Fountain Of Thought

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Nine Disputable Facts Of Life

As a writer, I keep note of things that occur to me in discussions, when I’m reading, or when I’m just sitting and contemplating a fountain like this in the gardens of the Vlla D’Este (which I discussed yesterday). Looking at my notes, I found that I mulled over three-quarters of a dozen that trundled through my mind like those melodies which you just can’t stop humming.

So okay, let me get them out of my head and into yours. I have no idea whether they are right or wrong, good or bad – and I cannot promise they are all that original, but I hope you’ll agree, they each seem worth kicking about to see if anything worthwhile scurries out from under, eh?

1. Happiness cannot be caught by pursuing it.
2. Rights are not requirements.
3. In fact most rights are often more demanded than needed.
4. You can never be offended against your will.
5. No faith is reasonable, all faith is passionate.
6. Defining poverty as a virtue therefore makes wealth a vice.
7. Almost any act, no mater how dreadful, can be explained away by appealing to its consequences.
8. Before the nuclear missile we could wait for reason to catch up with passion.
9. Parenting and breeding are different things. One of them is hard.

Chilly?

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Beyond Rome in the hill town of Tivoli sits the Villa D’Este built by the Cardinal Ilppolito il d’Este in the mid 1500s. Travertine marble comes from Tivoli’s hills, its abundant tumbling water supplies some of Rome’s electricity. Tivoli's slopes are covered with olive orchards,vineyards and gardens.Some fine papers are manufactured there.

Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este (1509-1572), was the son of Alfonso I d'Este and Lucrezia Borgia and grandson (!) of Pope Alexander VI. He was appointed Governor of Tivoli by Pope Julius III. The villa's known for its opulently restored splendor and particularly for majestic gardens resplendent with enormous fountains that are entirely powered by natural water flows (no pumps). They are both an artistic and engineering amazement. Cardinals, unlike many hundreds of the priests who they ruled, quite apparently failed to take a vow of poverty, eh?

A central fountain (Of the Great Cup) has water issuing from a seemingly natural rock into a scrolling shell-like cup. Sadly the lighting was so awful in the mid afternoon of a searing day that there was no interesting way to picture the fountains. But the internet’s replete with photographic tours through the villa and its gardens.

Frankly though, it was the details of the place which flaunted the lavish wealth of the Cardinal/Prince of the Roman Church. Look at this one travertine detail on the fountain executed by the incomparable Bernini. See how the face looks more like an illustration from a modern comic book than a medieval hero? Look at the eyes and the very real expression. There’s nothing calm or idyllic – this guy is worried and I think damned chilly standing all those centuries naked in the water-logged air.

Does Everytime Face A Vesuvius?

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Is there a Vesuvius always waiting just down the lane? Is there a force so potentially dreadful which some gentle Summer day might erupt over all or any of us? Does it wait over there looking mellow yet very very large?

On that August 29th in 79 AD this view was abruptly different. That mound at the end of the lane burst upon every plan, dream, and aspiration in Pompeii. It causes us to wonder whether there’s a force so potentially dreadful that some peaceful day can erupt all over any of us? Does it wait somewhere overlooked until it stops time? Should we concern ourselves with what we cannot possibly control?

And even if a personal Vesuvius lurks somewhere, does that lessen our responsibility to control what we can? To create, prosper, share, and succeed even in the shadow of inevitable things?

You wonder about that as you look down this ancient street at a primal force so massive, yet so wickedly calm.

GEEK STUFF: Canon EOS 20D, 10/03/07:4:38pm: Lens 17-85mm, Focal Length: 56mm, Exp 1/12@f/7.1, ISO 200, Metering Mode: Pattern, Expoure bias -1, Camera RAW

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NOTE: You will often find in-depth descriptions of this Italian visit among the comments-section below both as I add onto them and as you prompt my memory. I'll try to restrict my thoughts exclusively to today's image here on the home page and enlarge upon them in the comments attachments to a day’s posting as the discussions unravel. Those comments begin here. To follow the thread chronologically start at October 7th.

