Whit's Blog / 1000 Recordings

Twice Two

I was clicking back through some old shots from Wachusett Meadow today, and was fascinated to note something I think Flickr is particularly good at -- different perspectives on the same image, or the same event, or the same subject. Look at this, below, that I took in October of last year. (The trees are often my subjects.)

And look at this, by one plastereddragon just two weeks later. He was interested in what I was, sitting in the same place. Never met him; don't know him. We have, though, similar interests, at least this one time. And we can see it here.

Best Images from India

At a Temple of Ganesh, young women socialized and peoplewatched while they waited for their friends to finish paying their respects. At the same temple, the shoe warden kept her eye on supplicants' shoes for a fee. She carried a steel rod, and woe betide the man who left his shoes near her -- but didn't give them TO her -- which meant he would get the protection without paying the fee. He paid. (To your left, here, is another image I like, a study in orange and rose.)

Another standout visual day came near Banganga Tank. In the side streets around it, I saw a small service/shop where turquoise stood out in clothing and paint. Boys played marbles on the stone and concrete deck that surrounded the tank.

At Kamala Nehru Park, children played on the playground, their clothing an extension of the playground equipment's bright colors, and the shadows another texture still.

Other pictures of note:
A large pano of Mahalaxmi Dobi Ghat, an enormous laundry in Mumbai. Hundreds of men swing sheafs of clothing into pools of water to clean the garments.
A lovely study in orange and rose from a Temple of Ganesh.

To see all my images of India, just navigate the tags.

Taw

  Click! 
  Originally uploaded by WhitA

Ain't no Wii involved in this game. More pictures of India and Mumbai, including particularly Banganga Tank, on  my Flickr account.

Just Ride, She Said

• World's Toughest Rodeo
  Friend of mine takes these pictures.
  (tags: rodeo kentsievers nebraska)

I Sat On My Stoop

  Originally uploaded by WhitA.

I'm guessing 1969.

Fall

To The Moon

• Apollo 12: Self-Portrait (Astronomy Picture of the Day)
  Sometimes pictures are just good.
  (tags: moon astronaut photography reflection)

Savage Breasts Soothed and Pictured (oh the searches THAT will snare)

• Questionable Content: #500, a double milestone
  It is a measure of this strip's success that I actually care how this storyline will turn out.
• 3hive: Castanets
  I don't care for music whose sole purpose seems to be confounding one's ability to characterize it. How much effort should be spent, after all, generating new genres? (The sonnet seems to work. Haiku might turn out not to stink.) This transcends transcending genre.
  (tags: castanets thecastanets altcountry)
• Review: The Ongoing Moment  - The Boston Globe
  But where is the recognition that flickr expands the breadth of an image's impact further still? Everyone could SHOOT THE SAME SUBJECT. And would it still be fresh? Some days, some photogreaphers, more than others.
  (tags: photography geoffdyer theongoingmoment)

Aspiration

  DSCN0883 
  Originally uploaded by ynatis.

I have been trying to hack my way into a post on digital cameras and photo software and what they do. A number of my friends have been photographers over the years, and all of the professional ones are astonishing in their depth and creativity. So my point is not going to be the one that these folks are going away.

Still, a major factor had always been ownership of the means of production. Matthew Brady was a photographer, presumably, in part, because he was the guy with the camera. In newspapers, photographers typically got an allowance for equipment, but the machines were (and are, typically), their own. Painters did the same thing, basically -- they owned the blue paint, or could contract to buy it, and the easel and the studio.

But then there was craft, too. Taking good pictures is not easy. (Somewhere in a landfill are roomfuls of glass plates Brady shattered in misery and frustration.) And software and hardware are swallowing increasingly large pieces of the craft. I can take competent pictures now I never could have taken before. Crisply focused flowers, mushrooms, birds and even snowflakes and raindrops. Fortuitous blurs. The light in the dust motes. Even people.

So, we are all photographers now. I am getting some decent pics. My friend, Yefim, is writhing about a bit trying to find his voice, which is a little abstract and a lot ambiguous. This is the best picture I have seen of his yet, atmospheric and bleak without being obvious, allegorical, or pedantic. No darkroom time means that he is finding this voice very inexpensively and very fast. No money spent on chemicals, no nights spent under red light. (No flirting between rivals and fellows with the simultaneous aromas of skin and of dissection, either.)

There is a whole world of imagery, now, separate from the professionals, separate from the artists, separate from the snapshots. It's a return of diarism and letter-writing with the image instead of ink.

This is great fun, after all.