PotD

What I Am

November 15, 2015

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.—Steve Jobs

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Every year about this time, in the gap between my photography anniversary and my birthday, I hit this period of existential angst as the universe seems to force me to look into a mirror and answer the questions of who and what I am. Almost every year, I spend the first few days of this reflection totally depressed and somewhat despondent as I consider just how much I wanted to do compared to how little was actually achieved. Then, I snap out of that funk and spend the rest of the year trying to figure out how to make the next year better. Sometimes it works, but this year it didn’t.

As a result, I am dragging you, dear reader, along with me on my journey this week as I more openly consider what I am. Am I a photographer? A writer? A musician? A cripple? A father? A lover? Or just a blowhard with an over-sized ego trying to get attention? There is at least one person who would answer affirmatively for each of those questions, and none of them would be totally incorrect. We are all complex, multi-faceted individuals and if we gave your life the same level of examination we might find even more questions worth asking. I’ll admit to having an ego, but I consider it an occupational necessity. More importantly, is the ego justified?

What I think is important for me this year is not so much a matter of identity, which is why I’m not asking who I am, but more a matter of definition, hence what I am. Who I am can be superficial, but what I am runs deeper and forces one to consider in what areas one is truly effective, where we make a difference, and to what degree we understand what we’re doing. Defining what I am should, to a limited point of reason, provide a more solid vision of how to plan for the next year, playing off strengths and determining whether to shore up weaknesses or let them float away.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]I think I can readily admit that one thing I am not is overly neat. We live in a world where people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) set the standard for personal organization and clutter-free living. What we’re ignoring is that being so driven to have a place for everything and everything in its place is a disorder; a recognized mental deficiency that prevents one from accepting the world as it is: messy. I’m not OCD about anything except maybe my coffee cup; don’t touch it.

Where the strongest battle lies is whether I am more a photographer or a writer. Do I communicate better with pictures or with words? On these pages, I blend both, but is that working; which one is stronger? How many people read the articles versus just looking at the pictures? When we look at income, revenue from writing and revenue from photography have been almost even this year; depressing, but even, which would indicate there is a similar value to both. But is one dominant over the other?

A term that is coming into its own, perhaps to the point of cliché, is using the word “creative” as an identifier. The use is especially strong among advertising and marketing agencies trying to maximize the multiple skills of a limited number of people in order to hold down personnel costs. As a result, instead of 40-member teams, each with a different role, we see ten-member teams of “creatives” who wear multiple hats. That definition seems to fit what I am, at least for now. I’m going to try it on, take it for a spin around the block, and see what happens.

charles i. letbetter, creative. Perhaps a bit pretentious, but accurate.[/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

Those We Hold Dear

November 14, 2015

Dear sisters and brothers, we realize the importance of light when we see darkness.—Malala Yousafzai

Katherine (2015)

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I was up early this morning, reading through the various news accounts of all that has happened in the past twenty-four hours. Even before I kicked myself out of bed, I wondered if I should abandon our theme and speak directly to the tragedies that have taken place. Without a doubt, this is a very solemn morning and it is not inappropriate that we might gather those we hold dear, hug each one tightly, and be thankful for the breath we breathe.

We have been reminded, once again, that tragedy is a severe part of the human existence. Those who are precious to us, whose lives are most dear, can be taken quickly, and it doesn’t take terrorists for that to happen. As I was scrolling through my newsfeed this morning, there was a taste of sadness much more personal and close to home in the small town of Red Oak, Oklahoma, where a dear soul suffered a heart attack and died as the library she managed was robbed. Red Oak is a small town of about 400 people, from where my brother and I graduated high school. The loss of one there is perhaps even more upsetting to that community that the loss of well over a hundred in Paris.

Faces around the world are filled with sadness, anger, and disbelief this morning. For far too many people, pictures of dear ones are now all they have left, underscoring yet again why photographs are so important. Faces of those we love are not faces we wish to ever forget, no matter what happens in the near or distant future. We want to remember the smiles, the laughter, the silliness, the greatness, the beauty, and the uniqueness of those we love. The relatively small price of portraits is irrelevant compared to the value of the memories these pictures hold.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Kat may throw something at me when she sees the caption under her picture this morning. “Only my dad calls me Katherine,” she’ll likely say. I’ll remind her that I also used the boys’ full names with their pictures earlier in the week and am just being consistent. She will, depending upon the presence of children, toss me a look or a gesture communicating her displeasure, then continue with her reading.

I take many more pictures of Kat than what I post, but of all this year’s portraits this one may be my favorite. I don’t know what anyone else sees, but I look at this photograph and see the face of one who loves to love; not just me, not just her children, but most anyone she meets who isn’t a complete asshole. Here is a face of one who forgives, encourages, sacrifices, and labors for those she holds dear; one who has served her country and values its freedoms. I love this face.

The winds that have plagued Indianapolis the past two days are finally calm. Dear friends in Paris are confirmed safe and well. Children have slept past their typical far-too-early wake-up time. Tragedy and terror and sadness are not going to overwhelm the day here.

Not everyone in the world shares that reality, though, and our heart goes out to those who wake up this morning without the face of that loved one to greet them, whether in Paris, or Red Oak, or anywhere else. Through all that has happened, and whatever might yet come, may we all know Peace, may we all find Hope, and may the faces of those we hold dear bring us Joy.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD

Nothing But Paper

November 1, 2015

The Super Hero (2013)

There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted.—Henri Matisse

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I really thought I had done a week of these torn paper designs before, but upon a thorough examination we discovered that no, I hadn’t. So, I think it is time to do so and, as it turns out, it has been exactly two years this week since we last engaged this concept. I’ve been playing with it off and on for over 14 years now and the methods have changed dramatically since we first started. Unfortunately, I no longer have copies of those first attempts.

The concept is based loosely on the late-stage work of French painter Henri Matisse. By the time he was diagnosed with cancer in 1941, Matisse had all but stopped painting. After treatment and a couple of surgeries, his creative sense came back with a surge. The problem was that the effects of cancer left him in bed for sometimes days at a time, not a position exactly given to using a paint and brush. So, he began working with scissors, saying:

“Only what I created after the illness constitutes my real self: free, liberated.”

Ultimately, these works would be the ones that define Matisse’s career. The special paper he used would be prepared in large sheets by his assistants so they would be ready for him to cut whenever he felt like doing so. From this period come his most prestigious works, such as the stained glass at Chapelle du Rosaire in Vence, Negress, The Fall of Icarus, the Blue Nude set, and his 1947 book, Jazz.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Trying to adapt Matisse’s concept for what I wanted to do in applying it to the human body was far from simple. For starters, the paper Matisse used was far too heavy and stiff to conform to the contours of the human form. We tried lighter weights of construction paper with no success. Finally, after many failed experiments and more than one outburst of complete frustration, I settled on color tissue paper as the medium for our work.

Even the tissue paper wasn’t easy, though. There were three significant problems we had to overcome. The first was that tissue paper, being extremely light and thin, tears easily, especially when wet. We needed the paper to be wet to adhere to the body. Second was the fact that some colored tissue paper bleeds. When it bleeds, the skin is stained and it doesn’t just wash off. After some searching, we were able to find no-bleed paper. Our final problem came with how to get the paper to stick. Again, several failed experiments occurred before we finally created a diluted gelatin solution that works.

What we will present this week are newly processed versions, different from the originals. I pulled three photos, including today’s, from the shoot two years ago. The other four are older but among my favorites. Along the way, we’ll talk about a variety of things, such as illness, that impacts an artist’s, work. We hope you’ll enjoy the week.[/one_half_last]

Music / PotD

Dust My Broom

October 13, 2015

INTENSITY (2012). Model: Cole Prosper

You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lines. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I’ll rise.—Maya Angelou

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]There comes a time, or two, or more, when one has to look at their life, their circumstances, and maybe even the people in their lives, and decide to make some changes, or “dust my broom.” An exact etymology of the phrase was difficult to find, but it seems to go back quite ways, which seems to make sense. I can just imagine some poor woman of the 15th or 16th century stepping to the door of her humble little house and shaking out all the dirt the broom had picked up while being dragged across the floor. Dusting the broom was just a natural part of cleaning house. “Cleaning house” is a natural part of our lives as well.

We see people dust their brooms today when they prune their social media friends lists. We collect names because they make our numbers look good, but over time we realize those names and numbers are not only doing us no good, but may even be causing some of our problems. When we hit that realization, often in a fit of frustration, we clean house and dust our broom. I did that very thing back at the beginning of the year, culling over 1,000 names that were little more than numbers. Fewer than ten asked to be re-instated. Those numbers were obviously little more than dead weight.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]If one digs down and examines the phrase, we realize that dusting the broom is the final act of cleaning house. When cleaning house, you need the broom handy to get all the dust and muck and dead spider skeletons out of all the corners and from under all the furniture. You gather everything up in a pile, dump the bulk into the garbage, and then dust the broom. Get rid of the big stuff first, and then shake off the little stuff that wants to cling on and cause more trouble. Who knew there could be such deep, introspective meaning to a Blues song?

Tuesdays seem like they might be a good time to dust the broom. Monday delivers a lot of garbage and we tend to let that mess just accumulate and stack up. Time to get rid of it all. Sweep out the nonsense, tidy things up, and put everything back in order so you can get on with your week. Dusting your broom is an act of empowerment, you taking action to put your life back in balance, being done with yesterday’s dirt, and moving on. So grab that broom, shake the dust out, and then put on some blues. We’ll all feel better for having done so.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD / Social Commentary

Love, Everyone

October 3, 2015

Welcome Home (2013)

Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.—Buddha

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]What’s wrong with people? I look through the news this morning and all I see is hate. Republicans hate democrats. This religion hates that religion and both hate anyone who disagrees with them. White hates black, black hates white, and they both hate brown. If I were to do a quick, informal estimation, which is exactly what I’m doing right this moment, I would say that roughly 80% of what has been tossed at me this morning ultimately contains a hateful message. Where is the love? Where is the empathy? Where is any attempt at actually wanting to get along with other people.