Temple Of Isis

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Multi flavored adoration was as much for sale just off of the streets of Pomeii as in any modern city. It was hard to walk more than a block without finding a different brand of faith. Is there something within us which simultaneously hunts for a divine solution to our challenges but demands that our personal solution be different from the suspiciously superstitious beliefs of the next guy?

The religious wars apparently flourished in Pompeii and exotic foreign faiths like this temple to the Egyptian diety Isis sat close to churches channeling the gods of the Romans and Greeks. Today in the West there seems to be a more consistent agreement upon which god to adore, but now the devil is in the details, eh?

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NOTE: You will often find in-depth descriptions of this Italian visit among the comments-section below both as I add onto them and as you prompt my memory. I'll try to restrict my thoughts exclusively to today's image here on the home page and enlarge upon them in the comments attachments to a day’s posting as the discussions unravel. Those comments begin here. To follow the thread chronologically start at October 7th.

Claudio Marcello's Font

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In 67 AD a massive earthquake jiggled the prosperous city of Pompeii, cracking walls and massive marble columns leaving debris everywhere and challenging its people and the Roman empire to begin a major cleanup and restoration job. It was still underway on the mid day of August 29, 79 AD. See the repairs to the walls in the back ground of this image, and the gouges in the columns?

On that day in August Pompeii’s name became inextricably linked with another name… Vesuvius. Along with the smaller city of Herculaneum, Pompeii was startled at first then buried in layers of silt which carefully preserved its history up until 79 AD.

Over the last three centuries excavators have revealed places like Claudio Marcello’s gift to his city of a public square.
>I know it was Claudio Marcello from this curiously preserved marble plaque with his name as its patron (note how the plaque’s carver ran out of room on the right). Marble work which matches this font is once again basking in the mid-day light about two thousand years after the still smoldering Vesuvius stored this vessel away for us to enjoy.

By the way, Vesuvius will erupt again, and if the winds are the same, Claudio Marcello's square will get packed away once more.

Emotional Charge

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Have noticed how quickly we lose interest in a picture? Our attention even toward a great one that embodies a large slice of the artist's effort, ideas, personality, and feelings quickly becomes flat. And yet, if we return to it days, months, and even better, years later - somehow it glimmers again. I wonder about that because it doesn't seem to happen with other sorts of art which may hold our attention initially for longer, but once lost, rarely regain it.

Here's a Roman street scene. It is entirely typical of a life-moment within the walled city. See the street? The sidewalk? The walls, the ancient arched doorway? And the tiny shop spilling over with fruit and flowers? And packed in tight against it is a scooter. The elements are all there. Here's what Rome looks like. It looks different from Seattle, Davenport, Springfield, Atlanta, and Lancaster. The pieces add up to an explosively colorful moment. It is charged with the casual effort of the shop owner who assembled this atop the millennia-old streets, in front of the walls first built just as long ago. This is the outdoor day-time furniture of Rome in October. I suspect that it will strike your fancy today: become forgettable in moments, and yet... if you should return to it in a couple of years, or decades from now, I'm guessing it will be at least more interesting then.

Why is it that photographic images are like that? It's a mystery.

Not Pompeii: Almost

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"Photographs give people an imaginary possession of a past (or place) that is unreal..." - Susan Sontag

Controlling the light is a battle that's normally lost to the traveler. In the case of Rome, obstacles made it impossible for me to arrive in the city much before 11am... HORROR CONTRASTS! Which means from the bleached out lemon light, I had to make lemonade.

Romans hang their laundry: an old-fashioned custom until you realize that their daily warm sun make clothes dryers a careless waste. Still, hanging lines with pennants of vivid clothes a-flutter are a charming time-trip to memories of cities where human wisps smudged the harsh lines of modern metal and crystal angles.

