When the Getty Museum first opened in 1997, the museum’s parking and transportation system were quickly overwhelmed to the point that anyone thinking about visiting the museum had to make parking reservations months in advance. Those unwilling to wait hoofed it for miles and then waited up to four hours just to take a tram ride to the museum’s spectacular hillside setting west of downtown Los Angeles.

What a difference a decade makes. Today no reservations are required and it’s possible to drive right to your parking spot, grab a tram and be on top of the mountain just a few minutes after your arrival.

Not that the Getty Museum is any less popular. On our recent visit we noted a steady stream of visitors of all colors and stripes running the Disneyland-style gamut that takes you several revolutions down into the 2,000-car garage and then through a fast-moving line to board your tram. By mid-day, it looked like most parking spots were spoken for, and probably would be for the rest of the day.

The Getty Museum is all about the visual arts and, far from being snooty like some Big City museums we won’t mention by name, the Getty welcomes the masses by offering free admission and presenting all kinds of tours and aids to educate visitors about the significance of the treasures on display. A trip to the Getty is like a quickie art seminar that will teach you just enough names and buzzwords to make your friends believe you really are educated.

An afternoon at the Getty also seems to be a popular date activity judging from the many young couples we observed Lots of families and kids were enjoying the museum – in fact, the museum goes out of its way to offer special kids programs and activities that help make the visit enjoyable even for the very young. And then there were the somewhat older Red Hat Ladies who hit upon the Getty as the perfect place for a Girls Day Out.

What’s attracting these many segments of society is a modern-day palace that cost the Getty Foundation a billion dollars and took 13 years to build. Located on maybe the last 124 acres in the L.A. hills not reserved for a movie star, the museum is worth the tram ride just to enjoy the spectacular views of the L.A. basin. Even on a smoggy day, it’s impressive.

If you’ve priced Italian travertine flooring, then you’ll have some appreciation for the money that went into the 14,000 tons of travertine that was used on walkways, in walls and on just about every available surface of the museum’s five pavilions. If you look close enough, the travertine even has little leaf fossils which, we’re sure, made it even more expensive. The Getty Museum’s courtyards, wide walkways and stairways, carefully sculpted gardens and sycamore groves all make the museum as much a park as a museum which undoubtedly is why the average person spends four hours per visit. But the star attractions, of course, are inside the pavilions – a collection of artwork and antiquities that is one of the most magnificent ever assembled.

It all started with the museum’s namesake, J. Paul Getty, an oil executive and art collector who lived from 1892 until 1976. He founded the famous Getty Oil Company which eventually became Texaco. Getty began collecting art in 1930 and, upon his death, left his entire estate to the J. Paul Getty Museum Trust. Eventually, the trust ballooned to over $4.5 billion, which means the Getty Trust has continued to update the museum’s art collection with the best pieces in the world. One publication noted that the Getty Museum has about 25 times the budget of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Compared to the Louvre in Paris and other famous museums, the Getty Museum is somewhat specialized. It includes Greek and Roman antiquities, European paintings, drawings, sculpture, manuscripts, furniture and photographs. Walking through the pavilions you discover that each exhibit room is uncrowded, and that each item exhibited comes with an easy-to-read description of why that particular artwork is important.

When you think about how ancient some of these works are, it’s mind-boggling to look at them up-close. Unlike some well-known European museums, visitors to the Getty are able to get an unobstructed view of even the most famous paintings and artwork – if you’ve visited the Louvre, you may recall that it takes considerable effort just to get up in front of the crowd so that you can say you really did see the Mona Lisa.

Drawings and manuscripts are all displayed under low light to help preserve the pieces. They’re arranged chronologically, starting with the illuminated manuscripts of the 9th Century, moving all the way to the High Renaissance period of the 16th Century.

In another pavilion, the Getty has displayed Decorative Arts – in other words, anything that is made for the interior of your home – which include furniture, clocks, porcelain, silver, ceramics, and tapestries – 600 objects in all. That gives you some idea of how the Getty’s collection has grown; J. Paul Getty only had 30 pieces of decorative art when he died.

In one of the most unusual photograph exhibits in the world, the Getty displays photographs from way back in the 1830’s — when the technology was invented — all the way through the 1990’s. We found this one of the most fascinating parts of the museum. Actual photographs of London in the early 1800’s brought to mind English history and novels that immediately transported us in time, if only in our own minds.