Here’s the great paradox of the 21st century: we’re willing to spend billions of dollars (collectively) looking for love, trying to find love, improving ourselves so that we’re more lovable, but we don’t do a damn thing toward actually loving other people. We are as selfish about love as we are everything else in our lives. We want it all to come to us, knock on our door, overwhelm us with emotional goodies, and reaffirm our sense of how valuable we are to the world. We define love not as something we feel toward other people, but by the quantity of warm fuzzies other people give to us.

In other words: we don’t have a fucking clue. For all the talk about love, we fail to realize that love is an act of giving, not an act of receiving. Love is not something that happens to you, but something you distribute to others. Love is not doing something based on what you feel, but what you feel based on what you’ve done. Love is active, not passive. Love is not something to be found, but something we create, from the center of our being, so that we might give it to someone else. Love is not narrowly limited to a familial relationship, but an over-arching sense of inclusiveness and responsibility to the greater good of humanity.

Love holds no bias, nor fear, but includes everyone.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]So, we are, and have been for a while, at this point in the United States where we have had more mass shootings (where more than four people are shot), than there have been days in the year. We foolishly ask why this keeps happening. Some want bans on weapons. Some want tighter control on those with diagnosed mental disorders. Some want everything locked down and stored in a box where no one can get to it. None of those are solutions. We cannot solve with legislation what was not caused by government in the first place. There is only one reason we keep shooting ourselves: we’ve forgotten how to love.

It was a mere 45-50 years ago that we, my generation and those just older than us, were all about peace, and love, and happiness. We were sure that we could change the world with love, and ultimately we were correct, but we didn’t see it in the way we thought we would see it. We thought love would give us things, take away responsibility, make life more relaxed. What we failed to realize is that love creates responsibility and when we fail that responsibility, we fail love. Love doesn’t just chug along like a toy train circling the Christmas tree. Love requires maintenance, effort, and a completely selfless attitude.

Where is the American society failing? Don’t blame government, Republican orDemocrat. Don’t blame religions, present or absent. Don’t blame race or economics. Blame the total and complete absence of love. We’ve stopped loving, we’ve stopped teaching our children to love, and we’ve stopped letting love be the guide by which we live our lives. In a world where we’ve all but thrown love out the window, is it any wonder that society has gone to hell in a handbasket?

Love, everyone. You won’t learn how until you try.[/one_half_last]

Advertising / PotD

#BlackBunsMatter

September 29, 2015

Trying to Breathe (2009)

Man who invented the hamburger was smart; man who invented the cheeseburger was a genius.—Matthew McConaughey

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]You know, I generally try to stay away from the really tough, polarizing, hardest-hitting issues of the day because they get so much noise everywhere else anything I might say just gets lost in the mix. I couldn’t let this matter just pass by without comment, though. Fast food burger chain Burger King® has introduced a burger with A.1.® sauce baked into the bun. The result is that the bun takes on a black color, presumably without the bun tasting like burned charcoal. I think this deserves a movement. Therefore, I’m introducing #BlackBunsMatter

Here’s how BK® describes the burger on their website:

Introducing the A.1.^® Halloween WHOPPER^® Sandwich with A.1.^®flavor baked into the black bun. The sandwich is a ¼ lb.* of savory flame-grilled beef topped with melted American cheese, ripe tomatoes, crisp iceberg lettuce, creamy mayonnaise, A.1.^® Thick and Hearty Sauce, crunchy pickles, and sliced white onions on a soft sesame seed bun with A.1.^® flavor baked into the bun.

The chain actually announced the seasonal burger a couple of weeks ago, but CNN and some other alleged news outlets didn’t really pick up on it until yesterday, and then it started hitting my news feeds. Trolling the comments section, it was obvious that no one was gathering the significance of this move. We’ve been eating white buns all these years as though they were the only option. Sure, we might put sesame seeds on some, or twist them to look like pretzels, but they’ve all been variations of the same white buns. Until now. Now, #BlackBunsMatter. Spread the word.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Of course, not everyone is going to be very fast to embrace #BlackBunsMatter. Obviously, there’s going to be a political divide. You’re not likely to catch any of the GOP presidential front-runners with a black bun in their hands, that would just be too controversial. Tensions are high in the bun world after all and not everyone agrees with the #BlackBunsMatter movement. That guy with the funny hair would likely call it ridiculous. The former governor of Arkansas would likely claim the bun is sourced from hell. And that Texas senator Mr. Boehner calls a jackass would probably try to shut down the government over it. #BlackBunsMatter is bigger than any of them, though.

I’m sure someone will come along and try to derail the movement with #AllBunsMatter, but they just don’t get the point. For too long, buns of color have been shunned, especially by the restaurant and hospitality industry. Sure, I’ve created a black bun or two in my time, usually from being distracted after putting them on the grill, and no one would ever eat those black buns because they were prejudiced toward soft, white buns. But the time for buns of color has come. Let there be black buns! Let there be brown buns! Let there be red buns! Let there be tanned buns covered in butter! #BlackBunsMatter!

Yes, we’re joking, and we don’t mean to make light of some very serious and important racial issues dividing our country. It’s a hamburger bun, though. If we can’t have a little fun with this thing, we need to re-evaluate our entire lives. Be sure, if BK® didn’t have the trademark locked down, I would SO be selling #BlackBunsMatter t-shirts right now. Or maybe ball caps, in case anyone wants to run for president.[/one_half_last]

pop culture / PotD

Death Defying LIfe

September 26, 2015

Home Stretch (2009)

When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.—Tecumseh

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Welcome to Saturday, that point in the week where I look back and wonder if you’ve noticed what we’ve done or if you’ve only looked at the pictures. This is the time when I question my decision to disable comments, because I wouldn’t mind legitimate feedback. The problem is that activating comments opens the whole thing up to trolls who, speaking of death, definitely deserve to die horrendously. I don’t tolerate rudeness and don’t have time to respond to such nonsense, so there are no comments. Still, it would be nice to know who is reading, I’m guessing maybe two or three people a day.

If you’ve been reading, though, have you noticed what we’ve done this week? Mass pandering. We’ve used provocative images to get faces to the page, then discussed totally unrelated subjects; in this case, the leading causes of death as published in the medical journal The Lancet last week. We’ve hit them all with a sense of fury and if you’ve missed one today would probably be a good time to go back and catch up. Some are rather humorous while others are just angry that we can be so very stupid. And when it comes to death, we truly are rather stupid about the whole thing.

Somewhere along the line, society has developed this ridiculous notion that immortality is something to be achieved; that if we didn’t have to worry about death then we could do more with our lives. As a result, we’ve come to loathe death, which we really don’t understand in the first place, and placed untold resources into attempting to avoid it rather than focusing on improving what we already have. Even if our lives did span hundreds of years, they would still be meaningless if we continued living them in the same way we do now. Prolonging the status quo is not a desirable condition.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Stop and think for a moment what would happen if we were all suddenly immortal, if death simply ceased to be a factor. While it sounds like a good idea on the surface, it doesn’t take long for things to go sour. Consider these elements:

If no one is dying, then no one can be allowed to have babies. The planet’s population already exceeds sustainability.
Our bodies would naturally continue to deteriorate and within a few very short years we would have a planet of geriatrics.
Avoiding death doesn’t mean we avoid disease. Imagine having to live with the ravages of advanced-staged cancer forever.
Prisons would become even more overcrowded than they currently are. With immortality comes a crime wave like the planet has never seen. Barbarism would quickly return.
There would be no escaping the people you don’t like. If you’re not dying, they’re not dying either, and with all eternity in front of you this planet is going to get very small, very quickly.

Death has a very necessary purpose. We need that finality, that ending point, to help keep us on track, to allow us to regenerate society through new life, and to help us realize that if we’re going to do something that matters, we need to start doing it right now, not sometime in the unknown future. If you want to live a death-defying life then you need to be doing something other than overeating, smoking, and creating stress. Do things that actually make a positive difference, not only in your lives, but those of others.

Of course, that can only happen if you actually read the articles and not just look at the pictures. [/one_half_last]

pop culture / PotD

Pollution

September 25, 2015

An Early Morning

Must we wait for selection to solve the problems of overpopulation, exhaustion of resources, pollution of the environment and a nuclear holocaust, or can we take explicit steps to make our future more secure? In the latter case, must we not transcend selection?
—B. F. Skinner

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Pollution is an interesting topic, don’t you think? With all the environmental talk these days having turned to the matter of global warming, we have to wonder whether anyone is paying attention to actual pollution anymore. What tops that, though, at least in my heavily weighted opinion, is that we tend to think of pollution as an outdoor thing when indoor pollution is every bit as deadly. No, I’m not kidding. Your gas is shortening people’s lives, man. You need to lay off the burritos.

According to figures released by The Lancet, a respected medical journal, indoor pollution is just as much a contributor to death, 2.9 million people, as is outdoor pollution. Put the two together, and pollution suddenly jumps up to the second leading cause of death in the world, even more than smoking. No matter where we turn, there is so very little fresh air left on the planet it’s a wonder we are still breathing at all. The oxygen we need to survive is running preciously thin and every time you open your mouth you are putting someone else in danger. There, how does that make you feel? Not good, huh?

