Backroads Uses One Of My Pictures

The Backroads travel company has used one of my pictures to illustrate their Big Sur bike tour.

(C) Marc Osborn

Last summer, my wife and I took the trip with another couple we are friends with. Starting in Monterey and biking day-by-day down the coast to Santa Barbara. I can tell you it was beautiful, challenging and very enjoyable.

Anyway, after making a significant climb up from a bridge, I pulled off to wait for our group and took a shot looking back from where we had come from. See picture below.

This is the shot Backroads is currently using on their Web site to help illustrate the Big Sur trip.


You can see that page HERE and below. My picture is one of several in a "carousel" of images that flip through as you read info about the trip.

Once on the site, you can use arrows on either side of the picture window to advance to the next image.

Anyway, this is the most recent photo of mine to be licensed. I'm happy to have it represent Backroads and while the "reimbursement" was minimal, it is cool to have one of my shots online at a significant travel company's site.

If interested, you can check out other travel shots I've taken on my Flickr photostream.






Copyright of the photo in this post is owned by Marc Osborn. No use of this image is permitted without prior written permission from Marc Osborn.

300,000 Views Celebration - Picture of the Day #3

Next up on my one-picture-each-day-this-week-a-thon in celebration of 300,000 views of my photography online is an abstract shot I took in China.

Photo by Marc Osborn. (C) Marc Osborn

I rarely set out to take an abstract picture. Typically when I do, the results are wanting. Not always, but typically.

No, usually when I take a picture I want to capture something specific with clarity. But, in doing so - and often in low light situations - I sometimes get a pretty wild abstract that transcends the original idea or actual object. Such shots take on an artistic quality, making the viewer wonder what it is or seeing many things in it. You can see a short set of abstract/close-up type shots I've taken HERE.

The abstract above is one I took when my wife and I were in Shanghai China in 2008. The Chinese built a "Tourist Tunnel" under the Huangpu River so people could more quickly get from the older district of the city (the Bund and surrounding areas) to the new section of the city across the river. But, this isn't a utilitarian transit system. No, it's more like a psychedelic tram ride with flashing lights, odd characters and music. Weird.

Anyway, we took the tunnel and as we started on the short journey under the river I pulled out my camera and took a bunch of shots as the lights and other effects started. The way the light hits the tramway and overlaps some suggests to me a bizarre river way into the unknown.

NOTE: Copyright for the picture in this blog post is owned by Marc Osborn. No use of this photo is permitted without prior written permission from Marc Osborn.

The Spookiest Picture We've Ever Seen

Diane and I have traveled all over the world. We've been to Europe, Asia, India, Africa, etc. In each of these places we've experienced all kinds of art and cultural traditions we'd never seen before. And all of that was expected and enjoyable. We've been to the world's great museums such as the Louvre, d'Orsay, Pompidou, Prado, MoMa, Guggenheim, Chicago Art Institute and many others. 

However, none of that...none of what we saw or anticipated in those places and times could prepare us for perhaps the freakiest, weirdest and spooky piece of art we've ever seen.

No. For indeed, when Diane and I were on our REI Adventures tour of China last year, we encountered a picture so mind-warping that, well, see for yourself...

That's right. This disturbing image hung over our bed in the motel - more of a roadhouse - that our group stayed in near the Great Wall. Look at this thing. There's so much going on. What's with the grapes? How about the matching Snoopy outfits? How random is that?! What's with the Astro-Turf and the superimposed all-American Midwest house as the background? And most importantly, just what the "F" are those babies smiling about? What could this all mean?

Needless to say, we quickly took the picture down, turned it around and set it against the wall on the floor. There was absolutely no way we were going to let these little Chuckies jump down in the middle of the night and murder us in our sleep...for that was the only rational explanation either of us could come up with for the existence of this picture.

Safely locked in the picture frame up against the wall, these two never did give us any trouble and we returned them to their perch on the wall just before we left for our next destination.

OK, weird enough, right? Dodged that bloodfest. Well, flash forward to today. I get an e-mail from one of our friends from the REI trip who also saw this picture in our room (and who was freaked out by it too may I add). He says he just watched a TV program about Iraq the other day and lo-and-behold, in the background of some footage inside an Iraqi's home is...you guessed it...evil baby art! 

Here it is...

See that calendar behind the guy. Look familiar? Could those be grapes the baby is holding? Is the baby not sitting on Astro-Turf grass? What. The. F. 

So now we know that this baby art is not just a China thing. At minimum it's a China/Iraq thing and probably more like an Asia/Mideast thing all together. But still...what does it mean? What does it symbolize?

I invite anyone to check into this and let us all know. Seriously. I want to know. Is it a fertility thing? A "happy home" thing? Something else? 

In the meantime, until we know more, I can still only conclude as I did in the back forty of China that there is evil intent in this...the spookiest picture we've ever seen.