The European sculpture is located throughout the museum’s pavilions and includes work from the Renaissance through 1900. The oldest painting at the Getty was done in 1295 and the collection spans all the way up to 1895. The museum, of course, includes paintings from many well-known artists including Masaccio, Mantegna, Breughel, Van Gogh, Monet and Cezanne.

One of the pavilions is set aside for changing exhibits and, while we were there, an entire exhibit was devoted to the paintings of Jacques-Louis David. Most fascinating here were the portraits of Napolean Bonaparte, who used the painter to create artwork for propaganda purposes.

All of the pavilions open out to the central courtyard where visitors can sit and enjoy an espresso or snack. In fact, the food service at the Getty is in keeping with the same high standards as the exhibit itself. An elegant restaurant serves gourmet meals while even the food court-style café has just about any kind of fresh-prepared food a visitor would want – salads, sandwiches, grilled items, Mexican food – you name it.

Our game plan for the Getty worked just about right – show up just before lunch and enjoy a tasty meal before lingering through the afternoon, taking our time viewing – and comprehending – the masterpieces and historical artifacts that are the Getty. Soon it was time to board the computerized tram to the bottom of the hill and snake our way out of the garage. It had been like visiting a Disneyland for art-lovers – though the price of admission at this adventure land was quite a bit easier to take.

AT A GLANCE

WHERE: The Getty Museum is located in Brentwood, just west of downtown Los Angeles and is accessible via Getty Center Drive off Interstate 405.

WHAT: The Getty is an unusual collection of the visual arts, with most of the exhibits dating back many centuries.

WHEN: Any time of year.

WHY: The Getty Museum is both fun and educational. This is an astounding group of exhibits in a spectacular setting where you’ll want to spend the better part of a day.

HOW: To get more information on the Getty Museum, call (310) 440-7300 or visit www.getty.edu. Admission is free.

These are a couple of new Christmas photos I did for iStock and Getty. Still doing some after Thanksgiving chores while I start  my holiday shopping. We already have baby Brooklyn’s gifts, it was so much fun to shop for a little one again and we can’t wait to celebrate her 1st Christmas!

See other Wordless Wednesday participants here.

With apologies to Abdul Salaam El Razzac, who said a version of my title in the movie “Pretty Woman”, I thought this article was a pretty interesting and, at times, depressing and scary look at transit in Los Angeles.  Check out these passages; the premise is that the guy will get around in LA for a week using only transit and see how it goes.  This is obviously potent material for the argument about how transit succeeds or fails, in large measure, based on how land gets used. 

My grand scheme hit its first speed bump after the first hour. I’d taken the bus from West Hollywood, where I was staying, to a bus stop near the Getty Villa, but as I approached the steep driveway leading up to the museum, two stern-looking security guards stopped me. Walking up the driveway would have taken no more than five minutes, but the guards said I had to wait while they radioed for a shuttle. The result was that in this wealthy, beachfront community of movie stars, I arrived unceremoniously at the Getty in the back seat of a four-door pickup truck.

On a couple of my days, I spent more than four hours sitting on buses and trains, feeling I was doing a lot more newspaper reading than sightseeing.

I did meet one Angeleno who prefers public transit to a car—a movie producer who lives in West Hollywood next door to my friend’s house, where I was staying, and he agreed to talk only on the condition of anonymity. “It’s a preconceived idea that if you take the bus, you’re a failure,” he said. He ticked off things he likes about the bus. “I can read, I can get up to date on my iPhone, I can watch videos on my iPod. There’s a lot that can be done with someone else driving.” He warned me repeatedly not to reveal his name. “In the entertainment business, if they knew I took the bus they’d never talk to me,” he said, explaining that he hires a car and driver when going to a studio.

One of L.A.’s best-known public-transportation enthusiasts is Michael Dukakis, the former Massachusetts governor and 1988 presidential candidate, who now teaches public policy three months a year at the University of California, Los Angeles. “When I tell people in L.A. that I take the bus to the airport, they have no idea what I’m talking about,” Mr. Dukakis said in a telephone interview. “Freeways were a choice we made nationally,” he added. “But people are starting to ask, ‘What are we doing?’It’s clear public opinion is changing, but once you have these urban development patterns based on highways, it’s pretty tough.”

