Arno

<- Click here

It’s just a river
Filled with river-things
Tossed in every morning
By daybreak…
Ancient memories
That float.



Florence, Italy

Loan Sale

FREE NEWS WIRE

<-Click here




When can an image be
More than a noun?
When can an image
Become a verb?

Or maybe between
A noun and verb
An image becomes
Adverbial?

Or not, if it
Gets stuck as
A preposition or
A proposition.

Like a
Loan Sale.

Night Fishing

<- Click here

Catwalk

<- Click here

High fashion model does the catwalk. Fashion Rocks!

Un-Captioned?

<- Click here

One surrealist photographer of the 1940s claimed that the category was about exploring reality in ways that were insensibly sensible. Um.... okay. Does this qualify?

I considered the caption, "Look, it's... it's stopped!" And then I considered "Omagod! It's Coming THIS Way." Or possibly, "Sunset/Sunrise". Or... maybe, just nothing?

One thing that's certain is the the surreal lives only in the imagination. Which seems to be a necessary, but probably not sufficient condition to describe what a surreal image is. I shall continue to ponder.... (rubs chin and mutters, "Hmmm....")

Time - A Challenge

<-Click here
Recently I came upon a web forum which was discussing "Time" as a photographic concept. A number of excellent photographers thought it was best portrayed by images of clocks.

It seems to me that time is the only dimension which makes its mark upon every other dimension, and then has the inevitable power to erase them all. It also seems to me that we each have an hour glass inside of ourselves, and we can check the flow of its sand by peering in the nearest mirror.

So here's my interpretation of - Time. Whudaya think?

Lure Of Maniacal Boutique

Prey For A Shopping Day
<- Clck here
At first it merely caught her eye. The window display, filled with dresses and shoes that were so... so... subtly wicked. It couldn't hurt to go in, right? Just to look?

She missed the name above the door.

It read: "PREY".

---

Okay... okay... So this is a tad, um, murky. But you did see the name above this blogsite, right? It reads, "ImageFICTION"!

Squint

<- Click here

There are evocative small towns that resonate powerfully - usually with the ghostly yearnings of faded dreams- Of opportunities went away. There are reasons that cities prosper and grow... economic reasons. No amount of wishing will substitute for the throb of creativity which answers vast numbers of wants - desires - needs. Simply put: There are reasons that small towns are small - they imagine one dream, and never dream another.

Then there are places so grand that you cannot purchase a lens wide enough to cram anything about them into one frame. You cannot stand back far enough to capture their roar. They need to be described in pieces. And even pieces communicate just one aspect of their aura. You come away from them with impressions in lieu of tack sharp descriptions. You can only know them emotionally as collections of living, growing, clutching - opportunities. There you can feel, hear, and smell heaven-grasping ambitions.

They make your imagination - squint.

A Feminine Problem

<- Click here

And the moral is....

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?

Merry Everyone

<- Click here
Wishing you a warm and balmy Christmas... Blessed, of course with all of the joy that we imagine can happen and dream about over these days. Christmas is a feeling to believe in. Hope you do... tenaciously.

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

Soldier

<- Click here

Three Squared

<- Click here
People bring cities current. Hmmm... let me try that differently. Each new generation adds some permanent mark to a city in its architecture which grows like the rings of tree. But it's the people lurking about the streets which swirls the present moment's culture all over that longer term background. Our ancestors create the setting for the present instant's drama.

Right now is always inextricably mixed with ... back then.

Wasn't Going To Post This

Entry Into A RedBubble Challenge

<- Click here
I suppose many of you know of the Red Bubble forum? I'm fascinated by the talent of many of its participants, I'm finding them both instructive and VERY challenging. They accept all sorts of art including short stories, poems, and other fiction. One of the groups, WMG - The Writer's Market Group is bringing out an annual "Best Of" E-Book and this year they will apparently combine submissions from 2008 which shared "Epic" as a theme.

To that end, they challenged group members to submit entries into a contest to design a cover. Now since it is an eBook I decided to break with the convention of a horizontal book format (so far I'm alone in entries which have done that). Of course all of the text on the cover can/will be eventually tailored to the forum's specific needs. However it seems to me that a graphic which screams EPIC needs to have some pretty common elements, right?

(1) VAST... It's gotta be BIG... HUMONGUS... SWEEPING! Hence the panorama format.
(2) Sexy... Gotta imply all sorts of moist liaisons which of course demands a blonde... Obvious, hun?
(3) Weird, scary, sinister villains.
(4) A mysterious object.
(5) A palette that oozes something spooky either reds or yellow-greens, or cold-cold blues.
(6) Suggestions of edgy texture? Gritty.
(7) Action.

Now I probably should have had armies massed in the background along with booming cannons, lots of smoke, and squirming bodies. But, lacking any squirming bodies ... well y'gives it what y'gots. Right?

Wuddaya think.... does it screech "EPIC!!!!"

Hope so, if you're Red Bubble members... please vote for the sucker. K?

OOOPS!!!

Okay.... I should read the rules. Seems that the dimensions had to be A4 size.... Sigh.... I still think that the pano screeeeechs out EPIC!!! But if it has to be book cover size... well, hey.... I can do dat.... Which do you prefer? Choices?

Fans

<-Click here

A Child Is A Future Probe

<- Click here

Buried deep within our children: a time capsule. To be opened... When?


***

At Andreas request.... Here's the virgin image from my FlashCard. Comments?

Pretty... Very Pretty

Help, I'm under attack by my tools!

<- Click here
Help, I'm under attack by my tools!
My dad used to say, "Ted, it's a poor worker who blames his tools." Sigh... But it's true. I'm living in a shoddy Steven King novel. I can't seem to tame my filters or techniques. Look at this image taken at Eleanor Rooselvelt's Hyde Park, NY home called Val-Kill.

Nowhere does it communicate my political feelings. Nor does it show something else. Hyde Park is the Land Time Forgot! There has been no change there since maybe 1947! i swear, right in the center of town there's a roller rink. Everyone who toured this place with us remembered the Roosevelts. Now you have to remember that they governed in the 1930s-40s. I felt as if I was suffocating in a musty pile of my parents clothes. And yet, instead of creating an image of moth balls, or reaction to a tour of the Democrat Party's Vatican... instead what came out was that image up here.

I have become an obsessive romantic! Look at this thing. It is .. charming. Charming is not how I felt. How I felt was like... MMMMMPH! I am quite happy to be a citizen of today. It is as if I was visiting the old country while holding daddy's hand. Much as I loved them, today is the world I watched and helped to get made. I like it.

You know what happens when anti matter hits matter? KABOOM! ... Right?

Somehow I KABOOMed! in Hyde Park. Nostalgia kicked me into a psychotic break. AAARGH! And did I get an image of it? Huh?? Huh? Nope... What I got was On Golden Pond up here. I gotta get control of my tools.

Taxidermy

<-Click here
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.

I've Got A Cold... Poor Me...

<- Click here
Sitting in the library. Snowflakes falling outside. Gray November. Listening to torch singers from the 30s & 40s... buzzed on a Mucinex high. Thinking of California. We'd have liked to live there. Family here on the East Coast was an anchor. So instead we visited a lot. Hey, still do. And on gray chilly days I wonder how it is in Sausalito, or down along the Big Sur.

Images bring me back... once again to Pigeon Point.

But then I wondered what I could pull away and still leave a sense of the place? How much can be chipped out without loosing that dreamy mood. How about this? Huh?