This scene of the lady-with-pearls was a perfect memory which I never had of a past-place except, damn! The mid-day sun which warmed her clothes was was dreadful. Which brings me to Pompeii (a place I’ll revisit here maybe next week).

I took some shots of two-millennia old walls from that recovered city. And as I looked at the Lady-Of-The-Laundry, Susan Sontag’s words careened through my head. “Hmmmmm,” I muttered. “What if…. What if this women was doing her daily hanging there, on the day before Vesuvius went, WOOOMP! What if the stone walls broke up that light? What if…..”

NOTE: You will often find in-depth descriptions of this Italian visit among the comments-section below both as I add onto them and as you prompt my memory. I'll try to restrict my thoughts exclusively to today's image here on the home page and enlarge upon them in the comments attachments to a day’s posting as the discussions unravel. Those comments begin here. To follow the thread chronologically start at October 7th.

Why Not A Post Card?

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How many galoots with Instamatics took this picture from this same bridge looking up the Tiber toward Adrian's Tomb? Why did I take it? I just saw a similarly shabby version of it in a ghastly written article in this month's Photoshop User Magazine. Do you realize how much I could have saved by just scanning that thing instead of schlepping off to Rome? I can think of no way to pull something original out of this cliché.

Can you? Hulp?

NOTE: You will often find in-depth descriptions of this Italian visit among the comments below both as I add onto them and as you prompt my memory. I'll try to restrict my thoughts exclusively to today's image here on the home page. Those comments begin here. To follow the thread chronologically start at October 7th.

A Bit Of Gandolfo

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Physicists tell us that bits are the universal medium of communication. And physicists might be the smartest scientists (at least that’s what they tell me). So how to communicate the Pope’s vacation palace at Gandolfo? How about in a bit? A tiny piece of a big field that combines the architectural grandeur, with the pomp and two men at the very foundation of Papal authority… two non-coms: a soldier and a priest.

A violinist friend of mine, an amateur musician, once found herself at a reception for present and past violinists of the Philadelphia Orchestra. She told me that she felt like a priest at the Vatican.

Well, here's that priest.

And here is one bit of wall, soldier and priest: a trio that condenses two millennia of heirarchy and grandeur into a narrative I can understand.

BTW, for you metaphor collectors, how about that slope?

Gandolfo, Italy. 10/01/07:11:40pm

NOTE: You will often find in-depth descriptions of this Italian visit among the daily comments below both as I add onto them and as you prompt my memory. I'll try to restrict my thoughts exclusively to today's image here on the home page. Those Italian comments begin here.

2007 Award Winner - Super Sorprese & Trip Notes

Note: Accepted as one of theworld's finest People Images of 2007 for Canon POTN Book to be published in the Fall of 2008.

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Shocked: Tessio watched Umberte make the signal.

Rome, Italy. 10/01/07:12:09pm

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BACK-STORY: As some of you know, Rita and I travelled to Italy with Beth and Chris Herr, October 1 - 14. The first week we were based in the Albian Hills south east of Rome, the second week we were in an apartment along the Arno River in Florence. We took day trips to Tivoli, Pompeii, Spoletto, Sienna, and Assisi, and a part of Naples. I took approximately 18 gigs + of RAW images. Rita took another 2 gigs of jpgs. At first I backed up the images each day on: my MacBookPro, a portable external HD, and on an iPod. However on October 8, the MacBook crashed and from there we kept everything on Compact Flash cards. No images were lost.

On the evening of October 8, master photographer Andreas Mannessinger & Irene drove down from Vienna to join us in Florence for wonderful dinner at the Nanamuta Restaurant, and the next morning we met at Sunrise to begin a mano-a-mano shoot at the Duomo and then worked our way through the winding ancient streets to the Ponte Vecchio (see my posting for October 7, the day before the MacBook crashed).

