Unsustainable Moments

Eveready Diner • Rhinebeck, NY • October, 2008

 Once upon a time the United States was the only major industrial nation not rubbled by World War. No, not wars...  War! The gap between the first and second halves of the European Psychotic Break was a couple of decades... just enough time to reload and suck the Asian Pacific into its madness. And so it came to pass that world wealth got transferred here in exchange for jobs, finished capital, and consumer goods. 

The bargain was unsustainable. As bright, educated peoples restored their tools... like factories, dams, power grids, roads, rails, airports, institutions, and competitive sanity – trade imbalances shrank and inevitably turned against America. But the 50 or 60 year capital advantage created a golden moment for US consumers got drunken on their temporary possession of so much of the world's wealth. 

Speaking of unsustainability, American union monopsonists struck equally unsustainable deals with their monopolist employer/partners to achieve average wage heights built upon the myth of eternal world pauperism. US labor shared in the flow of world wealth to its shores with no threat from cheaper labor that lacked competitive tools. 

Now they have the tools. 

Ever heard of arbitrage? It means buying cheap and selling dear. Buy stuff made for less in Romania, sell it in London where incomes, hence prices, are higher. Like that. Today financial capital dispatches tools to low wage world spots to produce goods or services for a lot less than American companies whose workers have identical tools but with legacy high wage contracts (and government mandated additional labor costs) unavailable to Romanians, Ethiopians, Peruvians, British, or of course, Chinese. 

Investment capital is the most mobile factor of production. It moves at quantum speeds through digital pipelines. Errors in predicting arbitrage advantages are spotted and overcome, by computers, at light's velocity.  And while actual production and employment follow those directions with a lag... their vast movements are inexorable. 

See the October 2008 Eveready Diner up there? It's a relic of "Mid-Century" America's momentary competitive advantage. Unlike anytime before in history, regular people... typical families... drove there and in air conditioned comfort chose from enormous menus. 

October 2008 was about a month after America came aware that its financial iceberg had calved off over a quarter of its value. Access to financial capital got squeezed in what was to become known as the Great Recession. The lag between financial loss and real economic activity was about to bring down a curtain. The Eveready Diner (which may or may not be gone) stood on quaking economic ground - a 50s lyric of an unsustainable time when thanks to Europe's Psychotic Break - even the poorest consumers in the US were better off than their counterparts anytime in the history of history. 

There are 42 million Ugandans

There are 165 million people in Central Africa, 42 million of them live in Uganda. Along that country’s southern E/W highway, here are 3. They tell a story?

Is there such a thing as "ethnic geneolgy" or is that too Lamarkian? Wait... Lamark was a Russian geneticist/philosopher I think, who claimed that ideas, memories, and attitudes could be stored in the genes and hence reproduced among generations When his attempts to prove that failed, Stalin killed him. 

As I walked about, these guys repairing their water-bike* showed less than welcoming looks to a European guy with a pricey camera, boots and ... probably... attitude. Remember, Uganda was a British Colony and remains part of the British Commonwealth of Nations. English is one of their three official languages. All of the signage is in English. White folk are not exotics to them, although perhaps maybe we are in this tiny widening of the road deep in equatorial Africa. 

I'm an atheist regarding "ethnic genealogy", but not cultural legacy. Moreover most homes sport satellite dishes that grab Hollywood and US TV. So, for example, Oprah and The Rock are both celebrities in Uganda. So those looks... are they windows into what? 

GEEK STUFF: Canon 7D, EOS EF-S17-85mm, finished in PSCC2019.


*Clean water's a valuable commodity in much of Uganda where people travel long distances daily to government wells to provide for their families. Most do that on foot (mainly women),lining the roads as they balance those yellow tanks on their heads. Fellas like this make their livelihood carting as many jugs as possible on scooters to homes or businesses that can afford their service. 

Teasing Baby

Hmmmm….. some interest in the mechanics of yesterday’s post. Folks want a how-to. I’m not much good at demos… but lemme try.

