Winganon Cement Mixer Space Capsule in 360° Panorama

26 May 2012 Tanja Barnes

On the roadside near East 300 Road and South 4130 Road just off of Highway 169 in Rogers County, Oklahoma, lays what appears to be an old NASA space capsule.

The Facebook page of the Winganon Space Capsule elucidates: “The mixer wrecked when the Winganon bridge was being built in 1959. The cement hardened and the truck was hauled away while the mixer was abandoned due to weight. It has become a local landmark and roadside attraction. Over the years it has been painted many times and the current theme is as a NASA escape pod / nose cone. The current theme was done on 9/25/11 to celebrate the 5th wedding anniversary of a local couple.”

“Spirit Tree” Joplin’s Tornado Landmark in 360° Panorama

23 May 201227 June 2018 Tanja Barnes

A year ago a deadly EF-5 tornado ripped through the city of Joplin, Missouri, killing 161 people and damaging or destroying about 7,500 homes and 500 other buildings.

Despite it all, the city is well into a significant recovery mode but there is still work to be done. Along the tornado’s path at the intersection of East 20th Street and the Kansas City Southern Railway tracks, where Dillon’s grocery store used to be, now stands the colorfully painted “Spirit Tree” — a new landmark for the city of Joplin.

Wesak “Super Moon” 2012

7 May 2012 Tanja Barnes

“Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.” – Buddha

Yesterday the observance of Wesak, also known as the celebration of the Buddha Full Moon, not only coincided with Cinco de Mayo but is also notable as this year’s “super moon”, the closest and therefore the biggest and brightest full moon of the year. But instead of partying at a local tequila bar or dedicating my yoga practice to the life and death of the Buddha, a friend of mine and I set out to capture the moon with our cameras from atop the Getty Center.

Bottle Tree Ranch in 360°

11 April 201229 June 2018 Tanja Barnes

Bottle Tree Ranch is a quirky, on-going outsider art installation/domicile located on National Trails Highway (formerly and more famously known as Route 66) in a town called Oro Grande just outside of Victorville. Similar to Hulaville, a defunct roadside attraction that at one time could also be found on Route 66, Bottle Tree Ranch is a collection of junkyard treasures including old bottles, typewriters, Lionel train sets, sewing machines, buffalo nickels, the kitchen sink and much more that have all been transformed into a dense forest of mixed media sculptures. Experience Bottle Tree Ranch on Google Maps Street View here.

360° Panorama at the Ojai Valley Inn and Spa

26 March 2012 Tanja Barnes

This past weekend I enjoyed a marvelous getaway at the Ojai Valley Inn and Spa. At about a half hour before dusk I set out to capture photos of the famous “pink moment” a phenomenon that occurs when the setting sun casts a brilliant shade of pink for several minutes on the nearby Topatopa Bluffs. Alas, due to inclement weather the pink moment was elusive but my visit to the inn was fabulous just the same. For more splendid panoramic views, click on the images below.

Update: Oops, sorry folks. Looks like there’s an issue in displaying the images below so I’m featuring the direct link here just in case.

Above: The courtyard of the Spa Ojai Village features a Morrocan style fountain,
a 50’ bell tower and outdoor fireplace.

Above: The Artist’s Cottage & Apothecary

Above: Steps leading to the Shangrila Pavillion, named after Frank Capra’s film “Lost Horizon”.
It is believed that the film was lensed in the Ojai valley.

Above: Rosemary, basil, and lavender are harvested from the the Herb Garden at the Ojai Valley Inn and Spa.

Wall Street Journal: Studies prove massage therapy to have medical benefits

17 March 2012 Tanja Barnes

While it’s common to think of massage therapy as just a mere a luxury, recently the Wall Street Journal touted the medical benefits of massage in an article published earlier this week entitled “Don’t Call It Pampering: Massage Wants to Be Medicine“.

The article and accompanying video (above) posted on WSJ’s Market Watch stated that massage is growing in popularity among U.S. consumers despite the economy due to studies indicating it has scientifically measured medical benefits including reducing cortisol, decreasing proteins related to inflammation, increasing white blood cell count and promoting muscle recovery.

“Research over the past couple of years has found that massage therapy boosts immune function in women with breast cancer, improves symptoms in children with asthma, and increases grip strength in patients with carpal tunnel syndrome,” stated the article. “Giving massages to the littlest patients, premature babies, helped in the crucial task of gaining weight.”

It’s great to see new research supporting the benefits my humble vocation, however I feel the article completely ignores Western medical studies that has been out for well over 100 years (see my comment to the WSJ article here), and the empirical evidence of the benefits of massage that have been documented since the beginning of history from almost every culture on the planet.

Also, the article’s position that massage is a wanna-be medical modality is somewhat disappointing to me since throughout history massage therapy has always been used as an adjunct to coordinated medical care.

After all, it was the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates (460 to 377 BC), who is considered to be ‘the father of Western medicine’, that once said “anyone wishing to study medicine must master the art of massage.”

To learn more about the benefits of massage therapy, I invite you to download free informational PDFs about it from my website here.

Kiva – Make a Loan for FREE with Kiva & Me!

16 March 2012 Tanja Barnes

As some of you may know, I am a lender at Kiva.org, an organization that allows people to lend money via the Internet to microfinance institutions in developing countries around the world and in the United States, which in turn lend the money to small businesses and students.

It was many years ago that Otto Schutt initially introduced me to this organization. Since his death and in loving memory of him, I lend about 90% of my portfolio to women to help them acquire and maintain a small business in Ecuador, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Bolivia, Chile, Guatemala, Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cambodia, Samoa, the Phillipines, the Ukraine and Pakistan.

Today you can help someone escape poverty by trying out microlending platform Kiva, and it won’t cost you a dime.

