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POTD: Night Light

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Night Light Bozeman, Montana 2012

A view of our normally dark neighborhood golf course during a snowy evening two nights ago. The dramatic lighting was the result of all the city lights reflecting off of the low overcast sky (with a bit of enhancement via Photoshop).]]>

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Works to Live By

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Photograph by Pentti Sammallahti

Every once in a while I stumble on some photographic gems by a photographer I am not familiar with. When these images entertain, inform, or inspire me sufficiently I thought it might be a good idea to recommend their work to readers of my blog. Just this week I discovered the work of Finnish photographer Pentti Sammallahti and really enjoyed it. His style is quite varied; many of his images are emotionally evocative but my favorites are the ones where he takes advantages of subtle or not so subtle compositional oddities or quirks in an imaginative way. His photos involving animals are particularly pleasing. You can see his work here. Look especially at the three galleries labeled simply “Photographs.”]]>

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POTD: Within, Without

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Within, Without Budapest, Hungary 2011

Show me almost any photo I’ve taken in the last 40 years out of context and I think about 99 percent of the time I could still tell you when and where it was taken, who I was with etc. But there are the occasional exceptions and this photo from a year ago that I just came across is one of them. I know where it was taken because of the collection of photos it was in, but I sure don’t remember taking it or what kind of store that was. I wouldn’t even be sure I took the photo, except there I am pointing the camera at myself. And what are those shiny things anyway? In that same vein, my cousin Carol and I were recently talking about another  photo– one of our mothers that I took, well, let’s just say a “few” years ago when we were both teenagers. Neither one of us could remember much about that rare gathering of our distant families and she speculated that she wouldn’t really have “remembered” it at all if it weren’t for the photo.   I guess sometimes photos don’t preserve memories as much as they create them.]]>

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POTD: Tuned In, Tuned Out

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Tuned In, Tuned Out Budapest, Hungary 2012

I was at a movie matinee yesterday. There were only eight people in the theater (just the way I like it). So wouldn’t you know it, the woman who was sitting closest to me (aside from the Fashion Queen) got bored I guess and decided to do some texting on her cell phone. Is there an app that allows you to text a virtual dope slap to a complete stranger?]]>

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POTD: Mesmerized

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Mesmerized Spokane, Washington 2012

This one-man band played outside my booth at the art fair in Spokane for quite a while one afternoon. His back pack had cymbals, and drums that played when he bounced or jiggled his legs and feathered wings that flapped continuously. He drew kids like the Pied Piper. Most of the kids couldn’t stand still while he was playing; they’d dance, jump too, or run circles around him. This little guy though was just so enthralled he seemed in a trance.]]>

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POTD: Sunza Beeches

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Sunza Beeches Bozeman, Montana 2012

Breakfast with the boys, a traditional geezer activity all across this country–one which I participate in myself almost weekly. One of the guys shown here was relating an incident that occurred to him recently. He was burning the weeds along an irrigation ditch when one of his new neighbors from out of state came over and started complaining that his fire was also burning some fence posts that may or may not have belonged to the neighbor. (The two had strikingly different opinions on that.) The guy telling the story objected to his neighbor’s attempted interference–strenuously. After some choice personal accusations suggesting the neighbor participated in questionable sexual activities with family members, he started on a more general rant that I’ve heard regularly since moving to Montana thirty years ago. It goes something like this: “I wish they’d build a fence on the god-damned border and keep those sunza beeches from California out of this state altogether. All they do is drive up the damn property prices and try to change every damn thing from the way we’ve been doing them around here forever.” In spite of not being a Montana native no one’s ever called me a sunza beech for moving here–at least not to my face. I think they more gladly make room for you if you grew up in a place like Kansas as I did because, out here where mountains are considered a form of supreme being, anyone coming from such flat country is considered a refugee.]]>

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