:serious moonlight:

Any news this week has pretty much been eclipsed by the unexpected (to us) death of David Bowie. Mere days after his 69th birthday and the release of what is now his final album, he succumbed to a long battle with cancer that the general public was unaware of. He had actually been away for the better part of a decade, with all the public rumors and fabrications sure to go along with such an absence, then from out of nowhere he releases two of his strongest albums in years, which go on to become his epitaph, even more so now, and we listen to the words and look at the images of his last videos and think, now, well of course. For example people are theorizing that the dead astronaut in the "Blackstar" video represents Major Tom, which brings us to a conclusion from his first major hit song of decades ago.

I've pondered why one should be so affected by the death of one who's not a relation or even anyone I had ever met, but someone online today put it into focus; "we don't cry because we knew them, we cry because they helped us know ourselves." His life itself was art, and now even his death proved to be so, with the music, lyrics and images he left for us at the end. I can only hope to leave such a legacy or make such an exit.

It of course also reminds one of mortality. I still have so much to do. I am pleased that I pretty much spent the Sunday before I heard the news either working on writing or photography. As near as I recall I've never done any artwork of or inspired by Bowie, but ideas are swirling about. The fact that he so often referenced space and the moon is at the forefront of my mind now.

The aforementioned photography was shots from the late summer photoshoot that I was a part of. Again I think the shots as they are now stand fine on their own, but this year I want to get back to textures and such that I used to work with before on my photos.

The first half of the shoot took place indoors in a garage area, and it brought to my mind the old pin-up calendars that were most likely to be found in auto repair shops. For all I know they still make them. But I wanted to make my new ones look like the old ones, with faded colors and some damage. I'm guessing most calendars aren't treated as high art, least of all in a garage.

So I searched down some old images online, and used the match color adjustment in Photoshop. I also hunted down some damaged paper texture to overlay over them as well. You can see the before and after below.

Appropriately enough I chose twelve images to work from, here are a few more.