Showing posts with label dog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dog. Show all posts
September 29, 2015
October 30, 2014
Heraclitus, revisited. (Or, sorry I haven't written lately; what's been happening this month?)
I've written recently about Heraclitus, and my goal of taking photos of Bucky that are distinct.
Sometimes, though, like when he stands in the window-light at the top of the stairs and looks into my portrait lens, images from different days can be pretty damn similar:
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| (19 October 2014) |
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| (27 October 2014) |
So, it was nice to get a chance (at bedtime) to snap a shot that is different:
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| (25 October 2014) |
Thanks, Bucky.
(Click on any image for full-screen.)
(Click on any image for full-screen.)
October 2, 2014
September 12, 2014
"...close to music..."
"The true content of a photograph is invisible, for it derives from a play, not with form, but with time. One might argue that photography is as close to music as to painting."
- John Berger, from "Understanding a Photograph" (1968).
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| Bucky, December 2010. (Click image for full-screen.) |
September 4, 2014
August 23, 2014
The Bucky Variations*.
Heraclitus said that "Everything changes and ... you cannot step twice into the same stream."
If, however, you take several photographs of the same stream – or dog – they may not look all that different.
But what if you use different lenses?
Here is Bucky standing at the top of the stairs, as seen through three different lenses** (click any image for full-screen):
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| Fuji X100S***, 5/28/14. |
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| Nikkor 105 mm f/2 "defocus control" lens****, 8/9/14 |
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| Lensbaby LM-10*****, 8/12/14. |
And there you have it: Three different views of Bucky at the top of the stairs.
I admit that these may not reflect three different ways of being, a la Heraclitus, but instead may depict three different ways of seeing, a la John Berger. But, for most of us, ways of seeing are ways of being. And, as for me, I am grateful to Bucky, who has taught me new ways of being, and of seeing.
__________________________
* With footnotes.
** And cameras.
*** Built-in 23 mm f/2 lens (35 mm equivalent focal length = 35 mm).
**** On a full-frame Nikon digital SLR.
***** On an iPhone.
August 19, 2014
August 8, 2014
July 31, 2014
July 29, 2014
Is the black-and-white flower the prettiest?
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| (Bucky backyard on 7/24/14; click image for full-screen) |
April 27, 2014
April 15, 2014
March 26, 2014
February 5, 2014
January 19, 2014
Under the influence.
Heraclitus said that you can't step into the same river twice, but sometimes I wondered whether I was photographing the same dog twice, thrice, and more.
I like to photograph Bucky. Sometimes, though, I found that I would take a photograph of him, and it would look very familiar:
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| (July) |
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| (October) |
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| (November) |
(Click any image for full-screen.)
Old dog, new photo. If you photograph the same dog, repeatedly, how different can any new photo be...?
After visiting the exhibition, I took these two photos (click any image for full-screen), indoors, by available window-light; I think they are different from all my earlier photos of Bucky:
And thank you, Bucky.
January 7, 2014
January 5, 2014
Such ugliness should be an opt-in, not a secret vice. (An open letter.) [Puzzling color corruption in uploaded images turns out to be Google "auto-enhancement."]
Dear Google, please consider making the "auto-enhancement" of uploaded images an opt-in choice, rather than a hidden default.
I like your picasaweb cloud-based photo-hosting service, which I've been using for years. Recently, though, I discovered that I had a problem: newly uploaded photos had corrupt colors. Ugh. I tried deleting and repeating; same problem. What could the issue be? Was this a color management problem for which I was somehow responsible? Actually, no. Turns out, it was something that you, Google, see as a feature.
A few months ago, I found that it was necessary to upgrade my Google account to a "Google plus membership," in order to attend a meeting via a "Google plus video hangout." So, I did. Turns out that you processed all my image uploads thereafter using a feature that you, Google, call "image auto-enhance." Those bad colors were your idea of "enhancement:"
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| "ENHANCED" |
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| "REVERTED TO ORIGINAL" |
(Idiots.)
I've now cancelled the "enhancement" of those photos (individually, as you gave me no way to do so en masse; I was relieved that I did not have to re-upload everything). And I've also turned off the "auto-enhancement" of newly uploaded photos, going forwards.
