Outrospection: The Street King

King Mohammed VI, Rabat. Morocco

“We cannot expect the camera to suck in, with light and shadows, the photographer’s emotions.” - John Updike

“Information is a porridge of opinion, theory, and truth heated by feelings.” - Ted Byrne 

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Familiarity grinds down dimensions all around us so that we don’t notice the normal. Our brains are lazy pieces of meat which exert energy only upon the unusual; person, event, thing, or idea. The rest, the usual, is veiled leaving us heedless to the infrastructure of life.

Travel cracks the shell of expectations. It forces us to notice, not so much the habitual of others, but why our expectations are un-synched with theirs. To the degree that what we expect to surround us… doesn’t… our brain goes, "Yo!". 

“Look,” it murmurs, “that trash bin up above's got a huge picture of their king! Why, we’d never do that.” And then… and get ready because here’s the epiphany… then the brain wonders, “Why wouldn’t we proudly paste a colossal image of someone we revere onto a big, dirty, dented, every-day, metal garbage can?” 

There's a word, "introspection". Why is there no word, "outrospection"?

I don't travel to understand others. Comparison seeds curiosity!

Once upon a time, the grammar of photography was limited to nouns. It described in images of fact. Over the past century we’ve learned to use modifiers and with powerful digital tools we can release adjectives and adverbs. 

Photographic travel art turns ordinary into information: so we can judge… in both directions. 

Oh, BTW... One great thing about being King, no one ever asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" 

Although an entire country quietly wondered about his answer to that question. 

PS: King Muhammad VI has been controversial, so it is possible that the statement up there in the image might not be one of patriotic support. But given the laws re. critiquing the Monarch... Well, maybe this is the subtlest way to do that? Regardless, it's an image that prods at outrospective questions... :-)

Patagonia 5: Puerto Chacabuco - Soft Scrapple

For details, click on any image...

It's 291 nautical miles from Montt to our second
stop at  Chacabuco south through the Golf of Corcovado.

It's about a day and a half by ship between the red pins.

Puerto Chacabuco is a relatively new port city. In 1991 a savage wilderness fire and the eruption of nearby Mount Hudson volcano silted the Aisén river and blocked access to Puerto Aisén which caused the construction of a new port in the sleepy village of Chacabuco some 10 miles south of Aisén. Transition's fattening up Chacabuco and its population of 1,243. 

However, the town's location along the far side of the Aisén river is magnificent. 

At sunrise on Tuesday 1/22/19 we awoke to this view from our balcony on the
ship's port side with Chacabuco visible (below) from the starboard.

Daytime temperatures dropped about fifteen degrees, on average from Santiago mid-day 90 degrees to Puerto Montt and another ten degrees in Puerto Chacabuco. The town's weather is wet much of the year, but in mid-summer-January that still left us wearing heavy jackets over long sleeves in the port's morning which we ditched by late afternoon.

Joe & Mary Mayberry, Gib & Marti Armstrong and
 my wife Rita model Chacabuco January mid-summer fashions.
BTW, that's our Norwegian  Sun anchored to the right.

On the other side of the river from the image above, Chacabuco sits
 in a river valley and is beginning to sprawl as a result of
its replacement of Aisén in 1991 as the region's major port. 

And what's to do in Chacabuco? Well, just about nothing. So we engaged an old VW bus-like ride to visit the new National Simpson River Park.

As you can see, the topography is rugged and mountainous.
Our bus had an ancient low gear which left us expecting to push.

The trip did reveal the life style of people living along rural Route 240 as well as structures in both Chacabuco and Aisén.

Generally the people are NOT poor. Rather they live in tidy, secure, and comfortable structures in a rocky countryside dotted by small livestock farms. NOTE the canted metal roofs in all of the structures above. Why? Tons of snow of course. Note also the lack of foundation shrubbery which is always destroyed by the collapse of snow upon them from those roofs. This is a challenging place in winter.

 The last President of Chilé kicked off an expensive (and not overwhelmingly popular) series of national parks. One of the newest is the Parque National Rio Simpson. Which features, well, some wild flowers and the Simpson River. 

The Simpson's a nice mountain river, and well, ho-hum. Perhaps if you are a Saudi
this is inspiring. And certainly to fly fishers it's inspirational. I'm neither. Seen one river,
seen 'em all? Well no, but this one is pretty average even within its mountainous setting.

