Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
A moment in time....
A fleeting glimpse of a Yellow-Breasted Chat, the split second before a red-tailed hawk sinks it talons into its prey, 1/18th of second that for one means life or death, for the other means food or hunger. An old woman's time weathered, wrinkled hands cradling a baby bird that had fallen from its nest, or the smile on a child's face when they discover something new...
The hundredth second where lightning splits the air and washes the night in brilliant blue/white light, or the zenith of color painting clouds floating lazily in the evening sky from the setting sun casting hues of fire across the atmosphere. Things that will never, ever happen again, no matter how long you look you will never find the same thing again.
It all starts on a little star floating through space, and the light that bathes our planet, and provides the energy from all life 93 million miles away, we can sense it, we can feel it when it warms us, but we can not grab it, we can not out run it, we can hardly define what light it. It is particles, it is energy, it is waves.
But we can capture it. We can capture the life it creates, the energy it makes. We can capture the death it causes, we can capture its effects it has when the winds generated from light blows an autumn leaf across the sky. An infinite number of photons, all with different wave lengths and energies bounces off of, and passes through, or is absorbed by everything we see, and most of which we can not see. From Radio waves to Gamma rays, these photons surround us day and night, but I digress before I have to break out the physics equations like E=hf, which I admit I barely grasp! The speed limit of the universe is thought to be 186,000 miles per second, the speed of light. It is measured in time and distance, and we have the ability to stop both, at our will, and capture it all for as long as we choose to keep it.
The word photography comes from two Greek words that mean "writing with light." And photography is the poetry of three things: light, time and subject. Again, which will never be repeated on scientific level. This poetry can invoke fear, rage, sadness, joy, and love. And each persons perspective is different, what may make one person happy when they see a picture may enrage another.
So what is the difference between a photographer and someone who just takes pictures? Is it the equipment? Compared to my daughters pocket point and shoot camera, does my Digital SLR make me a photographer? Compared to the multi-thousand dollar digital SLR camera body a photo-journalist uses, does that make me a mere picture taker, and not a photographer?
Or perhaps it is in education and training. Is a person with a degree in visual arts more of a photographer than a person who has learned on their own and has an amazing ability to capture the perfect timing, light and subject just by their raw perception of what others find pleasing to the eye?
*"Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter. " ~Ansel Adams
*"No photographer is as good as the simplest camera." ~Edward Steichen
*"I never question what to do, it tells me what to do. The photographs make themselves with my help." ~Ruth Bernhard
When photography is looked at in this perspective, we are all artists in our own rights. We can express our thoughts, our fears, our hopes and dreams in a medium that any person anywhere can comprehend. It shatters all barriers of language, and speaks to everyone, and each person gets a different message.
The ability to capture a moment in time is gift we should all enjoy. One of my favorite quotes about photography: "If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn't need to lug around a camera." ~Lewis Hine
The hundredth second where lightning splits the air and washes the night in brilliant blue/white light, or the zenith of color painting clouds floating lazily in the evening sky from the setting sun casting hues of fire across the atmosphere. Things that will never, ever happen again, no matter how long you look you will never find the same thing again.
It all starts on a little star floating through space, and the light that bathes our planet, and provides the energy from all life 93 million miles away, we can sense it, we can feel it when it warms us, but we can not grab it, we can not out run it, we can hardly define what light it. It is particles, it is energy, it is waves.
But we can capture it. We can capture the life it creates, the energy it makes. We can capture the death it causes, we can capture its effects it has when the winds generated from light blows an autumn leaf across the sky. An infinite number of photons, all with different wave lengths and energies bounces off of, and passes through, or is absorbed by everything we see, and most of which we can not see. From Radio waves to Gamma rays, these photons surround us day and night, but I digress before I have to break out the physics equations like E=hf, which I admit I barely grasp! The speed limit of the universe is thought to be 186,000 miles per second, the speed of light. It is measured in time and distance, and we have the ability to stop both, at our will, and capture it all for as long as we choose to keep it.
The word photography comes from two Greek words that mean "writing with light." And photography is the poetry of three things: light, time and subject. Again, which will never be repeated on scientific level. This poetry can invoke fear, rage, sadness, joy, and love. And each persons perspective is different, what may make one person happy when they see a picture may enrage another.
So what is the difference between a photographer and someone who just takes pictures? Is it the equipment? Compared to my daughters pocket point and shoot camera, does my Digital SLR make me a photographer? Compared to the multi-thousand dollar digital SLR camera body a photo-journalist uses, does that make me a mere picture taker, and not a photographer?
Or perhaps it is in education and training. Is a person with a degree in visual arts more of a photographer than a person who has learned on their own and has an amazing ability to capture the perfect timing, light and subject just by their raw perception of what others find pleasing to the eye?
*"Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter. " ~Ansel Adams
*"No photographer is as good as the simplest camera." ~Edward Steichen
*"I never question what to do, it tells me what to do. The photographs make themselves with my help." ~Ruth Bernhard
When photography is looked at in this perspective, we are all artists in our own rights. We can express our thoughts, our fears, our hopes and dreams in a medium that any person anywhere can comprehend. It shatters all barriers of language, and speaks to everyone, and each person gets a different message.
The ability to capture a moment in time is gift we should all enjoy. One of my favorite quotes about photography: "If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn't need to lug around a camera." ~Lewis Hine
Monday, November 17, 2008
Waste Not or Hunt Not
It is no big secret that I grew up hunting, practically every male in my family did. Duck hunting was the vast majority of it, and it was an annual reunion of guys in my family from all across the country, and it was more about the comradery and practical jokes, and occasionally we would get a duck, and we used the duck, nearly all of it. The feathers were used to hand tie fishing flies for trout fishing in the spring in the mountains....
We were brought up to respect nature, and to take ONLY what we would use, hunting was not for trophies to stick on a wall, and I admit, growing up there were times when hunting actually provided the meat for some members of our extended family that would otherwise go with out.
A few years back I traded in my shotgun for a Nikon, and I still duck hunt, I still dress in head to toe on occasion in camouflage, and trek through slushy marshes in 15 degree weather in the hopes of getting one good shot... Only now with a camera...
Which is why I am sickened by the behavior of a particular neighbor of mine, and I had taken pictures to post, be declined to do so.
For the Second year in a row, this "hunter" has taken a deer. (in this case the buck is so small it is more like a German Shepard with some twigs in its head) And for the second year in a row, this majestic, and beautiful creature has been laying in their front yard for 3 days now. Cut open and gutted, it spent two days draped across a picnic table with its legs stretched towards the heavens stiff as a board with its tongue dangling out the side of its mouth, and its fur drenched with matted blood from what is obviously a poor Field dressing job.
Last year, a doe, a deer, a female deer (could not resist singing the song in my head) layed out in the front yard for weeks partially covered with a ragged blue tarp, which did nothing to combat the smell of rotting flesh.
Aside from the sight of a dead, deer laying on a picnic table, abdomen butchered open, laying out for 3 days (and probably many more days to come), and the smell that goes along with it after it had been hung from a tree by hooks through its back legs, and the throat slit so all the blood can drain out it into the yard, the fact this guy has no intentions of using any of the meat (which went bad shortly after not being properly butchered the day it was taken) all he is interested in is placing another deer head on the walls of his house which are all ready covered in dozens of deer, opossum, racoons, coyote, ground hogs, fox, beaver, and a chicken (yes a taxidermy chicken graces the wall of the living room).
This wanton destruction of a life, for no reason at all outside of a cheaply and poorly done trophy, is the paramount of disgusting.
I always felt bad when I took a duck, or the occasional squirrel, but I used as much as possible of the animal, wasting very very little. What could not be consumed or reused was generally used to fertilize garden plots. (nothing makes 'maters grow better than burying left overs from cleaning fresh fish below where you will be planting the next spring, at least until the mercury levels got to high in our lakes and rivers)
My lovely wife, who had all ready had enough off seeing this poor deer by Saturday afternoon had went ahead and called the health department this morning, and was actually laughed at. Of course, the health inspectors will probably not be laughing too much when the come out next week and have to deal with the stench associated with 160 pounds of rotting meat. But if one were to ask the mighty hunter, the rotting process makes it easier to get the skin off of it so he can stuff the head and put it on his wall. Of course, the other 155 pounds of bone, skin, fur, meat will be tossed into his city garbage can after being chopped up with an ax so it can all fit in the can..
We were brought up to respect nature, and to take ONLY what we would use, hunting was not for trophies to stick on a wall, and I admit, growing up there were times when hunting actually provided the meat for some members of our extended family that would otherwise go with out.
A few years back I traded in my shotgun for a Nikon, and I still duck hunt, I still dress in head to toe on occasion in camouflage, and trek through slushy marshes in 15 degree weather in the hopes of getting one good shot... Only now with a camera...