And just why do we have so much indoor pollution? Someone forgot to crack a window. Seriously. Inadequate ventilation is responsible for 53% of indoor pollution. I know researchers will try to say that it is poor ventilation in factories that are the most threatening to the greatest number of people, especially in developing nations where workplace regulations about air quality are non-existent. But something tells me those researchers would have a different opinion if they’ve ever been hotboxed in a car with three teenage boys who just stopped at Taco Bell®™. Noxious fumes capable of peeling paint come out of the human posterior. Don’t try telling me that stuff isn’t shortening all our lives.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]In an ultimate display of human stupidity, we have chosen for years to completely ignore the matter of pollution. We know it’s there. We know we’re causing it. But the people who control the money are afraid if we do things to clean up this incredible mess we’ve created that it might eat into their over-inflated bottom line. The late (thankfully) President Ronald Reagan tried blaming nature itself for causing the majority of air contaminants. While technically that charge is true, there is one big difference between natural contaminants and manufactured contaminants: nature cleans up its own damn mess, humans don’t.

Yeah, that’s right; the rebellious act of not wanting to clean our rooms as children has spread to the whole damn planet. Wherever we go, we make a mess and we don’t want to clean it up. In a way, the fact that our pollution is killing us is probably just reward for being the colossal brats that we are. One might even go so far as to say that choking on our over-industrialization is nature’s way of attempting to eliminate the problem. We ruin the air we breathe, we die, the air becomes clean again. Isn’t that the way nature works?

Of course, it’s the poor who are most likely to die from the effects of pollution, and the poor don’t have a voice in the political decisions that have turned our planet, indoors and out, into a giant cesspool of stinking corporate flatulence. Those who have the money for expensive air purification systems don’t worry about the health of those who don’t. The same jackasses who won’t roll down a window in the car are laughing about hotboxing the entire planet.

So here’s a message from the planet to humanity: Hey people, you stink. Clean up your shit or leave. And cut back on the burritos. Enjoy the picture. Thanks, Earth. [/one_half_last]

pop culture / PotD

A Poverty Of Life

September 24, 2015

Leave A Simple Photo Alone (2015)

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.—Frederick Douglass

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]What did you have for breakfast this morning, anything at all? As adults, the meal is perhaps the easiest to skip. A cup of coffee and we’re out the door. We don’t have time, we’re not in the mood to prepare anything, and many people just don’t have breakfast food in the house. Maybe we could make toast, but that’s about it. I’ve heard mothers complain that they just can’t get their children to eat breakfast. My mother would be appalled. Breakfast wasn’t an option, it was a mandate.

Life really wasn’t all that different when I was growing up, but there was one thing about which my mother was adamant: you’re eating breakfast. It didn’t matter how early it meant we had to get up, we weren’t leaving the house without having food. Where we lived in rural Oklahoma, there was no catching something on the way, or stopping at the convenience store down the street because there was nothing there! I think school breakfast might have been an option, but I never knew anyone who actually ate it. There were some Saturday mornings in high school where the band bus left for a trip at some ungodly hour that required us to leave home at something like 5:00 AM. Guess what, we sat down and had breakfast first. Every morning. Not just something slapped together, either. Eggs. Bacon or sausage. Hot cereal during the winter. Toast. Fruit in season, when we could afford it. Breakfast was a big deal.

Today, there are more options. It actually makes sense for Kat’s kids to eat their breakfast at school; it’s built into their schedule along with lunch. We know they’re getting nutritionally appropriate meals and we don’t have the added fuss at home of trying to convince them to finish their food before the bus comes at 6:30. People who have to commute to work also have more options now than were available forty years ago. There’s a fast food option on every other corner. Seated service restaurants are in greater abundance. Grocery stores are open earlier. We’ve got it made, right?[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]No, we don’t have it made. Having it “made” means that everything is balanced and healthy and that we’re making the right choices. None of those things are accurate. Our lives and our diets are anything but balanced or healthy and we’re notorious for making bad choices. We create poverty within our own lives by eliminating the things we need most while being excessive in the things we need the least. Children get the worst of it, too. We place them in food poverty by failing to make sure they’re actually eating fruit. Globally, a lack of food in the diet kills 3.4 million people a year, and the great majority of those are children. They don’t only have impoverished diets, they have impoverished lives.

More than a financial state, poverty is a life condition. Even people whose incomes are well above what is considered the poverty line can still have impoverished lives because of the choices they make in how they spend what they have. One of the biggest areas of poverty, strangely enough, comes in having too few fruits and we replace that with an excess of sodium, which in turn kills yet another 3.5 million people. And no, grabbing a bottle of juice isn’t the same, especially for children. Juice doesn’t contain the fiber and other nutrients available in whole fruit. What’s sad is grocery stores and markets dump tons of wasted fruit every day. Global economies keep prices out of reach for people who need fruit the most, and those who can afford fruit look at it more as a dessert item, not a dietary necessity.

We like to think we’re rich, and comparatively we are, but look in your shopping cart the next time you buy food. If you have three different kinds of chips, packaged foods, and/or soda, and less than three different kinds of fresh fruit, you are creating a poverty of life for you and your family. We should all be appalled. [/one_half_last]

pop culture / PotD

Pure Sweetness

September 23, 2015

Maternity Yoga (2014)

As a culture I see us as presently deprived of subtleties. The music is loud, the anger is elevated, sex seems lacking in sweetness and privacy.—Shelley Berman

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I’m old enough to remember life before artificial sweeteners, back when sugar was what sweetened everything, not this fucking corn syrup used now. There was sugar in everything and people wanted you to know it. There were Sugar Pops and Sugar Smacks and Sugar Frosted Flakes and Sugared Sugar. Sweetness was something people took seriously. They expected it. They respected it. Diabetes? That was something someone else had, that poor kid in the classroom who had to have plain popcorn while the rest of us had cupcakes. They tended to be weak, puny kids, not very good at football, which was also sweetened.

Then some idiot decided that the world needed a sugar substitute. Why? Was there too much sweetness in the world? Were people just enjoying their lives too much and some fucking jackass decided they needed to ruin it? There was no reason to give us artificial sweeteners, but suddenly we had them. They told us it was healthier. So, my parents ran out and bought some. They tried it first in the sweet tea. It was horrible. Then, my mother tried it in cookies. We dumped those in the trash. Next, we tried it on Corn Flakes. Definitely not a good start to the morning. Artificial sweeteners aren’t sweet. They suck. Every last one of them. How can such a sucky flavor be good for anyone, except that it makes you not want to put that garbage in your mouth so maybe you eat less?

Sweetness is a constitutional right; I’m sure of it. Maybe it doesn’t say so in so many words, but the implication has to be there somewhere. We have an inalienable right to the unspoken affection that comes with being sugared to death. I remember once, in the 70s, when they were doing drive-by diabetes screenings at the health department, next door to where my mom worked. She wanted Poppa to bring my brother and I by to be tested, just to make sure we were healthy. So, you know what he did? He dropped mom off at work and then took my brother and I for donuts! We had two iced donuts each. So when we come back around and have our fingers stuck for the test, guess what? Our blood sugar levels were damn near off the chart! They said we were borderline diabetic. I wonder why![/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Here’s the thing: people think that sugar is the primary cause of diabetes, which is a horrible disease that kills a lot of people. In fact, high blood sugar is the fourth leading cause of death in the world; it kills around four million people a year. There are 29 million Americans with diabetes and that number keeps rising. You know why? It’s not because we’re eating too much sugar, that’s for damn sure. It’s because we’re eating too many McFattyFatFat cheeseburgers with fries soaked in corn syrup and we think we’re safe because we wash it down with a diet soda. All this pretend sweetness is killing us!

What makes all this worse, is that 1 in 4 people who are diabetic don’t realize that they have diabetes. They have no clue. Their diet consists of one fast food drive-thru after another. Their lives are sedentary, sitting in an office all day and their asses parked on a couch all night. The only time they see a hint of fruit is when it’s baked in a pie. They’re dying and they don’t know it. Pass ’em a Diet Coke®™. I’m sure that will help.

Even people who know they have Type II Diabetes don’t seem to care. I knew a lady once who was diabetic and kept wondering why she felt so bad. She smoked non-stop. She ate almost nothing but delivery pizza and cookies. She got absolutely no exercise. She didn’t take her insulin. No, I have no idea why she couldn’t even fucking walk and her feet were turning black.

I fucking like sugar. I like sugar so much my hood name should be Sweetness Letbetter. I’m not stupid, though. I know if I’m going to sit here with handfuls of chocolate during these damn fashion shows, I’m going to have to get up, move around, and eat some fucking vegetables to counter that crack. I like sugar, but I know there’s a limit and I watch it. Apparently, not all of you fuckers are as smart because you’re dying off at a pretty alarming rate and you’re costing the world a lot of money in health care. Put down the damn diet soda, why don’t you. Artificial sweeteners not helping, they just taste bad. Talk to your doctor and get that shit under control.

The ultimate sweetness is being alive. Try staying that way.[/one_half_last]

pop culture / PotD

The Real Skinny

September 22, 2015

Doesn’t Matter (2014)

We were at a beach one summer, and I had a bathing suit on. My wife looked at me and said: ‘Boy, you are skinny, aren’t you?’ I said: ‘Honey, I’d like to remind you that it was minor defects like this that kept me from getting a better wife.’—Lou Holtz

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]For the first forty years of my life, I was thin, at times disturbingly so. It wasn’t that I wanted to be thin, nor that I was trying to be thin. Quite the opposite, actually. I would have loved to have had enough mass to actually develop muscles and such, but that never happened. I delighted in over-eating to excess at buffets but never could gain weight. At 30 I was still able to wear the same pair of Levi’s 501 jeans that I bought when I was 18. Now, for women, that kind of tale isn’t unusual, but for men it’s practically unheard of. I had no muscle mass. If I ate too much and was bloated, I looked like Bloom County’s Bill the Cat (well, maybe not as orange). There wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it, no matter how hard I tried, and believe me, I tried.