The trip up to the park though wound cooly through valleys alongside a rushing stream fed by waterfalls dropping from the peaked walls of the old Pioneer Trail.

Note, just to the right of the base of the lower waterfall. See the guy? I left him there 

to put the height of these glacial fed falls in perspective. Rain  returned as  I teetered
atop the two-lane highway bridge's  railing to grab this shot above the stream. 

In the very center of the port sits Radio Chacabuco there on the right. It was hidden behind a few downtrodden  

shops but worth the effort. See the dirt road? What you can't see well in this painting without blowing it up is the line of new  construction there between the mountain base and the field at the road's end. 

A Levittown development's happening there with perhaps a hundred homes going up. Chacapuco's about to change as its expanding port juices economic activity. This image captures the transition right before it happens. And, of course it's just the painting to bring country life to a chi-chi Santiago, New York, Lancaster, Atlanta, or Viennese up-market condo, right?

Chacabuco caused one of us to wonder if this is where you flee to escape the rest of the world. Near-antarctic winters are intense and even the summer's are challenging. But the farms and port apparently create jobs and incomes sufficient to live snugly with the weather, volcanos, and earthquakes. It's not hard scrapple, no... but definitely soft scrapple. 

Spain 2016: 10/23: Page 1: Madrid & Toledo

For a larger view... Click on any image, OK?

España Day 1: Saturday 10/22/16 • Tour de España con La Cámara de Lancaster de Comercio (How's my Spanish lingo?)  - Produced by the TravelTime Agency - and led by Lori Heathcote & Courtney Bailey. Enjoy… And leave your wonderings to mix with mine... After all, art without wonder is merely craft, right?

"He who starts a journey of a thousand miles, best have plane tickets." - anon.

España Day 2: Sunday 10/23/16 • Madrid & Toledo

Okay, here come a bunch of my images (not photos… images - which are more impressions than photographs… feelings really - a sense of wondering space). 

A couple of thoughts here… For those of you who weren’t along, there were about 35 of us, mostly from Lititz!? Maybe because it’s America’s coolest town? Dunno, but I’ve plucked these things from my impressions and they’re as factual as, well - novels, poems, plays, or even melodies are when compared to reality… hence: ImageFiction. But then again, everything that’s photographically based is at least processed through a photographer’s point of view, as well as cropping, lens choice, camera processor, and spontaneous eye for detail… I just dig farther into conceptual stuff. 

Have you noticed that when you peer into memory compartments that things look more or less vivid, more or less to scale, and more or less meaningful? So our memory snippets skip their traces, like puppies who’ve lost their collars. ENOUGH RAMBLING… 

It rained… Poured off and on for the first third of out trip. And sadly both Rita and I incubated some sort of lung viruses which grew into bronchitis for her and pneumonia for me…. Infections that took us almost three weeks apré trip to finally slough off. So we actually had maybe 60 hours between deluge and plague to enjoy the trip. Worse yet  from day 2 on I got evicted from the  front seat so the interminable hours of bussing left me with few opportunities to spot oncoming scenes and to capture them.  Meaning most of the Spanish countryside went too blurry into my camera to produce usable material. Oh well… Enough whining… 

Here’s some of what I got…. starting with Day Two (10/23) between the raindrops first in Madrid, then Toledo. More days will follow here on Image Fiction... I'd of course, appreciate your feelings either as comments here or to mailted@me.com. 

Oh, BTW, the sun rises MUCH later in Spain than in Lancaster County so virtually everything before 9am seems glimpsed through dim first light, mostly before actual dawn. Add the storm clouds and... Here’s my forever impression of Madrid. 

The Prado is Spain’s national art museum. It opens at 10 AM on Sundays. So we stopped to visit this memorial to Spain’s greatest writer. Perhaps it is a lovely park. Not sure since the weather gave the city a kind of feeling of Metropolis. One expects the Bat Signal to flash from the roof of that 1940s skyscraper… Home of Bruce Wayne Enterprises maybe? Dunno, but maybe Meg Lince… the real photographer with our party... grabbed a happier shot here from her perch on the ground before Don Quixote and Sancho? I’m looking forward to seeing Meg's work, maybe on her website www.megolincephotography.zenfolio.com? 

