Art / PotD / Uncategorized

All Tied Up

October 2, 2015

Creatively bound (2012)

Women’s fashion is a subtle form of bondage. It’s men’s way of binding them. We put them in these tight, high-heeled shoes, we make them wear these tight clothes and we say they look sexy. But they’re actually tied up.—David Duchovny

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Some of you are going to have difficulty believing this, since you possibly have never seen one, but there was once a time when people only had one telephone per family and that one was connected to the wall. You couldn’t take it anywhere. It had a big dial that consumed its face and one had to dial as many as eleven numbers one at a time to call anyone. There was no 911. If you needed to talk with someone in the next town over, it was considered long distance and you had to talk to an operator for that to happen.

One of the worst sins during that period of American history was keeping the phone “tied up.” This was especially serious if you shared a phone line with your neighbors, something called a party line. There was no party. At least, ours wasn’t. Sure, you could pick up the phone and listen in on their conversation, but we had boring neighbors so there wasn’t any fun in that. Instead, they complained that we always kept the phone line tied up. Poppa had calls coming in at all hours of the night and if the phone rang at our house, it rang at our neighbors’ houses, too. They weren’t especially happy.

Poppa had competition for the phone once I became a teenager. Well, sort of. I liked the concept of calling and talking to my friends, but we were all geeky and stuff and once we exchanged whatever piece of information we needed, we’d just tie up the line not saying anything.

The worst was one evening when I called the girl I was sort of dating. We tied up the phone for the better part of three hours. The conversation consisted largely of, “What are you doing?” Followed by, “Oh, not much. What are you doing.” This went on for three fucking hours. I think half the town was annoyed with us by the time we hung up, because anyone who tried calling Poppa during that period couldn’t even leave voice mail. Instead, they just got this frustrating alternating tone called a busy signal. [/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Keeping the phone line tied up became serious in the 90s when we started getting modems and connecting to this thing called AOL online. They gave out free CDs at the stores and for $15 a month you could connect to their computer system and read the same news that was in the morning newspaper. We were cool. We were high-tech. We kept the phone line tied up for hours. I lived several hundred miles away from my parents by that time, but I also had their only grandchild. They tried calling often to see what he was up to, but the phone line would be tied up almost every time.

We don’t have any of those issues now, of course. Talk all you want. Text all you want. Tie up the phone all damn day if you wish. Pay a huge phone bill. I find it interesting that we consider a $50 a month phone bill inexpensive. Heads would have rolled had Poppa ever gotten a fifty dollar phone bill. I remember him once challenging a $36 bill. “No one could talk on the phone that much,” he told the customer service representative. She agreed and adjusted the bill.

Who knows what telephony will be by the time my children are my age. The technology is changing so rapidly that they likely will not have to use a device at all; voice communication will be built into clothes or, at the very least, wearable accessories. Tap an icon, order pizza. Tap a button, have a friend join you. There will be a button for calling your mother; you’ll avoid it. No one wants to tie up the shirt listening to their mother complaining about how she never gets to see the grandkids. Wearable phones means one could, theoretically, be tied up with their phone rather than on their phone. The future could be kinky.

I bet you looked at the title and picture and thought I was going a very different direction with this, didn’t you? Sorry, but I didn’t want to be that obvious. Being tied up has too many possible scenarios. I didn’t want to “tie up” your entire day.[/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]

PotD / Social Commentary

Education

September 18, 2015

Think A Minute (2013)

The paradox of education is precisely this – that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.—James A. Baldwin

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]My mother was a teacher in more ways than one. Yes, there are a few people out there who endured, and survived, the trials and tribulations of being in her classroom. She didn’t stop teaching when she walked out of the classroom, though. Education, she believed, was something that began the moment one woke up of the morning and didn’t end until one was unconscious at night. She saw the potential for making every moment a teaching moment, and she wasn’t going to let one’s education be incomplete.

Mom always said she was 5′ 2″ tall. I’m sure she was at one young point in her life. Most of my life she was about an inch shorter than that, and she continued shrinking. That never stopped her, though. She couldn’t be bullied, by administration, student, or parent. To cross her as an adult meant being on the receiving end of a tongue-lashing that damn-near drew blood. To cross her as a child meant bending over, grabbing your ankles, and being thankful her arthritis prevented her from swinging that paddle as strongly as she might. In her mind, the first thing one needed in an education was discipline and respect. One didn’t begin learning until those two things were present.

At the same time, though, Mother could be incredibly compassionate. Being the preacher’s wife in a small town meant she usually knew when a student’s family was struggling. School policy prevented her from helping a child directly, but she would find a way to make sure a child had food at home, or clean clothes, or in at least one case light by which to read. Hugs were something she handed out readily, even long after one left her classroom. After school tutoring wasn’t’ part of a program; it was just something she did as student’s had need.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Mom would not have done well in today’s schools. She understood that an education isn’t just information one learns to regurgitate on command, but how we learn to take that information and improve our lives and the lives of others. She hated standardized tests because she knew that people can’t, and shouldn’t, be standardized and neither can the education system that teaches us. She taught more by living than by lecturing. She set an example for her students that was worth following.

I look now at how schools have changed and want to cry. We have so woefully underfunded our schools that teachers show up to find absolutely no resources in their classrooms, not even textbooks or dry erase markers. We totally misunderstand the point of education when we think test scores are a sufficient or accurate measure of learning and/or teacher adequacy. Library shelves sit empty because there’s no money for books. We wonder why there’s a teacher shortage in almost every state, not realizing that by the time teachers pay for all their supplies, books for their classrooms, and materials for students, they’re not longer making a living wage!

