Part 1 Alan Matsumoto and Chuck Feld Part 2 Dan Doubleday Part 3 Damon Farmer Part 4 John Gowdy Part 5 Greg Grady and Joe Maize Part 6 Meredith Corson Part 7 Ed Moore and Dave O'Brien Part 8 Robert Shaw, Scott Dosch and Rich Varano Auditorium Human Touch Museum

About Larry Dudock In 1992, I traveled to Israel. It was the first time I'd been there since 1974, at the age of seven. I didn't know how long I'd stay; it ended up being about four and a half months. Immediately before and during the trip, I developed a heightened interest in five areas: Astronomy, photography, airbrush art, music... and sandsculpting. Since then I've pursued each with varying degrees of interest. I did my first few sand sculptures during that Israel trip, on the shores of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. They were simple, taking an hour or two each, and were not very good. Still, I took pictures, which I still have. When I returned to the States, I looked up where the big sand sculpture contests were. The closest one was Virginia Beach. I went to it, in 1993, and every year since. I go to watch folks play in the sand, sometimes making things that are stunningly beautiful. I take pretty pictures and video of it. There is something about the creation of these things -- fingers rubbing away grains, sharp edges against empty space, the sand cut with a knife, the values imposed on formless lumps -- that intrigues me, sustaining my interest, making me come back for more. In 1997 my interest deepened. I learned of the Sandtennial, a non-competitive 'group-carve' with twenty sculptors, that John Gowdy was organizing in Atlantic City. It was for the one hundredth anniversary of the start of the art/sport. I went to it, made some friends, and took more pictures and video. That summer I tried doing pieces of my own on the local Long Island beaches, learning the limits of my skill, stamina, and patience. There have been thirteen of them so far. I also began visiting web sites maintained by some sculptors, and carrying on email conversations with some, such as 'Sandy Feet' and Larry Nelson. That part has been very satisfying. The video is labeled and kept safe. The photos will ultimately be organized into albums. Some already are, and some rolls of negatives have been carefully packed into sleeves in looseleaf binders, for easy storage and access. The rest will have to wait until I get to them. I have a videotape of the contest, along with more photographs. If you're curious, send me e-mail. I'll be happy to answer your questions. My sincere thanks to Larry Nelson for his interest, enthusiasm, and his willingness to post these on his page. Enjoy, Larry Dudock October 19, 1997 Top of Page Auditorium Human Touch Museum

Preface by Larry Nelson Any design problem involves compromise. In this case, I've decided to favor image quality over quantity. Maybe it's my middle-aged eyes, but I have a very hard time with the tiny images on most Web sites; I want more detail. For this exhibition, I've cropped Larry's photos rather than resize them downward. Photos that can't be cropped go on in full size. To limit the bandwidth requirement, these pages carry only about six images at a time. The photos are in sets devoted to a particular sculptor. The fact that some sculptors have more images than others has nothing to do with the quality of the sculpture. Larry had a vision for how to photograph the event, which is limited here by the Web's constraints, and filtered though my abilities and perception. Note that the photos vary wildly in color. The second day brought a heavy rainstorm, and the automatic processor compensated for what it saw as blue negatives by making the prints yellow. There wasn't enough information in the scan to correct this, so I let it stand. A note on this new version: Preparing the images for this exhibition taught me the basics of scanning, and that experience has worked its way into everything else I've done on the Web. Since doing this set of pages in November of 1997, however, I've learned a lot more about HTML. This exhibition started out as part of "Human Touch" on Mindspring. The show has held people's interest, so when I ran out of room on Mindspring I moved it to Geocities after completely rebuilding it. Now that I've bailed from Mindspring due to their execrable service, the Neptune Festival has been reintegrated with "Human Touch" at "sandhands.com". It may move again. I still like the results. I look forward to another collaboration if I get time for it. Note: comments with the photos are Larry's. Top of Page Auditorium Human Touch Museum

Some Comments from Larry on Photography Well, I don't like the bad photos either, so I try not to take any. :) Seriously, I go there with camera and gear that's a pain to carry around all day, and I don't add to the weight by taking umpteen rolls of film. For this year's V.B., I went down with nearly two full film rolls of 36 each, figuring I could buy more if I really had to. Limiting myself in this way meant I had to choose the shots carefully. I also kept in mind that, with 15 sculptors working, it divides out into only a couple of shots per sculptor -- *and* add to that the fact that I shoot as if what's in front of me is the last I'll see of a piece -- there's no guarantee it wouldn't be rained out tomorrow -- or that it'll collapse and they'll quit 30 minutes from now (though that last part -- quitting -- doesn't seem to happen to the pro crowd). Add to that the fact that I have an excellent camera and (in this case) nice things to take pictures of, and it's hard to miss. I agree about the appeal of sculptors doing things. I have a distaste for 'posed' pictures. They have a degree of unreality to them in the way people are treated like manequins. I strongly prefer 'slice of life' shots of people doing things; I also like the process of how sand sculpture is made, so shooting at various stages helps this.

neptindx.htm 1999 February 15