Anyway, our bus was first to the Prado at around 9:40 where this smoking fat guy kept us in the storm until exactly 10. Odd, since ther's a large, warm and comfortable waiting area just beyond those doors to the left which eventually accommodated scores of people. Well, maybe not odd since bureaucrats world-wide treasure their power, right? The rain in Spain was was a steady pain. Ooops, I’m whining again…. Sorry… :-)

And inside the Prado - what's there to see? Well as far as cameras are concerned… This capture below is all one can photograph. Looks a lot like the Rape of the Sabines in Florence’s square in Italy. At least I thought so but I haven’t asked Mangesh yet. It was good to have a doctor along though, especially a guy with his sense of humor. Rita and I needed both his skill and bedside manner later in the week. Yep, this is the sole Prado image. I really should travel with a tiny spy camera... Sigh....  😏

Sad about the rain, Madrid’s Spain’s capitol city and consequently - even under relentless showers - boasts stunning architecture from the nation’s many epochs of greatness. 

Ooops… this is a wrong-dated capture of the old walled city of Toledo about 90 minute from Madrid where we spent Sunday afternoon. We climbed  into the city on a series of escalators rising through  tunnels that are a triumph of sophisticated Spanish engineering design. As you know, Spain is Europe’s fourth largest economy (following Germany, England, and France), with cityscapes that routinely match or exceed downtowns in Manhattan, Rome, Paris, London, and Berlin. 

I’ve got scores of still untouched Toledo pictures like this one up above that I’ll work on during the winter… Well after we return from Florida of course :-)

Coming Soon Day 3… Cordoba & Seville crammed full with  Moor and Catholic cultural droppings.

Winter in Miami

Miami • Late February • 2016

Poke around in your memory banks. Look for snapshots. They're impressions. We recall in art? This image is what's in my cerebral hard drive. As opposed to what's recorded on my digital storage space. In fact, I like this image more than what came off of my flash card. It's more reassuring. It's cool to have the skill to display my memory as opposed to my snapshot. What do you think? Is memory a feeling? 

Winter in Florida, BTW, is a feeling. 

A Tree Grows In Ephesus

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Its roots growing into a Grecian cellar, its limbs embracing a Latinate erection… A tree thrives in the Turkish air above what was once… the greatest city of its age… second only in size to Rome.

And now the mighty port city, trapped miles inland from the Aegean…. houses only marble ghosts… And trees like this that suckle upon subterranean leavings of empires down where legends feed the hungry roots.

Canon 7D, PS4, Topaz Adjust 5, Perfect Photo Suite

Rockier Still

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Well, it's interesting to discover from the mail I've received about the Cappadocia Fairy Chimneys that most people were, like me, unaware of them. Fact is they were a delightful surprise when my host bought us there. Apparently Turkey has a treasure here that so many have never heard of. Unfortunately for me our schedule got us there at the worst time of day for the sun was glaring down almost directly. Oh well... That's what a lifetime of technical experience prepares us for, right?

So... here's a three shot pano with some heavy PhotoShop lifting to recover the dynamic range sufficiently so that shadows and highlights are not terribly lost. It's a bit more detailed than my previous Fairy Tunnel explorations.

Canon 7D, Pano stitched together in PS4.

Back From Turkey

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Golden…
The morning.
Constantine might
Recognize his city
As his church turns
Golden.

Just back… from ten days straddling two continents..

The Hagia Sophia
Istanbul, Turkey
From the roof of the Ramada hotel
Canon 7D: PS4, Topaz, AlienSkin: SnapArt, Oil Paint, custom filters, textures, and brushes.

Okay... after writing all of that Andreas Manessinger broke it to me that this is NOT the Hagia Sophia but in fact it's the Yeni Camii or New Mosque. The Hagia Sophia - Constantine's fifth Century cathedral is yet to come.

Which brings me to...

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Carved or released?
The houses of Mardin
Pop from their stone
Cool beneath
The broiling
Sun…

There is in Istanbul the world’s largest minature park – or park of minatures…
Miniaturk, Istanbul, Turkey
Canon 7D, PS4: Custom brushes, textures, Topaz2, AlienSkin: SnapArt, colored pencil, Bokeh 2, Planar.

HULP! Need help for Turkey!!!

*Whee.... I've been invited to a Turkey writers/journalist conference for nine days in July (17-25/2011). Fly in on 7/17 then visit Istanbul (7/18-19), Antalya (7/20), Izmir (7/21-22), Cappadocia (7/23), Istanbul (7/24), Home (7/25).

