I was viewing some photos as a slide show on Flickr when I noticed a link for “Options” in the top left of the screen. I clicked it, thinking perhaps I could view images in a random order. Alas, that’s not the case, but here’s what I saw:
This sort of reference exemplifies the nerdy attention to detail that makes me love this site.
Some new medium format shots hot of the press, viewable on my Flickr account. The shot above was completely unaltered after scanning other than the automated dust removal.
After yet another brutal manhandling of the opposition, can we stop using the feeble appellation of “Redeem Team” for our men’s Olympic basketball team? Sure, we don’t have the gold yet, but with our worst performance so far a 21-point victory over Angola (and our best a thorough trouncing of Germany by 49 points), do we really have much to fear for the semi-final or final rounds?
Flickr user Marion Doss has a whole set of photographs showing strange objects found in cat food cans. Sometimes strange, often gross (I mean, it’s cat food, after all), the most disturbing aspect of the whole group is the feeling that there’s a seriously low bar for quality control in pet food processing. I don’t know what’s weirder - the computer chip, the insulation, or the electrical wire.
The American suburb is ideally suited to driving alone and being a little sad about things you haven’t bought yet.
Bear with me here for a little bit, because I’m going to paint in BROAD strokes.
I believe that one of the greatest social and cultural failures of the United States is that, in a country with so much freedom and opportunity, so many people choose not to do what they want; rather, they choose to do what they feel they must to achieve career and financial success.
Chew on it for a bit, and read it a few times. Please.
Here we are in a nation with freedom to believe, say, and do nearly anything that doesn’t harm other people (compared to most other nations). If you want to, you can paint. You can cook. You can teach. You can be a professional student. You can be an engineer. Whatever.
What I see so many people doing instead is what they think they should want. We have folks who go for degrees/jobs/vocations because “that’s the future” or “that’s where the jobs are.” Oh yeah, and “that’s where the money is.” Build that college resume. Build that work resume. Climb that corporate ladder. Learn to play golf because, you know, so much business is conducted on the fairway. Make enough money to get that house in the neighborhood where the good schools are. Then raise your kids to do the same thing. Go ahead, take piano lessons, but maybe that’s just a great hobby, and something you can do for fun while you study finance.
Bollocks.
Now don’t get me wrong - some people really enjoy finance, and IT, and securities trading, and golf - and those people usually excel at their jobs, and I think they should. But how awful is it that our culture, in a society where we have so many options, encourages the path of least excitement? How awful is it that our culture, in a society that has produced startling works of art and ingenuity, children are prodded into more “practical” pursuits like business and science, while creativity falls by the wayside?
Sure there are people thrust into situations beyond their individual control. Sure, there are people who make mistakes or misunderstand and get caught in a direction they struggle to change, but such are not the people of whom I speak (though I hope that would be obvious at this point). I’m talking about the people who go to business school just to get ahead in their careers - not because they enjoy it or want to learn more. I’m taking about the people who participate in Model UN instead of the photography club because it will help them get into a better academic program. And I’m especially talking about the parents, colleagues, spouses, and friends who put pressure on each other and loved ones to participate in this defunct way of thinking.
If you like what you do, that’s awesome, and I understand that even if you don’t, you may not be in a position to change that. But if you can, don’t pursue advancement in a career because of the financial security and neighborhood status at the end of the tunnel. Do what you want.
This weekend I was at a Borders bookstore in Northern Virginia when I decided I’d purchase some magazines. I started looking through the periodical racks for a photography magazine because I was interested in seeing what art criticism and journalism looked like for that medium. It turns out I was a bit more casual than I intended, and essentially picked up my first magazine based on sight, vague title recognition, and the fact that it seemed to be the only non-exclusively-digital photography magazine they carried 
So I grabbed a copy of Focus: Fine Art Photography Magazine. I kinda wish I’d read through it a little more because it turns out the audience is more the art collector rather than the artist. When I sat down to read some of the photographer profiles I saw more in the way of artist background and exhibition history than motivation, technique, or artistic statement. At least the pictures were gorgeous, including the ads - oh yes! The ads, predominantly for gallery shows, typically featured gorgeous photographs often occupying more than half the page. Short of that, however, I’ll probably skip this publication in the future, thank you very much.
I really only planned on buying that first magazine…until I caught a glimpse of Antenna Magazine’s Summer 2008 issue (though it seems the Fall issue is out now). Flipping through the pages felt more like looking at a catalog of unrelated miscellany - except I like a lot of it. The page layouts seemed interesting, the photography interesting (if not entirely fresh), and the content, well, I’ll get to that. It was so intriguing that I decided to take a chance.
It would seem that Antenna attempts to be a quarterly guidebook for the American male (hipster) consumer. It’s organized by an alphabetical index with entry titles that are sometimes straightforward (Flip Flops) and sometimes clever (Legal in Some States). Think of it as a paper copy of Uncrate without (so far) the questionable misfires, and with the addition of some short articles peppered throughout. Of course, that’s the ironic part: Antenna is a quarterly, paper publication that’s supposed to represent the latest and greatest (it’s tag line is, “What Drops Next”) in a world where news on the Internet is instant. The strange thing, though, is that it DOES seem to accomplish this goal far better than Uncrate or similar “stuff” sites. This certainly makes me wish all the content was available on the web in a convenient RSS feed…
I don’t think I could bring myself to subscribe to this magazine because it would likely tempt my materialistic tendencies too much, but it sure does seem to be an interesting read. It’s visually fun, too; I’m no graphic designer, but the format and design was both easy on and interesting to the eye.
Maybe I’ll try checking out more magazines in the future, but I have a feeling most of what I’m interested in can still be found here in the Internet, often with more relevance, and more current.
Well, it seems that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is going to be delayed by about 8 months. It was originally scheduled to open really close to my wife’s birthday, so she’s NOT going to be happy about this.
The studio’s main reason is because they want a guaranteed summer blockbuster in 2009. Oh yeah, and they threw a little blame at the writers’ strike, too. You know, because the studio heads are classy like that.
Yeah, I know…this is going to start looking like a photoblog for a while, I’m sure. But at least it’s original content
I’d rather have an unoriginal format (as if blogging was my idea in the first place) with my own creative output than the other way around. Also, this is a fine way for me to wade into the Photoshop pool, since I’ve been cleaning up/fixing pictures one at a time as I scan them. I think that slower, more incremental method is going to result in images which better reflect my intentions.
