How Many Tecks? Smell-Ography?

Juxtaposition... That's a terrible English word. It has the sound of someone coughing up some spiky mess. JuxT-A-PoSi-TION!!!!! Do the French have words like this? Even an angry Frenchman sounds like he's singing a love song... Oooops, I just checked and that's a French word! How can that be? Well, it's all in the pronunciation I suppose. In French that T's got to be muted. And the TION... ain't SHUN, it's more sensual as their tongues glide over the sition ... to a more graceful see-shown... In French it's a six syllable word while we English speakers compressed it to a harsher five.

Well anyway... As I crafted this Duomo bus stop something began to pique at me... How many technologies are obvious in the image? I count three... (1) the cathedral itself's a big lump of medieval tech, then (2) there's that electric light glowing in the lamp that's popped on until twilight turns to day. Finally (3) the big package of bus that's stopped to intake and outtake passengers. But do we count what's going on behind the screened trellises glommed onto the building? And while the sidewalks seem ancient, how about that road bed. Are the wafting banners woven on ancient looms? I doubt it.

How many "advances" have wandered into this plane over a millennia? Technologies are ideas made whole. They're imaginations we can touch, just as solidly as the Duomo of Florence's walls and windows. My fingers are dancing upon someone's thoughts. Is she or he - the designer of my keypad - still alive? The designers of my software? The imagineers of my typeface, pixels, colors, mice?

And did all of these wonderers ever eat... pizza? Was there a Dominos' parlor on each corner of downtown Firenze in 1296 as they broke ground for that astonishing building? If not Dominos... well were there pizzas then? Same recipe? Anyone there eat New York or Chicago slices? Did Pizza chefs in Old Tyme Rome compete with Pompeii's vacation parlors?

Did Marco Polo's import of pasta sweep the Italian boot by the time the Duomo went up? Imagine, this all might have happened before noodles arrived... Which makes me wonder... what lovely scents wafted through the air  at this bus stop place in 1296. Garlic? Tomatoes? Pizza?

We still have these lumps of tech, but those ancient scents and sounds? Nope. Lost to history. Smell-Ography's yet to be. We can only look at the early evening juxtaposition and wonder what's missing forever, huh?

By the way, is scent a dimension? Would it not bring an additional fullness to my bus stop up there? Hmmmmm....

Andreas & Me

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Early one morning I met Andreas Manessinger outside of this place. I went clockwise, he went the other way. We met back at the front doors. Yeah, doors. There are a bunch of them.

I cannot imagine how many photographers have sucked pieces of the place onto their film or flash cards. And yet... yet... she seemed to be able to present herself to us as if those others had never been there. She made us both feel as if it were her first time. What a gift, huh?

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Hmmmm.... You know it is hard for an artist to decide that the work is done. Of course you know that. And you know that we run a risk of turning a perfectly competent work into bovine dung if we don't say to ourselves.... "Self, you have diddled with this enough. Put it out of its misery. And yet... yet... we wonder if another thought might tease yet more feeling out of the things. And.... well, that's what happened here. Wuddaya think? Should I have quit while I was ahead (or a foot, a leg or ... )????
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Canon 20D w/ Canon EF-S 10-22mm (f3.5-4.5) - Hand held and shot at 10mm, f4.0-1/8, ISO=800

Florence 12 • Duomo 2• Tunnel Morning

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Sprinkled about the Renaissance City of Florence are tunneled sidewalks. As I'm facing into this one, the Duomo's piazza is to my right and behind me. This is attached to a building at one end and the pathway will eventually lead through streets down to the Arno River. This is a public way. Look at the grandeur. Even in the first lights of morning it hints at the depths of the artistic wealth of this city. How many of us take a walk like this to the office, eh?

Incidentally, this is part of my Mano-A-Mano shoot with Andreas. What's that, look below.

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As many of you may recall I visited Italy during the first two weeks of October staying the first week in Rome and then for a week in Florence where I met up with Andreas Manessinger for a Mano-A-Mano photoshoot at sunrise on October 7 starting at the famed Duomo and working our way toward the astonishing Ponte Vecchio bridge (yes I know that is redundant). You can begin this Italian adventure chronologically by clicking here and working your way quickly forward. Of course your thoughts and feelings mean a whole lot so feel free to wade in at any or every point.

Or if you prefer click on the appropriate keywords below. Clicking on Mano-A-Mano will bring you to my images from the series I did with Andreas which I've so far posted. Enjoy....