*Scheduled sites:*
_Istanbul:_ Miniaturk, Topkapi Palace, Sulfaris Synagogue, Hagia Sophia, The Underground Cistern. Blue Mosque, Hippodrome, Sahara Restaurant, Suleymariye Mosque, Grand Covered Bazaar, a Bosphorus boat tour.

_Antalya:_ Ancient city of Kaleici, Aspendos, Perge,

_Izmir:_ Yamaniar Educational Institute, Ephesus, House of Virgin Mary, St. Jon Bascilica,

_Cappadocia:_ Open Air Museum of Goreme, Goreme National Park, The Underground cities. Dinner at a friend's home.

So? How's this look? Who know these cities? Is this a great photographic opportunity? Are there things my lens should *NOT MISS*???? Hulp. Suggestions?

History's End

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There’s only one track now
Coming to or
Going from?
Castel Gandolpho.

Where once the Popes
Ruled the West
In summer heat
That hasn’t cooled.

Though history
Has…

I wonder if this track is there to fill the now tiny town or to empty it out? I wonder if the devil lies, as they say, in the details? That is to say that the devil dares to lie anywhere near a papal palace.

Geek Stuff
Cannon 20D, Post Processing in PS:CS4: Topaz, Alien Skin: SnapArt – Colored Pencils, custom textures and brushes.

A Jewelry Bridge

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They have made precious bauble art here for centuries.
All along the bridge, on each side are some of Italy's finest jewelers.
Now here's the question...
If you stand here at sunrise...
And squint your eyes way way down...
Wouldn't you swear that the bridge itself looks
Like the stuff that's made
Inside?

I'm just sayin'....

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The Geek Stuff

Ponte Veccio: Florence, Italy
Canon 20D EOS 10-22 mm @ 11mm, f7.1, 1/125sec, ISO 200 – 9:12am
PS3, Topaz and AlienSkin SnapArt Oil, custom brushes.

Up There

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See? Holy Moley!

And what's up there? Anyone?

Florentine

Click Up There

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Seems to be some confusion here.
By popular demand, here's the virgin image from a shot taken in an open mart along the streets of Florence, Italy. What could be more Florentine, eh?

She Writes In Color

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Quietly there perched on the column she wrote swirls of thoughts and feelings. Jefferson's monument does that. Or the classical grandeur of the building's sweep makes your thoughts swirl through your feelings mixing together toward conclusions that are personal as your dreams.

"Have you visited the Pantheon," I heard her ask her friend. And of course it was clear what she meant. This building was imagined a couple of millennia ago by a Roman who put his name across its arch ("Agrippa LF Costertium Fecit" Agrippa Costertium made this). Coming to the Jefferson is returning... to the Pantheon, or to an ancient idea of classical beauty. And you don't need to have seen the one to feel the power of the other. Or to feel the tug of instinctual delight that makes your thoughts and feelings swirl mystically together - and your writing to swirl out colorfully.

Sweet...

Blossom Time

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Drove down to the Capitol last Tuesday. Cherry blossoms and tax day - both come in April. Pretty day last week... next week comes April 15th and the death of Washington's blossoms.

Bowers then showers.

Drip... Drip... DRIP!!!

The National Gallery • Washington, DC

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Went to the National Museum of Art last Thursday to see the Dutch Cityscape paintings. Pity they refused photographic permission in that show. They were all examples of the mid 1600's Golden Age of the Dutch. And they were astonishingly photojournalistic. Interesting that this sort of razor sharp drawing no longer has much market today. By the mid 1800s photographers had wiped out the market for that craft almost completely. And now, with the arrival of digital tools, photographers are closing in on the impressionistic imaginings of today's fine artists. Hmmmm..... Wonder what's next?

Why Not Australia & New Zealand?

I have decided not to go on the trade mission I discussed two posts ago. Thanks for your posted and emailed counsel.

The thing is that I see hotel and meeting rooms all of the time. To know that just beyond their walls lies all of Australia and New Zealand would be too torturous. Given the economic storm which has struck, it is clear that the April editions of my business magazines will be focused upon the impact of of the conflagration upon first quarter financial statements. And since the trip is in March, I may not be able to find any substantial room for it in the April edition.

