December 2017

Posie Man #1
Lisbon, Portugal
2017

Not Dead Yet (Social Media #13)
Lisbon, Portugal
2017

Social Media #12
Lisbon, Portugal
2017

When I travel somewhere for any extended period of time, I of course take lots of photos. I generally start with no preconceived photographic themes for the trip. Instead, I just arrive and start shooting whatever attracts my attention. Most times though, a specific subject will start to stand out and become a theme I then follow most. For Lisbon, it seems that theme is going to be graffiti and the associated stickers, posters etc. found on the walls of the city.

Once source on Lisbon said to be sure not to miss the graffiti here. It turns out you’d have to be blind to not see graffiti. Except in a few of the main shopping areas it is everywhere, often layers on layers of it extending as high as you can easily reach. In fact it quite often goes even higher. It’s existence seems to be quite tolerated and perhaps even encouraged in some forms to some degree.

Most of the graffiti is ignorable noise (subject-wise, certainly not in terms of visibility) but often I see something that has artistic appeal to me. So I’ve been busily walking the narrow streets and alleys looking for these gems. You will see a lot of them in my postings on our Lisbon trip. I’ll put them under my ongoing series titled Social Media. While not the electronic social media most commonly associated with that title, graffiti and posters are a more organic form of similar “postings” of miscellaneous information which when taken together as a whole paints an interesting crosscut of a part of modern culture.

Igreja do Carmo
Lisbon, Portugal
2017

Frog Sails in the Sunset
Lisbon, Portugal
2017

We read there is a lot of graffiti in Lisbon, and they weren’t lying. Layers on layers of it–a phenomenon which makes for some strange combinations. I was of course immediately draw to the compositional possibilities.

Nosy Neighbor
Lisbon, Portugal
2017

Our apartment in Lisbon is on the top (4th) floor of our building but still sits lower than the building across the street. There is also a ledge outside our three large windows that prevents us from seeing all the way down to the street. So, while they let in a lot of nice light, the view is restricted to the upper floors of the adjoining buildings. I still like looking out though, but every time I do this nosy neighbor is always looking back at me. I know it’s just a sign but it fools me for a fraction of a second every time. It’s nice that he’s smiling but you’d think he could wave once in a while instead of just stare at me.

On the Street Where You Live
Lisbon, Portugal
2017

We are in Lisbon for two weeks and while the apartment we are staying is not actually right on this street, we do have to go up it a ways to get there. The street is so steep they installed a funicular to go up it if you don’t want to walk. It only stops at the top and the bottom though, so it wouldn’t do us any good even if we didn’t want to walk up it. As much as we’ve been eating since we’ve been  here we should probably walk up and down the street several times before going home anyway.

Trouble Comes in Threes
Bozeman, Montana
2017

Pause
Bozeman, Montana
2017

Selfie
Bozeman, Montana
2017