First off the challenge here was plucking an idea from a snapshot from my G10 on Christmas day and turning it into a feeling I could communicate. Fortunately the Canon G10 packs more than 14 mpxls into a snapshot allowing a bunch of information that leaves room to crop away as much as thirty percent of an image and still have sufficient material to allow traction in post processing. BTW…. I used an ISO of 400 to avoid introducing too much noise…. The downside of the G10's densely packed mpxls.

As you can see in the full frame capture in Image One… the lighting was contrasty tungsten which needed a bunch of adjustment in Adobe’s Camera Raw application. Fortunately I used a gray scale swatch in the first of this series to allow easy color balance.

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IMAGE 1

I used the auto rotate function of PS4 to rotate the image as shown by the arrows in the corners. Then I did a crop to get rid of the mass of confusion around the chair as I’ve shown with the orange squiggles. But even with tight crop, there was still a lot left to compete for the eye, when Katelynn Rose was clearly the subject. And the confusion was not just in a cacophony of shapes but also of palette and light. Sooooo…. I've suggested the final crop with the white outline in Image 1 and that's what you see below in Image 2.

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IMAGE 2

Now to get down to mood. With adjustment layers I saw that I had to not only create some mysterious drama but also burn away most heavily in areas 1 – 4. However, since I wanted to allow supporting visual interest in those four areas: How to do that yet not provide sufficient information to quarrel with the main story of the baby? Alien Skin’s Bokeh of course. After changing the over-all dynamic range with curves adjustment layers (six I believe carefully masking them in to different elements of the final image) I flattened the image, copied the layer… and applied Bokeh to it. Masked it away, then brushed back the creamy results into the four problem areas above and to a lesser extent to any of the chair’s fabric which continued to distract attention while introducing a dreamy sense consistent with the child's nap.

None of this is particularly challenging, but it’s all a matter of applying the right tool to the proper area to tease out the feeling I visualized when I took the photograph.

Does this transition from snapshot to moody image help anyone? Hope so….

Happy New Year….

Obsession?

OK enough. Took that one down.... There's a limit to my ego puffery. If you missed the image.... You are among the lucky. Heh heh heh..... <- Click here

We're off for a visit to Peru in February. At least some of the adventure will be way up in the Andes at both Machu Pichu and Lake Titicaca. And I'd not been to the gym for seven years and my job has me sitting in front of computer screens, eating rich meals (not to mention the odd cocktail), well - at my age this trip can challenge this old body.

So.. so.... fifteen weeks ago I started to beat myself back into some sort of shape. Im not just dieting - I am TRAINING! Yea! There's six months between July when this started, and February when we leave. Now is about half way there. So... here's the old guy halfway back into a six month date with running, biking, swimming, and pumping iron thingees between working the gym's devilishly designed devices to pulverize fat!

I've shed thirty pounds and dropped four inches off my pants. But, the holidays are going to tease me big time and they will come at that critical time just before we leave. I know that they can puncture all will power and once lost the momentum will be hard to retrieve in January. Sooooo.... I'm determined to have such a head of steam going into the things that I'll power right through them without stuffing my mouth and body full O'fat.

All of this, scooped atop job has left my muse kind of dazed and reeeely reduced my art attention span. In fact work and training has eaten away the most productive hours leaving me sort of dimwitted in front of art projects.

Hopefully as endurance returns for the trip, it will also return for doing images. But in case you wondered why there's been less posting activity here... just take a look at my album cover and you can see where the creative time's been invested. February's just around the corner.... And by the way... it will be hot summer in Peru. More reason to be totally fit for the Andes, right? Sigh...

Chick Magnet?

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Parked outside of Madison Square Garden my Mercedes 500K Special Roadster glimmers in the city, huh? It belongs there with its top down and motor purring. Purring.... it's a sound that attracts, right? :-)

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Okay, here's another shot, a virgin photo of that 1936 Mercedes on my office desk top pulled right from my HD card. Sigh, I like it better in NYC. Whadaya think?

CRAAASH!