Michael Brein, a Honolulu psychologist and writer, has written 14 guides on how to tour U.S. and European cities by public transit; his latest is about Los Angeles, where he visited more than 200 attractions (the guide is available by download at michaelbrein.com). “I did the whole shebang by public transit,” he brags. His advice: “Visit L.A. a section at a time,” spending the whole day in one area before moving to the next.

My five-day L.A. adventure ended up costing less than $30 in public-transportation fares. My final stop was in Pasadena to see the Huntington Library and Gardens, a vast estate with a European painting collection housed in an old mansion and acres of botanical gardens. By this point, I expected to be used to taking public transit. But I hadn’t dreamed of an itinerary like this: a bus to Hollywood to catch the subway, the subway to Union Station, the Yellow Line light rail line to Pasadena, a local Pasadena bus and then a mile-long walk to the Huntington. When I was ready to leave, the sun was baking hot, and the driver of a lone taxicab at the entrance offered to take me to the Gold Line station for the outrageous sum of $10. I hopped in without a second thought.

I have some new Getty HQ accounts available, email me on comeundone[at]gmail.com if you’re interested! My main list has also been updated.

Time for a quick blog post with this lovely Treasury from Masaoms who bought one of my 2010 Calendars last week, so a double thanks to her in lovely Barcelona! I have no idea which song she’s referring to which could inspire a picture of a bicycle, a chalk board and a beautiful big green ring, so I’d better do a bit of research.

I’m causing all sorts of glitches on my computer by uploading massive scanned Holga images to the Flickr/Getty site. Out of my latest sumbissions from September and October they are interested in 48 of the pictures which is great. I’ve no idea what sort of numbers others are having accepted, but I’m very pleased. There are a few which require property releases which I’m never going to be able to acquire now, which is a shame as they’re nice images, but there are plenty which don’t need anything other than some details and in the case of the Holgas I feel that my 3mb images aren’t big enough (they were fine for Flickr which is where Getty found them) so I’ve had to go back to my scanned TIFFS which are rather meaty, the Volubilis Triumphial Arch was a massive size at 14,0000 px square and I couldn’t export it so I reduced it to a more sensible 7,000 px square and re-tweaked it and cleaned it up a bit more.

The Essaouira Fishing Boats needed to be flipped as the film rebate and the numbers on the boats were reading back to front (oops!) so I need to change my print template and listing details too.

The upload process is slooooow for these big pics so here I am having a minor blog moment.

Searched for Mexican Cocido soup in Venice. Took advantage of free parking at the Getty on Saturdays after 5pm. Stocked up on snacks & drinks at Target. Other than that, I had a pretty uneventful, much needed weekend of rest.

Ellison leather jacket, H&M top, Target belt, FD clutch, J Brand Black Label jeans, Steve Madden boots

Speak oh Lord

I wanted to take the time and briefly address a particularly compelling section of J Paul Getty’s autobiography. Getty can definitely be described as a conservative man, and his views on the nation follow suit.

Getty describes a particular meeting with a friend and minister in the Mexican government, Miguel Aleman, in 1941. “Aleman revealed that he and President Camacho had recently thrown a prominent Mexican politician out of office and insured that he would have no political future. The man’s offense: he had exceeded the budget set for his department by almost fifty per cent.”

The contrast to the sitution in the US is obvious, and Getty laments the rampant over spending in the US government. He mentions that the United States Federal Debt was over $475 billion at the end of fiscal year 1974, the time around which Getty wrote his autobiography. He would surely roll over in his grave to hear that the current National Debt stands at over $1.4 trillion. Of course, population growth does not correlate to this hike in deficit.

As an example of unnecessary spending, Getty discusses his views on public welfare. Let me quote: “In recent decades, more and more Federal (and State and Local) expenditures have gone to support non-productive (and very frequently counter-productive) socialistic schemes. As an example, Welfare payments are made regularly to millions of people – whether they need (never mind whether they deserve) – them or not… Its members take it as their inalienable right to collect welfare cheques indefinitely, without making the slightest effort to work – or even to seek work.”