Then, I hit 40. Boom. Like flipping a switch, I started gaining weight and suddenly staying off the 200-pound mark became an issue. Actually, with my body frame and size, I didn’t need to be above 170, and even that was frighteningly larger than I’d ever been. I started having to buy larger clothes, replace suits, and spend money that I really hadn’t planned on spending. What, when, and how I ate suddenly became an issue, as did the amount of exercise and stress. My health changed. I was sick more often. I had to watch my blood sugar. High blood pressure, which runs in our family anyway, was suddenly a much more important issue. That skinny teenager is gone and is never going to come back. Instead, like almost every other American and a large number of people around the world, I have to fight with obesity.

Fuck. I like fried chicken, chicken fried steak smothered in pepper gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans cooked with bacon grease, cornbread dripping with butter and corn on the cob far too much to have a weight issue. And don’t even get me started on the importance of chocolate, especially this time of year when the fashion shows are one right after the other and I’m not getting nearly enough sleep. I’ve been able to eat as much as I want whenever I want my entire life. What the hell does my body think it’s doing gaining all this weight all of a sudden? I don’t have time for an interpersonal rebellion like this. Pass the pie. Not, not a piece of pie, give me the whole damn pie. And more coffee, damnit. I have work to do. This is just a temporary, thing.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]No, it’s not. I’m well past 40 now and the problem isn’t going away. What I’ve come to realize, though, is that much of society’s view of what’s “skinny,” and our subsequent jealous loathing of that condition, is based almost entirely upon the skewed perspective born of one basic fact: we’re all too fucking fat. What’s more, is that we know we’re fat, we know it’s killing us, and we just don’t fucking care. We’ve thrown caution to the wind and ordered another triple burger with quadruple cheese, bacon, and onion rings. And should anyone actually challenge our obesity, we fight back with something stupid like, “You’re fat shaming me. I can’t help it, I was born large.”

Bullshit. Even if you were a ten-pound baby you were not born obese. Obesity, for the vast majority of Americans, is something we have chosen for ourselves and then proceeded to surround ourselves with a variety of excuses for our slovenliness. Let’s be clear: there’s a difference between being overweight and being obese. There can be many contributors to being overweight, including, but not limited to, water retention, bone mass, and muscle buildup. Being obese comes down to just one thing, though: FAT. The National Institues of Health calculate obesity according to Body Mass Index. If yours is over 30, you’re overweight. If it’s over 40, you’re obese. Want to see what yours is? Click here and don’t fucking lie. This morning, mine is 24.3, which is on the upper end of normal for my height. I need to be careful and exercise more.

Sure, there are people who are too skinny and that’s a problem, but shaming thin people just because they’re not so incredibly fucking fat like you just emphasises that your brain is as fat as your body. Well over two of three Americans are overweight or obese and Indiana is currently ranked number eight as one of the ten most obese states in the country. Try and justify it any way you want, we’re not healthy. Obesity is the third most common cause of death on this planet and it is totally preventable. Even our kids, our babies, are too fucking fat and it’s our fault. Put down the fucking fork. Park a few extra spaces from the door. Walk. Exercise. And stop making fucking excuses. You’re fat. You can either change or die. Your call.[/one_half_last]

pop culture / PotD

Smoking. Hot.

September 21, 2015

Dances With Pearls (2014)

As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain from smoking when awake.—Mark Twain

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I hate the sight of no smoking signs. Not that I’m this huge smoker by any stretch of the imagination. Cigarettes are, in my opinion, a waste of money; three or four puffs and they’re gone. Why bother? I’ll occasionally smoke a pipe if I’m stressed and trying to chill, or perhaps have a cigar while out in the middle of nowhere, sitting around a campfire. I don’t have this huge oral fixation that requires I put something up to my mouth all the time. Still, the very sight of a no smoking sign angers me because it restricts my right to choose. Am I not intelligent enough to make the right choice? Are you calling me stupid with your fucking sign? Can you not see how horribly insulting that damn sign is?

I understand: clean air. The statistics regarding second-hand smoke are damning. I’ll admit, I don’t mind walking into an office, especially the doctor’s office, and the whole place not smelling like smoke. I don’t mind walking into a restaurant and not having to choose between smoking or non-smoking (we typically chose smoking simply because it was less crowded). I don’t mind coming home and my clothes not smelling like a cheap brand of cigarettes. I get it. I understand what anti-smoking advocates are trying to do. I still don’t like the damn signs.

Statistics are clear: cigarette smoking remains the largest single preventable cause of death in the United States. In addition to killing somewhere in the neighborhood of 480,000 people in the US each year, the direct cost of that addiction in terms of healthcare and lost productivity is around $300 billion annually. Smoking doesn’t play fair, either. One is more likely to smoke if they are male, has their GED, is a former service member, and is racially mixed, according to statistical evidence. Children born to mothers who smoke during pregnancy are likely to have a significantly lower birth rate. Smoking is the second leading cause of death in the entire world. The numbers against smoking are absolutely overwhelming.

There’s just one problem: Uncle Fred.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]If you’ve known me more than five minutes I’ve probably told you about my Uncle Fred. I know I’ve written about him before. Uncle Fred was one of those migrants in John Updike’s The Grapes of Wrath that left dust bowl Oklahoma along with his wife, Aunt Irene, who was my grandmother’s sister. They settled in Turlock, California, up in the Northern end of that state, worked hard from sunup to sundown, raised three boys, were heavily engaged in civic activities, traveled when they could, argued with each other like cats and dogs and lived what was, for their time, a pretty normal life.

Uncle Fred was a two-pack-a-day smoker. He was respectful, he’d go outside, step away from the doorway, smoke two or three, then come back inside. If it were raining and the porch was too short, he’d either find a tree or stand under the eve of the house. All that smoking eventually killed him … at age 96. Aunt Irene, who didn’t smoke and wouldn’t allow Fred to do it in their house, died four years later at age 92. If we look solely at Fred and Irene’s statistics, smoking’s apparently good for you. That’s why I have a problem with those damn signs. Statistics are numbers and numbers aren’t people. We don’t know how many Uncle Freds there are because, since they aren’t dying off too quickly, we’re not studying them.

There are roughly 320 million people in the United States. If we lose 480,000 to smoking each year, that’s a whopping 0.15% of the total. Pay attention. That’s not fifteen percent. That’s less than two-tenths of ONE percent. We’re making all this fuss over a group of people so statistically small that, in almost any other study, they would be insignificant. With over seven billion people on the planet, we’re over-populated beyond the point of sustainability. We need more than 0.15% to die off if we’re going to continue living here. Sustainability is more critical than smoking at this point. Think of smokers as volunteers for population control.

Smoke ’em if you’ve got ’em and lose the damn signs.[/one_half_last]

pop culture / PotD

Why Worry?

September 20, 2015

Just Nude (2014)

If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress and tension. And if you didn’t ask me, I’d still have to say it.—George Burns

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I am half tempted to just fill the rest of the page with videos. That would make the morning a lot easier on me. I wouldn’t have to worry about word count or whether anyone reads past the first paragraph. The videos would be cool, too. Madcon’s Don’t Worry was a decent enough hit earlier this year. Since 1973, Stevie Wonder’s been telling us, Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing. Bob Marley assured us, Every Little Thing‘s gonna be alright. Bobby McFarrin has been trying for years to convince us to Don’t Worry, Be Happy. All of those songs have some very good advice, and if we all took that advice we might just live to the ripe old age of 101 as did George Burns, who was possibly one of the funniest people to ever live.

We’re not terribly good at that whole not worrying thing, though, and that in of itself is cause for worry. Why? Because it’s killing us, jackass. Mr. Burns laid it out right there for you: worry, stress, hypertension. All those things result in high blood pressure and high blood pressure is the single largest contributor to death in the entire fucking world. We worry too damn much, and it’s not getting any better. According to an article this past week in The Lancet, and reported by National Public Radio (NPR), the rate of high blood pressure as the cause of death has risen from 6.4 million in 1990, to 10.4 million in 2013.

Don’t worry, we have plenty of songs that can make us happy, right? And if that doesn’t work, there’s always cat memes and cute puppy videos on the Internet to help us forget that our lifestyle choices totally suck. If that doesn’t work, we have mindless reality shows filled with mindless people who become famous for making absolutely no worthwhile contribution to the human race whatsoever. And if that doesn’t work, then hey, there are always babies: pictures of babies making funny faces, videos of babies doing funny things, and plenty of websites demonstrating the various positions from which one can make babies. Why worry? Make babies![/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Wait, no, that doesn’t work either, because then we have to worry about how we’re going to feed, clothe, and educate that baby so that they don’t grow up to be as worthless as that idiot, whomever that idiot may be. Sure, we want our kids to grow up better than us, but how is that going to happen when global wages have gone down over the past 30 years so that our buying power is now less than the same money was when our parents were diapering our shitty asses? Do we really want kids starting their adult lives with more debt than the value of the house in which they grew up? How the fuck is that supposed to be an improvement?