Earlier this week I wrote about my MacBook Pro crashing for the second time in about 90 days. Once again the internal Seagate HD experienced a catastrophic crash. The first time this happened I was in Florence, Italy - but I'd backed everything up meticulously. Still it was messy and took endless hours first working through diagnostics with Apple on the phone (it's a fairly new machine and under full warranty), then I sent it in, got it back and spent the best part of a day reconfiguring everything.

When it happened again this week I was unhappy... very very very .... unhappy. On the phone with Apple, I first requested a new machine. They refused. I then offered to pay the difference between the used price of my machine (a 17" MacBook Pro - BTW) and the latest model. After all, I could have received that used machine price if it had not crashed as a result of their problem.

They refused and wanted to begin the telephone diagnostics again. I refused. They then asked that I schedule an appointment at a distant Apple Store with a 'genius'. I refused and demanded they send out a box. They did. They also promised that they would replace the entire machine if it went down again.

It was gone from Monday until Wednesday while they once again discovered the toasted HD and put in another Seagate. But I cannot put aside the necessary hours until tomorrow to retro fit everything on it.

Oh... this time I had NOT backed up key data. I lost two folders. One involved interview notes for an article which I cannot reschedule (I am a writer and a magazine editor). The article is lost. The other involved an equally important set of notes for a marketing program I am constructing. It is also lost.

I have first to copy all of my key info from my home MacPro to the laptop. That puts both machines out of service until the procedure is finished. It took several hours last time. I've started that process, but I suspect that I shall have no useful computers when I arrive home, nor will they be usable tonight. So.... NO POST here today. Damn!

I'm doing this post on my Mac Mini here at my business office. Hopefully all will be fixed in time to do a post here at ImageFiction tomorrow (Saturday).

Still, the whole thing has me spooked about trusting my laptop again. Apple apparently has a quality control problem. Others have complained about this Seagate drive but neither Seagate nor Apple will admit to a problem.

Warning, if you want top-of-the-line cutting-edge performance... buy a Dell or an HP... you'll save a lot of money and gain confidence if you avoid Apple's best laptop machine.

Ted

Here's A Shot

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See down that path, oh about two thirds of the way? Fifteen years ago at about 10 in the morning I walked along it, my frisky puppy about five feet in front, heading for the parking lot. My car was parked just about where my VW's parked here. There was a building to the right back then. Off to the left across the street is a house and some corn fields. I recall the morning was beautiful, sunny with still air painted morning gold. My dog Meghan was so cheery, frolicking along... going for a car ride, one of her very favorite things. Abruptly I leapt forward to play with her – when it happened.

Just behind my ear, off to the right I heard a SNAP! REEEEELY loud, as if a giant had grabbed a tree branch and broken it like a celery stick. I twirled that way, and my dog... rolled to the ground just off on the grass to the right. Springing up, she dashed at breakneck speed for the car... "Whuhhh?" I murmurred, there was nothing there. No trees, just a vista rolling off to the Susquehanna river maybe a mile below. I ran for to the car like a crazy man. Looking everyway. Off to the left, in the cornfields I saw a puff of smoke. But no one anywhere around. No one.... nothing moved in the quiet moment.

Down in the borough over coffee I bumped into a police detective I knew and told him about the oddness of my morning.

He went ashen, leapt up, pulled me to his car and siren screaming flashed back to this place. On the way he explained about mach speeds. “If you've ever heard a plane break the sound barrier you know the crash it makes?” he hollered over the racket of the ride. “Bullets it seems do the same, but the noise doesn't travel far... not far at all.” You have to be quite close to hear them snap... like a giant twig.

Later in the corn field they found an impression in the dirt of where the shooter hunkered himself down. And they found a casing. For some days after that friendly state troopers waited for me in that parking lot drinking their morning coffee when I arrived before sunrise to open this place. They never explained why and simply drove off when I was inside.

And I've often wondered what would have happened if spontaneously at that moment I'd not leapt to play with my doggie. Soon afterward my friend the County Sheriff insisted that I carry a gun.

Two years later business took me away from this place where I'd worked for a decade. Where every morning like clockwork I'd leave to get my morning coffee and grab the newly arrived mail in town. This is the first time I’d returned there in maybe a dozen years. It looks forlorn.

