Take Flight

Experience joy.

Excel at living.

Bite Me

Or I'll bite you.

Whichever comes first.

FishWall

The door to scaliness.

Just the right colors too.

The View From Here

Where I am is a place.

And I'm in it up to my eyebrows.

Ecuaflor

A tiny miracle in the bushes.

Which is what I expect from life.

Hang.

Relax a bit. Get cancer. Stink.

Be happy.

Reasonable People Can Work Things Out

It's not me, it's you.

Mostly.

Honkers

Grazing, grabbing. The last bit of sun.

Before the winter dark.

Flats

Aren't always on cars.

Sometimes on walls, or in minds. You?

Dark Light

Is the essence of quiet.

Except for the sound of me, as I walk by.

Low Life

Keeping quiet.

Like all good survivors.

August Memories

Remind me of heat, and bugs.

Two things to wait another year for.

Dry

Fall brings a chill, and a crispness. Everything crackles.

We wait for the sky to decide when to drool again.

Blue

Small, tight, coolly has it made.

Always has been my single favorite shade.

Tangle

Seems complicated but is less that.

Than subtle. Like life, no?

Hope

Falls eternal. Every year about this time.

As winter death approaches.

Eternity On The Wing

If you have an exoskeleton.

Then every day is forever.

Layers

Tell us the story of tomorrow.

And of yesterday.

Red With

Extra bits.

To keep it hopping.

Happy Podly Days

Revisiting the quiet, eyeless pods.

Which nevertheless are quite aware.

Probing

By the vegetable intelligence.

Toward the light, toward life, toward you perhaps.

Mousleep

A leap too far ends in.

The permanence of sleep.

FlatHouse

Full of two-dimensional flora.

And her half-sister excreta.

Morning Gloria

Not that one. The other.

The one with vegetable intelligence.

Season Ender

Teaches a lesson.

When all else fails, die.

PhotoGraphy And Me

At The Online Photographer: Sony Electronics Posts First RX1 Samples

It set me off. Here goes...

<rant>

I'd like to say I don't give a spork.

But if you want it, take it. Go ahead. It's free. I'm no longer using it.

After 25 years of aching I bought a Pentax 67. I loved it.

The best part about owning the Pentax was selling it, two viewfinders, three lenses, and extension tubes while they still had value. Just before exactly everything in the world went digital.

Without planning, I've joined the 21st century. I like it just fine.

Someone smarter than I put the words together: Today photography is not about producing a product. It is about communicating. Sending messages. Pointing at reality. "Hey! Look what I saw. Look where I went. Look what I made."

I am happy.

So is Paul.

Paul is nearly 80. Paul is a retired Forest Service Ranger. His territory covered a large part of the Pasayten Wilderness in northern Washington State. Paul has been using a view camera since before I quit pooping my pants.

Paul has a Canon "something-X-something". He loves it.

He really likes the warning about not letting the front element of the lens touch the subject. He giggles like a girl about that.

I like giggling. I like girls. I like Paul. Paul is a mensch. Paul knows his schtick, photography-wise.

I like my camera.

My camera now (my main camera, my lover, my guru) is a Sony DCS-HX5V. See Luminous Landscape from May, 2010: "Putting the Fun back into Futography".

I have high dynamic range and sweep panoramas, whatever they are. I have 25mm to 250mm. I carry this sucker always. It captures images. I have no idea what the MTF is, or if there is one.

I have been posting a nearly-daily image from this camera for around two years now.

As I told Paul I don't give realism a chance to draw breath. I don't care if a 185-pound pimply mama with fat rolls is transformed by some Faux-Tow-Shoppe expert into a 6-ounce pink glittering pixie that makes men want to stab themselves in the eyes from despair and longing.

I don't care.

I don't care about reality. Photography has never been about reality, any more than Xerography has been about death, or trucking has been about love.

I get images. I play with them. I make something. I post it. I don't know what it means.

I don't care.

As far as I know, no one sees anything. No one but me, but I'm having fun here. Fun here, guys. I'm having fun.

Tell me about your $18,000.00 Elmotwit lens with hypersonic speed-flaps and built-in 24-hour clock screaming the hour every hour on the hour. Tell me about F, stop or non-stop. Tell me about burst modes up in the mega-bitzels. Tell me about snakeskin handles. Sing the praises of precision, six-speed knobs with overdrive. Croon about computer-aligned menus with tiny bubbles. Describe steaming hot bokrah.

I care.

Not.

At all.

The image, for me, for now, is a street corner. An intersection.

I arrive, late, early, or never. But from there I start.

And then I go somewhere. Wherever. I don't know. I go.

Days. One at a time. They arrive and they give me images of something, or of nothing. I don't know.

I'm playing.

I get crap on my shoes. I see eternity. I never know. I am not a photographer. I am a random organism looking around.

Every now and then something accidentally surfaces and turns its eyes on me.

And there it is.

Until tomorrow, when something else happens, or doesn't.

If you have $2800, take it out to the street and put it in a pile.

Light it. Watch it burn. Smell it.

Photograph it through a pinhole. Roast a hot dog.

You'll learn something. I bet.

You will.

</rant>

Reference:

Putting the Fun back into Futography

Duet

One hails the sky.

The other eyes me with disinterest.

No Fly Crane Fly

"Buzz off," I say. "It's a good day to die."

"No you. You first," says the fly.

Cedar Secrets

Standing, thinking, calm in the morning.

Waiting as always. As I walk by.

ChesterCat

Is carefully folded and placed on a limb.

Where he remains while I'm looking at him.

Dawn Cat

Waits patiently.

For me to turn my back.

Passage

A notice from the past has finally arrived.

Scratching along the pavement. Illiterate, illegible, intimidating.

Smile

Especially if you have nothing better to do.

Meanwhile, death awaits.

Fourpack

Singing in harmony.

Quietly to themselves.

Sunny-Shade

Cool in the quiet near dark.

On the edge of a sunny morning.

Solid State Sleep

Came to a small life.

Without ceremony.

Greenfruit

Waits patiently.

For its time to ripen and its moment to die.

Scattershot

Keep a low profile and dig into the color.

It's richer among the minerals.

Deep Background

We have it on good authority that.

Things do happen when you are not there.

Dark Light

Sneaks in around the edges.

And brings along something special.

Shrubbery Tussling

Is not my specialty. If it were, I'd wear a lot of gloves.

And pick on only docile flowers.

A Happy Radial Day

Starts in the center.

And spreads outward.

Median Glow

Off to the edge.

Humming quietly.

Open Secret

It's waiting for you.

To simply walk by.

Stalker

Something bush wise this way comes.

Gently, carefully, alertly moving.

Blinky

Whatever it was, Blinky done it.

Using his beaker.

Secret Bolds

Dark and deep it lurks.

Full of unrestrained vegetable intelligence.

Bold Secrets

In the near dark, hidden deep under the sky.

They wait to surprise you. If you but dare look.

Deep Cover

You find it if you look.

But you have to look.

Dark Watch

Among the shaded weeds.

It sits, eyeing us.

Petal Cool

Is how you take it.

Mine, I like it in the morning.