I’m glad that the little ones can now come home and watch re-runs of Mr. Rodger’s Neighborhood on Netflix. They are thoroughly enthralled as they pick up the values education that are no longer part of the school curriculum. Education for them is a very different experience than it was for my sons, and almost unrecognizable compared to my experience. That we have allowed the situation to deteriorate is inexcusable and everyone is at fault. We have no education system when we refuse to learn. Even Mother couldn’t solve that problem. [/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

Humanity

September 13, 2015

Held Together (2010)

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.—Mahatma Gandhi

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Humanity is baffling. How can the same species that produces individuals of great caring and compassion also produce those of great hate, deceit, and cruelty? How can some countries with practically no economic standing offer to take in more refugees than they can hold while another with every economic advantage in the world prefers to build a wall? How can one claim there is sanctity in life and still desire to put people to death?

The multiple paradoxes of humanity, though, are part of what defines us. One doesn’t see other species wake in the morning pondering whether to participate in the genocide of millions. In being given the choice to choose between right and wrong, we create an everlasting and inherent struggle between doing that which preserves ourselves and acting toward the greater good. While this struggle has always been within us, we seem blind to the lessons that would be taught by the actions of others and still look for ways to justify our own selfishness and greed while doing our best to minimize the good of others.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]What makes the difference in whether make choices for the good of all or the good of ourselves is a matter of focus. When we only look in, we do not see the needs of those around us, no matter how blatantly obvious they may be. When we only look outward, we see those needs and feel compelled to respond to them, perhaps neglecting the necessity of our own care and well-being. Trying to look both directions, though, only sets up more conflict and confusion as to what we should do.

Humanity has no easy answers. To be human is to struggle, continually, with right and wrong, good and bad, selfish or selfless. Humanity has had great successes and colossal failures based on the decisions of a few individuals. When kindness is answered with greed we become monsters. When cruelty is answered with compassion we become angels. Humanity has the ability to be either, and we each decide in which camp we will reside with the dawn of every morning.[/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.

Fashion / PotD

More Than Jeans

September 5, 2015

A Hot Summer (2009)

The whole thing of clothes is insane. You can spend a dollar on a jacket in a thrift store. And you can spend a thousand dollars on a jacket in a shop. And if you saw those two jackets walking down the street, you probably wouldn’t know which was which.—Helen Mirren

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]We’ve talked all week about jeans as though they were the only option for denim clothing. Reality paints a much larger and more varied picture, though. Denim jackets, dresses, shorts, skirts, bustiers, bras, leggings, socks and even denim footwear have, at various times, come in and out of popularity. Granted, not all of those were necessarily good ideas. The socks, leggings, bras, and footwear were all very short lived because, while they presented a unique look, they were a bit short on practicality. Denim is, after all, a fairly heavy material that can induce perspiration in places one doesn’t especially want any level of dampness. Not quite everything works.

Growing up in the 70s, it seemed as though almost everything was made of denim. Not only was everyone wearing their favorite flared-legged jeans, denim skirts were a huge rage. Not short, denim mini-skirts, either. Long, calf- or ankle-length denim skirts seemed to be everywhere. What has been interesting is that for a group of particularly conservative religious fundamentalists, that style of denim skirt or dress has stuck. One can still see them worn by women and young girls whose hair has never been cut, with plain blouses, as they shop at discount stores and thrift markets. Even a certain notorious court clerk wore a denim skirt to one of her many court appearances.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Much more popular, though, has been denim shorts and jackets. The jackets are especially popular with those who spend a lot of time on motorcycles because the denim provides similar protection as leather, but is more suitable for attaching patches and embroidery popular among riding clubs. Jean jackets are also heavy enough to keep one warm without interrupting the style going on underneath. They can be accessorized with anything from diamonds to costume brooches and still look great. A jeans jacket can be one of the most flexible pieces in a person’s wardrobe.

Nothing, though, beats the super-short, cut-off jeans look known as Daisy Dukes. Popular long before a television sitcom gave them that name, the shorts have become a summertime standard for young women everywhere, much to the delight of young men everywhere. There’s something to be said for the way the jeans shorts presents a young woman’s posterior and can make a short girl’s legs look longer than they are. Jeans shorts define that down-home, girl-next-door sensuality that turns heads and breaks hearts.

So ends our look at denim. What started as a fabric for workers has taken over the world. Fashion weeks are coming and I expect to see no shortage of denim still, so watch for it.[/one_half_last]

Fashion / PotD

Him And Her

August 31, 2015

HappyTOgether (2012)

Fashion is mysterious, as a rule. Why are blue jeans a classic? You just hit on something that happens to be timeless and right.-Diane von Furstenberg

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Like much in the fashion world, denim has at times been a bit sexist. For much of their early existence, jeans were something worn exclusively by men. Most early jeans manufacturers didn’t even make clothes with women in mind. The relatively few women who wore jeans had to adapt men’s styles and cuts. For a high fashion perspective, denim was such a low, working class fabric that it was considered too rough to be next to a woman’s delicate skin. Denim was a man’s material.

World War II did a lot to change women’s wardrobes as they took to the floors of assembly lines and machine shops to do the jobs of men who had gone off to fight. The loose skirts and dresses women were accustomed to wearing were inappropriate around heavy exposed machinery. Jeans and its even heavier cousin, denim dungarees, needed to be worn by women and they needed something that would better fit her frame and shape. Slowly, manufacturers took notice and women’s jeans started working their way onto store shelves.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]It wasn’t until the 1970s, though, that “jeans for her” really became stylish, and much of that is due to Anderson Cooper’s mom, Gloria Vanderbilt. Tighter, designed more specifically to fit and hug a woman’s body, Vanderbilt’s jeans raised denim from farm wear to Fifth Avenue. Then, when 16-year-old Brooke Shields appeared topless, lying on her stomach, in an ad that read, “Nothing comes between me and my Calvins,” sales of women’s blue jeans skyrocketed.

