I am about to take a week off from my blog, though ou won't notice this because I am posting a week's worth of photos today. Everyday, a new one will magically appear at midnight GMT. I am posting these photos with few comments, but you don't come to this blog for the words of wisdom, do you?Happy holidays! I'll be back on January 1, 2011.Oh, and today's picture is of Adam and Eve being tempted. Its from the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris.
I am an amateur photographer but I am a professional educator. I've taught English, history and philosophy for over thirty years. But this year I took on the task of teaching photography/media in a new program at the technical college in our town. And it has been a challenge. Today, I sent an email to my students, many of whom show promise and talent. If you'll forgive the personal nature of this, I'm going to let you in I what I said to them:
I think that most of you know that teaching my afternoon classes has been a challenge. In fact, I concluded yesterday that it is one of the most challenging things I have ever done. Four weeks ago, as I drove home from work on a Thursday, I was thinking that "I used to enjoy photography until I started to teach it."Why would I think this? The answer lies in that fact that for quite a few years, what I know about photography has best been revealed in my photos. My pictures are often my voice; but they can't really teach. So the challenge for me is figuring out how to translate what I have practiced and learned for many years into something that makes sense to enthusiasts like you.Here's what I know:Photography isn't a class. It isn't an assignment. And it isn't a job. For me, when I do photography right, it is transcendent: I lose track of time, and space and self. When I am truly engaged in photography, I am engaged in a silent conversation with my subject. The flowers and the leaves and the landscape talk to me and translating this process into something that makes sense to others is a supreme challenge.I also know this:You have done good work and you have talent, skills and curiosity that are worthy of my very best efforts. And you will continue to get that next semester.Thanks for choosing the Photo/Media option and thanks for choosing LATI. We have a lot to learn and I feel privileged to be in a position to help.
Thank you, APAD readers, for taking the time to view my posts from time to time. If no one visited my blog, it would still be a good for me to do. But that fact that on any given day 100 to 200 people stop by provides a good motivation for finding something to post every day.
Today's offering is another art museum interior - this time a shot of some of the work of the "crackpot" leaders of the Modern Art movement as seen at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. I happen to like the crackpots. :-)
I was with a group of students in the Montmartre district in Paris and as we were walking down the steps of the Sacre Couer Basilica, I looked down and saw this man and this apparently mesmerized child. This isn't the only photo of a child marveling over birds. What is it about birds that is so fascinating to children?
This is another unique Christmas decoration that gets put out once a year. There's nothing like a donkey and camel procession that says, "Christmas."(Behind the scenes: For those who might be interested in seeing how framing, composition, aperture and angle affect the outcome of a photograph, check out this alternative view of the "Procession," which was shot using natural window light in our dining room. While I'm at it, here's the first iteration of "Procession," before I realized that the lights on the tree serving as the back drop might provide a little visual interest to the photo.)(Oh, and do I really need to tell you to check out my bokeh?)Canon 5DII 1/30s f/8.0 ISO640 100mm
Yes, I am 57 today, though I don't think I look a day over 12.
These aren't just any beans. They're Kona coffee beans, ripening on the branch in one of many small coffee farms south of Kona on the Big Island. There are two places on earth that produce highly sought after coffee: Kona and Costa Rica but I can't tell you what makes these coffees so special.The day we visited this coffee farm, they were roasting and the smell of coffee wafted over the property. The young man working at the little concessions kiosk at this farm said that on the days they roasted, the smoke gave him a pretty good caffeine buzz. Kona coffee is expensive but the smoke is free.
I'd like to think that if I went back to Wittenberg, Germany (where Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses), I could get a better photo of the Wiener Man. Like the girl I posted a few days ago, he looks a bit suspicious. A better shot would have people waiting in line for the wurst he was selling (which I think is the best wurst in Wittenberg!). The Wiener Man would be oblvious to me and I would have a great action shot.For what it's worth, there are very few photos I've taken and posted here that I wouldn't want to take over again so that I could improve them. How do other artists deal with their old art which could be made better as their skills improve?
This ornament, which adorns our "tropical fish" bathroom, is my favorite Christmas ornament. I have tried to photograph it as it hangs near the bathroom window but haven't gotten good results. So this morning I put it on our dining room Christmas tree and photographed it there.I like the textures of this ornament - especially in the star being held by the little angel.
I wasn't looking for bokeh* when I took this photo. In fact, I didn't know what it was at the time. But here it is in all its glory. Also, here is green in all its glory. This time the green is basswood tree leaves in a park in Paris. There is snow out my window but not a speck of snow in the window we look through today in "A Photo A Day."Here's a bit of trivia: the interstices between leaves that cause bokeh in a camera also act as pinhole lenses and if you can find spots of light on the sidewalk that come through the holes, they will be circular because the sun is circular. But in the event of a partial solar eclipse, the projections will be crescent shaped. Don't believe me? Try being in South Africa, Tasmania and most of New Zealand on November 25, 2011. That's when and where the next decent partial solar eclipse occurs.*"The visual quality of the out-of-focus areas of a photographic image, especially as rendered by a particular lens." (Japanese origin)
This is Jennie and she and her attendants were getting ready to pose for the "real" photographer in Willmar, Minnesota. I had been hired as second photographer, which is the perfect assignment for me.
There is a stretch of Summit Avenue in St. Paul that is lined with mansions that harken back to an era of of conspicuous opulence. The JJ Hill House is certainly an example. Completed in 1891, it was known as the "showcase of St. Paul." Today it is no longer inhabited but is instead open to visitors.This photo is a detail of the grand staircase that leads from the foyer to the second floor. Everything you see here was hand carved by meticulous craftsmen and the detail is amazing.I wonder how often they have to dust all of the woodwork?
