{"id":2535,"date":"2011-04-07T08:26:35","date_gmt":"2011-04-07T16:26:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/?p=2535"},"modified":"2012-11-20T14:11:34","modified_gmt":"2012-11-20T22:11:34","slug":"ufos-in-alameda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/07\/ufos-in-alameda-2535\/","title":{"rendered":"UFOs in Alameda?"},"content":{"rendered":"
This article originally appeared on April 7, 2011 in The Island. Michele Ellson, editor.<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
\"\"

Carl Weingarten, Unidentified Matinee, 2009.<\/p><\/div>\n

Carl Weingarten is best known \u2014 and well known \u2014 as a music producer and guitarist, but he\u2019s also a lifelong photographer. His \u201cPhotographic Impressions\u201d at Blue Dot Cafe & Coffee Bar showcases a cross-section of his recent work, including classic black-and-white landscapes, imaginative photo-collages, and a few historic images which he has restored. It is his second exhibit at this venue.<\/p>\n

Weingarten started shooting with a kit camera as a child before moving on to cinematography and, finally, music. \u201cBut there\u2019s no love like the first love,\u201d he wrote in his statement. \u201cThrough it all, my still camera was never far away, and I have documented many adventures over the years. Then came digital photography, and it was like getting my first camera all over again.\u201d<\/p>\n

He uses the digital medium to great effect in the playful digital collages \u201cUnidentified Matinee\u201d and \u201cRiver Street.\u201d The former piece shows a UFO hovering over the Alameda Theatre & Cineplex.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe theater has a gothic, other-time feel to it. Even aliens would come to observe and rendezvous,\u201d Weingarten conjectured. \u201cWhat better place to hover a UFO over than a gothic movie theater?<\/p>\n

\u201cI was going for an Instamatic kind of look to it,\u201d he added. \u201cThe original was shot on digital. The colors were pretty muted. And at the time I just wanted to capture a picture of the theater that was okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

He then painstakingly integrated an image of a flying saucer licensed from a Canadian CGI designer. \u201cIt only works if to the eye it has some type of plausibility to it. If you just paste it in there it wouldn\u2019t work at all,\u201d he said. \u201cI spent a lot of time trying to match the lighting and color. I tried to give it a film grain look and the camera a little shaky look, an amateur catching (the image) kind of thing. I like to put that kind of realism in the photos.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

Carl Weingarten , The Guardian (1), 2010.<\/p><\/div>\n

Some of Weingarten\u2019s most outstanding work has had no digital manipulation at all. \u201cThe Guardian [1]\u201d (and especially \u201cThe Guardian\u00a0[2],\u201d not on exhibit) has an almost Kandinsky-like geometry and calls to mind Michael Kenna\u2019s masterful 1976 \u201cFlatiron Building, Study 1, New York City, USA\u201d with its play on the perspective between skyscrapers in the background and traffic light pole in the foreground.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no special effects,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was really a matter of getting the right angle. It was in Oakland where I work on occasion and it does get foggy here, not unlike SF. There\u2019s a scene in this Fellini film (\u201cAmarcord\u201d) where objects are sort of emerging from the whiteness and everything has this ethereal and spiritual kind of quality to it. It was a foggy morning and there was just enough thickness in the air and it just struck me that the light poles were figurative. They were like hands reaching.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others photos are more simple, and simply beautiful. \u201cAfter the Fall\u201d plays on Adam and Eve\u2019s fall from grace on several levels, but with its heavily saturated colors, layers of textures, and careful composition, it is first and foremost aesthetically pleasing.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Carl Weingarten, After the Fall, 2010.<\/p><\/div>\n

Rounding out the exhibit are historical images Weingarten acquired from the Library of Congress and lovingly restored, including the Wright brothers on a beach \u201cholding up the only truly functional flying machine in the world, like a kite.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSince I was a kid there\u2019ve been certain historical events that have always fascinated me for whatever reason: the Wright brothers, ships, and shipwrecks,\u201d he explained. \u201cThe rarity of the image made them even more compelling. Something like the Titanic, there\u2019s really not a lot of material. It only took one voyage. So you treasure whatever\u2019s there.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the Wright brothers I\u2019m just fascinated with the fact that these guys and their friends were doing things just because they felt like it, and they were alone in the world, doing something that would have a huge impact on humankind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the work on display runs the gamut, the pieces are tied together by Weingarten\u2019s artistic vision.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome common threads run through my music and photography and film work. I would call it \u2018cinematic.\u2019 The music I do tends to be atmospheric and evocative of a scene in a film, suggesting drama and characters,\u201d he said. \u201cIn my photos there\u2019s often a sense of motion and movement. Not necessarily that something is in motion and I\u2019m following it; but there\u2019s a story in there. There\u2019s a scenario. There\u2019s a movement in a scene.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weingarten\u2019s photos are printed as posters such as those sold in museum gift shops, including large captions at the bottom. Accordingly, they are offered at a mere $90 each, or $45 unframed. The artist calls these \u201crecession prices.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPhotographic Impressions\u201d runs through April 15. Blue Dot Cafe & Coffee Bar is located at 1910 Encinal Avenue. Their hours are 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday.<\/p>\n

Michael Singman-Aste
\nPostdiluvian Photo<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article originally appeared on April 7, 2011 in The Island. Michele Ellson, editor. \u00a0 Carl Weingarten is best known \u2014 and well known \u2014 as a music producer and guitarist, but he\u2019s also a lifelong photographer. His \u201cPhotographic Impressions\u201d at Blue Dot Cafe & Coffee Bar showcases a cross-section of his recent work, including […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[23],"tags":[73,253,279,280,72],"class_list":["post-2535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artists","tag-alameda","tag-carl-weingarten","tag-kandinsky","tag-michael-kenna","tag-the-island"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pPxQO-ET","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2535"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3865,"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2535\/revisions\/3865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}