Outriders (2003) restored and updated to HD

 

In 2003 I made a documentary for the 20th anniversary of Outriders, the gay group that ride annually from Boston to Provincetown in one day. I did it for almost 20 year when I lived in Boston and it is a great ride with great people. The standard definition version, like most Sd videos just doesn't cut it on modern devices so I am upgrading my older films so they can still be relevant and hopefully inform people about things like Outriders which is just a fantastic organization.

Illustration: Carver Street, Provincetown, MA

 The last of these Provincetown drawings for a long while I think. I pass this house a lot from  where I stay to Commercial Street. I love the look but drawing it I saw there were a lot of signs of it having some maintenance issues. I didn't draw any of the trees etc around it to see more of the structure. 

Illustration: Unitarian Universalist Meeting House of Provincetown

 

I hard a hard time seeing this place completely as there was always work being done on it when I was in Provincetown. It's set far back from the street and now has houses on either side and trees blocking a clear view as well. On my early morning walk on my last day I passed it and the trucks were gone! So I took a few reference photos and this is the result. Even with the workers gone, the right side was not really visible so I searched from old illustrations and photos from when the church was clearly visible. 

Illustration: Love N Happiness, Provincetown Massachusetts

 This was a different challenge. Doing the red on red on red paint job was what drew me to the building. I took away the power lines and other extraneous stuff from around the structure and then took away the little American flags and Xmas decorations I thought would ruin the cleaner look I wanted. 

Illustration: Tower from Commercial St Beach, provincetown , MA

 

This is a common view in provincetown, I never tire of it. One thing I don't like is the wires, posts and other crap that blocks the details I like to see so i didn't drawn much of that. Still the details took quite a bit of time and I almost decided to keep this as line work. I have a couple more drawings to do from my December trip. 

Illustration: Race Point lighthouse, Provincetown MA

 

This was much easier than I thought it would be. I thought house details would take forever and I wasn't sure how I was going to paint the colours as my reference were all taken during a snowstorm so I had to remember and guess how they looked to me while there. 

I kept a somber tone and tried not to go crazy with the details on the dunes as it's the lighthouse and buildings I want to stand out. Outlines with an ink brush for the details and then coloured in underneath. 

Illustration: Lobster Pot restaurant Provincetown, MA

 Not quite head on like my other buildings but there was not a chance of even seeing the name of the place if I did that. I loved eating here for decades but since I can only afford to be in Provincetown off season, it closed when I am there now. I did not add too much shading to this one, for some reason I like it better a little simpler. 

photography: Provincetown 2023

 I wasn't sure if I would be able to take my end of year trip to provincetown Massachusetts this year. The hotel I usually stay in doubled it rates and going to the states has become more of chore for me lately. However, a friend who has a condo there rents it out and gave me a really kind offer and I was able to stay 5 night for what would have costs me for 2 so I took advantage of that and was able to wander around and take a photos in at least one place I have never been to before.  I only spoke to one person I knew while there the entire trip which was very nice for me because I go there for solitude. Provincetown is super active in season but the opposite off season. I was also recovering from my first case of Covid and had (and still have weeks later) a terrible cough. So while being sick while away isn't ideal, it's better to be sick in a place you can do things by yourself and come back to your place and just sleep or do nothing.

(click images to see larger versions)

There are three lighthouses in provincetown, one I photographed in detail last year, one I have never seen and one I kept seeing but could never get to on Race Point. It took three days of walking for hours and a quick cab ride to finally get there. It's not a road and there are no signs telling where it is. I was deposited on a fire road that became dunes and a sort of broken pathway that led to the lighthouse and it's accompanying buildings. Great! Well, mostly great. The one day i could get there was the same day as a snow storm the the photos I took were not exactly what I was looking for but managed a few good ones I hope. 

Other excursions took me all over Race Point and while I have taken nice images there before I was able to spend more time wandering all over. There are several structures there I find interesting and the dunes are always beautiful.

Lastly, I spent some time taking photos on and around commercial street, the main drag through the town in the daytime and also at night to sort of button up the images I have wanted ot take over the years and never got to. 

Illustration: Provincetown Tourism Office

 

This was a strange challenge in that, in Provincetown, this building is almost always partially hidden by trees so taking reference where you can see everything is impossible. Luckily I was able to just mirror details from one side to another for the most part. I did have to look at a series of photos from different angles and get very stuck with the upper part and went through photos people put on Flickr of the building and managed to pick up more details that way. I really wanted to isolate the house from everything around it to show the architecture. 