I have two observations to make. It seems to me that although unemployment is relatively high at this time, I have seen no end of job listings, postings and ads. There has not been a week in which I was out of work. But many Americans will not learn the humility that it takes to work a low paying or thankless job, particularly if they have been laid off from a more ideal position.

Secondly, I have come to agree on some level with the assertion that some welfare recipients do not need (or deserve) welfare. Working in a grocery store in a town where an estimated 10% of the population lives below the poverty line, I frequently see food stamps. These were often the most argumentative and demanding of people, who never seemed in a rush, explaining why they had the time to argue. Though it seems controversial, I will have to side with Mr. Getty on this one.

Today is Veterans Day.

Today I am reflecting on our Veterans both here and abroad.

I wonder, what would make a man or a woman be willing to lay down their life for a country? How did these men and women come to believe so strongly in freedom that they would sacrifice themselves to uphold it?

I admire these Veterans – because they have fought so I can enjoy freedom and peace.

As I think about how much many of you have sacrificed – some of you have sacrificed your life, others your health, and still others have returned after combat in some way disabled – I am thankful for all you gave.

Stepping up to fight the enemy, sometimes in hand-to-hand combat… Willing to embrace your fears and move forward anyway… Persevering through the battle, even when you have lost all of the men and women who were in the battle with you… To me, this seems frightening… overwhelming… awe-inspiring.

Perhaps that is why, when I see you in uniform standing arm in arm with your compatriots, I am so touched.

You fought for my freedom though you never knew me.

You gave to me and my family the ability to discover “Life, liberty,and the pursuit of happiness” though you will probably never meet me.

Many of you are still serving our country today to ensure that these precious liberties that you helped secure will be maintained.

This Veterans day, I salute you for all that you have done, all that you have given, and the sacrifices that you have made so that I can enjoy a better tomorrow.

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. (Jn 15.12-13)

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. (1 Jn 3:16)

 Thank you Veterans and your families.

By Faith

Words and Music by Keith & Kristyn Getty & Stuart Townend

By faith we see the hand of God
In the light of creation’s grand design
In the lives of those who prove His faithfulness
Who walk by faith and not by sight

By faith our fathers roamed the earth
With the power of His promise in their hearts
Of a holy city built by God’s own hand
A place where peace and justice reign

We will stand as children of the promise
We will fix our eyes on Him our soul’s reward
Till the race is finished and the work is done
We’ll walk by faith and not by sight

Inspired by a recent decision to revisit my D200s while my D3 and 24-70 – and an SB-800 – were in for service, following some consideration (and rejection, so far at least) of the relatively new Micro Four-Thirds system – and I’ve been pleased to get it back into use.

The image above exemplifies two of the clear benefits of using a Nikon DSLR : great dynamic range, and accurate colour rendition. With careful exposure, the highlights remain detailed, without  blowout, and there’s also plenty of detail in shadow areas.

Alongside this are colours that are accurately captured and reproduced by the D200’s CCD sensor, that makes this particular camera still a desirable choice for many. Even in the light of the newer D300 and more recent D300s (adding video capability), their CMOS sensors – as reported by some owners – apparently don’t have the ability to render colours in quite the same way as the 2005-introduced D200. Have to say I’ve seen some fantastic results from the D300, and I’m quite partial to the results from my D3, but nevertheless …

Available these days at around the £500 mark for a clean one, the D200 is a real steal, with dust and moisture sealing on a magnesium alloy chassis, choice of tons of legacy and modern lenses from the Nikon range as well as 3rd party lens options, actual buttons (!) for things that you may want to change on the fly eg white balance, ISO …and comes very highly recommended.

Many more D200 and D3 images at http://nickbland.zenfolio.com

May 24-28, 2010
New Orleans, Louisiana

	Salt cross section. Photo: Eric Doehne

From Angkor to Zanzibar and Venice to New Orleans, soluble salts are responsible for causing significant damage to porous building materials. But how does salt weathering take place, and what level of salts are harmful? Are certain salts more damaging than others? Should they be removed and if so, how?

The use of poultice treatments is well established in conservation, however the complexities of salt migration within historic structures have produced variable and unpredictable results. The Poultice Desalination of Porous Building Materials Workshop presents new applied research on the process of poultice desalination through practical applications for conservators and others whose job is to assess, treat, and evaluate the impact of salts on porous building materials.