I'm slowly working my way through the images in chronological order (with the one exception of October 7) - and it's so much like reliving the trip and its ideas and feelings. I hope you'll enjoy this after-the-fact journaling as I match my notes (I always carry a small spiral bound notebook) to the pictures. Eventually we'll get to the results of the photo-shoot with Andreas (note, he's already posted a spectacular image from that morning - that includes a sort of portrait of me at work - which you'll find by clicking here.).

A last point: In a couple of days, I'll give you the names and contact information for the places we stayed and our hosts (along with pictures). Both the Byrnes and the Herrs will recommend them enthusiastically.

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NOTE: You will also often find in-depth descriptions of this Italian visit among the daily comments below both as I add onto them and as you prompt my memory. I'll try to restrict my thoughts exclusively to today's image here on the home page. Those Italian comments begin here.

Living With Dead

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When you’re young they say that the days go on forever and death’s little more than a rumor at the end of the road.

In southern Italy’s small towns they paste wall banners memorializing anniversaries of the passing of loved ones.

NOTE: You will often find in-depth descriptions of this Italian visit among the comments below both as I add onto them and as you prompt my memory. I'll try to restrict my thoughts exclusively to today's image here on the home page. Those comments begin here.

Wall Whisper

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Susan Sontag wrote, “Photographs (can) give people an imaginary possession of a past that is unreal.” She goes on to suggest that photographs are, “a way of certifying experience.”

The walls of Castle Gondolfo reflect both the implacable force that Urban VIII breathed into them in 1624, and the current fashion of genteel seediness which coats their façades in crackling layers. From the image we can we grasp either the enormity of the past power of the men who peered down from this window upon Lake Albano, or the situation of its current tenant. Is this a photograph of a past, a present, or a future?

As I leaned against the afternoon warmth of this wall, it was like a rock. And see the etchings in the stone window frame? Beneath your fingers they’re as crisp as yesterday, the artisan’s message left there at the end of a day some four centuries ago.

Odd how imagination’s so one-way. Beneath my fingertips I could feel what his hand felt as it wiped across this surface. And I can picture him packing tools, walking a cart half a block to the town square, getting wine, and wondering where his next job would take him.

I can imagine all of that, yet I cannot image the guy who might come upon this little story in 2507, yet he will know as much about me as I do about the man who made Urban VIII’s window.

We are all something's history.

NOTE: You will often find in-depth descriptions of this Italian visit among the comments below both as I add onto them and as you prompt my memory. I'll try to restrict my thoughts exclusively to the image here on the main site. Those comments begin here.

Look! Up there... Castel Gandolfo.

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NOTE: You will find in-depth descriptions of this Italian visit among the comments below. I shall try to restrict my thoughts exclusively to the image here on the main site.

Castel Gandolfo, the Pope's vacation residence, occupies a height in the Alban Hills overlooking Lake Albano about 25 miles South-East of Rome. The lake was formed when an ancient volcanic mountain collapsed. The castle was made part of the few remaining Papal holdings when the ancient power of the Popes in Italy collapsed. It sits amidst a small town in Lazio. Gandolfo shows the wear of time and while a patina of grandeur peeks through it seems to present His Holiness with the same challenge faced by all owners of old homes... The word "money-pit" resonates, eh?

I suppose the Pope is faced with a dilemma. Should he let the facade, at least, deteriorate so as not to seem to be detouring the gifts of the faithful toward maintaining an ancient opulence while millions go hungry or die from preventable diseases (diarrhea comes to mind)? Or should he restore the place to its former glory to show the significant might and influence of the Roman Church? Not to decide it to decide, eh?

This Place Looks Like This

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Hey! Here's a fast postcard to all of you from Firenze, Italy in the pre-dawn of this AM.

Wish you were here...


Ted

This image is posted from our apartments in Florence on the evening of my Mano-A-Mano photo shoot with Andreas Manessinger. I've only quickly had time to look at the four gigs of shots I took at the Duomo and then down the ancient streets to the Ponte Vecchio at sunrise this morning. I'll probably not get back to these for weeks. But it looks as if I have an image or two that are competitive.



