Picture Notes

Summer is Best

I was just wondering if global warming equals summer all the time. If so, isn’t that good? Well I guess so, except for the animals that can’t adapt to the new climate, which might include humans.

When it’s 90 outside and you see this fountain, don’t you want to stand under the spray? I wonder if humans will continue to evolve wearing less clothing and more sun screen. I’d guess it’s still too early to say.

Oil industry spokesmen say the science isn’t there, and I’ve heard scientists say it is, that global warming is happening. When I balance the comments with the speaker’s self interest I conclude that we are in for some changes. I’ve also read that the problem with global warming is the ice age that will come when the Gulf Stream goes deeper into the Atlantic Ocean because of fresh water changing the salt content of the oceans.

But I think that all this has a long timeline. The total effect of this climate change probably won’t happen while most of the current politicians are still alive, but near the end of this millennium. It’s a crappy problem to leave to our grandchildren to deal with. I just hope they have some of the money that was created from the current climate of greed.

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?

Scouring the web for photographs

I’ve been out there, scouring the web for photographs to write about and finding the same stuff, there doesn’t seem to be much new out there so I’ll only use my own work. Most of the photojournalists seem to be corporate shooters, but that might be because I work in Washington, DC - same talking heads, same podium, just a different face.

When I photograph people speaking at the podium I’m usually locked down and trying to make the picture when they pause and their mouth isn’t moving or when they don’t have a funny expression, it’s kind of dull and tedious. It’s fun to photograph people with odd expressions but most of the time it’s just taking a cheap shot.

Often I look at photographs and wonder what was going through the photographer’s mind when he took that photograph. I’ve spent so much time doing commercial work that when I snap the shutter I’m usually trying to emphasize a particular graphic element, a color, or I’m thinking about how the photograph is going to look on the page.