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.

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.

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?

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.)

Tattooed

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

Confusing Passage

I'm in Las Vegas and I've been feeling unwell for a couple of days… lightheaded and woozy. This image gives a sense of the problem.

Grain and Flakes

Two different distressed surfaces, and some metal.

Glen Echo

Glen Echo Park is a strange hybrid of a place. The oddest thing about it is a bunch of loving restorations that are not being used at all (never mind for their intended purposes).

They have a lively art workshop scene, and in the summer it apparently runs riot with children. But no bumper cars, and no actual crystal pool.

No Weight

You know my eye was caught by the arrow, the numbers, and that tasty tasty rust.

Under Construction

I've been thinking a lot about technical matters, because I'm going to have to rebuild this blog soon, and I'll probably want to mix some other stuff into the SomeBeaut site. It's all going to be a boatload of work.

I'm gradually beefing up my technology infrastructure though, so at least the "But my computer sucks!" excuse will not longer apply. April will officially be Full Steam Ahead Month.

Melt

Only the presence of 60+ degree sunshine could make this scene beautiful.

In A Glass

There's always a frame, and there's always distortion. Some are just more easily spotted than others.

Zones

Some transitions are more clearly delineated than others.

To See What They Look Like

I believe it was Gary Winogrand who said "I photograph things to see what they look like photographed."

Even today, with the near-instant gratification provided by digital cameras, it is often a surprise to discover that the exposure you made winds up capturing something quite different from what your eyes and brain registered on the scene.

We don't look at one thing. Our eyes jump around in a series of saccades, changing focus and aperture on the fly, with our brains helpfully filling in the blanks with interpolated detail so that we won't see a bunch of mush. Cameras and lenses are much less creative, despite tremendous advances in technology.

I thus consider it something of a triumph when a photograph I take "comes out" as I envisioned it would. But I am always open to surprise: every now and then what appears is not what I expected, but something much more interesting.

Steampunk Vines

I'm not sure whether I'll be able to post while I'm away in Albuquerque. Please enjoy the nature-artifice combo of this image in the meantime.

Felicitous Error

I had set my camera to its highest available ISO the other night, thinking I was going to try to photograph in a darkened room. I didn't. But I forget to set the ISO to something more normal.

So when I took the picture above, the 1600 ISO shot in normal daylight resulted in something I hadn't seen in quite a while: grain. Grain looks different from typical pixels. And I actually think THIS grain is beautiful. Have a look at the big version, which I've made bigger-than-usual.

Beautiful Trash

Some of us live among the stars, but I'm looking at the gutter.

Have Mercy

Submitted without comment, because ~ really ~ what is there to say at this point?

I promise I will try to get somewhere and take pictures of something different and more interesting tomorrow.

The Lion in Winter

…giving new meaning to the term "snowy mane."

Built for Speed…

…and going nowhere fast.

Bonus points if you can name the model from the snow outline!

Pan-Child Playing in the Snow

I love that this thoroughly heathen image is placed just outside the former baptistry (now a garden shop) at the National Cathedral.

Quod Severis Metes

Blogger informed me that they are ceasing to support FTP publishing to my webserver in the next month or so. So now I'm scrambling to find an alternative. Looks like it's going to be WordPress.

Y'all don't need to do anything except keep coming back, and maybe update your RSS feed information when the change happens.

Suddenly, A Crowd Had Formed...

...at Everard's in Georgetown.

A Winter Garden

Dumbarton Oaks garden is one of my favorite places in Washington. To be more accurate, it's one of my favorite places anywhere. For awhile, when I first moved to DC, I went there every fair-weather Sunday to sit on a bench and read the paper in beautiful surroundings.

I thought I remembered that the garden was off-limits to visitors from November to April. I either misrecalled or the policy has changed. I went waltzing in this afternoon; not only was it open, but nobody was taking admission fees either.

I intend to renew a more intimate acquaintance with this glorious spot.

Because it's raining again…

…I am driven to find the silver lining in the clouds. Or, as the case may be, the green metallic flake lining.

Rustscape

I can't paint, but if I could, my landscapes would look like this: an arcane map of the world. (Enlarge for full enjoyment.)