Designed for field-based conservation professionals, this hands-on workshop will be conducted through a combination of pre-workshop reading assignments and workshop lectures, demonstrations, and field trials. It will provide participants with a solid foundation for the poultice treatment of salt-laden building materials.

Topics to be addressed include:

• Guidelines for poultice desalination
• Building pathology – understanding the building construction context for moisture and salt related damage
• A review of the behavior of porous building materials
• Salt and moisture transport through porous building materials
• Introduction to salts and salt weathering
• Working principles of poultice systems: optimizing salt removal
• Criteria for poultice selection: modifying your poultice to match your substrate
• Practical pre- and post- poultice treatment investigation and assessment methods
• The limits of poultice desalination

Poultice Desalination of Porous Building Materials is organized by the GCI Education Department as part of its Science Workshop Series: Research into Practice, which aims to disseminate the results of important research to the conservation field. This workshop is a result of research conducted through the GCI Science project, Desalination of Porous Building Materials.

Eligibility and Selection
Applicants are expected to have the equivalent of five years field experience in the conservation of porous building materials. Admission is competitive and limited to a maximum of 20 participants.

Decision notices will be sent to candidates via e-mail on February 3, 2010.

Language
The workshop will be conducted in English.

Facilitators
An international team of conservators, conservation scientists, and a conservation architect will teach the course.

Fee
USD $500

The fee for this workshop covers instruction and workshop materials only. It does not cover travel to New Orleans, meals, lodging, or other incidental expenses.

How to Apply:

Complete the online form available from the Getty website.

Getty and Flickr partnered up earlier this year to help top Flickr users earn a little money by selling their photos for them. It was an invite only platform to begin with, and although thousands of flickr users were invited, that represented only a tiny, tiny fraction of Flickr’s user base. That changed this week. Sort of. Getty have now opened a group to allow all Flickr users to submit their work for consideration. Then they may invite a few more lucky users to participate in the program.

I have sent a selection of shots to the group, as I’m an optimistic chap! I do have serious doubts though as to the liklihood of me receiving one of the precious invites. I strongly suspect that their pixel peeping will lead them to conclude my point and shoot compact simply doesn’t produce images to match the quality or resolution they are looking for. But still, it’s worth a try and a bit of fun too. The photos I selected have gotten quite a few extra views and comments since I added them to the group.

Want to have a go yourself? It’s easy enough. Click here for the details. You need to select the ten best photos in your Flickr collection, exactly ten. Not nine, not eleven. Ten. Bear in mind files must be 3mp or more, and any recognizable person in the photo will need a model release. If you can’t get it, don’t enter it.

This season’s PR has been based in LA. So far, the challenges have been.. not so worth watching, and MKors and Nina Garcia have been missing on and off the show. The random judges and the “make use of the Macy’s accessories wall” is irritating, but I catch an episode here and there when I have time. Well, I’ll be sure to catch the upcoming episode for sure because I will be at the Getty tonight, watching a special screening of the episode that was filmed at the Getty earlier this year. I’ve received word that I am on the guestlist, so I will venture to the Getty for the first time. Hopefully, there will be special guests.. fingers crossed!

Desde seu lançamento, em março, a coleção do Flickr na Getty Images não parou de crescer – são cerca de 60 mil imagens selecionadas até agora. Como ninguém mais duvida que há bilhões de fotos incríveis no Flickr, resolvemos tornar mais fácil o processo de seleção das fotos que entram para a coleção.

A partir de hoje você pode enviar um portfólio de até 10 imagens para o grupo Getty Images Call for Artists, um novo canal a ser usado pelo criativo time da Getty Images para descobrir novas imagens. Os editores da coleção, com expertise industrial atestado pela marca Getty Images, prometem revisar a galeria do grupo regularmente a procura de fotos com potencial comercial e convidar novos fotografos a colaborar com a coleção.

Se você não é modesto quando o assunto são suas fotos e gostaria de ser considerado para colaborar com a coleção, ingresse já no Getty Images Call for Artists seguindo as regras do grupo. Quem sabe essa não é a hora de ganhar um dinheirinho com seus cliques. Aproveite para ler as novas FAQs que acabamos de postar no site.