More Original Refrigerator Art

2012-01-30T04:00:00.000-08:00

2012-01-29T07:41:00.001-08:00

2012-01-28T05:39:00.001-08:00

2012-01-27T07:32:00.001-08:00

2012-01-26T04:29:00.001-08:00

2012-01-25T05:06:00.001-08:00

2012-01-24T09:00:00.001-08:00

2012-01-23T07:59:00.000-08:00

Women of all ages seem to delight in having their picture taken as they grasp this adolescent

boy's penis.

Giggle.

What would their reactions be, were it a statue of a very young girl and men posed sticking

their fingers in her shiny vagina?

I wonder.

2012-01-22T08:45:00.001-08:00

2012-01-21T07:03:00.001-08:00

2012-01-20T05:47:00.001-08:00

2012-01-19T08:00:00.000-08:00

Support in Opposition

2012-01-18T05:47:00.000-08:00

I agree that PIPA and SOPA (did I get those right?) are bad, and the people behind them are bad, and the government(s) frighteningly stupid to do what they are doing.

I have not purchased any new music (CDs or downloads) in years. Practically all my reading is either material online or in used books. I go to maybe one movie every five years, dropped Netflix, and don't stream anything. Rarely watch television. My mobile phone isn't smart at all. I don't have any computer games or devices, and what software I have is always obsolete.

Perhaps that is my message to the industry.

Certainly anything I say or do on my wee blogs won't be heard—might as well stand out in my backyard holding a little sign up towards passing airplanes.

Someday, I suppose they will try to claim that everything I look at, or include in a picture, is their "intellectual property" (Some museums and galleries are doing that now, by prohibiting photography.)

Oy vey!

2012-01-17T06:19:00.000-08:00

2012-01-16T05:54:00.000-08:00

Božena Němcová was a Czech writer who died in poverty. She was given "a magnificent funeral".

[Wikipedia]

2012-01-15T06:29:00.001-08:00

2012-01-14T05:49:00.001-08:00

2012-01-13T06:03:00.001-08:00

2012-01-12T06:15:00.001-08:00

2012-01-11T04:59:00.000-08:00

Everyone is taking pictures now. Everywhere. All the time.

At first, I looked upon them with disdain; they were—without forethought, respect, or understanding—doing what I have spent a lifetime studying and practicing.

To top it all, I was blaming them for all these blasted restrictions on photography.

But I was wrong.

It is those trying to restrict or prohibit photography by the public, who are failing to see the rapidly approaching tsunami.

The technical hurdles to photography are now gone—anyone, everyone, can make good pictures… for free!

I am just hoping that, in time, through all these pictures taken, viewed, and discarded, some may learn to experience moments of life visually, even a little.

2012-01-10T06:38:00.003-08:00

2012-01-09T06:45:00.001-08:00

2012-01-08T04:26:00.000-08:00

2012-01-07T04:00:00.001-08:00

2012-01-06T06:21:00.001-08:00

2012-01-05T05:44:00.001-08:00

2012-01-04T06:19:00.000-08:00

Note: I've gone and rearranged the deck chairs again. Images from my time in Europe last fall will now appear on this blog. I'll also be returning to daily posting here, because this decision brings with it a backlog of 200 images, with many more to come.

Oh, and one new year's resolution for me: I am no longer going to inform people that what I do is in no way an 'accurate' record of what was in front of the camera. I am not in the education business.

The Profligatographer

2012-01-03T11:29:00.001-08:00

2011-12-31T21:27:00.001-08:00

2011-12-29T06:04:00.001-08:00

2011-12-24T08:14:00.000-08:00

To whomever,

May you have a happy whatever, whoever, wherever, however,

and whenever.

2011-12-22T06:43:00.001-08:00

2011-12-20T09:58:00.001-08:00

2011-12-18T09:54:00.001-08:00

2011-12-17T08:18:00.001-08:00

2011-12-16T07:15:00.001-08:00

2011-12-15T07:05:00.000-08:00

U.S. Marines massacre "… 24 Iraqis, including a 76-year old man in a wheelchair, women and children, some just toddlers." [news article]

2011-12-14T07:48:00.001-08:00

2011-12-11T07:53:00.001-08:00

While it is impossible to avoid all words in all images—when your subject matter is the urban setting—I have always preferred showing those that contain no words, because people will almost invariably assume that any words in an image are what the picture is 'about', read those words, and not even try to 'see' the image.

Maybe that is another reason why I prefer working in other (non-English) countries, because fewer people will be able to read the words.