Today, the average woman has seven pairs of blue jeans in her closet, while men are only likely to have five. Styles of his and her jeans are more similar than not, with men being just as likely to wear tight-fitting, butt-hugging denim as do women. Almost everyone knows someone who lives in their jeans, wouldn’t consider wearing anything else. I know at least one bride (and I’m sure there are more) who wore jeans to her wedding. No longer sexist and low-class, jeans are a fundamental staple for both him and her.[/one_half_last]

Fashion / PotD

The Allure of Denim

August 30, 2015

A Causal Throne (2009). Model: Erica Von Trapp

I have often said that I wish I had invented blue jeans: the most spectacular, the most practical, the most relaxed and nonchalant. They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity – all I hope for in my clothes. -Yves Saint-Laurent

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Ah, denim. From such humble, working-class beginnings, this simple cotton twill fabric has become the staple of most wardrobes, it’s styles and name brands often envied, and grows in value the more it is destroyed. There’s nothing quite like a good pair of jeans, and there’s no denying the appeal of the look. Despite its working class beginnings, the exact same fabric can be so exclusive as to be affordable only by the super-rich. So, this week we’re focusing on denim, mostly in blue jean form, and all the sexiness and expressiveness that it brings to our lives.

Of course, first we have to get past the basic understanding of what denim is. Originally of Italian construct, the fabric quickly made its way to France where it became a standard in working men’s clothes, primarily trousers. It’s unique cotton twill is composed of one white thread running over/under two blue-dyed threads at a time. This gives the twill sufficient strength without making it too stiff. The indigo dye commonly used fades with washing, providing denim with it’s classic, relaxed and comfortable look.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Levi Strauss is, of course, the name most Americans associate with denim.It was Strauss who introduced the fabric to the United States in 1853, during the California Gold Rush, and pioneered the use of metal rivets at the stress points so that the jeans would be less likely to tear. For the next hundred years, denim jeans would be the uniform of the American working man, from riding the range to working in the factory. When denim shirts were introduced, the term “blue collar” entered the lexicon for most anyone who didn’t work in an office.

Today, one would be hard pressed to find any denim constructed as sturdy as those original trousers were. Instead, we prefer our jeans pre-washed, distressed, cut-up, ripped, and in a condition our ancestors would not have even considered wearable. Yet, when they’re carrying the right fashion label on the waistband, denim can cost several hundred, even thousands of dollars. All from the same, simple, working class fabric. It’s going to be a fun week. We hope you’ll not miss a day![/one_half_last]

Art / PotD

Smelling of Flowers

August 25, 2015

charles i. letbetter - smells like flowers

charles i. letbetter - smelling like flowers

The Private Garden (2004)

Just because people throw it out and don’t have any use for it, doesn’t mean it’s garbage. ― Andy Warhol

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Flowers carry a lot of meaning and subtly hold a rather strong and dramatic place in art, literature, and song. Three books that immediately come to mind are The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Emmuska Orczy, which thrilled me as a teen, and the one book I read in high school that still makes me stop and thing: Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes. In all three the flowers are highly symbolic, subtle undertones that hold deeper meaning than one might suspect.

Musically, flowers are used to invoke a specific imagery to help make a point. I looked through my various playlists and see titles ranging from Henry Mancini’s Days of Wine and Roses (which will be playing in my head the rest of the morning now), to the Statler Brothers’ Flowers on the Wall to The Foundations singing Build Me Up Buttercup. There are myriad songs about roses, which I suppose is appropriate given their sentimental relationship to love, but I think it’s the non-rose songs that perhaps hold a stronger imagery, such as Edelweiss from The Sound of Music, and Tip Toe Through The Tulips by Tiny Tim.

My mother was always one of those people who said, “Give me my flowers while I’m alive,” and we tried to do that, but when she passed the church was so full of bouquets and sprays I’ve no idea whatever happened to them all. While flowers do, in some aspects, represent the temporary nature and frailty of life, I’ve never understood why we feel the need to inundate a family with them upon losing a loved one. Most cemeteries through them out after a week or so and for grieving families they can be an unwanted reminder of their loss. While their origin dates back to a time when bodies were not embalmed and would smell as they decayed, that’s not exactly a problem we face much anymore and too often the flowers are overwhelming, or a reminder in some cases of how few friends a person had.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]When flowers appear in artwork, however, I fear we are often too dismissive of their presence. We tend to think of them merely as decoration, or perhaps something to hold so that one’s hands don’t look awkward. Yet, flowers in art are symbols of femininity, virtuosity, and in some cases even conniving. Flowers have symbolized everything from a family’s wealth to the subject’s religious beliefs and in some cases even political affiliations. Present in almost every form of religious art, flowers serve as powerful metaphors for matters of significance.

So, where are we going when we pick a couple of dyed daisies and use them as we have in today’s photo? Daises traditionally represent innocence and gentleness. Given the implied placement of the flowers here, innocence and gentleness is certainly a preferred way of looking at the matter. However, that would really only apply were the daisies white. These were dyed red and orange. Red daisies represent a beauty the possessor doesn’t realize. Orange, while not natural in daisies, generally represents warmth. I’ll just let your imagination take it from there.

Flowers are so very fragile, and at the same time so very powerful. They are a simple way of infusing deeper meaning into an image that possessed little. Their mere presence can write stories that would go on for pages. They spark our sense of the romantic and the poetic. And occasionally, in certain circumstances, the flowers seem to beg us to pick them. Should you choose to pluck these, I strongly recommend handling with care.[/one_half_last]

Photography / PotD

Double Exposure: Did You Mean To Do That?