Personally, I think we need to eliminate politicians. Approximately 70 million adults, 1 in 3 people over the age of 21, have high blood pressure and a great deal of that comes from the fact we have this group of fucking imbeciles in Washington, D. C. who keep fucking with our lives. And it’s not so much that we mind being taxed, we are willing to pay our fair share, but those morons keep giving our money to Wall Street fat cats while our roads crumble beneath us. They spend BILLIONS OF DOLLARS on senseless, manufactured wars while woefully underfunding education so that maybe, just maybe, we can figure out how to stop having stupid fucking wars. Kill the politicians, and those things that make us worry all go away, right?

I wish. The bottom line is we have so many things to worry about because we keep making stupid fucking choices. We choose food that kills us. We elect politicians that screw us. We tolerate a banking system that impoverishes us. We work at jobs that bore us for a paycheck too small to house us. We spending too much time on the fucking Internet searching for ways to improve our life instead of actually going out and improving our life. But hey, whatever you do, DON’T WORRY! That worry stuff’ll kill ya’.

Okay, maybe one video below the break. Even I need it after that rant.[/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

Purpose

September 19, 2015

On A Pedestal (2014)

I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose.—Charlie Chaplin

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]The universe may be making a comment on one’s day when one gets up in the morning and the first thing in the newsfeed is an article on death; specifically, how the primary causes of death have changed since 1990, a mere 25 years ago. High blood pressure still tops the list, which reminds me I need to take my pill. But then, articles like this don’t help any, either. They just make my blood pressure a little higher. You know, worry and all.

What seems obvious, looking at the primary causes of death, is that we are all committing suicide in one way or the other. Take a look at these figures:

Source: The Lancet

How many of those are the direct result of our mode of living; lifestyle choices we make, excesses in which we indulge, knowing full well the consequences but still choosing to go right ahead and tempt fate. What’s the purpose? Do we only live so that we can orchestrate our own deaths in less-than-spectacular fashion? If we are creating lives so unbearable that we must worry, smoke, drink, and overeat in order to cope, what’s the fucking point?[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Christian author and megachurch pastor Rick Warren has written and talks extensively about “the Purpose Driven Life,” and popular culture has latched onto his concepts of a religious-based purpose to living. Many other self-help gurus have done the same thing, trying to use religion, or some universal sense of spirituality as a basis for there being some reason to exist. The recently deceased Dr. Wayne Dyer once said:

Everything in the universe has a purpose. Indeed, the invisible intelligence that flows through everything in a purposeful fashion is also flowing through you.

Religion serves as the defining purpose of life for many millions of people around the world. The concept that some force greater than the individual has predetermined a course or fate for their lives is attractive because it relieves them of the responsibility of having to determine that course or establishing some purpose for themselves. If one dies inappropriately young, or endures a lifetime of poverty, then religion offers the excuse that there was some greater purpose at work.

But what if there is no universal purpose? Humans are but a blip on the timeline of history. The cosmos got along just fine developing itself and evolving and doing things before we came along. What if our presence here is of no consequential purpose at all, but rather a momentary sideline amusement while everything else takes a breather? We are, after all, apparently hell-bent upon our own destruction. How can that be of any benefit to the greater good of creation? What benefit does the universe derive from our presence?

At the moment, I’m not seeing any great over-arching purpose to humanity existing beyond this current stage of universal evolution. I suppose that, in some form or fashion, we might provide a link to whatever it is that comes next, but by the time that stage of existence comes into being we, as a species, will have long been forgotten. Perhaps, we might want to consider changing our approach.[/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

Ambition

September 17, 2015

INTENSITY (2012)

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.—Helen Keller

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]There is something seriously wrong with the world when schools inspire and encourage fear and suspicion rather than learning and ambition. Fear and suspicion lead to remission, fighting, and ultimately war. Learning and ambition lead to cooperation, understand, and progress. That there is anyone in the world who promotes the negative over the positive is a point of concern, but when it is the institutions we entrust to teach and prepare the next generation, we should be furious.

On Monday of this week, news broke of a 14-year-old student at MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas who was arrested for making a clock for his engineering class. Ahmed Mohamed is a young man of Sudanese descent. In fact, his father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, ran for President of Sudan earlier this year. The whole purpose of putting Ahmed in the Texas school was to encourage his ambition in science and technology. Unfortunately, when Ahmed’s English teacher saw the briefcase containing the clock, he didn’t bother to ask the student what it was. Instead, the teacher made the false assumption that it must be a bomb and reported Ahmed to the principal, who in turn called the police.

I find it interesting that this happened at a school named after the late five-star general, Douglas MacArthur. The tough-as-nails general with a reputation for pushing his troops to their very limit, for accepting nothing short of victory, would almost certainly be embarrassed by the school. General MacArthur once said,

It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear.

The general understood that fear is always the enemy, and that ambition and learning are the solution.

School principal Daniel Cummings (972.600.7370, dacummings@irvingisd.net) made a grave error in choosing to punish Ahmed for his ambition, and deserves to be held accountable for such an egregious mistake. Fortunately, more intelligent forces across the country have attempted to make up for the school’s inadequacy. Tech giant Google invited Ahmed to it’s tech fair this weekend. Facebook founder, and soon-to-be-dad, Mark Zuckerberg invited Ahmed to visit him at Facebook’s headquarters. Officials at NASA have reportedly even offered Ahmed a job (Ahmed was wearing a NASA t-shirt when he was arrested). The growth of the hashtag #IStandWithAhmed has been dramatic.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]The bigger response came from much higher up. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan tweeted: “We need to be encouraging young engineers, not putting them in handcuffs. #IStandWithAhmed”

Then, almost immediately after Duncan’s tweet, the President weighed in with: “Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great.”

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest explained further:

“The president, like many of us, was struck by the news reports of this particular incident. The fact is, America’s best teachers and our schools and our best schools, at least, nurture the intellectual curiously of all of our students. And this instance, it’s clear that at least some of Ahmed’s teachers failed him.

Ambition is one of the traits of humanity that differentiates us from animals. More than relying on instinct, we have the ability to push ourselves to do things we don’t necessarily have to do. Ambition, fueled by curiosity and the desire to move forward, is what leads to innovation, progress, and invention. Without ambition, we are no better than sloths sleeping on a tree limb.

The model shown in today’s picture was also a person of considerable ambition. Short of stature, she pushed herself, and her body, to achieve a level of strength and muscle tone that enabled her to perform feats of physical strength not generally attributed to people of her gender or profession. Her ambition led her to excel.

Earlier in his administration, President Obama was quoted as saying:

We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don’t want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential.

Regardless of what we want to do with our lives, ambition is required to succeed. When ambition is suppressed, discouraged, and even punitively punished, we destroy that which drives us to become better, that which improves our society, that which moves us forward. We need ambition, not only for ourselves but for others. We should never accept anything less.[/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

Point of Origin

September 16, 2015

Royalty (2011).Model: Danelle French. Face paint: Jennifer Baxter

That means that every human being – without distinction of sex, age, race, skin color, language, religion, political view, or national or social origin – possesses an inalienable and untouchable dignity.—Hans Kung

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]For as long as I can remember, I have had to answer the question, “where are you from?” No matter where I’ve lived, with no regard to how long I might have lived there, the accent with which I speak has never quite matched where I live. I’ve never minded answering the question because it seems reasonable to me that point of origin is a central part of our identity. What amuses me, though, is that as I get older and tell people I’m from Oklahoma (forget those first 12 years in Kansas), they sometimes give me a quizzical look and respond, “No you’re not. You don’t sound or act like anyone from Oklahoma.” For that, I am grateful.

Point of origin has always, throughout history, been an important part of our identity. To which tribe one belonged could mean the difference between free or slave, or even life and death. Our species began as nomadic foragers, roaming to where ever food and shelter were most readily available, but the place from where we started, our point of origin, has always been, and strongly remains, a critical factor upon which judgments, whether just or not, have been made. Inherent social construct inserts a geographic tag into our identity from which there is no escape.

One of the reasons our point of origin so often comes into question is because we, as a species, don’t stay put. Even after all the building of cities and farms, creating and fighting over national borders, and even cruel attempts at keeping people in or out of certain places, we are now more migrant than we have ever been. Our point of origin is but a GPS marker from which all our travels begin. Move so much now that scientists who study such things are referring to the 21st century as the age of the migrant. Not only are we already moving around a lot, it’s going to get worse.

We are all migrants, not because we are born as such, but we cannot help becoming such, leaving our point of origin, sometimes by choice, but with increasing frequency because we have no choice. By engaging in this conversation, it is important to understand the vocabulary. An emigrant is someone known by where they have left. An immigrant is known by where they are going. Coming or going, though, there are over one billion people on the move at any given time, and that number is growing rapidly.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Thomas Nail, a philosopher at the University of Colorado, recently published a book, The Figure of the Migrant (Stanford University Press, 2015), in which he explains:

People today relocate to greater distances more frequently than ever before in human history. While many people may not move across a regional or international border, they tend to change jobs more often, commute longer and farther to work, change their residence repeatedly, and tour internationally more often. Some of these phenomena are directly related to recent events, such as the impoverishment of middle classes in certain rich countries after the ﬁnancial crisis of 2008, subsequent austerity cuts to social welfare programs, and rising unemployment. The subprime mortgage crisis led to the expulsion of millions of people from their homes worldwide (9 million in the United States alone). Foreign investors and governments have acquired 540 million acres since 2006, resulting in the eviction of millions of small farmers in poor countries, and mining practices have become increasingly destructive around the world—including hydraulic fracturing and tar sands. This general increase in human mobility and expulsion is now widely recognized as a deﬁning feature of the twenty-ﬁrst century.

