PBS Technicolor Sunset (or, is it an Ed Mell?)

[Bob Boze Bell]

May 27, 2009
The record rain last week ended up to be just what Rob Rapley ordered: dramatic, ominous clouds, all day long.

After shooting the Dragoons, Rob and Michael decided they wanted to come back to the Middlemarch location for sunset, but since it was only 4:30, was there one more location we could visit and then come back?

I told them we could either do Gleeson or Charleston and if I had to bet, I'd choose the Charleston road. About a mile short of that destination, Rob and Michael both said pull over. Cecile B. DeMille streaks of light were breaking through the clouds:

We are looking west and Iron Springs is to the far right in the pass. While we were set up here many cars chugging up the hill towards Tombstone honked and waved at us (everyone in that part of the state loves a camera crew).

We got back in the rented Toyota and I sped back to the sunset location, just in time to capture the fading light on the Dragoons:

And then, with all lenses pointed west we waited for the sun to set at 7:17. We were not disappointed:

And it just got better and better (is this an Ed Mell painting, or what?):

And, just for grins, here's Michael standing up on a camera box, to capture that A-frame over the cemetery fence in Warren. So when you see it in the PBS American Experience show on Wyatt Earp you can chuckle to yourself:

And finally, here's the big Billy oil painting I just finished (glare and all):

It's got some cool, murky passages. I am going to do another one though, just because I can.

"I don't know anything about luck. I've never banked on it, and I'm afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: hard work—and realizing what is opportunity and what isn't."
—Lucille Ball

[Jeff Prechtel]

That turned out real nice Bob!

[Rick Rea]

I thought the photos were fantastic until I saw the painting - better yet (glare and all).

[Janet Erwin]

Terrific work as usual BBB, but it seems to be more of a Pat Painting, since he's front and center and Kid is in the background. Maybe you're going to reverse their positions in the new painting?

[Bob Boze Bell]

Maybe. And maybe I'll put a sugarloaf on his head to make you happy. Just kidding. Aren't you the one that hates the sombrero look?

[Janet Erwin]

Nope--I loves me some sombreros and wear 'em all the time, including the "Pistolero" I saved my pennies for years to order from Knudsen, but mine all have a low crown. I just think yer peloncillos look dorky & cornpone, is all. Like a witch hat with a wider brim...

[Bob Boze Bell]

I agree, some peloncillos (sugarloafs) look witchy but it is the precursor to the big 1920s Ken Maynard style lids (and some of those can look goofy as well), but if it has the right heighth and sweep, it can be a beautiful thing, and that is what in my mind, the Kid wears. So there.

[Janet Erwin]

Wull okay, yer the boss. I'll be happy as long as he's wearing some kind of non-dorky sombrero and is in his rightful place this time--front and center with Patsy lurking in the background (or out of the picture completely?) ;)

[gus Walker aka the mapinator]

i thought the photo of fading light on the Dragoons was an Ed Mell painting you snuck in there just for fun.