I’m inviting you to participate in the Kiva Free Trials program which hopes to introduce people to the positive impact of microfinance philanthropy, and get them to lend their own money next time.

All you have to do is go to kiva.org/free where Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn has put up $1 million of his money to enable 40,000 people give $25 microloans to help those in need start farms and general stores that can support their families.

Once again, the link is https://www.kiva.org/invitedby/tanjabarnes

TanjaBarnes.com’s Gone Mobile!

2 February 2012 Tanja Barnes

I’m so excited to announce the launch of Tanja Barnes Mobile. It’s the same tanjabarnes.com URL but with an interface tailored to your phone.

With this webapp you can learn in a concise format the various services I provide and the cost of a treatment. You can also:

Contact me with the touch of a button and book a massage
Purchase gift certificates via Google Checkout
Learn a few tips on how to massage a friend or sweetheart
Add my new mobile app to your home screen for quick access on the go.

For those who would like to know more, my full website can still be viewed from your laptop or desktop computer. It provides more in-depth information about my services and includes access to my entire suite of online resources including FAQs, digital downloads, blogs, 360° panoramas and more.

Check it out by clicking tanjabarnes.com or scanning the QR code above from your smart phone to get started. And please let me know what you think

Portal of the Folded Wings Shrine to Aviation

22 January 2012 Tanja Barnes

A year ago I posted my first 360 panoramic image to my blog featuring the interior to the Portal of the Folded Wings Shrine to Aviation which is very similar to the image posted above. Some improvements between the one from this year and last year:

Portal of the Folded Wings (exterior)
“Little Planet” projection

Use of a nadir shot (to hide the tripod) using a fantastic tutorial by Florian Knorn.
Use of PhotoShop to post-process the image.
Use of KRPano projection instead of QuickTime. I really like this method because it’s viewable on a mobile device such as an iPhone.
Position of camera within the shrine (more centered within the space).

On this particular image, the use of PhotoShop is probably the most dramatic improvement overall because previously throughout 2011 all of my panoramic images were edited using Aperture. Since I began using PhotoShop I’ve quickly come to realize what an injustice using solely Aperture was to all my in-camera work and preparation.

Moving forward for 2012, I’ll be developing my skills with PhotoShop to obtain better quality shots. I hope you will join me in my travels and adventures.

Salvation Mountain in 360°

2 January 201229 June 2018 Tanja Barnes

View on Google Maps Street View

A year ago I blogged about my New Year’s goal to develop my chops in 360° photography. To that end, throughout the 2011 I explored and photographed spaces that artist’s work in and/or find inspirational.

This brought me to Salvation Mountain on Easter Sunday where not only did I meet the artist Leonard Knight (see original post) but also had a star sighting: Sean Penn and his gal pal Scarlett Johanssen. Knight appeared as a cameo in the film “Into the Wild” (2007) that was directed by Penn. It would appear that since then they’ve remained friends.

When in early December Knight was placed in a home after being diagnosed with dementia, I became concerned about the survival of his life’s work. In my humble opinion, without the artist there to maintain it, it wouldn’t be long before the mountain suffers from either erosion or vandalism or both.

Salvation Mountain – “Little Planet” projection

So I made plans to camp at Salvation Mountain for New Years and take some panorama photos for posterity. The first time I came to visit the weather was warm but blustery winds whirled around the mountain which limited my ability to interior shots only.

This time, however, the weather conditions were more favorable: the air was calm and still which enabled me to get a series of exterior shots that I’ve posted below.

Salvation Mountain gives curb appeal to the community of people who live in what’s called Slab City, an abandoned Marine base in the Salton Sea that’s been overtaken by squatters for the past 50 years or so. You could say the mountain is the crown jewel of the slabs.

Recently there’s been a lot of press about Slab City* that’s mostly tied to Knight’s health reports and the fate of Salvation Mountain. This has caught the attention of many journalists (of which I met several on this recent trip) that have discovered that Slab City’s inhabitants to be rich with human interest stories about outsider artists as well as survivors of the Econopocalypse.

I should say that “slabbers“, as the locals like to refer themselves to, consists of folks living on the edge: a weird hybrid of retired fixed income senior citizens and wealthy snowbirds, homeless vagabonds, itinerant Canadians (!), dirty hippies, children of the Rainbow Family and binky sucking candy ravers, not to mention runaways, alcoholics, tweekers and dropouts.

It’s not exactly a tourist destination to go to Slab City. It’s not even remotely like a family vacation at Disneyland or even Burning Man. No, Slab City is rough yet some inhabitants have brought their families there presumably because they have no place else to go. A visit to the slabs is like entering the world of Mad Max where all the perceived danger is real. It’s no place for kids. That said, most of the locals I met were incredibly kind, genuine and authentic. I even met a bunch of out-of-towners like myself including a slew of hipsters from San Francisco, a contingent of Tucsonian students, and some German and Australian tourists. Of course, academia also represented: I met a sociolologist from Stanford documenting the slabbers and their urban tribal community.

While I befriended many slabbers that I consider to be the salt of the earth, I also found that a few of Slab City’s inhabitants — to quote Obi Wan Kenobi — can be described as wretched and well, downright scummy. One must be cautious when visiting this place. If you’re thinking of visiting put your trust to the tender mercies of a man named James, a long-time slabber with the world’s smartest and cutest dog called “Spider Monkey” and tell him I sent you.

If you prefer to visit the slabs through the magic of technology, you can catch James tonight at 10pm on the History Channel: Corey’s Big Play. (2012). https://www.history.com/shows/pawn-stars/episodes/current-season. And you can always virtually visit Salvation Mountain through the series of 360° panoramas I took by clicking on the images below: