Possible Disruption

As of tomorrow, Blogger is discontinuing the FTP service I've been happily using for years. Since I refuse to have my work held hostage on someone else's servers, that means I'm having to migrate to other blogging software (in this case WordPress).

I'm hoping to make a reasonably smooth transition, but things will likely be messy and a bit disorganized for awhile. My archives will likely take a while to get integrated.

Please be sure that from now on you use the correct bookmark for this site:

http://www.somebeaut.com/

and check back to update your RSS feeds too.

Thanks for hanging in with me while I deal with this massive inconvenience!

A Rider Vanishes

I spent a lovely couple of hours this afternoon in Bethesda, enjoying the perfect weather and practicing my panning shots. This one had the bonus of a third bicyclist coming from the opposite direction at exactly the right instant.

Bow Before Spring

Yes, it's another picture of flowers. You know why? Because flowers are beautiful, even at twilight when the light is failing. These tulips were bending before a cold breeze that belies the season. We aren't yet at a time of reliable warmth. But it's coming, the tulips say so, and they are never wrong.

Reflection on Dining

I can see myself here (if you know what I mean).

Clichéd and Unconcerned

This lovely little soul was rescued bodily from the hands of irresponsible custodians by some friends. He became the unofficial mascot of Abbie's wedding shower.

It's a terrible photograph: blurry, badly framed, etc. But look at that face! Sweetest puppy EVAR (and his fur was so soft).

Splendor

Lynn and I went to the Smithsonian Craft Exhibition at the Building Museum this afternoon. I was able to persuade her to try on this lovely ($900!!) jacket, which fit her perfectly . Its maker, Starr Hagenbring, had no business cards, which totally scandalized me. (If I ever manage to make it into a prestigious show like this one, please feel free to kick me firmly in the butt if I don't have cards in my stall to hand out to admirers!)

April Showers

Friends Dooley and Barb read a card at their baby shower.



Abbie, Abbie's Mom Linda, and her Mother-In-Law-to-be Charlotte.

It was a full day of life passage celebrations today. I'm privileged to be able to join my friends for these occasions.

Elements

Bread, oil, garlic, rosemary. More than enough substance and flavor for a meal.

Some Knots

This is going to be one of those images that only its maker likes. There's something about the calligraphy of the various wires and pipes that tickles me. I even like the little slice of sign and the little bit of rope at the top left.

Ancestor Dwelling

Before I was born, my family drove across country multiple times, camping at scenic spots in the West. This sort of rock formation inspired several of my father's bas relief sculptures.

Rolled

Once upon a time, I worked as a waiter. They don't tell you before you become a server how much "side work" is involved. I remember spending a lot of time sweeping up, rolling cutlery into napkin bundles, and cleaning the espresso machine. All the time you're doing those things (typically at the end or beginning of a shift), you are not earning tips, you are earning the less-than-minimum wage that restaurants get to pay people who wait on tables.

They also don't tell you in advance that you are expected to "tip out" to the bus boys and the bartender from your own earnings. If you're tipping your waiter 15%, they're likely keeping no more than 10%.

Let's just say that my time working in a restaurant has made me a much more generous tipper than I used to be, especially in places where the food isn't particularly expensive. Those folks just aren't making a whole lot of money, and the work can be brutal.

Connected

Transport in and out of the shadowlands.

Newness of Life

The language of Easter is a dialect of Spring.

Complaint & Response

I belong to a photo-critique group on Flickr. It's one that tries, more than many, to encourage the participants to offer substantive comments that will help us improve technically and artistically. I strive in my commentary to offer useful feedback, while maintaining high standards of artistic excellence. Needless to say, people don't always agree about the contents or merits of each others' views.

Recently I received a message from another member of the group pool [slightly redacted for privacy]:

several of your comments on not just my but others photos seem to suggest that they fail because they include extraneous items in the composition - you do not offer a reason for finding them unsatisfactory, and it comes across as your being exclusively interested in what i would term still life scenes

of course, you are quite accomplished in that way, but perhaps i am missing a reason for addressing photos shot in a different manner as if they should be still lifes - i am taking my current post on ... as an opportunity to query you on this

in this case i could perhaps have waited several lifetimes for a guy in a kayak to cruise by with a dog in the bow and only a formally desirable set of figures to complement the scene - i know that sounds snarky, but what else am i to think??

