Round Robin: Ooh! Spooky!

For Round Robin Challenge: Spooky Effects, I asked for photos that show "something scary, odd or ethereal," using any sort of special effects - special staging, lighting, photo editing or anything else to achieve the spooky. I figured that we'd be less than two weeks out from Halloween by now, and we'd have both the interest and photographic opportunities for this!

Two weeks ago, I took my Dad to Old Tucson Studios, in Avra Valley on the other side of Gates Pass from the city of Tucson itself. Built in 1938 for the movie Arizona starring William Holden and Jean Arthur, it's sort of a combination of shooting location and theme park. Stars from John Wayne to Steve Martin have films movies there. The High Chaparral was principally filmed at Old Tucson, along with lots of other tv episode and even bank commercials. I've visited Old Tucson at least half a dozen times since we got here in 1986, but not often in recent years since an arson fire gutted a large chunk of it. But they've managed to rebuild and keep the place going, and I'm very glad of that!

For the past 23 years, Old Tucson has had a second life after dark at this time of year. Nightfall is promoted as "one real haunted town!" I've never yet made it down there for Nightfall, but even in the daytime there were traces of the spooky effects to come:

The best in the window is one of those "eyes that follow you" FX, like the busts at the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. The skeleton is, well, a skeleton. But having witnessed a shootout at the end of Old Tucson's daytime programming, I couldn't help making a connection between the seated skeleton and the loser of the gunfight, gallantly helped onto a chair. A little photo editing, and presto!

Speaking of Disneyland, though, I actually have more spooky material to work with from my Disneyland trip back in May than from the October Old Tucson visit. After all, the Haunted Mansion is one of my very favorite attractions!

The famous "Hitchhiking Ghosts" are very hard to photograph, but I managed to boost the image a bit for an interesting effect!

At Old Tucson there was a stage show in the Grand Saloon, with a middle-aged chanteuse wrangling three singing and dancing ingenues. There's the chanteuse, but who is that behind her?

Why, it's the Bride from the Haunted Mansion!

 Aww, what the heck. One more. Below is the old courthouse in Tombstone, Arizona, the site of more than one hanging. If any place ought to be haunted, this seems like a good candidate. Or maybe the camera was picking up flares from the sun overhead. Yeah, that's it.

Or maybe there are ghosts there after all!

 Now let's see the other Robins' Spooky Effects!

Linking List
as of Saturday, October 19th, 2013
1:23 AM MST

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/mavarin

Jama - Posted!
Sweet Memories
http://mummyjam.blogspot.com

Ellen - Posted!
Ellen's Phlog
http://ellensphlog.blogspot.com/

Carly - Posted!
Ellipsis
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com


Karen

Round Robin: On Location in Tucson, AZ!

For the Round Robin Challenge: On Location, Carly asked to see iconic sights in our home city or town that had appeared on tv or in film - or if they hadn't, they ought to. Tucson has a fairly active film and tv industry, centered mostly around Westerns. Naturally, how much Western shooting gets done depends a lot on whether Westerns as a genre are in vogue in any given year. But when there are Westerns made here, or parts of them, a lot of it takes place at Tucson's combined film studio, back lot and tourist attraction: Old Tucson Studios. I didn't have a chance to get out there for this Challenge, but I have quite a bit of archive material on the place. I hope you don't mind!

Films made at Old Tucson rang from the sublime to the ridiculous. I can't remember whether this mission church is the same one used in the Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, Martin Short film Three Amigos, or whether this one was recreated for the stunt show seen here. For a film of highlights from this stunt show see Old Tucson Stunt Show 2005 on my YouTube channel, here:

 In season (they close for the hot summer), when not filming movies, tv shows or commercials, this place is largely all about the stunt shows. They're not all the same show, either. In this one, the guy on this balcony...

 ...is witness to a hanging!

This old locomotive has appeared in lots of movies and tv shows. Unfortunately it was among the many things damaged in an arson fire a decade ago.

The house behind the marshal here is from the tv series The High Chaparral. I also have a picture of the same guy in front of a building labeled McClintock, named after a John Wayne film. Rio Bravo was also filmed here.

Other iconic film locations in and around Tucson include Sabino Canyon, where other parts of Three Amigos were filmed, and the Boneyard of dead airplanes, where at least one film had its climactic confrontation. Oh, and the old courthouse downtown, which I've also photographed before, was the scene of a Route 66 episode called "How Much a Pound is Albatross?" starring Julie Newmar.

 Karen

Now let's see who else has locations to show us. Looks like it's just me and Carly so far. But it's not too late for YOU to join in!

Linking List
as of Saturday, June 1st, 1 AM MST

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/mavarin
http://www.youtube.com/user/Mavarin
@mavarin

Carly - Posted!
Ellipsis
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com

Best. Sunset. Ever.

I've just spent the past several hours editing the rest of the photos of Friday night's sunset as seen from Gates Pass outside Tucson, AZ. I freely admit that other people, especially professional photographers with good equipment, may have come up with better sunset pictures than these, but for me, this was the best sunset ever, the perfect combination of weather, location and timing. Many of the 71 raw files were so good that I didn't do any editing except to resize and sharpen, and occasionally crop. If the file name has a u after the number, that's what it means.

Having been way too indulgent on bandwidth lately on the posting of lots of large photo files, I'm going to take pity on your modems and limit this entry in both the number and size of what I'm posting. But I strongly encourage you to check out my Picasa album "West Side Story" for the whole set.

Looking back toward the city, just before sunset.

From West Side Story

Tucson Mountain Park at sunset. The buildings in
the distance are Old Tucson Studios.

Unedited for color or tone.

Sky island.

Also unedited for tone or saturation.

Karen

Eyewitness to History: Arizona Territory

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Share some of your favorite black and white photos. Older pictures are good, but what you also might think about is seeing how some of your favorite color pictures look in black and white -- most computer photo editors will let you make a photo black and white (or sepia-toned -- that's monochromatic, too). This is an opportunity to look at some of your best photos in a new way.

Time to hop in the TARDIS (or the Wayback Machine) for a trip to Old Tucson! As you can see from the quality of the photos, I stuck to the technology of the time rather than bring a digital camera to the past with me.

The railroad engineer, Old Man Funk, shows off his locomotive.
Unfortunately, a desperado set fire to it some years ago.

Another view of the burned-out locomotive.

The train station.

I arrived in Old Tucson just in time for some frontier justice.

From his haircut, I suspect that the man in front of me was another time traveler.

This man was arrested, tried, and hanged in the course of about ten minutes.
He never even saw the inside of a courtroom.

A judge sealed the man's fate from a second floor balcony.

After the hanging, the unfortunate criminal was carted off toward Boot Hill. The child in the photo is another suspected time traveler. I assume he did not visit the past by himself, but he appears to have wandered off. This could have had severe consequences to the timeline, but everything seems to be okay.

The U.S. Marshall, who wasn't a party to the hanging, was philosophical about it.
"These things happen all the time around here," he said.

More time travel photos to come!

Karen

(All photos by KFB, 3/20/05)