Whether to keep us out, keep us in, or simply segregate us for statistical purposes, both societies and governments are concerned with our point of origin as a defining piece of information. There is no escape. The more we move, the more we are connected to where we began. Our great migration is a tremendous force of social change and progress. The world into which one is born holds little resemblance to the one in which we die.

So, more than ever, there remains this question: where are you from?[/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

Pain

September 14, 2015

Attic Fashion (2011). Model: Sarah Harris. Hair & Makeup: Christopher Thompson. Styling: Tiffany Gilstrap Scott.

Without pain, there would be no suffering, without suffering we would never learn from our mistakes. To make it right, pain and suffering is the key to all windows, without it, there is no way of life.—Angelina Jolie

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Humans are designed with a built-in warning device called pain. We feel it soon after we are detached from our mother’s umbilical cord. Hunger is our first experience with pain. We cry and someone feeds us. The pain is our body’s way of telling us that something isn’t working correctly, that a part of us needs attention. Yet, as a society we are intolerant of pain and just as we remove the batteries from smoke detectors so that we don’t have to put up with the screeching sound going off at unexpected moments, we try to mask or cover or ignore the pain we feel. We shove the pain into our emotional attic and try to forget that it exists.

As young children, we are taught that expressing our feelings of pain is not acceptable. “Walk it off.” “Suck it up.” “No pain, no gain.” Our intent is to dissuade children from complaining about every little insignificant boo-boo they encounter. “If it’s not bleeding, you don’t need a bandage.” The longer-term effect, though, is that from those very early moments we teach children that feeling and expressing pain is a bad thing. No one wants to hear about your pain. Ignore it and it will go away. Be tough and play through the pain.

Often, however, that strategy backfires on us. My father’s youngest sister succumbed to cancer perhaps sooner than was necessary because she chose to treat the pain, not the cause. Rather than being consistent with the chemotherapy, she chose alternative treatments that only covered up the pain. Only when the pain became intolerable did she return to her doctor, and by then the cancer had spread too for treatment to be effective. She didn’t even communicate to her family that anything was wrong until the pain became debilitating. She didn’t want them to worry. She had seven children and wanted to put pain aside to care for them. While her attitude might seem noble, in the end it took her from them sooner than might have been necessary.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Part of our problem in dealing with pain is that we look at it as an inconvenience and a bother rather than the warning system it is. When, as a child, we first encounter something hot and we pull back from it, learn to treat it with some respect and don’t touch it again without taking appropriate precaution to not burn ourselves. That is an appropriate response to pain. Consider what causes the problem. Fix it, if possible. Respect what caused the pain and then take steps to not repeat the pain again. Yet, we don’t apply that formula too often once we pass the age of five. We prefer to ignore the pain and keep going.

Philosopher/poet Kahlil Gibran penned these wise words:

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses
your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its
heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the
daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem
less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your heart,
even as you have always accepted the seasons that
pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity through the
winters of your grief.

As we get older, pain becomes a more constant part of our reality. There are some pains, both physical and emotional, that will never go away no matter what we do. Our challenge is to not look at our pain as an inconvenience, but rather an opportunity to learn.[/one_half_last]

pop culture / PotD

Better Beauty

September 7, 2015

Better Beauty

When virtue and modesty enlighten her charms, the lustre of a beautiful woman is brighter than the stars of heaven, and the influence of her power it is in vain to resist.—Akhenaton

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Once upon a time, it was an accepted fact that only a few, the fortunate, the lucky, the pampered, had any hope of being beautiful. Life was hard. Women were married and bearing children by the time they were fourteen, working in fields, toiling over hot wood stoves, and putting up with everything from dysentery to abusive husbands. People aged quickly. Life was short. Beauty was nice if you had it, but most didn’t and they were okay with that. One looked for something deeper in other people. Who was kind? Who was benevolent? Who was skilled? Those issues mattered much more than who was beautiful because with beauty too often came laziness.

Then, in the late 1950s and through the hippy faze of the 60s self-esteem gurus such as Nathaniel Branden started telling us that everyone is beautiful and we bought it. Well, more specifically, your parents and grandparents bought it; we were the product. 1970’s popular song Everything Is Beautiful by Ray Stevens (no relation to Cat Stevens), further sealed the concept in our minds that there is no such thing as ugly or unattractive. The concept was cemented with the movement that insisted everyone get a trophy, that children’s games shouldn’t keep score so there are no losers, and that everyone who participates is equal.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Bullshit. You know it. I know it. The world knows it. Not everyone is beautiful, just as not everyone can play the piano or pitch a no-hitter for the Yankees. And for Pete’s sake let’s make it good and clear that not everyone is a goddamn model. There are immutable standards for beauty that have stood since the dawn of time and they can be defined mathematically in something called the golden ratio. If you don’t speak math, I’m not going to take the time here to explain it to you. Just know that the ratio has always occurred in nature and once we figured it out some 2400 years ago we started adapting it to everything from architecture to art.

The golden ratio applies to people as well, from our face to our body proportions. Those whose features come most closely to matching those ratios, such as Cindy Crawford, Audry Hepburn, and Marilyn Monroe, are those we inherently consider beautiful. This isn’t some 20th-century thing and no, it’s not limited to any one culture. The phenomenon is universal. Society can attempt to re-define beauty by being more inclusive, but that does not deter what nature has decreed. Sure, you can say everyone is beautiful, but not everyone wears it well.[/one_half_last]

Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this week’s photographs are strictly those of the author: charles i. letbetter, and do not necessarily reflect the attitudes or opinions of the models involved in the pictures. If you don’t like what you see, don’t blame the model. Thank you.

Art / PotD

Anonymously Naked

August 22, 2015

Hold That Pose

There is something very freeing about being anonymous because nothing is expected of you; nothing is getting back to anyone, and no one cares. —Dolly Wells

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I’ve never actually done an official survey, but I’m relatively sure that the majority of nudes in my archives were done anonymously. It’s a thing. People want to participate in art, or want to remember their bodies before children, or how they looked when they were young adults, but they are very much afraid of the backlash of criticism that comes with taking nude pictures, especially if they’re going to be posted on the Internet. Comments, not just from Internet trolls but from family and alleged friends can be hurtful, cruel, and disheartening.

Artistically, there is also the reasonable argument that nudes done anonymously are open to greater personal interpretation. Without the identity that comes with a face, one is free to extend their imagination beyond a single personality, possibly even imagining themselves in place of the model. Where there’s a face there is someone else’s identity, a personhood inherently attached to the body. For a great number of people, that identity prevents them from being able to fairly and artistically respond to the rest of the body. All they see is “that person” nude. When “that person” happens to be a celebrity or someone of note, the work becomes all about the person and any artistic valuation flies out the window.

Shooting nudes anonymously has its purpose. When nudes are anonymous, one doesn’t have to worry that one’s children might accidentally find them in Internet search results one day. Anonymous nudes don’t require any effort toward hairstyles or makeup; one can literally crawl out of bed and straight in front of the camera. Working anonymously gives one more freedom to be expressive with their bodies than they might otherwise. Without identity issues, one can usurp the norms of a given society and use their body to make any number of statements they might not otherwise make.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]At the same time, however, working anonymously in art has many of the same drawbacks as other forms of anonymity. At the top of that list is taking responsibility for the statements that one makes. Being nude in front of a camera or for a painter makes a statement which one should, in ideal circumstances, own. Anonymously, one might poke at society, or a segment of people within a given group, without having to deal with any actual harm that may result from making the statement. We enjoy the freedom of being expressive, but fail to realize that, at times, being anonymous in exercising that freedom holds the potential for being abusive.

There is also the argument that working anonymously does nothing to help change public attitudes about nude art and being nude. If anything, anonymous works might reinforce the argument that being nude is somehow wrong. After all, if there’s nothing wrong with it, why wouldn’t one want to own the work? If we want to make nude work more accessible and publicly palatable, hiding the identity of those who participate does not necessarily help to achieve those goals. Progress comes in standing up, proudly, for the work that we do and not allowing anyone to shame us for it.

Still, reality forces us often into a position where anonymity is required. You’ll notice that we no longer list the names of models who pose for nudes. We made that decision because of the frequent stalking and other safety issues that come with a society whose attitude toward nudity remain warped and at time dangerous. For all the progress we’ve made the past thirty years in terms of accepting ourselves and our bodies as they are, our society still is too often incapable of handling nude photographs responsibly. Until those matters improve, some pictures will remain anonymously nude.[/one_half_last]

Advertising / PotD / video

A Final Thought

August 15, 2015

Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls. ― Ingmar Bergman

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I have had a number of thoughts this week about converting still photographs to video, more than a few of them born out of frustration at not having a clue what I’m doing at any given moment. I had this same feeling about twelve years ago when I first made the leap from film to digital photography. The difference is that the change then felt imperative, that there was no option but to change or be left behind in the dust. I don’t get that feeling about video, but I do have a final thought or two on the subject.

First thought: Video isn’t going away and photographers who want to remain commercially active in the field need, at the very least, a cursory understanding of the medium and the tools involved. My biggest frustration this week has been not knowing the tools. I understand Adobe® Photoshop™, and am comfortable with what I can achieve with that tool. I also understand its features well enough to know that a little goes a long way and that less is often better. I’m not sure those rules apply to video and felt lost more often than not. Perhaps there needs to be classes specifically oriented toward photographers, taking what we already know and translating that to video.