This was my response:

In my view, making a serendipitous photo of people that has deep artistic merit is very, very difficult to do ~ among the very most challenging pursuits in photography. Achieving that magical combination of coherent and engaging composition, technical sufficiency, substantive meaning, and genuine emotion in a candid image of people is just spectacularly hard. The "decisive moment" is never easy to come by. Of the tens of thousands of pictures I've taken of people in public places and spontaneous situations, I consider only a dozen (at most) to have any lasting value. There are a bunch more that are just okay, enjoyable enough to look at once or twice, or pleasant souvenirs to remind me of specific people and situations, but not "wall-worthy." Ultimately, a great deal of photographic excellence is editorial: setting aside the images that just aren't all that and a bag of chips.

Those are my views and my standards. (I don't claim to be any more successful than anyone else at reaching them; in fact, I fail as much or more than the rest.)

My understanding of the purpose of a group like ... is that we are trying to help each other approach artistic excellence by applauding when we succeed and suggesting how we could do better when we fall short. If all you want from viewers is an automatic seal of approval, I'm unlikely to provide much gratification. I will, however, always give my honest assessment (and you will note that I have more than once congratulated you on a successful image).

If and when I have a new street/people image that I consider sufficiently interesting to submit to the pool, I'll certainly do that, and I'll read with interest what pool members have to say about it and hope to derive something of value from others' comments. I rejoice in the opportunity to learn where I can.

But, ultimately, as I'm sure you know, the only opinion that truly matters in the development of one's vision is one's own. If you are truly happy with your product, who cares what I or anyone thinks? If you love an image and wouldn't change a thing about it, or aren't curious about how it might have been handled differently, why bother posting it in a critique group?

If my opinion and values are not of interest to you, you are of course free to disregard them. We do not have to agree.

I strongly suspect that this response will not especially please the person who wrote me. He just wants me to like his pictures, warts 'n' all. Which I entirely understand. We ALL want people to like, nay love our pictures, our babies, our preciouses.

Don't ask for a critique unless you're prepared to hear something other than "I love it!!" Don't ask for a critique and then pout when someone's opinion and standards don't coincide with your own. Learn from criticism if you can, but be prepared to reaffirm your own judgment in the face of disagreement from others. If everyone tells you your work sucks, it may in fact suck.

Or, they could all be wrong. It's happened before.

Happy Birthday

Someone's birthday is today. Please let him know you're glad he was born; I certainly am.

Welcome

In Death of the Hired Hand, Robert Frost wrote: "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in."

If you're lucky, there's a place where you're actually welcomed in. That's where the heart finds its ease.

Ordinary

Sometimes it's just this: light coming through a fogged window with a rusted metal frame, water beading on plastic, a hanging cord, a rounded bar of soap. The light washes across, refracts, illuminates. It's the simplest thing, really. I catch my breath at the beauty of the world.

Sway

Late afternoon, and the pendulum is swinging gently.

Palimpsest

The writing on the wall: layers of vine and shadow, traces left by water, and the red lines of fading words.

A Strange Aesthetic

I'm not sure how to account for my fondness for such widely divergent images. What is it that tickles my aesthetic imagination about the view of the Flamingo's brassy glory from this dimly lit, beige elevator lobby at Harrah's? And what could it possibly have in common with my appreciation of this tumble of striped rock at Valley of Fire?

Consider the Basil

Two of my favorite people plan a garden. What could be more beautiful?

Carface

Remember bumper cars? They were FUN. I find myself with an unexpected yen to visit an amusement park and just have fun. (This may have something to do with a stopped up ear that is making me stupid and very cranky.)

Purple

I don't think of heather as usually being an early spring bloomer. But here it is.

Green

It's been unseasonably hot here in DC for the last few days, all the way up into the 80s. Spring is being forced along at a preposterous pace. Finally, today, a break in the heat and some rain. Maybe now we'll have a chance to pause and appreciate the new green flourishing everywhere.

Carved by Water

Most deserts were once watery places, but very few photographs make them seem that way. In this one, I can see the sway and swirl of the current against the rocks, and the sandy path remains to show the way to the ocean.

Roots x 2

This much is elemental: water, rocks, roots.

You Want Flowers...?

I got flowers! I gotchyer magnolias right here.

Spring Red

Yes, that's a maple, a Japanese Fire maple. And no, it's not Fall, it's Spring. Don't worry, I'm confused too.

Tattooed

Just as with tattooes inked into the skin, declarations marked into trees sometimes seem to occasion second thoughts or regrets.

Fallen Camellias

I had a lovely late-afternoon walk with Deb at Green Spring Gardens Park. There was a veritable orgy of blooming underway, much of it just beginning, some in full flower. But most of the camellias were already past their prime. Spring goes just this quickly, for some.

Fire Canyon

I couldn't even muster up an April Fool's joke today... too busy wrangling years and years worth of files and correspondence and images.