2011-12-10T07:20:00.001-08:00

2011-12-08T17:42:00.001-08:00

2011-12-07T06:12:00.001-08:00

2011-12-06T07:31:00.001-08:00

2011-12-05T08:39:00.000-08:00

2011-12-04T10:04:00.001-08:00

2011-12-03T04:20:00.003-08:00

2011-12-02T06:26:00.001-08:00

2011-12-01T04:51:00.003-08:00

2011-11-30T06:31:00.001-08:00

2011-11-29T06:52:00.001-08:00

Clean Cup, Move Down

2011-11-28T08:29:00.000-08:00

Something look a little different here?

I just deleted all the posts with pictures from the most recent spell in Europe; did the same thing on another of my blogs (Here Now, Gone Before Long). And now there is born a[nother] blog, which I've tentatively titled "Seeing Alone", and where I will be posting new pictures from this trip as I complete them.

Not sure how all this is going to turn out; fasten your seatbelt.

At the same time, I shall resume periodic posting of images (not from the recent trip) here.

2011-11-23T07:05:00.000-08:00

Note: The final chapter has been added to my Iceland blog-book on the Web, with 57 more pictures released for public consumption.

2011-10-08T00:02:00.000-07:00

Please bear with me; I have flown the country

and forgot to bring along my stock of pictures for posting here.

I thought I had but I've looked everywhere on this little computer and nothing.

So you will be forced to look at a few snaps...

I'm still surprised that the security [theater] police let me through without a question or second glance.

2011-10-04T14:16:00.001-07:00

2011-10-02T19:16:00.001-07:00

2011-09-30T10:19:00.000-07:00

Death Noted.

I recently learned of the death of a friend from a long time ago.

T.N. did not have an easy go of it and often difficulties keeping her life together and right side up, but she kept trying.

She was a kind person with a good heart and did not deserve an early death from cancer.

Yet death awaits us all, without exception.

Acknowledge the fact and remember those who are now dead.

2011-09-25T07:03:00.000-07:00

On his early morning walk, the

old man paused …

waiting for the pain to subside.

Then he walked on.

2011-09-23T05:59:00.000-07:00

2011-09-20T08:48:00.001-07:00

Unexpected Change in the See

2011-09-18T06:31:00.000-07:00

A reminder that we (you and I) are not driving this bus, and have no real control over where it goes: Google very recently made some changes in how blogs (those made with their Blogger application, which is the vast majority of us) appear and operate—and I have been unable to find any explanation or discussion of these changes.

Here is what I am seeing: in the old way, when you clicked on a blog picture, it would display by itself, generally in a larger size. If the picture was larger than would fit on your monitor, you could click again to further increase the size and view details. Pressing the back button on the browser's menu bar (or the delete key on a Mac) would take you back to where you were in the blog itself.

But now, when you click on a picture, the window changes to a black background, with the selected picture in the center, and a ribbon of all the images in the one post at the bottom. Click on the primary picture and nothing will happen. Try using the either the back button (or delete key) and you will now be sent back to the previous address you visited—and away from the blog altogether. Not good.

It appears that, if you click on the tiny white string of text in the lower left quadrant of this new, black window, a new window will open that (like the old way) will be the image by itself on a white background—that behaves as in the old way. This is a separate, free-standing window; move it and you will see the previous (new, black) window behind it.

By the way, you move back from the black window to the main blog page by either pressing the X in the upper right-hand corner of the window, or pressing the escape key.

At least I think that is right. Feel free to add comments.

RESOLVED! See last (fifth) comment to this post for the solution.

2011-09-16T08:09:00.000-07:00

No Entry

Do not step on

Pink/Red

Thanks

2011-09-13T09:44:00.001-07:00

2011-09-12T21:05:00.000-07:00

My work process involves a lot of time spent just looking at the image in the virtual darkroom of the computer; letting my eyes wander about the image without [conscious] direction. For me, at this point, it is more painting or drawing than photograph; I can and will change anything that doesn't suit me. Add, subtract, alter, move. Or just discard it and move on.

I shoot instinctively; fast and often, though very rarely more than one exposure of a subject. And I work solely to please myself, and what I do pleases me very much.

An Embarrassment of Bullshit

2011-09-11T04:00:00.000-07:00

If you support the troops, then ENLIST and SERVE! And encourage your own children to do so, too; it's the honorable thing... put them in harm's way... make them heros! Forget this bullshit of bumper stickers, lapel pins, and slogans.

The American way: retaliate for 3,000-odd civilian deaths by killing 873,531 civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan—that'll show 'em who's boss, eh Dick, George?

It makes me sick, and embarrassed to be an American.

2011-09-09T15:45:00.000-07:00

2011-09-06T05:32:00.000-07:00

A bucolic scene reminiscent of 19th Century landscape paintings, combined with a rather interesting example of legal prose.

2011-09-04T08:23:00.000-07:00

I am considering stepping away from the daily posting of pictures. It is not that I have any difficulty finding images to post; I am concerned, though, that by putting up a new image every day, I am only fueling this unfortunate propensity for flash—bang—bang—move on—something new now—that has infected our lives all the time in every way now.