This is the 365th posting to ImageFiction!!!! So? Is this really the first anniversary, or just an indication that I needed a day off here and there over the past year? Hmmmm.....

An Anniversary?

Yipes, Andreas just reminded me ... well actually noted, I had no idea... with a post on September 10th, that ImageFiction is a year old! And with few exceptions, you and I have "enjoyed" daily postings since then! Holy Moley!

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On September 10th of 2006 I posted this image. It was about POWER. I looked at these guys and tried to figure out who had the edge. The foreground fella sits on a monstrous hog. He's burley, strong. The skinny guy in the background's got a paltry bicycle. And yet... With all the horsepower between the big guy's legs... When it comes to figuring out who's got the power remember this... That man in the back wears a gun.

I still love this image and it developed as a result of your input. Some of you were disturbed by a distraction in the upper left hand corner. Oh, don't look for it now... As a result of your emails (and most of our interaction is sill email, I haven't figured that one out...), I covered the sign.

Here on the first birthday of this blog, let me give away a secret. See that tree on the right that forms half of a graceful arch around the actors in this scene? Okay, now look at its twin on the left. See how it reflects in the windows behind it? Look carefully... very carefully.

They say the best work happens when no one notices. I think that happens here, and I'm quite proud of it. What I did was to take the tree on the right and move it also to the left. And I hope until now you didn't notice. Instead I hope you enjoyed the exquisite detail on that foreground bike and the super subtle smirk on the biker's face. I hope you enjoyed the motion blur around the policeman. Yep, I enjoyed working them all into just the right mixture to make my point.

After a year, "Power" still works, don't you think? Hope so... happy anniversary to us all.

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Travel Time

We're off to Rome this weekend, then to Florence. I won't be back into this studio until October 15th. Oh there will be folks playing about here as they move into our home to dog-sit with Rocco and enjoy living for a couple of weeks in downtown Lancaster. I'm told that there're plenty of opportunities to grab some WiFi in those parts of Italy. And I'm reeeely excited that I'll get to meet Andreas Manessinger in Florence. Well, not really meet him, Andreas has become a good friend even though we've never seen one another face-to-face, but on October 6th we'll finally get to share some adult beverages together and talk about the state of humankind into the night in Florence (what better place to become enlightened?). If you'll be in that neighborhood - drop an email to one or the other of us. We could all party.

But, this also means that after a year of almost daily postings, this may be the last until the middle of October. I hope you won't forget to check in from time to time. And use the comments line here ... let everyone get to know you. Maybe, somewhere we'll all get to share those adult beverages together and settle the state of the human condition. Or at least laugh and smile... and see what each of us look like as we do it.

Off an adventure... Hold down the blog... K?

Ted

Dance of the Bricks, Glass, and Sunset

"When new tools appear, new artistic possibilities arise." - Bayles & Orland, Art & fear, P. 58

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Frankly I pictured this sunset window (aiming due west) this way, because I can. Well, also because I wanted to. Okay, I wanted to and I'm able to. So, I did. But why does this tiny place up there catch the eye in the first place?

No surprise... I've got one of my hairbrained theories... Imagine that you walked past any modern middle class suburban tract home. I don't care if you're in Manheim Township Pennysylvania, just outside of Dallas, in the burbs around Boston, Atlanta, or Seattle. The things constructed in the last fifty or so years provide few details like this. And those that do exist were overwhelmingly manufactured in big numbers by some factory making windows, or frames or walls. I think what captures attention here is the obvious fact that somebody wanted to see sunsets. And some builder found a unique way to do it. And both of them did it at at time when people proudly finished their work. They punctuated it with the stuff they learned from classical teachers.

So we get this half-moon window which from the inside will frame the sun going down on East Chestnut street every night. Which means that inside this home, nature is framed on a wall right next to other pieces of art. And the dance that the builder and owner did to make that happen can be seen by anyone who chooses to look up, particularly at sunset.

