Picture Notes

Is it here or just a dream?

I wonder how the war in Iraq will go down in the history books. Will historians talk about a Congress that ignored the people they were supposed to represent? Will those that follow us ever know the real story and the real cost of the war? Will they be able to see who made the most money off the war and write about that?

Will it be like the war pictured on this column, of the Trojans or Romans or another ancient civilization that is no longer a world power. This is a bad moment not just for the Iraq people but for all the people of the world who thought of the United States as a country that helped to create peace, wealth and stability in the world.

Why are the people who are paying for the war ignored by the people who are waging the war?

Interwoven

Our lives seem to be interwoven in a pattern that can’t be imagined. I was thinking about this and the way the spider web looks so magical in the morning light and as you approach it becomes more interesting with globs of water like jewels on each thread until you look close enough to see the spider and the beauty of the web is transformed into something of danger because you looked too close.

The spider isn’t normally aggressive but wants to be left alone to live it’s life; to reproduce and to capture and to eat it’s food. It’s only when someone makes the mistake of getting too close (invading it’s territory) or actually scaring it (and believing that it will be harmed) will become aggressive and attack.

Our world seems to be increasingly held together by fine threads that could break at any minute and there are many things in life that shouldn’t be examined with too much scrutiny because to do so would cause disillusionment and perhaps panic. Modern money is the first thing that comes to my mind - it’s a promise, there are no precious metals present.

Back here.

I realize I’ve been quiet lately. It’s not that I haven’t written, it’s just that I’ve put three different images up with some notes and then took them down. I don’t really have a political voice and need to keep quiet. Someday I’ll write about today’s current events.

I see the media as being like the pan of clotted cream above, it looks lovely in it’s own way, but it’s really very bad for you - especially since we aren’t even cows. People really eat that.

This was in a shop window in Cornwall and I was passing by a few years ago and thought it looked amazing, like something I wanted to stick my hands in and play with. I can only imagine all the really great things I could make with it, and imagine is all I’ll ever do as i don’t think that I want to really touch it.

Speeding? In a hurry, or is it just a camera trick?

Faster and faster until we don’t take the time to be here and now and the road becomes green and fuzzy because we are moving so fast through the blur of life we are out of control looking for something we can never find.

The blur of life is rarely a theme in books or movies. Unless I photograph people and things I can’t really remember them, my past goes missing, it’s been my problem forever. So as I speed along I have to stop every now and then and snap.

I see this every day, twice, for the past 3 years as I commute to Washington, DC by metro. It’s always a race down the highway and sometimes the metro train wins.

Afterlife at the British Museum

The paintings on this Egyptian coffin make me wonder if this art was for our eyes or was the art for their God’s eyes? The ancient Egyptians were trying to achieve an everlasting life and what better way that to build stone monuments and fill burial chambers with precious metals and jewels. King Tutankhamun was found wearing a gold mask and his was a short reign and he has been called a minor king who died in a possible riding or chariot accident. There are probably more people who know of him today than in his lifetime and his artifacts will continue on through time, well past the ends of our lives. Is that everlasting life? Is heaven the 2nd floor of the British Museum?

This is in the mummy room at the British Museum which is an exciting place of discovery for most who visit.

What if photographs of the drawings from ancient Egypt were made part of the esp game. What would the guesses be, would the data that is verified have any real meaning?

Our Masks, Our History

This mask in the British Museum came from Rome around the start of the millennium and it’s great to see, to find something that seems so small when compared to other found objects and the fact that it’s survived all this time intact so I was able to photograph it in this cabinet 2000 years later. I wonder if the maker would have cared that most of the things that exist today will be almost immortal now because of the invention of digital photography.

I keep wondering if every day our lives take on new meaning because we are all on camera hundreds of times a day in London or if this is all just noise, some kind of feel good justification for civilization.

Still photography with film gave us a a crude way to record history and preserve the past and digital photography has extended the ability to make high quality images to everyone at any time or place with few technical restrictions. There seems to be an explosion of digital images coming into the world - millions of images everyday that will all need to be captioned, cataloged and preserved. I have a few more at istockphoto.

Optimism

I’ve begun a collection of “you are here” signs and tags from the around the world. They are so optimistic. To read the signs you really must be physically there, it’s a requirement, unless you are looking at a photograph and then you really aren’t there and the signs are likely to be 100% wrong, even if they are made out of metal.

Most of the time my mind is a million miles away. I’d like to be more in the moment and experience the sign and when I see one I try and I ask myself “where am I really?” When I walk away from the sign they remain and then become 100% wrong again, as far as I can tell. I think I’m going to start carrying around a business card with “you are here” as the line under my name.

An Amazing Opportunity

We were fishing for Sailfish from a small boat off the coast of Puerto Escondido when this school of Porpoise showed up to play with our boat. They swam in front of and next to our boat for several minutes. Our fishing guide didn’t think anything of it but I thought it was amazing and made this photograph, there are about 8 more and another is offered through my istockphoto.com account.

It was one of those times when the photographer part of me took over and the other part of me lost consciousness, you could say I woke up for a minute or two. It’s always nice when it happens but never seems to happen enough. I’m happy to have had the opportunity to take the set of photographs because I find them interesting. I don’t think there is anything visually better than water that is clear that goes down to forever and large and playful fellow passengers on this planet where we live.

Paris in the Spring

The photograph was a pleasant surprise because just recently I was looking at one of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s books, I think it was about his life and work, not a book by him. In the book there was a similar photograph of Luxembourg Park in Paris.

Morning leaf songs

Summer is wearing away, eroding the earth like too much carbon dioxide in the air, or something, it’s hanging over the east coast like a dirty wet blanket, sucking away the oxygen and making the air look brown. Look at how fast the water is drying on this leaf.

Something is happening to our climate, I’m just not sure what it is. The earth’s climate is not stable, just like the earth and the universe everything is moving. I applaud those who think that global warming is what is going on and I hope they are wrong, though I doubt it.

It’s really all about the money, just like the fact that greed is the overwhelming trait of all corporations. Corporations have it written into their charter that making a profit for their shareholders is their primary concern and it’s ethical for them to break laws to fulfill that aim. Yet the United States Government does business with these companies though it seems the charter should automatically eliminate them from all bidding - they will not be looking after the interest of the citizen - it’s in their charter.

I had read the history of corporations and they were never meant to last this long, corporations were initially created for specific projects with a specific life span. Look what we have now. Companies as entities. How strange is that?