Traffic control cameras are a lazy attempt to solve a real problem.
Creepy Dolls
Dolls have always had the potential to be creepy, if cast in the right (wrong?) light – sort of like clowns. Remember the steel-fanged playtoys in Barbarella? How about those that appeared in various episodes of The Twilight Zone? And we won’t even mention voodoo dolls. (Oops.) Then there’s this: Alma from Rodrigo Blaas on… Continue reading Creepy Dolls
Random Thursday
OK, so where were we? Oh, yeah…that’s right…I lost two full days to a colonoscopy (and in a post-procedure drugged stupor asked my wife if she wanted to go shopping for gas logs). But enough about that… I’m not a “cat person” (science is on my side in that regard, by the way), but I… Continue reading Random Thursday
“Portraits of Power”
What do Muammar Qaddafi, Gordon Brown, Barack Obama, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Dmitry Medvedev, Hugo Chávez, and Benjamin Netanyahu have in common…well, besides that whole “head of state” thing? They each were photographed individually, along with forty other national leaders by Platon, staff photographer for The New Yorker, during a U.N. General Assembly last September. The results… Continue reading “Portraits of Power”
Random Thursday
Doing my part to ensure that you get your full daily 34-gigabyte serving of “information” (and in the process, setting a record for the loosest use of that term).
Blowing in the Wind
I thought yesterday’s windstorm was a bit unusual. Even in our often breezy locale, such events are rare in December; we usually experience these storms during the spring. As it turns out, I was right. Yesterday’s sustained wind speed and maximum gust (51 and 63 mph, respectively) were both all-time records for December. (It could… Continue reading Blowing in the Wind
Broadcast Media Hypocrisy
I watched a couple of national news shows this morning (NBC and CBS) and both of them devoted a major chunk of coverage to the “breaking news” about goings-on in the wacky world of Tiger Woods. They spent a lot of time rehashing the golfer’s alleged infidelities, and dissecting every possible aspect of this morning’s… Continue reading Broadcast Media Hypocrisy
Tracing Norman Rockwell’s “Art”
NPR‘s The Picture Show blog has a fascinating look at the techniques used by Norman Rockwell to create the iconic images that many of us grew up with. It seems that Rockwell’s paintings were actually tracings of photographs, and some are questioning their validity as “art.” I’m not among those skeptics. My definition of art… Continue reading Tracing Norman Rockwell’s “Art”
Tilt Shift Photography
Tilt-Shift miniature faking is a creative technique whereby a photograph of a life-size location or object is manipulated to give an optical illusion of a photograph of a miniature scale model. That’s the definition given on the Tilt-Shift Photography website. You can view tens of thousands of examples on the Flickr group dedicated to the… Continue reading Tilt Shift Photography