August 2, 2015

Natural Beauty. Model: Destany Harte

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence. ― Ansel Adams

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I like quiet Sunday mornings; the kind where I can sit here at the computer and read, drink my coffee, and listen to music in the headphones without being interrupted. I’m only mildly annoyed that we’re not out shooting in this perfect light because I was up way too late last night to have been thinking lucidly early enough to actually take advantage of the situation. I’ve been behind a camera long enough now that I don’t have to have one in my hands every waking second, I don’t have to shoot every day to feel complete, and when I do shoot I’m much more likely to be concerned about the emotion of the image rather than the technical aspects. If I’m not feeling a concept, there’s little use in pushing through and shooting it; there’s little point in taking more bad pictures. We’ve had our fair share of those plus a few.

Not every Sunday morning is quiet, though, and not every bad shot is a waste. I remember, early in my career, getting a phone call at some ungodly hour of a Sunday morning telling me that yet another tornado had ripped through yet another small town in Oklahoma. I pulled on clothes in the dark (the advantage of a monochrome wardrobe), grabbed my camera and a half-dozen packs of film and headed out. One of the dangers of early-morning shooting, especially when the matter’s urgent, is that one tends to not check their camera bag as thoroughly as they should, and I didn’t. I knew I had film and my lenses with a selection of filters for effect. I didn’t bother checking for backup batteries for the film advance.

It seems almost silly now, and is one of those problems that new shooters will never experience, having to manually advance film. The batteries that powered that function were often specialized, expensive, and impossible to find outside a camera store. Finding one on a Sunday would be impossible. So, I kept a couple of spares. On a shelf. And they were still sitting there when I drove off bleary-eyed into the night rain. This was one of those moments when I was second-guessing my profession and spent most the drive thinking about going back to college and working on my masters degree. Being a photographer just seemed like a ridiculous way to try and learning a living. No one ever asked a symphony conductor to be up before dawn.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Arriving in the small town forced me to focus on my job. The tornado had skipped through town obliterating the two-block commercial area before taking out a church building, a handful of homes, and the school gym. There were trees and power lines down everywhere, making the situation a bit dangerous. Highway patrol and electric company officials were already there keeping people away from live electric lines. Miraculously, no one had been seriously hurt this time. I pulled my camera from my bag, slapped in the first roll of film and started shooting. I was about a dozen shots in when I noticed I was hearing the click of the shutter, but not the whir of the film advance. I took the battery out, wiped it on my shirt, and stuck it back in the camera, and it gave me a few more shots before dying completely. That’s when I discovered I’d left the backup batteries at home, some 70 miles away.

I did the best I could,trying to remember to manually advance the film after every shot, but I knew I had missed a few and warned the lab that there would be a few double exposure shots out of the batch. I apologized for the wasted film. Monday morning, the lab called to let me know that there were a couple of those “wasted” shots might be worth keeping. Specifically, the double exposure had placed the rising sun coming up right behind the destroyed church building. The effect was rather striking and totally unique, one of those things one can never reproduce.

Double exposure doesn’t naturally occur with digital cameras, but we can re-create the effect with some careful layer work. There are several different ways of achieving the effect, layering one image over the other, then adjusting the layer blend mode and opacity, then tweaking the levels and curves. One can easily get bogged down in the details, but double exposure really has to do with emotion. If the image doesn’t create an emotional response then it’s a waste of time. So, this week we’re going to look at some specially created double exposure images that we’ve produced along a number of themes for the end of summer. This is different from what we normally share. I hope you’re ready to feel something. [/one_half_last]

Behind The Scenes / Photography / PotD

Not Dead Yet

July 25, 2015

Polaroid PX 600 Silver Shade Impossible UV+ Monochrome

I’m definitely a Polaroid camera girl. For me, what I’m really excited about is bringing back the artistry and the nature of Polaroid. —Lady Gaga

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]For those whose lives are incredibly boring and/or severely disadvantaged, let me explain why I chose the title for this today’s photo. In the movie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, there is a scene invoking images of the black plague. A man is walking through the streets of London yelling, “Bring out your dead,” as he pushes a cart carrying the bodies of the deceased.

As one body is tossed onto the cart, the presumably deceased man objects: “I’m not dead yet!” At which he is told he soon will be and that he should just lie down and die already.

Then, in true Monty Python fashion, they break into song.

Polaroid is the photographic equivalent of that old man; it just refuses to die, even though there is no longer any logical use for the once-popular technology. When Edwin Land introduced his first instant camera in 1947, he wowed the photography world with his amazing film that processed on its own. The impact was every bit as significant as digital photography would be some fifty years later. There wasn’t a serious photographer on the planet who didn’t snap a series of Polaroids to make sure the light and camera settings were correct before committing to film. Polaroids quickly became an indispensable part of the profession for anyone working in a studio. I shudder to think of the millions of Polaroid images scattered across studio floors that were eventually swept up and thrown away. If those Polaroids could talk …

Then came digital cameras and with them the ability to “preview” an image right on the camera. One knew instantly whether they had the shot or not. No waiting. No shaking. No suddenly discovering one had a bad packet of film (which happened too frequently). As the new millennium dawned, Polaroid’s days seemed numbered. Sales of both its cameras and films plummeted. Bankruptcy was inevitable and talk of the company’s demise just assumed that doors had already been shuttered and no one was left. [/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Folks at Polaroid weren’t so quick to just give up, though, and as though crying, “I’m not dead yet!” they came back in 2008 with an instant mobile printer and followed that with the Z340 instant digital camera in 2011. The company has recommitted itself to finding ways to bring their instant prints to a digital-centric society that has very little patience. While the Polaroid may no longer be a studio necessity, the new cameras as still a lot of fun and give a person that instant gratification of being able to hold a picture in their hands.

