Baggley Park 11/18/06

I finished the "Rowboat" image today. This is of George Baggley and his daughter, Ruth Ann, in a rowboat at Isle Royale National Park.

In 1937, George Baggley left Yellowston National Park and went to Isle Royale, where he was instrumental in the development of that park. Authorized by Congress in 1931, Isle Royale was established as a National Park in 1940. George Baggley was superintendent of Isle Royale until 1946. Isle Royale National Park is an example of primitive America. 98% of the park is legal wilderness. The park has been the source of much important scientific research on ecosystems, predator-prey relationships (wolves and moose), and conservation, which have shaped management programs and policies on other Federal lands as well as across the nation and world. In 1981, Isle Royale was designated an International Biosphere Reserve by the United Nations.

Baggley Park 11/14/06

George Baggley, Isle Royale National Park, circa 1937

Today I finished the 1937 "Jacket" image of George Baggley as he stands on the deck of what appears to be a steamship, wearing a black leather trenchcoat. This photo is to the right of the "1929" photo of George on horseback, and lies on top of the "Rowboat" image described below. It took me 4.5 hours to paint the details of the "Jacket" photo after about 1.5 hours of tracing the image last night. After finishing the painting, I then traced the next image, George Baggley and daughter Ruth Ann in a rowboat, also at Isle Royale. I will paint this tomorrow (11/15), weather permitting. My concern now is with the temperature. When the paint gets cold it's like pudding. It's possible I may have to wait until spring to finish the east side. I should have the west side completed this week or early next week.

George was not the only pioneer in the family. He met his wife-to-be, Herma Albertson, at Yellowstone National Park.

Herma Albertson was born in 1896 in Inwood, Iowa, and moved to Idaho when she was very young. She attended the University of Idaho and received her Masters in Botany there. In 1929, a year after George Baggley started his tenure at Yellowstone, Herma Albertson was a seasonal ranger at Old Faithful. She returned in 1930 as a seasonal, and in 1931 became the first female permanent ranger naturalist at Yellowstone National Park.



Herma Albertson beside antler house in front of Mammoth Museum (visitor center), Yellowstone National Park (courtesy NPS Archives)

Herma Albertson Baggley co-authored a field guide, The Plants of Yellowstone National Park, with W.B. McDougall, in 1936. It was revised in 1956 and is still relevant and in use today as well as a desired collector's item. She also developed nature trails at Yellowstone which were models for the rest of the National Parks.

In 1952, Herma was the leader of the National Park Women, an organization formed in that year within the National Park Service to address housing issues. The organization still exists today and is active at the area, regional and national levels. Still involved with housing issues, the organization is also involved in scholarships, welcome and orientation, information sharing, scientific concerns, communication, and hospitality.

Herma Albertson Baggley was a pioneer in her field and was dedicated to breaking ground for women in a male-dominated workplace and society. The University of Idaho awards the Herma Albertson Botany Scholarship to undergraduates majoring in Biological Sciences.

Baggley Park 11/10/06

"1929 - Chief Ranger"

I was able to complete the "1929" image and add the photo border before calling it a day. It was windy and cold, so the paint was getting gummy. Today (11/11) it's raining, so I will have to wait until tomorrow (when it's supposed to be clear) to start on the second photo, "Lake Mead".

Here are the views of what the completed project will look like:

West Side

East Side

George F. Baggley was born in Mercer County, Missouri on November 6, 1898. He began his conservation career in 1917-18, at the age of 19, working in the Badlands area of South Dakota for then Governor Peter Norbeck. Governor Norbeck was a proponent of wildlife conservation and park development and was responsible for the creation of Custer State Park and Badlands National Monument. Governor Norbeck probably had some influence in directing George Baggley's interests.

In 1926, at the age of 28, George Baggley attended Colorado A&M (now Colorado State University) in Ft. Collins, as a special student in the School of Forestry. In March, 1928, George and 4 of his friends took the National Park Service Ranger Civil Service Exam. He passed and was offered a job at Yellowstone National Park, which he accepted, thinking it would be a good summer job before returning to school in the fall. The summer ended and George stayed in Yellowstone. In 1929, he became Yellowstone's first college-educated Chief Ranger. He never returned to Ft. Collins to graduate, but during his time at Yellowstone George was able to foster the use of the scientific method in wildlife management and helped acquire land in South Dakota that, in 1939, became Badlands National Monument.

I'll post more in the next installment.

Baggley Park 11/7/06

11/7/06
While dodging the rain, I've gotten the backgrounds completed for the photos. At least on the west side of the building. This is the more difficult side because I'm having to use water-based and oil-based paints, plus all the detail work involved to get around door trim and other appliances.

You'll notice a difference between the photo of 11/5 and today. I decided, after 4 hours of work, to paint over the tracings I did on Sunday. I had traced the photos for the left-hand and middle photos thinking that it would be easier to paint the details from the tracings than it would be to set up the projector and re-align everything. After some thought I figured it would be easier to re-align the projector to the blank background and paint from the projection than it would to paint the tracings and then paint the background (or visa versa), essentially painting the small details twice and increasing the time it took. I'm learning as I go.