My sense is that people are no longer taking the time to really experience anything. Meditate. Absorb. Breathe in, and out.

Experience silence, emptiness.... slowly. The end for each of us is death; no need to rush.

It is so very much nicer, and worthwhile, I believe.

2011-09-03T04:00:00.000-07:00

"Classical Indian aesthetics insists that art is [only] an entertaining performance, while truth/knowledge resides only in the sacred sutras kept alive by tradition-adhering Brahmins...."

John Oliver Perry, in an e-mail yesterday

2011-09-02T07:39:00.001-07:00

2011-09-01T06:28:00.001-07:00

2011-08-31T05:27:00.000-07:00

"This image of Earth (on the left) and the moon (on the right) was taken by NASA's Juno spacecraft on Aug. 26, 2011, when the spacecraft was about 6 million miles (9.66 million kilometers) away. It was taken by the spacecraft's onboard camera, JunoCam. The solar-powered Juno spacecraft lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Aug. 5 to begin a five-year journey to Jupiter."

NASA/JPL-Caltech

2011-08-30T06:11:00.000-07:00

2011-08-29T05:25:00.001-07:00

2011-08-28T06:10:00.001-07:00

The original picture (at right) never quite pleased me. Too obvious, shallow, lacking real creativity on the part of the writer, I thought.

So, this morning I amended it (below).

The statement, by the way, is a paraphrase of a well-known quotation by Dr. Edwin Land, inventor of Polaroid.

Now that I like.

2011-08-27T07:45:00.001-07:00

2011-08-26T04:39:00.000-07:00

2011-08-25T07:06:00.001-07:00

2011-08-24T07:40:00.001-07:00

2011-08-23T02:00:00.000-07:00

Frame No. 4,702

Yesterday morning I followed my usual practice of walking around my neighborhood for up to an hour. It was six o'clock and, as it was getting light out, I carried my little camera with me. The picture above was taken in the first minute after I stepped outside.

I kept on walking and looking, and stopping for a brief second every so often to make a quick exposure—about half the time I would glance at the captured image on the screen to make sure exposure adjustments were adequate.

After about forty minutes, I had made maybe twenty exposures or so. Then I took another picture and, when I glanced at the screen, it said "Memory card error".

All the pictures I had taken that morning—after the first one, above—no longer existed on the card. Later in the day, I took another picture and the camera recorded it as frame number 4,703. All record of those 20+ images now existed only in my imagination. And since most of them were of the clouds and light in the sky, they cannot be recreated.

File recovery software could not find the lost frames; instead, it found many older images, including many from the Iceland excursion.

This experience lead me to think about the complexity of the digital photographic process; just think about all that goes on inside your camera—totally beyond my understanding, or even awareness, though over many earlier years, I came to know a lot about the chemical photographic process (the time before cameras had batteries).

Camera error? Flash card fault? Or perhaps the Gods reminding me of the perils of hubris. Whatever.

I'm just going to carry on, and see what happens next.

2011-08-22T05:58:00.001-07:00

2011-08-21T06:01:00.003-07:00

2011-08-20T07:32:00.001-07:00

2011-08-19T05:23:00.003-07:00

2011-08-18T05:27:00.001-07:00

2011-08-17T07:17:00.003-07:00

2011-08-16T05:32:00.001-07:00

2011-08-15T06:05:00.001-07:00

2011-08-14T08:04:00.001-07:00

2011-08-13T04:54:00.000-07:00

Stranded on sand by incoming tide, the ant died between this frame and the next.

2011-08-12T05:16:00.001-07:00

2011-08-11T07:14:00.001-07:00

2011-08-10T08:06:00.001-07:00

2011-08-09T05:20:00.001-07:00

2011-08-08T05:07:00.001-07:00

2011-08-07T07:45:00.001-07:00

Technological Advance

2011-08-06T14:38:00.001-07:00

See this post to get the story of my traveling computers, with a new installment!

2011-08-06T06:43:00.001-07:00

2011-08-05T06:02:00.000-07:00

2011-08-04T08:21:00.001-07:00

2011-08-03T07:27:00.000-07:00

It might be easy to view this image as a simple, direct, photographic document, until you see the original from which it was made.

Changing it to black and white, then increasing the contrast abstract and emphasize the details. Now the plumbing has a more stark, menacing appearance, and the adhesive tape begins to look more like a spiderweb. The words take on the tone of a warning, or a plea for help.

I wonder if any black and white photograph can be considered an objective document, or, given that no two people perceive color exactly the same, can color photographs be objective, either. [I leave all that to the philosophers, while I go on making pictures.]

Another question: if, upon encountering this scene, would you see all this, or would you just read the words?