To some extent, creating a digital conversion to a Polaroid-type look seems, well, very anti-Polaroid. After all, having a Polaroid is all about the print, being able to hold something in one’s hands. Yet, for articles about the technology or perhaps just the uniqueness of the look, there are ways of re-creating most of the Polaroid film looks. You don’t want to try this on your own, though, unless you have more patience than I. Fortunately, you don’t have to be the brave explorer here. There are Photoshop™ actions all over the place that make it process much easier and, in this particular case, I suggest using one. I used one from rawimage which is available by clicking here. Be aware the link takes you to their page on DeviantArt. After running the action, we did a little burning around the edges to further “age” the image a bit and bring out the streaks that were inevitable with older Polaroids.

Keep in mind a couple of things. First, the actions require original images with strong lines and good contrast. I ran the action on a picture of a white wedding cake with a white topper and when it finished the topper had completely disappeared! Second, Polaroid images were not meant to be permanent. Don’t try to give them too polished a look or you’re missing the whole point. Polaroid was never a perfect film and the majority were inevitably thrown away. Don’t think the days of Polaroid are completely gone, though. They’re not dead yet.[/one_half_last]

Behind The Scenes / Photography / PotD

A Good Touch

July 24, 2015

Tintype

Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts. —Walker Evans

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Photography isn’t all that old of a medium and it has been one of constant change pretty much from the moment it first started. Fortunately, it is a well-documented history and we have done a decent job of preserving not only the images from the past but the manner in which they were taken. We can, though sometimes with a level of great difficulty, with a good touch duplicate almost any type of photography with either the original equipment or exact copies. Photographers tend to be a nostalgic bunch and no matter what advancements are made to the industry, there has always been those who prefer the way it used to be.

Photography inevitably invokes looks at the past because it is the past we have captured. Sure, sometimes it’s the recent past, but even if we share photographs “in real time” there is a lapse there that only grows longer. Today’s photo was taken in 2006, which is practically forever by digital standards. Given the temporary nature of anything digital, it is a bit surprising that nine-year-old photos still exist. The camera on which this shot was taken is just as much a relic now as would be a tintype. In fact, that is exactly the reason I chose to process this image using a tintype tonality. Both cameras are obsolete, but at least the tintype gives us a distinctive look into the past.

A good touch is necessary when doing any kind of “antique” look. There have been multiple methods of recreating this old look over the years, depending on what was available in a particular version of Photoshop™ and with all of them the challenge has been to not go overboard with the effect, making the image too dark or too light. All we can do is approximate the look, after all. Remember that original tintypes were printed on thin sheets of metal, not paper, which gave it a reflective tone not possible in a digital format. We’re also accustomed to seeing streaks and burning around the edges, but that is due to decay, not originally part of the image.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]I don’t use this conversion method often because to do so just ends up looking cheap and gimmicky. It works best on older digital images that are less than ten megapixels in depth and more likely to have a natural noise level similar to the grain of a tintype. Also remember that there are two different types of tintype, dry and wet, and each has its own tonal range. Try this on an image:

Duplicate the background layer. Desaturate and equalize the new layer and reduce its opacity to 25%.
Duplicate that new layer. Auto-adjust the levels and contrast on the new layer, then apply a smart blur with a radius of 3 and threshold of 25, quality: low.
Here’s the tricky part. Add a curves adjustment layer and make an adjustment in the red channel only. Make one adjustment point with input 128 and output 157, which curves upward, giving the image a light pink tone.
Create a second curves adjustment layer, this time doing an auto adjustment in each channel, red, green, and blue.
Create a levels adjustment layer and set the output to 50, 208.
Add a fill layer with the blending mode set to color. Use these settings: Red-255, Green-229, Blue-191.
Add a second fill layer. Set the blending mode to color and reduce the opacity to 40%. The settings are easy: Red-223, Green-223, Blue-223.

What you do beyond this point is totally up to you. We added a frame to our image for effect, but it really isn’t necessary. If an image is too clean, you might add some noise and if you want an aged look you could dodge and burn around the edges to create the streaking. Again, you’ll need a good touch, a delicate and reserved use of the tools, to not overdo the effect. This isn’t an everyday conversion, but for special images it can really stand out.[/one_half_last]

Behind The Scenes / Photography / PotD

Subtle Touches

July 22, 2015

Kodak T-Max 100

Photography deals exquisitely with appearances, but nothing is what it appears to be. —Duane Michals

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Do you remember the first picture you ever took? Chances are it wasn’t 35mm, but rather a popular consumer-grade fixed-lens camera. Poppa wouldn’t let me touch his Brownie, but we did own a series of little 110 Instamatics that were passed around to whichever family member wasn’t actually in the photo. I remember dumping that film cartridge in the back and looking through the small viewfinder, trying to not cut off everyone’s heads as Mother tended to do. If we were inside, there was a requirement for flash, which most often came in the form of a cube that sat on top of the camera. Getting four flashes without having to change cubes seemed so much more modern than the single-use bulbs required for the Brownie. Never mind that they tended to over-light, casts horrible shadows, and were anything but subtle. We were just having fun with friends and family. No one took seriously anything shot with a 110.

Using a 35mm film was different and something I didn’t experience until I was in college. It was the summer of 1981, if I remember correctly, and we were going to a family reunion of sorts, back to Arkansas and the little farming community where Poppa grew up. A friend loaned me his 35mm, loaded a roll of color 36-exposure color film, and showed me quickly how to focus the lens. I put the camera in the trunk of the car, largely afraid to use it for fear of causing damage. When I did try to take a few pictures with it, I was frustrated by the fact that a subtle movement could throw the entire picture out of focus. I didn’t even use the full 36 frames. I was sure, at that point, that photography at any advanced level wasn’t for me.