Second thought: The dangers that were present with digital photography are present in digital video as well. Just like Photoshop™, Premiere Pro™ has a lot of different capabilities built-in to address a wide variety of needs and challenges that are common to the medium. A number of the effects and presets are meant to be used in various combination with each other, but exactly how to do that isn’t necessarily obvious. So, there’s the danger of misuse and overuse. That is one of the points we try to make in the first half of today’s project. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. There’s a sense of discretion needed and just as with photography when that judgment is lacking it will drive the rest of us crazy.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Third thought: Video is not going to replace still photography. When I started this project, in the back of my mind were the moving, animated pictures mentioned in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. The more I’ve played with things this week, the more I’m convinced that the difference between a still and moving picture is too emotionally complex and different for one to fully replace the other. Sure, as technology provides different applications for viewing both we’re going to see popularity wax and wane. They’ll still remain to distinct forms of visual media, though, and each will have its own purpose.

Fourth thought: For the time being, short formats, such as the 30-second ad-styled projects we’ve done this week, may be better for still photographs than trying to stretch them into a long format. Tutorial material would be the exception to that thought, but beyond a couple of minutes a still image in video format feels forced. We expect video to move, to do something, to change in some way. When a still image remains static in video format it’s a different emotion than just looking at the same image in purely photographic format.

Final thought: I don’t want to be a videographer. I’m quite happy with my still images, thank you. Video editing is far too complex and highly specialized for my brain to even begin to make that leap. I can’t imagine ever having the patience necessary to edit actual video segments. One thing I take away from this week is a new respect for those who manage to edit video quickly and efficiently on a daily basis.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our adventure this week. Next week we move to something more sedate. We hope you’ll join us. Today’s original photograph is below.[/one_half_last]

Pinup Revival (2009)

Advertising / PotD / video

Title This

August 13, 2015

You make a film to distract people, to interest them, perhaps to make them think, perhaps to help them be a little less naive, a little better than they were. —Claude Chabrol

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]What is a title? We hear the word and most people think of a book title, or the name of a song, perhaps. So, to tell someone that I’ve been playing with titles all day, or that a title has been causing me trouble, or that I can’t get a title to fit, is confusing to the average person without taking the time to give the word some additional context. Let me do that now: A title is to film what copy is to printed material; words that explain or emphasize or instruct or give credit.

Titles are everywhere in almost every form of video. The opening segment of one of my favorite cartoons, Phineas and Ferb, ends with DeeDee shouting, “Mom! Phineas and Ferb are making a title sequence!” Instantly, you’ve learned something about video production you didn’t already know. Any time you see words on a screen in any form or fashion it is a title. So, the opening of a show that list actors, producers, and the name of a show is a title sequence. The credits at the end of a movie are another title sequence. The product name and tagline at the end of a commercial is another. The video world is full of title sequences.

Titling is one of the advantages video has over still imagery or print. With print copy, there is limited space and text can easily get in the way or even overpower an image. While ads from a century ago tended to try and cram every bit of information they could into small print on a page, we’ve since learned that less is more and often we see ads with only one word and the product logo. A title sequence gives us a little more space and a number of different options so we can say more without it being overwhelming.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]I have to admit that, at least to some extent, I’m not using the best tool for the job here. Video editing is a complex monster, as we’ve learned this week, and requires multiple tools to handle the various pieces that go into the average video. Of course, those tools cost additional money and the cost can grow large rather quickly. Our goal at the beginning of the week was to stay within the boundaries of what comes by default with Adobe® Premiere Pro™, so we held today’s experiment to that confinement, though most professionals would shudder at doing so.

I also avoided the use of any special effects for the title sequences, beyond those that cause them to appear and disappear from the screen. Animating titles seems to be a big thing, especially giving it the appearance that someone is writing on the screen. I actually looked into that one. Again, wrong tools and way too much effort for something not going into full-fledged broadcast. I also question whether such gimmicks actually help the message or distract from it. These are merely experiments and I do have other things to do with my day.

Titles do help drive the point we’re trying to make with today’s image. I could just post the picture with copy that says, “Experience counts,” and you would likely get the message. The title sequences in the video explain why that experience counts and also embeds a concept that photography isn’t something one just “picks up.” Are the titles effective? You tell me. 30 seconds isn’t all that long for those who can’t read well. The original photo is below.[/one_half_last]

The Pain of Beauty (2012)

Advertising / Art / PotD / video

Subtle Transformation

August 12, 2015

My fascination with letting images repeat and repeat – or in film’s case ‘run on’ – manifests my belief that we spend much of our lives seeing without observing. —Andy Warhol

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]The Warhol quote is appropriate for this morning. Today’s video experiment is one you may need to watch more than once before you actually observe the subtle transformation that takes place over the 30-second duration of the project. I’m not going to tell you right away exactly what it is. Sure, you’ll see the video move; that part’s rather obvious. But there is a subtle transformation that occurs slowly, one that changes the emotion of the image, but avoids being dramatic in its presentation. Don’t be embarrassed if you need to hit the replay button more than once before you realize what’s happening.

I’m going to have to watch this post today. I’ve been uploading the videos to my YouTube channel because not only is that the easiest and most dominant method of video presentation, it also integrates well with our web design. I don’t have to go through a number of steps for it to work as I do with some sources. I could upload the video directly, but I tried that with the first one and was less than pleased with the result. However, YouTube, like many other forms of social media, sometimes goes apoplectic over artistic material. Unlike Facebook, where I can set some images to be seen only by specific, appreciative friends, YouTube videos not set for public viewing don’t embed in other websites. There’s a chance the video won’t survive the day. Or it might. One never knows.

As a backup, I’ve uploaded the video to Vimeo, which has a more tolerant policy toward artistic material. I have to take a couple of extra steps to embed it, should that become necessary, but if it happens that, too, should be a subtle transformation that is less than obvious to the average viewer. There are so very many considerations when working with video.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]I will also be watching to see if today’s video is more popular than yesterday’s. Once again, I was disappointed in the lack of attention yesterday’s image received and have to assume that it was largely because there were no humans in the picture. This is why I post so very few landscape and other non-model oriented artistic images. When we post a photograph to the website, we need for that image to draw people in, to make them curious and interested at what we are doing, what there is to see here. Ultimately, we want people to click on the booking link and set an appointment with us, or contact us if they have questions. That doesn’t happen when I post pictures of barns, even though I think the effect in yesterday’s video was very cool.

I get it; subtle transformation is something that happens in our head the moment we see an image. We glance at a picture and instantly decide whether we want to give it any more of our attention. People, especially faces, are easier for us to engage on an emotional level. We look to see if the subject is someone we know, what they might hold in common with us or someone else with whom we are acquainted. Our instinctive response is to try and personalize a photograph on some level and having a model in the picture makes that easier because, if nothing else, we’re all human. Allegedly.

Subtle transformation is, I think, I good approach to today’s image. One needs to not just look, but observe carefully or they’ll miss the entire point and purpose of the video. I’ll be watching to see how many times the video is viewed. I’ll explain the transformation below the original image. [/one_half_last]

A Quiet Moment (2012)

If you’ll watch today’s video very closely, you’ll see it slowly moves from black and white to color. That’s the subtle transformation!

Nature / Photography / PotD / Social Commentary

Cool Water

August 3, 2015

Cool Water

All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt. ― Susan Sontag

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Water. For a lot of people across the Midwest United States, it’s something we’ve had a bit much of this summer. There’s been no short amount of rain and with it has come a significant amount of flooding, sometimes in areas that had never seen such a problem before. For all those people who are still cleaning up from the devastating effects of those floods, there doesn’t seem to be any shortage of cool water.

Wet conditions don’t prevail everywhere, though, and Western states have continued a drought that started in 2012 and is well beyond critical levels. The National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA) reports that for the month of June approximately 14 percent of the US was plagued with severe to extreme drought, an increase of five percent over May. July numbers aren’t ready yet, but don’t expect them to be any better. Good luck finding cool water around here.

If you want cool water that is actually clean and drinkable, there aren’t that many sources. The entire planet is experiencing a shortage of the stuff and the situation is getting worse. Numbers from aid organizations and charities vary a little bit, but the United Nations reports that 783 million people, that’s over one-tenth of the world’s population, does not have access to clean water. 2.5 billion people do not have adequate sanitation. What’s the resulting impact? 6 to 8 million people die annually from the consequences of disasters and water-related diseases. And if you think throwing money at the problem is the answer, you’re wrong. The UN estimates it would take 3.5 planets Earth to provide enough water to sustain the existing population at the current lifestyles common to Western Europe and the US. The UN also reports that, “By 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world population could live under water stress conditions.”

We’re not exactly doing well with this cool water thing, are we? I’m pretty sure the majority of people in the US take for granted how fortunate we are to have the easy access to clean, cool water that we do. We don’t have to walk for miles. We simply turn on a tap and it’s there. We don’t even have to worry too often about it being clean.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Aid organizations have been trying for years to draw our attention to the global water issue without too much luck. In California early this year, Governor Jerry Brown issued an executive order requiring, among other things, a 25% reduction in water usage across the board, no exceptions. Just this past week, the Internet nearly choked as pictures of Melinda Gates, wife of world’s richest man Bill Gates, was photographed carrying drinking water on her head in solidarity with women in Malawi. Still, at the end of the day, most Americans and Western Europeans ignore the looming disaster.

Today’s picture is a tempting one as we’ve created a double exposure by merging an image of a babbling brook with that of a young woman bathing in a stream. The cool water looks comfortable, refreshing, and alluring. This is a fairly complicated image that not only blends two separate photographs but changes from color to black and white as one moves from left to right across the picture. The result is a blend of emotions as our perspective of the image changes.

Back in 1963, on his album Cattle Call, which produced his signature song, singer/actor Eddie Arnold also included the song Cool Water, about a cowboy crossing the desert with his horse, Dan.