It was actually a beautiful day, with the temp at 73, great light and golden leaves. An Indian Summer day to be sure. It was predicted to start raining between 8 and 10pm so I was hoping to get some detail painting in before that happened. At about 5:30 the sun went behind the clouds and I could get started. I have an overhead projector that I use to project the altered photos onto the wall so I can paint the details. At about 8:30, though, it started to drizzle and I was only 1/2 way done with the first (left-hand) photo. So I had to pack up.

Even though I don't think I look suspicious, the local police have made 2 visits to me since I started, both after it got dark, in response to calls that there was a vandal doing things to the building. Once on Sunday and again on 11/7. I think it's interesting since I don't know many vandals who would carry so much gear and light up their work are like I've been doing. But, I'm glad someone is paying attention.

11/8/06
I'll be heading back this afternoon to take some photos of the progress so far and hopefully get one photo done and perhaps another if the rain holds off.

Baggley Park 11/5/06

I started my public art project yesterday. I'm painting photographs on a building in a public park. The park is called Baggley Park, named for George Baggley, the first college-educated senior ranger at Yellowstone National Park (1927). He was also superintendent of Isle Royale National Park, Lake Mead National Recreation Area, helped acquire land for Badlands National Monument, was a champion of the scientific method applied to wildlife management, understood conservation and the roles of predator and prey in a healthy ecosystem, was awarded the National Park Service Distinguished Service Award, its highest honor, and helped the city of Boise develop its system of greenbelt pathways and parks. Hence the park being named after him. The photos are historical, starting with 1927 and going until the 1980s. I've converted the photos to line drawings to make it easier to paint on a rough-textured cinder block. There are 11 photos total of various sizes and 4 of the photos are photo-imaged onto glass tile which will be installed after the painting is completed.

I'll post my progress here.

Tool for color blindness

EyePilot, software to enable individuals with color blindness or color deficiency to read and navigate computer displays. eyePilot is designed as an interactive floating window (Capture Window) that can be layered over any web or browser window on your computer screen. The application is layered on top of other programs like a window or filter that interprets the underlying data for you. The tool is helpful for interpreting maps (subway maps, for example) by isolating a single colored route from the others. eyePilot has several tools; color isolation, color naming, color hue differentiation, magnification and printing and saving of modified views.

If you know anyone who may have difficulty with colors, this might be a useful tool for them. More information and a demonstration at www.colorhelper.com

DNA Computing

When I was in High School there was talk of computers using DNA as the logical component. Why not? Our brains are made of the stuff and our bodies run on electricity. It makes sense that it might (should) be possible to create a biological computer. Definitely, Science Fiction is full of stories related to this topic, even long before DNA was discovered.

Columbia University and the University of New Mexico have created MAYA II, an array of YES and AND logic gates made from strands of DNA. This array is able to play tic-tac-toe.



DNA computers work on a molecular scale and it's estimated that a cubic centimeter of DNA can hold the same amount of information as a trillion music CDs (I'll bet Apple is watching this technology closely. Think of it, an Ipod that is actually an apple - just kidding, but it would be cool). Molecular computers also produce electricity as a byproduct of DNA reactions, which means that DNA-based computers could eventually operate without depending upon an outside powersource. Think of laptops or cell phones with an inexhaustible power supply. The immediate hope for this technology is for internal medicine and biomedical research. DNA computers, coupled with nanomachines, could operate within the human body without rejection or the need for cumbersome power sources, diagnosing illness, maintaining regulatory functions (blood sugar, cholesterol), administering medications (insulin, cancer treatments directly to affected sites), and general upkeep (scouring plaque from blood vessel walls, for example), maybe even helping pump up our own brain functions (memory storage or recall, loading of skill sets, a la Johnny Mnemonic, the Matrix [Keanu Reeves coincidence is just that], or Total Recall). Then you would not need genetic engineering to create a smarter person, just insert a genetic computer to become whatever type of person you want to be or plug in a "designer" module to fit the particular situation.

That might be a little creepy if you think about it too much. However, integrating molecular components with current technology isn't possible yet, however. And, the computational speed still leaves a lot to be desired. A single tic-tac-toe move with MAYA II can take up to 30 minutes, so don't get your hopes up yet for help improving Photoshop.

More information is found Here.

Automatic Keywording

Interestingly enough, just yesterday I was discussing image keywording with some photographer friends. For stock photographers, keywording is a four-letter word. Time consuming, very challenging, and the workflow can be frustrating and inefficient. Keywords are very useful not only in stock photography, but also for personal archives. How do you locate that digital photo of Uncle Joe with spaghetti on his face from that party 3 years ago? Unless you have it stored in a specific folder on a hard drive or CD/DVD that you can locate pretty quickly, it can be quite a task to find it again. Keywords embedded into individual photo files gives you the resource to search by those words to find image files. The problem is the time and effort it takes to create a list of relevant words describing each photo.

Well, now comes along some research out of the Pennsylvania State University to start the ball rolling to make it easier to keyword. Called Automatic Linguistic Indexing of Pictures-Real Time, a computer is trained to recognize objects and concepts in a photo and assign keywords based on that training. It's not perfect yet, and the vocabulary is limited, but it's a start.

You can try it out for yourself at www.alipr.com. You can upload a photo of your own (it becomes part of the online library, just so you know) or you can view archives of submitted photos and the associated keywords.

Here is a photo of mine I tried out. You can see the list generated is not completely accurate. The checked boxes were selected by me to let ALIPR know these were the most accurate words to describe the image. I also added words below to better describe the subject.

Click on the image to enlarge the view.