So much of photography seems to center around the big, highly-produced, carefully manipulated, high-processed images that appear in fashion magazines that we tend to lose sight of the subtle, more nuanced images where careful attention is given to the detail. Finer points of an image are easily lost as we mismanage light or fail to pay attention to precise settings on the camera. Sure, maybe no one notices, and perhaps no one cares, but when I look back at archived images, which is where we find most of our #POTD subjects, detail, or the lack of it, is the first thing my eyes catch. Subtle touches can make a tremendous amount of difference.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]No black and white film I’ve used handles those subtle touches better than Kodak Professional T-Max 100. When I first started taking pictures, this was the film I wasn’t allowed to touch; it was more expensive, required a photographer that knew what they were doing, and was reserved for those special occasions when someone of national prominence was visiting. There is no finer grain, no better resolving power, no sharper lines than is possible with this film. T-Max enlarges well, it is consistent in tone from batch to batch, and it handles the most subtle of details with finesse. Art photographers have long loved this film, but I always liked it for portraits as well because I feel like it does a better job of capturing everything one wants to see in a face.

Okay, so there are times T-Max can be fussy, especially in development. There is dramatic difference between the 100 speed and 400 speed versions of the film. 100 speed prefers longer exposure times, which may be great for portraits and still life, but is totally inappropriate for almost any kind of motion at all. The shorter the exposure time, the more the film struggles. Variances in any portion of the development environment affect the contrast and tone of the final image. Even subtle changes in temperature can have strong results. Similarly, one has to be careful with the conversion to digital. I used these settings for black and white adjustment: reds-37, yellows-70, greens-33, cyans-64, blues-28, magentas-68.

Whether there is, or can be, a good digital equivalent of T-Max 100 is open for debate. With digital images, grain, or more correctly, noise is introduced by the camera sensor and is not something easily removed in processing. T-Max 100 has such a fine grain that any noise in the image discounts the accuracy of the conversion. One needs to be extremely careful with any contrast adjustment as well. Still, when one is starting with a good image, this is a good method to use and the subtle handling of detail makes a world of difference.[/one_half_last]

Behind The Scenes / Photography / PotD

Surprise!

July 20, 2015

Fomapan

The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself, whether it be polished steel or palpitating flesh. —Edward Weston

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Surprise in photography is rarely a good thing. One of the most significant differences between shooting film and shooting digital is ease of traveling. When traveling with film, one has to take great pains going through security to make sure the film canisters are removed and not exposed to any x-ray or other devices that might damage the product. Sometimes security personnel were cooperative and understanding, sometimes they weren’t, especially in countries with a history of rebellious violence. Digital cameras sail through security much more easily, though it still makes me quite nervous.

Imagine being in a former Soviet-bloc country, such as the Czech Republic, and your film not surviving the airport. Suddenly, and frustratingly, the success of a high-budget project depends on finding a replacement film with high enough quality to do the job. After asking around, you find a local photographer who hands you a roll of a locally-made film he promises is professional quality. At least, you think that’s what he’s saying; the interpreter was having problems with the vocabulary. You drop the film in the camera and pray, hard. To make matters more challenging, lighting conditions for the shoot are far from perfect and you keep having to adjust exposure by a stop or two. Warning the art director that you can’t guarantee results seems like a good idea.

Next, you bring the film home and hand it off at a lab to be processed. After a couple of hours, the phone rings and you get the strange message that the film has turned both the developer and the negatives a bright blue! After sharing some strong words with the lab manager, he agrees to go ahead and finish processing the first roll. You wait patiently for the results and when they arrive you are pleasantly surprised to discover some of the sharpest photographs you’ve seen. Even when the exposure had to be adjusted, the film compensated more than adequately. Much to everyone’s delight, the project has been saved. Surprise![/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]As the former Soviet Union crumbled and both nation states and businesses struggled to retain some identity in this new existence, we discovered a host of smaller film companies who, to great surprise, created products that excelled in different ways. The Czech company now known as FOMA Bohemia is one of those companies. Founded in the early 1920s, the film products were rarely seen outside Eastern Europe until the mid-90s, after the Czech Republic was formed. They had the bad luck of hitting the global market just before the whole digital craze took hold and never had much of a chance to prove what they could do. The film is still available in limited quantities, but more for hobbyist than professional use.

Fomapan is an interesting film that likes to surprise photographers with slightly different results on every roll. These are good results, mind you, but how the film is scanned and any variation in how long they’re left in developer, which will still turn bright blue, shift the tonal base even for black and white film. This makes the film quite fun from an artistic perspective and totally frustrating when one needs consistency. Recreating the look digitally is easy enough, and one has plenty of latitude. For today’s photo, we used the following black and white adjustment settings: reds- 31, yellows- 89, greens- 105, cyans- 77, blues- 46, magentas- 44. Where the fun, and surprise, comes in is applying various color filters on top of the black and white layer. We used an orange filter to bring out the model’s freckles, but blue and red filters can be very dramatic.

Fomapan does play a little dark on blues and reds, so one has to be careful with shadows and shading. For added effect, mix this setting with a Holga filter if you have one. Fomapan in a Holga is truly a work of art, but is better for landscapes than portraits. Fomapan is a black and white with a lot of tonal flexibility. Try it and share the surprise.[/one_half_last]

Behind The Scenes / Photography / PotD

Remembering Days of Film

July 19, 2015

Agfa APX

Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything. —Aaron Siskind

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]There are days that I really miss using film. Not enough to actually pull out my old Canon A1 and load a roll, mind you, but I do miss the click and whir of the film advance, the limited number of shots that could be taken without interruption, and that feeling drilled into my head from the very beginning that every frame was valuable and therefore not to be wasted. I sometimes think we took better pictures with film because we took the time to actually think about what we were doing rather than just snapping away mindlessly. Using film requires thought. Each picture is a mini-project unto itself and there was always the consideration before snapping, “Is this really worth capturing?”

