Picture Notes

I heard this term the other day and I’m still wondering who thinks this kind of stuff up. Come on, do we really have to worry about virtual terrorism? Virtual is not real, it a computer simulation. We all have more relevant things to worry about.

“Virtual Terrorism” is a Roll Your Eyes term. I hope to someday publish a list of things others have said and rate them on the roll your eyes scale of 1 - 10 with 10 being laugh out loud as you roll your eyes, 1 being quick flick with your eyes to the upper right. Virtual Terrorism would be over a 9.0 on the scale.

So here I was working on my computer sitting in a coffee shop in York, England getting my email from home. It’s not virtual email, but the real thing. I know it’s real because I can delete the spam, I just don’t know why it keeps coming back. York can be cold and wet during March and I would recommend somewhere more south in the UK at that time of year. The coffee was good and the internet connection was just fine and it was warm inside.

When my children were young they reached a point when they wanted to know the how and why of everything. It wasn’t just why are we having this for dinner but why is the grass green, how does television work, why do trees grow, how tall will I be, why did my toy break. The exercise usually started out simple and then became a serious test of knowledge when they would ask things like how do airplanes fly, how many stars are there, how do automobile engines work, or why is grandma sick. Explaining how airplanes fly was always easier than than trying to explain the reasons for anyone’s illness, with illness there is always uncertainty.

Why do I like this photograph? I did this photograph in the late 70s and has been in and out of my portfolio and I just found it again in a slide box. I don’t know why I like it and it might be because I connect with this mask on some emotional level. I’ve seen art directors have strange and different reactions to it also. This masked performer was trying to annoy me and I responded by making a series of photographs of him/her and this one became my favorite because it was unexpected.