Image of the Day - Vintage Photo, April 17, 2012

Brilliant accidents…the double exposure, 1938. Vernacular photograph of the West from the My-West.com photography collection.

© My-West.com Photography Collection. All rights reserved.

Image of the Day, April 16, 2011

Chief Joseph (1840-1904), Beaded War Shirt, mixed media, variable inches.  Estimated to sell at auction for between $800,000 – 1,200,000. Chief of the Nez Perce tribe, Chief Joseph’s given name was Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, translated as Thunder Rolling Down the Mountain. In 1877, this great man whose very name made men tremble, gave his now famous surrender speech, “Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired.  My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.”

Credit: The Coeur D’Alene Art Auction

Chief JosephThis stamp, released in 1968, depicts Chief Joseph wearing the beaded war shirt.

Credit: 123RF

Image of the Day, April 9, 2012

By Donna Poulton

In celebration of Edward Muybridge's 182nd birthday, Google took Muybridge's famous stopgap photography for their logo.

Until Edward Muybridge created images of a horse galloping on the Palo Alto racetrack in 1878, the question as to whether all four legs of a horse left the ground while running had been hotly debated. Governor Leland Stanford, who was responsible in part for the transcontinental railroad and for whom Stanford University was named, paid Muybridge to set up a complicated set of cameras to record, frame-by-frame, the horse at a gallop.  The series of photographs proved once and for all that all four hooves do leave the ground when the horse is galloping. 

Edward Muybridge, “Sallie Gardner,” series at Palo Alto, California 1878.  Credit: masters-of-photography.com

Image of the Day, April 7, 2012

Another fascinating painting from Carel Pieter Brest van Kempen-- not only does he offer this detailed work, but also lists the species of every image in the painting!

Discipline—Ferruginous Hawk, 1995, acrylic on illustration board 40 x 30 in. Credit: Carel Pieter Brest van Kempen"Traditionally lumped in the buzzard genus, alongside the Red-tailed Hawk and her kin, the Ferruginous Hawk (Buteo regalis) of arid western North America is unusual within that group. Larger and more powerful than the other buteos, it shares many features with the hawk eagles of the genera Spizaetus and Hieraetus. Incidental species in this painting include Field Mushrooms (Agaricus sp.), Milfoil Yarrow (Achilles millifolium), Northern Sweetvetch (Hedysarum boreale), Tapertip Onions (Allium acuminatum), Big Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata), Curlycup Gumweed (Grindelia squarrosa) Common Dandelion (Taraxacum officianale), Early Paintbrush (Castilleja chromosa), Oregon Grape (Berberis repens), cinquefoil (Potentilla sp.), Utah Serviceberry (Amelanchier utahensis), Plains Prickly-pear (Opuntia polyacantha), daddy-long-legs (family Phlangiidae), spittlebug (Philaemus sp.), Banana Assassin Bug (Fitchia aptera), velvet ant (Dasymutilla sp.), Nuttall's Sheep Moth (Hemileuca nuttalli), tent worm (Malacosoma sp.) and Sagebrush Lizard (Sceloporus graciosus)." - Carel Pieter Brest van Kempen

Image of the Day, April 6, 2012

After working for sixteen years as an illustrator, Rob Colvin quit in 1999 to work full time as a fine artist. He readily admits that he still loves to “stylize, design and to find the geometry in the land,” observing that his work is “evolutionary, in that I will start out with an idea in mind, but the piece will evolve into something I didn’t picture in the beginning. The process can be very frustrating when it’s not working and thrilling when it does.”

Rob Colvin, Razorback Bluff, c. 2011, Oil on canvas, 42 x 42 in. Credit: Rob Colvin StudioRob Colvin, Camel Back Canyon, c. 2011, Oil on canvas, 24 x 24 in. Credit: Rob Colvin Studio