Film is still available, of course, and there are still a number of photographers who use it. The practicality of such, though, is questionable and it has largely become the domain of hobbyist who appreciate the artistry not only of shooting with film but developing it as well. Even then, what we see today in terms of emulsions and papers is nothing like what it once was. There is no more black and white paper. Many emulsions have moved toward “green” chemicals that are not as hard on the environment. While the moves make economic and ecological sense, what was lost was a tonal environment that was only possible under very specific conditions.

So, all this week we are taking a look at attempts to recreate the tonal environments of some popular black and white films with digital photography. For this experiment, you should know what we are using the latest cloud version of Adobe® Photoshop™ and conducting most of the tonal changes using the sliders in a black and white adjustment layer. We’ve also taken careful consideration as to which image is best served by which film process. Not every photo renders well with various processes and careful consideration should be taken. We also applied color filters to some images, but not all. We’ll let you know which ones were so modified. Yes, the whole thing is a little geeky.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Today’s image attempts to duplicate Agfa APX film. I’ll admit I have a soft spot in my heart for Agfa, not so much because of any superiority of the film, but because one of the company’s founders was Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy, the son of composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy whose music from A Midsummer’s Night Dream is more popularly known as the wedding march. Agfa began making camera film in 1898 and at one point enjoyed a popularity that rivaled that of Kodak. Today, unfortunately, after a disastrous attempt to split off the consumer imaging portion in 2005, Agfa is much smaller with much more limited offerings, operating primarily as a business-to-business concern in the field of medical imaging.

Agfa’s APX film is still widely available, especially online, and there are a number of photographers who still swear by it’s very fine grain and speed versatility. The speed of the film is questionable, though. If you have a camera that can do so, the 100-speed film actually works better at 80. 400 works best at 360. Obviously, not every camera can make that adjustment and it can modify the results. Digitally, this style is most easy to duplicate in an image with a light background behind a darker but well-lit subject. The black and white adjustment sliders don’t move a lot for this conversion: reds-50, yellows-91, greens-82, cyans-80, blues-33, and magentas-79. I also used a light green color filter on this image to correct some skin tone issues. Green, yellow, and orange filters work well with this setting. I kept the contrast moderate and added just the tiniest bit of grain to duplicate the older version of the film.

I much prefer how the photo looks using this process than leaving it in color. There’s a story in this picture and in black and white it compels us to imagine what that story might be. I won’t say that the duplication effect is 100% precise, but it’s close enough to give me warm fuzzies. This is going to be an interesting week. We hope you’ll join us every day.[/one_half_last]

Fashion / PotD

Beauty Is

July 10, 2015

Dangerous Fruit (2010)

Be pretty if you can, be witty if you must, but be gracious if it kills you. –Else DeWolfe

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]There once was a generation of women for whom beauty was an everyday fact of life. There was no “Casual Friday,” or lazy Saturdays where they skipped putting on makeup or just wore whatever they picked up off the floor. For women of this generation, beauty was not a social requirement as much as it was something they expected of themselves, even when others didn’t. What they wore, how they looked, how they spoke, and how they interacted was a matter of personal pride and nothing short of pure graciousness and perfection would do. They wouldn’t have gone downstairs in their pajamas, much less to the store.

I most distinctly remember a woman from this generation named Rose. Rose was already past standard retirement age by the time I met her. She and her husband had raised three boys and ran a small business in a small town in Oklahoma that wouldn’t have cared all that much had Rose taken her appearance a little less seriously. Stuck in the Northeastern corner of the state in a town that was perpetually dusty, Rose’s beauty stood out. Certainly, by the time I met her, she had more than earned the right to take a few days off from her routine on occasion, but to my knowledge she never did. She didn’t want to. Her appearance was important to her and that’s what mattered.

On one occasion, the purpose of which I don’t remember, I spent the night with Rose and her husband, a jovial man everyone referred to as Bus. They lived above their business in a house that was large and old and creaky. I was 12 years old and very apprehensive as to whether this old house might be haunted, so sleep wasn’t something that readily availed itself. Quite early in the morning, well before any reasonable person should be awake, I heard a noise down the hall. Slipping out of bed, I tiptoed down the broad corridor fully expecting to encounter something frightening. Instead, what I saw was Rose in her dressing room.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Being 12, there was much of what I saw that I didn’t understand at the time. Only much later did I realize what I had seen. Rose was already wearing a foundation that included a very large bra, an underbust corset, very high waisted briefs to which garter straps were attached, and stockings. To the side sat a full-length slip and the dress she would wear for the day. Her hair was in curlers and on the table in front of her was a collection of makeup and beauty products larger than I had ever seen outside a department store. I watched for several minutes, awestruck, as she went through her routine. Only when she moved to put on her slip and dress did I ease back to my room.

As an adult, I can appreciate everything Rose went through in an attempt to defy aging, and there’s no question her efforts paid off. There hung in her hallway pictures of her and Bus when they were younger. By today’s standards, Rose should have been a model; she was tall, shapely, and extremely attractive. Had she lived somewhere other than Oklahoma, she might have been a movie star. Instead, both she and Bus served during World War II and both were highly decorated. Where she was, the circumstances under which they lived and worked, didn’t matter. Rose made the same effort, went through the same routine, every day.

It is rare today to find anyone who takes beauty as seriously as did Rose. When I do encounter someone wearing an underbust and garters, it tends to be more as a costume than for function. I don’t think women today feel they have the time or the energy to devote to such a regimen, yet no one worked any harder than Rose did. Such beauty and graciousness is a choice.

