Picture Notes

Partisanship?

I made this photograph several years ago when the house and the senate were both controlled by the republicans and at that time it had no further significance and didn’t even think about any political symbolism. But today there is a new wind blowing and I like to think of this air as cleaning out some of the stale smoke and anthrax dust that has been surrounding and choking up the country for the past 7 years. I feel a shift, a minor earthquake, a change in the economic fortunes of the country, an expansion from the narrow minded thinking that has stolen our resources and sent our money to foreign lands and I see a political landslide, a new reality in the political fortunes of many who will be sitting on the wrong side of the aisle during the next election.

I like this kind of change, it’s refreshing and invigorating. I also like to use old fashioned words like invigorating and conundrum, words that you find on packages of cough drops. So carry on America, make the world love you once again by electing a minority or a woman - take your choice but please leave the old white men out of it, leave them wondering what happened.

when they kept lying to us about Viet Nam, why we were there and why we stayed there, how long it was going to last and who was making the money.

The big difference is that the war in Viet Nam was fought by the US military using drafted citizens and the war in Iraq is being fought by the US military, now a professional army (called a volunteer army) and private contractors paid by the US, known in the trade as mercenaries.  Congress should pass a law making it illegal to pay mercenaries with public funds.

The time gets shorter, 498 days left. Is there a new friendlier reality coming from the politicians? I’m not sure that it’s not business as usual and the current administration is still on the stump, acting like they are still running for office, not being in office..

I wish they would start thinking about the future and how the country will go on and how they will be remembered, as either good or evil. A few “right hand” men have left.

I look at this castle in Conwy, Wales that was built so long ago, it was started in 1283 and is considered one of the greatest fortresses in Europe at that time. And the best part is that it’s still standing, although the inside is crumbling a visitor can still walk on the walls and look out over the sea. The guidebook said at one time it was whitewashed. Imagine how incredible that would have been - a fairyland.

I wonder what the White House and the US Capitol will look like in 725 years. Will anything that is in Washington, DC now still be standing? Will America still be here or will American be one large military industrial corporation more terrible than it is now? How will the future remember this era and these mistakes? As a time of greed? Only time will tell.

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.