near Tai Po with a Pentax SF1 during summer 1990. Originally on a slide and then digitalized.
This photo was taken during a one month trip around Hong-Kong in 1990. The average quality of the picture is due to multiple processings necessary to show it on the web. Few other chosen photos about that trip have been posted in the “Photo galleries” section, under “Asia”.
The period when those junks were taken was exactly one year after the Tiananmen Square massacre. The South China Morning Post wrote that 100,000 people walked near Victoria Park to commemorate the tragedy. It was possible to see the crowd from the window of our Cathay Pacific Boeing 747-200 while flying over Hong-Kong for the final approach towards the Kaï Tak airport.
The Conundrum: How Scientific Innovation, Increased Efficiency and Good Intentions can Make Our Energy and Climate Problems Worse. Originally published by Riverhead Books, 2011.
This book is certainly a nice surprise. The author, David Owen, adopts a contrarian view on the supposedly positive effects of eco-energetic products on the environment. He develops his subject in a humoristic way, often citing himself as a bad student when it comes to excessive consumption of planetary resources. Owen makes the argument that it is often easier to think at length about a problem than to actually do something about it.
Mr. Owen successfully demonstrates that the only efficient solution to slow down global warming and act against excessive use of planetary resources is to lower general consumption. Instead of supporting the idea that eco-energetic solutions will save the environment, he demonstrates that they have, in fact, a rebound effect.
With science helping to create new and less expensive products, overuse gradually becomes the norm. Because of their low cost, these same products become available to a greater number of new users, thus creating a rebound effect and increasing the consumption and impact on the environment. The idea here is not to forbid the poorest people to have access to products that could improve their quality of life, but to aim for a better distribution of the planetary resources by asking the richest countries of the world to lower their own consumption.
Many forms of transportation are analyzed: the use of the electric car, commuter train and modern aviation. Let’s consider aviation: decades ago, a plane on an intercontinental flight was polluting the air more than today. Technological innovations helped diminish the level of pollution produced for each individual flight. The engines need less fuel and aircrafts are made of lighter components, etc. On a micro-scale effect, we could assume that this is a real success. But on a planetary scale, it is easy to realize that the number of flights have increased tremendously. A growing population, added to lower ticket prices and easier access to new customers help increase the carbon footprint.
When it comes to the impact of consumption on the environment, the micro-scale vision prevails. The responsible consumer tells himself: “I bought an electric car, or a hybrid vehicle, so I did my share for the environment”. The real solution does not reside in the possibility of doing more kilometers for a liter of fuel, but to do less kilometers on a yearly basis and eventually reduce the total number of drivers and vehicles. This looks like a huge proposition. The author explains that the use of a vehicle, whatever it is, requires the development and maintenance of an ever increasing number of kilometers of roads and highways. This also has the indirect effect of facilitating, for an ever larger number of drivers, access to suburbs that are increasingly farther from higher density zones.
David Owen stresses the importance of densification. Not any densification, but a well-planned one, where the citizen does not need to use a vehicle since he has access to all the essential services within a short distance. The site www.walkscore.com has some interesting information on the subject. The author names New-York and Hong-Kong as the two most eco-energetic cities in the world. Easier said than done. Especially when we realize that those cities are becoming environmental examples because they do not have a choice due to the limitation of a small territory that forces massive densification. We cannot deny, though, that a planned densification increases the number and diversity of available services.
But if we densify some areas while widening and extending highways that facilitate access to suburbs and low density areas, we apply opposite policies, thus greatly slowing down the densification process. This is a balance difficult to achieve. In order to solve some traffic problems, many cities have adopted the commuter train when it is clear in advance that the poor density of the population, added to a large territory, will prove ineffective.
The author names Phoenix as an example: this city has a modern commuter train serving a population twice as big as Manhattan but operating on a territory that is two hundred times larger. So the operation is solved by a yearly recurrent deficit.
In the end, the main problem is that it is easier to buy eco-energetic products and preserve a lifestyle, than to diminish our level of general comfort by reducing our consumption of planetary resources. But one must admit that it is not easy for the consumer to change his lifestyle, especially when he is constantly solicited by publicity and propaganda to increase his consumption.
At the end of his book, David Owen quotes Daniel Nocera, who holds the Henry Dreyfuss Chair in Science of Energy, at MIT: [my translation] “…confusion arises when we believe that with our heart we can solve environmental problems while, doing so, we only solve the problems of consciousness”.
Note: David Owen is a regular contributor to the New Yorker. He has written many books, among them Green Metropolis (2009), about the ecological superiority of megalopolis like New-York.