I like to watch great dancers, even when they are anonymous - like these are. All you need is some music, right?

GEEK STUFF: Canon EOS 20D, 08/14/07:4:57 pm: Lens 17-85mm, Focal Length: 73mm, Exp 1/80@f/5.6, ISO 200, Metering Mode: average, Expoure bias 0, Camera RAW

2007 Award Winner: Rocco's Adventurel

Note: Accepted as one of theworld's finest Nature Images of 2007 for Canon POTN Book to be published in the Fall of 2008.

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My little buddy saw Fall down the pathway and scampered his furry body to meet it.

You ever think that we've lost the color, sound, and odor of the past? Start drilling down into history and pretty soon you're left only with the art collections of the rich. They're what pass along whatever lined the tunnels you dug. They were the windows that let you look through any level. The deeper you dig, the fewer windows remain. What did the average guy, walking home on the first evenings of Fall smell? Hear? What colors bathed the walkways and what colors did those rays mix together in the facades on either side?

If you walked down a decaying pathway behind a furry friend on a night like tonight in say 1007, in oh... Belfast, or Florence... Well, you have no way of knowing what was there. Will pictures like this survive so that in 3007 someone will have a window to peer into as he digs through my layer of his history? What will he make of our time as he watches Rocco prance into Fall?

This Wouldn't Happen Now

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What's changed in America? Here's Lancaster's City Hall. Built at the turn of the Twentieth Century it was so blatant in its optimism and celebration of the future. Look at the resources that went into this public art.

It could not be built today. Abrasive critics would tear off every ornament. They'd resist materials and textures that reflected any ambition on the part of designer or town leaders. It's difficult to get the dollars to maintain structures like these. What's happened? Where has the willingness of citizens to contribute to civic pride gone? Now every public dollar seems drawn into some consumption demand. Now we need to create governments which don't so much celebrate our pride as they redistribute our wealth.

When this building went up, governments reflected a public joy, now they seem to speak only for the crankiest n public. What's changed in America?

Lightenment

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As many of you know, Rita and I are off to Rome then Florence for two weeks on Sunday. Just spoke to the house sitters (who will live in and dog sit my buddy Rocco).

So since we're visiting the epicenter of the enlightenment, I decided to look at this evening's first sunrise of Fall as an attempt to try to outrageously mix the emotional content with the Greco-Roman aesthetics of proportoin, balance,poise, and simplicity. The enlightenment was characterized by formalists who bristled at non-conformity, experimental techniques, and unpredictability. So...how to capture that within a block of my home?

Here's a neighbor's stoop on East Chestnut Street. So? Is there a mastery of form here? Is this sufficiently lyrical to at least qualify me for a visit to places still moist from the Age of Reason? Enough expressive texture? Tone?

Okay... not a masterpiece, but I'm trying to get in the mood for Europe. Mood... yeah... Gotta work on capturing mood this week.

Masters' Control

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You're raised on a farm, frolicking with your friends and family. Years pass filled with great food, quiet... pastoral bliss.

Until one morning... herded... crammed into a dank loud truck... all dark... terror. Jammed up ramps. Bleating, screaming... Panic... Along some sort of corridor, past this place, inside people.. Not farmers. Cold eyes. Not there with food and warmth. You're somewhere that's all turmoil and clatter. A chugging. Air blasts. Bells clanging. So loud. So ghastly... Where is this place? What is it? Home... want to go home...

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It's still now. Crumbling. The remains of a great shed that covered the sorting area for new arrivals. Off to pens according to type, class, destination. Slaughter... somewhere. But not here. No, here was a station beside the railhead that loaded the trains off to the great city centers. Here was an in between place of what? Can you imagine what went through their minds?

Rocco and I walked through the stockyard ruins, and he sensed what I couldn't hear, smell, or see. My little friend was not happy. There's something inside this place... Silent echoes. You are on edge here.

Does it show?