Perhaps I can ask for a raincheck until a time when the interest of my readers will be different and I can arrange more time to extend the trip to experience the places fully. But that time will not be in March... Plus there appears to be some pressing managerial opportunities with which I must be involved over the first quarter of next year which may also peak in early March. So, the stars are not in an alignment for this trip... and tomorrow I shall turn down the flattering offer to join the trade mission. Sigh.... Needless to say, there will always be a regret for the road not taken. Eh?

Advise Anyone?

<- Click here A month ago the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania invited me to accept a spot on a March 2009 trade mission to Australia and New Zealand.

Never been there... sounded like a trip of a lifetime. But... but.. but...

While they will pay half of the cost (on everything but dinners/drinks) the mission lasts eight days... in three cities (Melbourne, Sidney and not sure of the New Zealand city yet). It will involve four days in the air going to and from, and however long the trip will take from Australia to New Zealand.

Each day will be filled with meetings (three to five meetings daily). So... eight days of meetings, four days of travel... best part of two weeks away from my work (I am a partner and managing editor of business magazines). Most of my work would involve writing a major piece on the fit between the Pennsylvania business culture and those of the countries I'd visit.

But... but... It will still cost me a lot, and I will lose about two weeks from my management responsibilities and simultaneously have to do a lot of my editing by internet on top of the many hours of work during the days of the trip.

Sigh... In some ways it is a trip of a lifetime (and of course my wife wants to go... hmmm... but for pesky some reason that expenditure is mine, go figure...). I have until Monday December 22 to notify the folks at the commerce dept. re. my decision. And frankly, this is a lot of work and a lot of money for... for... well, I'm kind of wondering what's in it for me. Can't really afford to add more days to the trip away from the job. And while it could be cool to see those cities after work, well, there are a lot of cities I still haven't seen that won't take four days of travel.

Anybody got any advice? Most photo opportunities will be at night when I probably will also have to do my editing chores. Sounds like a whirlwind... and I'm not sure the benefits outweigh the costs. Hulp!

Maybe there will be a spot on a later mission, but there's sure no guarantee. Sigh....

Email always accepted at the email address there on the right... K?


Thanks... Reeeeely appreciate advise especially from folks who live or visit Down Under.

Ted

Taxidermy

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John Updike wrote, "We cannot expect the camera to suck in, with light and shade, the photographer's emotions."

Of course he's right, but we can expect today the photographer to reveal his emotions almost transparently in the finished image. Right?


Rhinebeck, N.Y.

Just Before It Came

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Went to Hyde Park, New York this week. It's just east of the Catskills. You probably know it as the Vatican of the Democrat party in America. It's where FDR and Eleanor lived and got buried. The American taxpayers have preserved both of their homes (they didn't live together, but that's another story). Pilgrims to Hyde Park are just this side of death. They have memories of these people and their dog. Look, I'm not a young puppy myself, but among the tour groups trembling their way through these MUSTY buildings... well, I'm The Kid!

Hyde Park, like a lot of Appalachian Pennsylvania and New York towns, seems encased in amber. You peer through a golden shell to see things that were everywhere at a time just a tiny tad before the memory of sixty percent of most Americans. It's a clean, Stephan-Spielberg-sort-of-place where the buildings look like sets for pictures of restored vintage cars.

Hyde Park feels like grandmother's living room – outside. You can barely smell the moth balls.

It wasn't clear how best to show The Eveready Diner. Above I teased out a romantic pano but then there's a grittier way, this one taken at 1600 ISO to make the noise explode along with the blare and glare of the morning sun careening around inside of my lens to zap up the contrast. Dunno which evokes the essence of this place. Above I feel the 1940s-50s floating into view, and here the place is clad in a harsher light of the moment. Where's the truth lie? Perhaps somewhere between stark and warm? You call it, K?

NOTE: I am an economist. It's what I do all day long. Some weeks ago it was apparent that the world's financial institutions were at ghastly risk. As you all know now, that risk is upon us. In that period between recognition of potential disaster and its first encroachments... I have been seeing commonplace things as potentially temporary. Existing in borrowed time as the storm built.... Standing here, innocently unaware and doing business as usual... Just before IT came. This is not a happy picture. I am not happy just now. I am developing a nostalgia about... not the past... but the present which seems so fragile as I look around. A storm is coming, and people go about their days, unwarned and unprepared. On top of it we have a bitter election in America. Its shape frightens me even more.