Illustration: Terrace, Provincetown USA

 

Something I hope my friends Louis and Eric will like. This was the terrace attached to their place, until their recent sale,  in Provncetown USA. Painted in Procreate over a couple weeks, I did not feel like I was ready for it, it's sort of complicated, until I finished the lighthouse illustration. Landscapes don't come easy for me and I am trying to do more so I'm not so intimated by them. Not sure what style I was going for here. It's not photographic but it is a little anime background painting maybe. Tried to use perspective lines to give it depth. 

Illustration: phare: herring cove Provincetown

 I started and restarted this a few times, so many times I actually thought I had done several versions already! I finally decided on ink with colour under it using Procreate. It actually looks OK without the ink, rough but it's all there. I am not super confident with full landscapes, especially in colour but this came out like I wanted it and I think it has depth to it. 

Illustration: update to Provincetown Library

I decided to take some advice from friend John, a really good artist and architect, and add some tone to the rear of the image to make the building stand out more. Took me forever to find the time to do it but it does look better, I think! 

Illustration: Provincetown Public Library

 I took away much of the stuff around the library so it could be seen clearly and I could highlight how beautiful its architecture is. I used Sketchbook pro on the iPad and finished it up on the desktop version which is a big plus to using Sketchbook. I am trying to catch up on my artwork these days. I have a few more projects I want to do from my visit to Cape Cod in December. Commercial street is pretty narrow and often crowded so getting clear references were a little tough. I did not want to got too crazy with grey tones and let the lines speak for themselves. 

Photography: Herring Cove lighthouse and Provincetown MA, USA

 I was recently in Massachusetts for a week and spent a few days in Provincetown on Cape Cod, a place I used to frequent when I lived in Boston. It was very cloudy which made the day photography nice and interesting but I was hoping to get some night shots on the beach of the stars as well and that wasn't to be. That might have been for the best as I spent a day in-between tides on Herring Cove and noticed a couple coyotes were in the area but not paying too much attention to me. I found out after getting home that there have been a few attacks on the beach in broad daylight only a week before. 

One reason I went was to try and photograph a lighthouse on Herring Cove I have completely failed to capture on any of my other trips there. The last attempt I walked along the breakers to the lighthouse in a dense fog which turned out to be super dangerous and the fog was so think I got only 2 shots of a barely visible lighthouse. This time the day was great and I took the long way around and back via the beach. No one was around for miles... perfect for me. 

I got up at sunrise a few times to photograph the harbour and piers which went fine. There isn't a drastic sunrise and the sunsets, which are often amazing, eluded me this trip. 

Illustration: Abandoned Structure Provincetown Massachusetts

Updated after feedback from Mike:

I removed the grass on the side and added trees.  This looks better and I have to say - less lazy!

 I guess this can be classified as being done while I was away as well. I finished it waiting for the bus to take me home. It's a building in a terrible state along the beach in Provincetown and I used a crayon-like brush to get the rough effect I saw in it's details. It s pretty much all line work with no tones. I supposed I could have added grey to on side of the building to give it a more shaded and "3D" look but I don't think it needs that. I really like just black and white sometimes. 

Photos from Boston area visit

 I recently had to visit Boston, no easy task with the covid testing and restrictions. Getting around to anyplace was a nightmare but after getting there, it was super nice to see family and friends. I finally got to take out the camera and really takes some photos. Being stuck here on the island for a couple years sort of limited my subject matter. Another aspect of this trip was to not bring a laptop but only use my iPad pro which has a terabyte of space and with Affinity photo installed, should be enough to process most of the photos I take while away. This was pretty efficient and made travelling pretty easy. I did miss some plugins I use often but there is no reason I can't just take the iPad with me from now on. Once Affinity gets a tablet version of Publisher released, I should be able to do pretty much everything but 3D works it. I am used (spoiled) by my 27 inch screen but the tablet screen was, honestly, more than good enough while running around from place to place. 

Click images to see them larger.

Provincetown.

I never get tired of this place and the beach, dunes and town are always changing enough to keep my camera lens trained on it. I was super lucky to be there when a boat got beached in nearby Turo. 

Boston

Boston has changed so much since i lived there that it is now an unfamiliar place to me. I got lost a couple timesaver got my bearings back. I took new photos of places I had photographed 40 years previously, with limited success. I also spent some time in Quincy Quarry with a friend and that was interesting.

Newburyport

I have been here before and it's really lovely to walk on the wood pathways to the beach. I have only been in wintry times so the place is always pretty much deserted, my favourite way to visit anyplace!