Posh & David Arrive In LA

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"Hmmm... well he does look like a big one. And colorful, yeah - I'll give him that. But, well, a tad past prime wouldn't you say?"

"Not as bad as her... My, she is white, isn't she? Except where she's painted up and what are those markings on her back?"

"I think... uh... yeah... They seem to be tats my dear. I guess they're cute for a night, but the things get old, don't you gather?"

"What I gather is that she looks kind of kicked around... In fact I'm not sure she's still got a full load up of air. Kinda soft at the top. You know what I'm saying?"

"Well they sure seem a pair. But you tell me that someone actually paid for this used set? To perform in some sort of game that nobody here watches? How odd."

"Actually it's not odd. No... the game's got no place to insert advertisements, so no broadcaster's interested in putting it on."

"Well how's it do so well everywhere else?"

"Oh, they use taxes to run television so everybody pays to produce the games."

"What? Whether they're interested in them or not?"

"Uh-huh. So now that these two have faded from the free ride over there..."

"Somebody here's, like, paying for them?"

"Sigh... Well anyway... David's sure a big guy. Probably looked pretty hot once upon a time."

"I guess, but that's a lot of moolah to pay for hot."

"Yeah. Maybe it is time to tax the rich. What do you think?"

"I thought that back when Paris Hilton ran a red light or something."

"Whatever... Hey, you thinking they're gonna break out here?"

"Dunno: The public can erect an effective fence against manufactured celebrities. Remember Kelly Clarkson?"

"Who?"

Shiny Gems

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Recently at an antique store, the sun's ray fell across a clear plastic box of tangled old jewelry. Inside the stones were alive with refracted colors. I wondered if I could make that effect. So I looked back in among my old neglected files for something I'd never printed and found this image. Taken some years ago before tort lawyer jackals forced Armstrong World Industries to close the gates on its production plant, the thing was mottled with primary hues baking in the summer sun.

So here's an attempt to capture the memory of a moment that spun off glimmering jobs for a lot of people. I like the flashy bike in the foreground and the way it announces the way employees could afford terrific toys. It's more a metaphor than a photograph... painted in the colors of those gems in their clear plastic box. And both the gems and this place are now memories of happier times, eh?

I Need Some Advice Please

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These are a couple of views of my home studio. As you can see it is a large space under the eaves of a home that was originally built in the 1860s. We have restored it.

You will note that there are two partial dormers. In the upper picture the dormer to the left faces East and gets the direct morning sun. And in the bottom picture you will see the other dormer which gets the direct afternoon sun. My problem is that I am an artist who does a lot of work (as you can see from this blogsite). You will also see an HP Photosmart 8750 on the desktop just to the left of the monitor area in the top photo. That is a wonderful printer which has a 13" mouth. So I usually print on 13 X 19" paper and mount them in 16 X20" frames.

I'd really like to hang, at least my latest prints here in my studio. BUT... under the eaves, the walls slant. And I cannot hang images in the dormers given the power of the sun to bleach them colorless in short order. The little horizontal space on the north and south walls is largely filled with file cabinets and book cases.

What to do? You 'll see my email address to the right of this text. If you're shy about posting a message, drop me a line with your suggestions. If you mount pictures along sloping walls they look anything but elegant. This is a terrific space, air conditioned in summer, warmed comfortably in winter. It's comfortable for working, reading, or just listening to music. But it sure seems sterile without images. HULP!

Suite Moments

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Deadlines day is, like, synonymous with the last minutes of an NBA game. There's a blast of frenzy you can smell. My space at the magazines is NOT a paperless office. Note that you cannot even see the monitor on my desktop Apple. Fact is, should any of this cargo shift, limbs could snap. It takes me the best part of the morning-after-deadline, to file, clean and repack the stuff each month that gets flung around in those last moments. It is simultaneously a way hot job... and a way cool way to make a living.
Careful where you tread in here, you could splash through a puddle of adrenalin. And that's a suite thing.