Uganda: Highway Takeaway

In the 14^th century

“To advertise”…

Meant to reflect or think- 

Upon something.

Now there’s reality

And advertising’s

Representation

Of it.

But on a Sunday morning along the road to Mbarrara, Uganda, this advertising once again made me think upon the tradition versus modernism of this couple as a Highway Takeaway….

Last August 19^th, my Canon 7D was a time machine as I cranked the 17-85mm zoom wide to imagine this moment coated in the ancient palette of Kodachrome II slide film - the brand that ruled  from the 1940s through the 60s.

Anyone remember how it rendered stark, narrow-range color, through a grainy veil? Yeah… So, after tweaking the dynamic range in PS4 I poured K-II all over this image with Alien Skin’s magical Exposure 6 to return to the faded-memory hues of the early part of the last century - the place where Uganda’s hopes seem stuck.

Or wait… maybe that is a time before chrome at all?

By Its Cover

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Mayor's House #1

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The Mayor of The City of Lancaster lives in the middle of gallery row on N. Prince Street. Recently Rick and his artist wife Gail repainted their home. Lancaster is a brick and shutter place where Amish horse-carts still click their way down the streets. Like the Gray's, who live three blocks west of us, our home's an 18th century study in Elizabethan style.

I like the makeup the Gray's have pained atop their grand old lady. They've made a San Francisco statement. I thought I'd knock off a tryptic of their home, but I got so distracted by this, the center piece of that threesome, I lost track of the time and my candle's grown dim... YAWN!

But before turning out the light, let me share a thought about the Gray's house... or one it caused. We communicate ideas and feelings,it's the communication platforms that technology's exploded. Now we can tell our stories in video games, here on blogs, in podcasts, and videos. We can publish illustrated novels of depth (remember when comics were funny?), go on cable, or IM and text our thoughts onto the screens of tiny pocket computers.

All of that layered atop, radio, television, magazines, newspapers,books, and snail mail. We can rent billboards, the sides of buses, airplane banners, blimps, and megaphones.

Or we can do what the Gray's did. Look... look here how, on one of the city's busiest streets, they tell us part of their vision of and for Lancaster. Their medium is one of the oldest. One that they dig out of Machu Picchu and Herculaneum - yet a medium as effective today as it probably was when it coated the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

Who'd have thought a couple of millennia back that we'd still tell our feelings in house-paint?

GEEK STUFF: Canon EOS 20D, Canon EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6) ,1/100@f5/6, exposure Bias value: 0, ISO: 400, Focal Length: 12 mm, Date/time: 8/11/07 am, Metering Mode: Average, Camera RAW

Greist Building

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Tired tonight. See the time stamp on last night's post? And as usual I was up around 6-am today. Sooner or later the candle starts to flicker. I've got a sleepy buzz on that's taken my IQ down about 15 points. Nice thing is that it's mellow down here. Most of the things that fire contention don't bother me much in the hammock of almost-a-sleep. I'm going to post this thing, let Rocco-The-Dog out, get his good-night goodies - and hit the snore boards.

I guess it was my semi stupor which attracted me to this image from the Lancaster's town square. That's our only, um, sky scraper. They've not allowed anyone to think that big since. Like me tonight, the image's colors are still bright in spots, but the closer you get to earth... the more they all become a gentle murk. Hmmmm.... yeah - gentle murk, nice place to go eventually. Don't you feel twilight differently from the rest of the day? I'm told there are places where the day's light goes off abruptly as if it had been switched. That's got to affect the folks there. Not sure they grow up understanding nuance. On the other hand... judging by the political and advertising world - who does?

Good night.

Mr. A.S. Groff's Hope

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I went out this evening determined to grab some good news. Some uplifiting image. Something bright and shining. Adios El Grimmo!

And then, in the middle of the Lancater Convention Center construction site... Look... look at Mr. A.S. Groff's hardware store. See the sign there... Well in fact no one's seen that sign for... for... A hundred years? Who even knew they once sold hardware there? They scraped away false facades and brought down some of the building's neighbors and "Pop!" ... Up came Mr. A.S. Groff's sign bravely announcing his ambitions, his optimism, his joys, dreams and brave expectations. There they are, painted on the side of a building just below a door that now opens onto nothing and... And I can feel how happy Mr. A.S. Groff and Mrs. A.S. Groff were the day they looked up and saw their names up there way over South King Street.

And in the golden setting sun of the last days of May here in 2007 I felt Mr. A.S. Groff's joy - as the twilight gently painted it bright on these few weeks before it gets covered again...

Then it shadowed over.

Romantic Anxiety

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Seduction is little more than replacing knowledge with persuasion. Which is a workable definition of advertising!