Which is why I am sickened by the behavior of a particular neighbor of mine, and I had taken pictures to post, be declined to do so.
For the Second year in a row, this "hunter" has taken a deer. (in this case the buck is so small it is more like a German Shepard with some twigs in its head) And for the second year in a row, this majestic, and beautiful creature has been laying in their front yard for 3 days now. Cut open and gutted, it spent two days draped across a picnic table with its legs stretched towards the heavens stiff as a board with its tongue dangling out the side of its mouth, and its fur drenched with matted blood from what is obviously a poor Field dressing job.
Last year, a doe, a deer, a female deer (could not resist singing the song in my head) layed out in the front yard for weeks partially covered with a ragged blue tarp, which did nothing to combat the smell of rotting flesh.
Aside from the sight of a dead, deer laying on a picnic table, abdomen butchered open, laying out for 3 days (and probably many more days to come), and the smell that goes along with it after it had been hung from a tree by hooks through its back legs, and the throat slit so all the blood can drain out it into the yard, the fact this guy has no intentions of using any of the meat (which went bad shortly after not being properly butchered the day it was taken) all he is interested in is placing another deer head on the walls of his house which are all ready covered in dozens of deer, opossum, racoons, coyote, ground hogs, fox, beaver, and a chicken (yes a taxidermy chicken graces the wall of the living room).
This wanton destruction of a life, for no reason at all outside of a cheaply and poorly done trophy, is the paramount of disgusting.
I always felt bad when I took a duck, or the occasional squirrel, but I used as much as possible of the animal, wasting very very little. What could not be consumed or reused was generally used to fertilize garden plots. (nothing makes 'maters grow better than burying left overs from cleaning fresh fish below where you will be planting the next spring, at least until the mercury levels got to high in our lakes and rivers)
My lovely wife, who had all ready had enough off seeing this poor deer by Saturday afternoon had went ahead and called the health department this morning, and was actually laughed at. Of course, the health inspectors will probably not be laughing too much when the come out next week and have to deal with the stench associated with 160 pounds of rotting meat. But if one were to ask the mighty hunter, the rotting process makes it easier to get the skin off of it so he can stuff the head and put it on his wall. Of course, the other 155 pounds of bone, skin, fur, meat will be tossed into his city garbage can after being chopped up with an ax so it can all fit in the can..
Thursday, November 13, 2008
A helping hand?
Every one who followed this blog for a while is familiar with the story of the "Family" where members of the local blog sphere came together to help the poor family who were on the verge of losing everything.
A free education was donated to the mother as a dental hygienist, and a good paying job was simply waiting on the final state exam for dental assistant, which the mother passed all of the practice written and practical exams with all aces...
Lo and Behold, the day of the final state exam, which was less strenuous than the practice tests, she dropped out of the class, the reason, things were busy with her job as taxi driver...
A little later on my wife and I had learned, to our disgust, the money raised to help cover rent and deposits, utilities, and groceries were completely wasted on booze and cigarettes for the parents, and reportedly a substantial portion of clothing for the 3 children were returned to the stores either for cash, or if the stores offered in store credit and sold cigarettes and booze, the clothing changed from coats and jackets to Marlboro's and Miller Lite. (not even good beer!)
Today to my surprise, the front page of the evening news is a sprawling picture of the mom, seated outside the emergency shelter in Jeffersonville, talking about how she is going to continue feeding and sheltering her children if the emergency shelter goes under at the end of the year as predicted. A horrible situation for the children to be in, and yet, there she is, smoking a cigarette while wondering how to feed and clothe her children...
HELLO!! WHAT ABOUT THE FREE EDUCATION YOU PISSED AWAY AND THE JOB THAT WAS WAITING ON YOU WITH FULL BENEFITS, GOOD PAY, AND A FUTURE?
Listen, my attentive audience of 4 or 5 readers, I have been around the block a time or two. Worked 8 years as a reserve police officer in New Albany sometimes putting in 40 hours a week on top of a regular job, I have worked EMS, both public and in private injury prone industries, and have been chin deep in social work for nearly 10 years now, and I have NEVER seen anything that sickens me more than this story.
To see them on the front page of the paper, outside the emergency shelter, talking about the trials and tribulations of have to feed and provide shelter for the children, but making damn sure you have a cigarette hanging out of your mouth!
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
VETERANS DAY
"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them." ~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Saturday, November 1, 2008
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