In general, I do not alter my photographs. Light goes through a lens, and hits a sensor, and electrons get happy, and a file is written; that is what I want to see. How dare you, Google, presume that you should "auto-enhance" any image that I entrust to you for storage? And how dare you, Google, presume to do so without even telling me?
In closing: Dear Google, without mentioning that you would modify the images I uploaded, you made them ugly. I've fixed this issue with respect to my own image uploads. I respectfully suggest that in order to spare other people similar ugliness, confusion, and delay, that you please make image "auto-enhance" an opt-in choice, rather than a hidden default.
Respectfully,
Jim Pekar
Kensington, Maryland, USA
December 31, 2013
December 25, 2013
December 22, 2013
"The matter of the dog."
In the novel Watt, by Samuel Beckett, Mr. Watt works in the home of Mr. Knott. Mr. Knott is served lunch and dinner daily, and whatever is left over from those meals is eaten every night by a dog. Mr. Watt considers, at length, how such an arrangement might have been arrived at, reviewing and rejecting various possibilities. He then presents his understanding of the current arrangement, in a single sentence (found on pages 78 through 80 of the Grove Press edition):
"Passing on then to the solution that seemed to have prevailed, Watt found it to be roughly this, that a suitable local dogowner, that is to say a needy man with a famished dog, should be sought out, and on him settled a handsome annuity of fifty pounds payable monthly, in consideration of his calling at Mr. Knott's house every evening between eight and ten, accompanied by his dog in a famished condition, and on those days on which there was food for his dog of his standing over his dog, with a stick, before witnesses, until the dog had eaten all the food until not an atom remained, and of his then taking himself and his dog off the premises without delay; and that a younger famished dog should by this man at Mr. Knott's expense be acquired and held in reserve, against the day when the first famished dog should die, and that then again another famished dog should in the same way be procured and held in readiness, against the inevitable hour when the second famished dog should pay nature's debt, and so on indefinitely, there being thus two famished dogs always available, the one to eat the food left over by Mr. Knott in the manner described until it died, and the other then for as long as it lived to do the same, and so on indefinitely; and further that a similar young local but dogless man should be sought out, against the day when the first local man should die, to take over and exploit, in the same way and on the same terms, the two surviving famished dogs thus left without a master, and without a home; and that then again another young local dogless man should in the same way be secured, against the dread hour of the second local man's dissolution, and so on indefinitely, there being thus two famished dogs and two needy local men for ever available, the first needy local man to own and exploit the two famished dogs in the manner described as long as he lived, and the other then, as long as he drew breath, to do the same, and so on indefinitely; and that lest, as might very well happen, one of the two famished dogs, or both the famished dogs, should fail to survive their master, and follow him at once to the grave, a third, a fourth, a fifth and even a sixth famished dog should be acquired and suitably maintained at Mr. Knott's expense in some convenient place in a famished condition, or that better still there should be at Mr. Knott's expense on some favorable site established a kennel or colony of famished dogs from which at any time a well-bred well-trained famished dog could be withdrawn and set to work, in the manner described; and that on the off chance of the second poor young local man's passing over, into the beyond, at the same time as the first poor local man, or even before, and stranger things are of hourly occurrence, a third, a fourth, a fifth and even a sixth poor young local dogless man or even woman should be sought out and by fair words and occasional gifts of money and old clothes as far as possible be secured to Mr. Knott's service eventually in the manner described, or better still that a suitable large needy local family of say the two parents and from ten to fifteen children and grandchildren passionately attached to their birth-place should be sought out, and by a handsome small initial lump sum to be paid down and by a liberal annual pension of fifty pounds to be paid monthly and by occasional seasonable gifts of loose change and tight clothes and by untiring well-timed affectionate words of advice and encouragement and consolation, attached firmly tor good and all in block, their children and their children's children, to Mr. Knott's service, in all matters touching this matter of the dog required to eat the food that Mr. Knott left, and exclusively in these, and that to their care the kennel or colony of famished dogs set up by Mr. Knott in order that there should never be wanting a famished dog to eat his food on those days that he did not eat it himself should be once and for all handed over, for the matter of the kennel was one that touched the matter of the dog."
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