By Peter Ralston

Dear Friends, 

An odd assortment to share with you this week……nothing much that’s too “arty” but, instead, a little celebration of where we are on the spring warmth/light renewal cycle, plus a little something quite out of the ordinary!

RAVEN’s finally back in the water and I thought that you might get a kick out seeing what the final maneuvering of the annual splashdown looks like.

The first few yards toward the bay

A minute until splashdown

There seems to be an entrenched tradition of it raining when she goes back overboard and I thought that routine was finally broken when she went in on Tuesday, an almost cloudless, gorgeous last day of April. It subsequently went awry when several mechanical problems raised their ugly little – but expensive – heads and true to the tradition I just mentioned, she wasn’t able to get underway until Thursday when it was pouring rain!

The episode reminded me (again) of the painful realization that the word “boat” is an acronym…..B.O.A.T. – Break Out Another Thousand!

In any event, she’s in and soon I will get away and you’ll be seeing some new images again! By the way, in the top photograph of this page you can actually see our granite gallery building at the upper left….the first floor window furthest to the left is where I sit this minute.

AI Image

Speaking of new images, here’s one that nobody – repeat nobody – has seen before today! A dear friend of mine who has a scientific and technical background has been playing around with artificial intelligence and imaging. This past week I mentioned my tangential interest in what I’ve been hearing about A.I. and imaging and he took it upon himself to produce a variant (shown above) based on my two best known photographs, Pentecost and Clearing.

Pentecost by Peter Ralston photographer

Clearing by Peter Ralston photographer

I have not titled this piece (and won’t) but I find it both hilarious and educational. I cannot truly imagine myself seriously working with A.I.…..but artists – especially artists – should never say never! I will take this opportunity to point out that my decidedly non-A.I. images of Pentecost and Clearing are both approaching the ends of their respective limited-edition runs.

The Sightings Edition of both sold out many years ago, and the open-edition 8.5 x 11 inch matted prints of each will remain available, but I can only print four more Master Prints of Pentecost and then that edition is forever closed.

Wishing you and yours a glorious month of May, with  cheers,

Peter