"Night News" - an occasional missive from the darkness
Vol.1 No.1
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"Let us bribe the Moon God
Aloof in high heaven
To make this night as long
As five hundred nights."

-Prince Yuhara (8th century)
Trans. from the Japanese by Kenneth Rexroth
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Happy New year to all! Seems a good beginning for 1999 - first of all, there's a Full Moon tonight starting after 9pm, and there's a second full moon this month, on the 31st. As you may know, the second full moon occurring in a given month is called a 'Blue Moon' and isn't all that common - hence the phrase, "once in a blue moon." The last Blue Moon I can recall, occurred in June of 1996 - yet this year we have one in January as well as a reoccurrence in March. The first full moon of March (Full Crow Moon) is on March 2nd and the second Blue Moon of the New Year (a blue, blue moon?) is on the 31st. Coinciding with this, The Nocturnes, along with RayKo South Photo Center in San Franciso initiate our Spring series of Full Moon Night Photography Workshops. We are offering our full 3-session Night Photography Workshop 4 times in the April-May-June timeframe at RayKo Photo Center (see http://www.thenocturnes.com/workshop.htm for more info, dates, pricing, etc.) and Lance and I look forward to the Spring series as well as more offerings in the Summer. Look to the Web site in the next few months for more info about that. As he did last year, Guest Lecturer Troy Paiva (http://www.designshed.com) no doubt will continue to make appearances, with regularity - like the elusive full moons he chases around exotic desert climes. Look for a lot more work and new directions from Troy in 1999.

More work by Lance and myself is forthcoming and will be posted to TheNocturnes.com in the near future. We are also negotiating to have some images by Steve Harper (whom Bay Area Night Photographers owe a lot to) up on the site soon! And look for some important changes in the GALLERY section of the site in the next month or so, as well as some long awaited additions to the TIPS, HINTS, and CLUES dept.

Also by Summer, expect to see an Online Exhibition ("Studio Nocturne") of work we've become aware of from all over the Web. The exhibit will be juried by The Nocturnes and a 'mysterious' Guest Curator! We are 'shopping' the idea of extending the show to a physical location in the Bay Area, as well. Check out http://www.thenocturnes.com/entries in the next few months for more information.

Because a lot of you have expressed interest in the Night Photography Workshops via the Web (this is why you're getting an email!), we know a lot of you are on the East Coast (or at least points East of here - San Francisco Bay Area). So, we are thinking of extending our workshops to the East Coast. While we would love to see/meet you out here in San Francisco (it certainly offers some opportunities that, I think, are hard to find elsewhere . . . ), we are open to your feedback re: suggestions for locations, logistics, groups or institutions that might be interested in offering the workshops, etc. Feel free to email your suggestions, comments to me at address below. Or snail mail to Pacific Media Arts, Inc., PO Box 590161, San Francisco, CA 94159.

Here's to a great year of nights in 1999 - hope to hear from you all soon.

And just get out there.


Tim Baskerville
basket@thenocturnes.com

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"So, you should VISIT more often . . . "
http://www.thenocturnes.com