Lampposts on the Bridge

I have always been partial to greening bronze, and ~ as shown here ~ it looks especially great in late afternoon light. Again, please view the big version.

Light Waves

The late afternoon light made its mazy way through some curtains in a dazzling display of moiré. Please have a look at the large version to best appreciate the color and pattern.

Hinge

It wasn't until I looked at this image on my computer that I saw the "N" in the center.

Edges

Sometimes the frame is more interesting than the painting. That's true for windows too.

Bright, Bright Sunshiny Day

This image just feels too easy. It's almost embarrassing: simple, graphic, bright. But it makes little pleasure neurons in my head go *ping* so I don't care if it's a cliché.

Thank You DMV

Three words you don't hear together very often!

I had to go down to Georgetown to deal with some car bureaucracy: two hours of my life I'll never get back. The entire experience was redeemed by the dozen or so photos I managed to take between the DMV office and my car. The light, the environment, and my eye all happened to be on the same page for half an hour. It's a great feeling when that happens.

The Raw Deal

My GF-1 makes pretty nice JPEGs. I haven't had any complaints, really. But yesterday's experiment in RAW+JEPG has opened my eyes. Even with my clumsy bumbling in Lightroom, I can see why professional photographers shoot in RAW. Although I'm post-processing these images on a non-color-controlled MacBook Air, I can clearly see why the exquisite tonal and color control afforded by post-processing RAW data is desirable. Here are a few examples (of course all images you see online are now JPEGs, and have gone through an extra level of compression courtesy of Blogger, so some of the differences get lost in the process).

Blue Ice Puddle


Image 1: Camera JPEG, tweaked in iPhoto. Not bad!


Image 2: Camera RAW, processed in Lightroom. More accurate color balance, better tonal range, increased detail sharpness.

Three Guy Wires


Image 1: Camera JEPG, tweaked in iPhoto. Pretty good!


Image 2: Camera RAW, processed in Lightroom. More accurate color balance, better tonal range, increased detail sharpness.

Pink Pipe


Image 1: Camera JPEG, tweaked in iPhoto. Difficult color palette, handled quite well.


Image 2: Camera RAW, processed in Lightroom. Guess what? More accurate color balance, better tonal range, increased detail sharpness.

It's a lot more work, and there's clearly a whole world of technical expertise I've yet to acquire. Fortunately, I have a pretty good technical background in image processing, both from my background as an analog printer (remember the silver print darkroom in days of yore?) and from years of working with digital images in circumstances where image quality was paramount. I can learn what I need to, and my eye is decent. The biggest challenge working from the RAW file is that there are so many instances, so many "interpretations" if you will, of the data that are viable. There is no one correct version. The hard part is to pick a vision for the image and then know when to quit tweaking. Ansel Adams would have loved this technology.

Wall and Pipe

Post-processing madness! I shot this image in both RAW and JPEG. I tinkered with the RAW using my trial version of Lightroom, which of course I really have no informed idea how to use. The difference in color balance between the two versions couldn't have been more striking. And, of course, since I have no good memory of my perception of the color at the time of the exposure, ultimately I just have to go with the more pleasing/plausible version.

Writing on the wall

It's gusting 30 miles an hour and cold as hell this evening. The heat in my apartment building has been unreliable the last couple of days (usually it's positively tropical in here, which I adore despite the patent ungreenness of it), and the chill has seeped into every corner. I dislike windy weather; it makes me restless and irritable, and I always sleep fitfully. The violent rattle of ill-fitting windowscreens, the slamming trashbin lids, and the clanking chain in the neighbor's yard don't help either. It's going to be a miserable night.

...And In With The New!

Think of 2010 as an attractive, colorful, surprising, and still unopened present. What do you want it to be?

Happy New Year, friends!

Another Distressed Surface

I feel a growing affinity for the flaking, rusting things of this world. They have the dignity of perseverance, even as they crumble.

Merry Christmas

I hope you are all enjoying the holiday season with friends and family. Peace on earth, goodwill to all!

Continuing with Gaga

A stroll this afternoon presented a vast array of photographic challenges: high contrast snow and glare, piercing blue skies, and chilly temperatures. Yet I took at least a dozen pictures I'm happy with. Check out the faithful rendition of the irridescent oxidation on the chair back here. New camera: YAY!