All day I’ve faced a barren waste
Without the taste of water, cool water
Old Dan and I with throats burnt dry
And souls that cry for water, cool clear water.

Dan’s feet are sore he’s yearning for
Just one thing more than water, cool water
Like me I guess he’d like to rest
Where there’s no quest for water, cool clear water

If something doesn’t change, and quickly, those are sentiments we may all soon share.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD

Playing With Your Food

August 1, 2015

Playing With Food

All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt. ― Charles M. Schulz

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]There is something about growing up and being able to do the things that your parents wouldn’t let you do. Jumping on the bed. Watching scary movies at night. Having desert before the main course. One of those things that continues to bring great joy to me is playing with my food. I think that’s why I spend so much time in the kitchen preparing meals. There is no small pleasure in taking a stack of raw ingredients and creating something that, usually, ends up being delicious. For me, eating the concoction is secondary to the creating, and should I happen to get covered in something delicious in the process, well, I’m probably not going to mind too terribly much.

Having seen three boys through their toddlerhood, I’m rather convinced that playing with our food is inherent and instinctive. From the moment they stopped nursing, all three boys found interest in seeing what all they might do with their food before it went into their mouths. Can it be stacked? Will it fit up my nose? How does it look in my ear? Hey, this makes my hair look cool! You know, this feels very cool on my toes. Wow, look how much of this fits in my diaper! No matter how many times it happened, it wasn’t until they were school age that they reluctantly stopped playing with their food at every meal. I won’t say they don’t still play around on occasion; I’ve seen what a certain Marine tries putting between a couple of crackers.

I am of the opinion that playing with our food is one of our earliest forms of creative expression. Before we’re allowed to play with craft dough or color with crayons, there’s food—food that is soft and often comes with sauce. Baby food spreads quite well, especially across a white highchair tray, or mom’s linen table cloth that’s been handed down for five generations. Daddy’s clean, starched shirt is the perfect canvas for a mixture of strained peas and smashed carrots. Here is where we first begin to express ourselves, to experiment with blending colors and textures, and seeing just exactly what all we can do with these things called hands and toes. As incredibly frustrating as it is for the parent who has to clean up both the baby and the artwork, the lessons being learned are crucial to our early development.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]I won’t say that any of the works we’ve shown you this week are critical to anyone’s artistic or motor skill development. I will say that they were each interesting as we shot them. Rarely did the food behave exactly the way we anticipated. Sometimes body heat caused things to melt; other times it caused things to sweat and bead up. We discovered that small pieces were easier than larger ones, especially when it comes to chocolate. We anticipated chocolate being a little messy, but an eight-ounce bar liquefied almost the instant it touched skin. Orange peel curled up, dried out, and changed color within a fifteen-minute period. I learned something new about food with every new concept and in some cases decided to never use said products again, even for their intended purposes. Something that hurts you on the outside can’t be doing anything helpful for your insides.

What this episode of playing with food taught me, though, is that the possibilities for expressing one’s creativity by merging food with the human form. The seven examples you’ve seen this week are only half of what we’ve shot, and I’ve developed plenty of ideas over the past five years should I decide to ever expand on the concept. I’ve not even started playing with pasta or vegetables. Wet sauces are so numerable they could probably host their own exhibition. I did give momentary thought to trying something with ice cream, but given our experience with chocolate I don’t see that working out quite so well. Anything that spoils, melts, or sours quickly isn’t a good choice.

Of course, we could always just work with baby food. We already know its artistic potential, and for all I know it might just help someone get back in touch with their inner child. Although, if that inner child is a brat then perhaps it’s better that it just stays put away. The world doesn’t need more politicians. What the world needs is the freedom to take what is in front of them and use that to express themselves, whether it’s through food, or cloth, or digital electronics, or even tree bark. Art doesn’t start with the exotic, but creates exotic from the ordinary. I can’t think of a better place to start than with food. [/one_half_last]

Art / Behind The Scenes / Photography / PotD

Variations On A Theme

July 12, 2015

Low Contrast Colorization

It can be a trap of the photographer to think that his or her best pictures were the ones that were hardest to get. – Timothy Allen

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]If one wants to start an argument among photographers, bring up the topic of Photoshop®™ and what amount of post-processing is appropriate. We don’t agree. We never have agreed. Even before the desktop computer put a professional tool in the hands of amateurs, we didn’t agree. Debates about processing and photo manipulation methods are as old as photography itself and at no point has there been a consensus as to what is best or when one has gone too far. As a result, one can, and often does, see pictures in magazines and other publications that don’t appeal to their aesthetic taste. When we do, we often complain.

I want to spend this week looking at variations in photo manipulation. We are starting today with a very simple low contrast colorization. By the end of the week, however, we will totally transform the images into something completely different. With each one, I will place the original, untouched photo at the end of the post for comparison. This will, hopefully, give one a sense of just how dramatic a simple change can be and how extreme we can manipulate an image when necessary. Half of these variations were possible with film though they were perhaps a bit more difficult. Others, though, are only possible with digital tools and a great deal of patience.

Anytime we embark upon a project like this we get challenges and questions regarding our methods and motives. Let me go ahead and address those now so that we can keep the answers in mind the rest of the week.

Always the first question is why we manipulate images at all. The full answer is a couple of hours long, but the short answer is this: because we want to do more than what the camera can capture. Cameras themselves, even the fanciest modern boxes, are mere tools and as such they have limits. The extent of manipulation is a different issue.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]”I like the original better,” is a comment we often hear, usually from people who are not photographers or otherwise employed in a creative capacity. I understand the sentiment, though, because variations that merely attempt to cover up bad photography rarely succeed. We want to start with a strong, well-photographed image or else the end result is probably going to suck.

Why we choose a specific form of manipulation to go with a specific photograph generally falls into two categories: to change the emotional tone of the image, or to fit a specific artistic vision. Commercial and editorial images more often require changes in emotional tone to go along with a specific message. A photo may be too bright for a serious message or not quite enough for a lighter concept. Those are usually more simple edits (though not always). Matching a specific artistic vision is where variations tend to get tricky and complicated, especially if the concept didn’t originate with the photographer or person doing the manipulation. Endless possibilities often mean an endless debate over minute details.

Yes, there are enough variations to make anything possible. That does not mean the end result will be believable or appropriate and in matters of parody it is sometimes best to not make the end result too believable. Not everyone has the ability to distinguish real from fake and a narwhal horn too carefully attached to a horse could have some folks out looking for a unicorn.

I look at photo manipulation the same way I look at musical variations on a theme: start with a strong melody or image, even one that’s familiar, and explore. See what can be done, plum the depths of different emotional ranges, and test your own skill. There’s no “higher purpose” in what we’re presenting this week. Let’s indulge in the pleasure of variations.[/one_half_last]

A Lovely Necklace (2011)

awareness

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.—Steve Jobs

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Dear sisters and brothers, we realize the importance of light when we see darkness.—Malala Yousafzai

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There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted.—Henri Matisse

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You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lines. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I’ll rise.—Maya Angelou

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Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.—Buddha

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Man who invented the hamburger was smart; man who invented the cheeseburger was a genius.—Matthew McConaughey

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When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.—Tecumseh

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Must we wait for selection to solve the problems of overpopulation, exhaustion of resources, pollution of the environment and a nuclear holocaust, or can we take explicit steps to make our future more secure? In the latter case, must we not transcend selection? —B. F. Skinner

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Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.—Frederick Douglass

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As a culture I see us as presently deprived of subtleties. The music is loud, the anger is elevated, sex seems lacking in sweetness and privacy.—Shelley Berman

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We were at a beach one summer, and I had a bathing suit on. My wife looked at me and said: ‘Boy, you are skinny, aren’t you?’ I said: ‘Honey, I’d like to remind you that it was minor defects like this that kept me from getting a better wife.’—Lou Holtz

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As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain from smoking when awake.—Mark Twain

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If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress and tension. And if you didn’t ask me, I’d still have to say it.—George Burns

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I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose.—Charlie Chaplin

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Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.—Helen Keller

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That means that every human being – without distinction of sex, age, race, skin color, language, religion, political view, or national or social origin – possesses an inalienable and untouchable dignity.—Hans Kung

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Without pain, there would be no suffering, without suffering we would never learn from our mistakes. To make it right, pain and suffering is the key to all windows, without it, there is no way of life.—Angelina Jolie

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When virtue and modesty enlighten her charms, the lustre of a beautiful woman is brighter than the stars of heaven, and the influence of her power it is in vain to resist.—Akhenaton

Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this week’s photographs are strictly those of the author: charles i. letbetter, and do not necessarily reflect the attitudes or opinions of the models involved in the pictures. If you don’t like what you see, don’t blame the model. Thank you.

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There is something very freeing about being anonymous because nothing is expected of you; nothing is getting back to anyone, and no one cares. —Dolly Wells

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Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls. ― Ingmar Bergman

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You make a film to distract people, to interest them, perhaps to make them think, perhaps to help them be a little less naive, a little better than they were. —Claude Chabrol

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My fascination with letting images repeat and repeat – or in film’s case ‘run on’ – manifests my belief that we spend much of our lives seeing without observing. —Andy Warhol

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All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt. ― Susan Sontag

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All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt. ― Charles M. Schulz

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It can be a trap of the photographer to think that his or her best pictures were the ones that were hardest to get. – Timothy Allen

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Must we wait for selection to solve the problems of overpopulation, exhaustion of resources, pollution of the environment and a nuclear holocaust, or can we take explicit steps to make our future more secure? In the latter case, must we not transcend selection?
—B. F. Skinner