Rose died when I was 19. She was 84. She never looked a day over 50 and she was never without a smile and a kind word. Beauty is worth the effort. [/one_half_last]

Fashion / PotD

All About The Booty

July 9, 2015

Painted Angels (2010)

“The bottom of a cup of coffee is not as good as the bottom of her body—which is actually in the middle of her body.” ― Jarod Kintz, I love Blue Ribbon Coffee

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Boy shorts.
Briefs.
French cut.
Hipsters.
Bikini.
Thong.
G-string.

Covering women’s posteriors is a style of fashion all its own. In contemporary society, no part of the female anatomy is more celebrated than is the gluteus maximus and the underwear chosen often has a specific purpose and, perhaps, even a non-verbal message. When it comes to what sits between them and their jeans, women are often quite picky. Sure, there are certain stages in life where one might only be concerned with which pair is clean as they stumble out of bed, but for the majority choosing underwear is a matter of both comfort and practicality. Sensual qualities may be a secondary consideration, but no one wants a pair of underwear that doesn’t fit well and results in chaffing, no matter how good it might look.

For men in a relationship, the matter of women’s underwear is dangerous and threatening territory. One day she’s wearing a thong, which he finds attractive and sexy. The next day she’s wearing briefs, aka granny panties, and he’s confused why she would choose a look so much more conservative and decidedly not sexy. When she wears something french cut and lacy, he may find them more challenging to remove during a moment of passion. And if he goes shopping with her for new underwear, the inevitable question of, “do these make my butt look big,” looms like a guillotine above his head.

Yes, not every woman bothers with underwear. We get that. But most do and for many what they wear down there may be a more significant matter than what they wear over it.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]From a position of pure practicality, each style has it’s purpose. Boy shorts, for example, minimize panty lines when one is wearing a style that hugs one’s rear end. “That time of the month” is when many women choose briefs, though they also work with high-waisted pants and sometimes even come with some form of tummy control. The high cut of French cut panties works well with skirts and dresses that have slits up to there. Bikinis are always popular because they work with just about anything, though the elastic sometimes shows depending on the style. Low-rise jeans have made hipsters more popular as they provide the comfort of boy shorts without being visible. Thongs work for the tightest of clothing and G-strings are something one wears when one has to wear something but doesn’t really want anything.

As with any fashion style, variations abound and the type of fabric and finishing can play as much into the comfort and sexiness of any given piece. Not every style works on every body and figuring out what’s best changes as one ages. Life experience, childbirth, heredity, and even some medications can dramatically affect the shape and size of hips and surrounding muscles. There are times when no amount of diet and exercise can remove what an over-active thyroid has delivered. Lycra and similar fabrics work great for those who are athletic and active, but cotton breathes better and helps avoid certain infections. Every woman knows that there’s not just one type and one style that works for them.

One thing for certain, though, is that no matter what a woman is wearing on her bottom, people are going to always look on with admiration at a well-ensconced posterior. The Western world especially is so fascinated with booty that we sing about them. Song titles ranging from Queen’s “Fat-bottomed Girl” to Sir Mix-a-lot’s infamous “Baby’s Got Back,” and even Megan Trainer’s catchy “All About That Bass,” among dozens of others. With all that attention on their back sides, it’s no wonder that what women choose to wear there is a rather important matter.[/one_half_last]

Fashion / PotD

A Shape That’s Unforgettable

July 8, 2015

Corsetted (2011). Model: Carrie Pennington

A girl should be two things: sexy and fabulous. –Coco Chanel

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Society seems to have always been obsessed with the shape of women’s bodies and women have always been looking for ways to alter their body shape to meet whatever the current fashions might dictate. Pretty much every body type imaginable has been “in” at one point in history or another. Never mind what might be natural or healthy, manipulating body proportions has been a consistent issue for women forever, presumably even dating back to the earliest cave dwellers. The ability to find a mate once depended on how a woman’s shape for her child-producing potential. If the woman didn’t meet that current standard, she could well be left out of the clan and would have to forage for herself. Women’s body issues go all the way back.

No one is exactly sure when women started undergarments designed to alter their shape, but there certainly have been many over the years. Petticoats and hoop skirts both created the illusion of broader hips while, presumably, protecting a woman’s purity. Precursors to the bra actually pushed down a woman’s breast to keep them from appearing too large. Most have, thankfully, gone so far out of style that they are now nothing more than museum pieces. Yet, at least since the 16th century, one piece has adapted and endured to become a cherished piece of a woman’s lingerie collection: the corset.

While there’s no documentation as to when corsets were first used, we do know that some of the earliest versions bordered on cruelty. The ribs were made of iron and pulled impossibly tight. Some speculation exists that they might have originally been meant as an orthopedic device, which makes a little sense despite the fact they were probably not very effective. By the mid-16th century, corsets, which were then known as stays, were more decorative and worn as external pieces over the bodice of a dress, but by a century later they were demoted strictly to underwear, beneath the bodice or other clothing.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Corsets softened considerably and became much more kind during the 18th century, though pulling one tight could be both comical to watch and deadly to experience. By the early 20th century, they were all but forgotten until photographer Horst P. Horst took the iconic photo of a woman in a corset that is the inspiration for today’s photo. That photograph brought new attention to the corset as a fashion piece with a number of variations being developed that were less restrictive to the abdomen and more supportive of the breasts.

Popularity waxed and waned over the mid-century decades, but then designer Jean-Paul Gaultier brought the corset back as an external garment in the 80s and they’ve not gone away since. Every season someone tries a slightly different variation, working them into styles from evening wear to casual streetwear. Look around and one can find a corset, or corset-type garment, for just about any occasion. They have almost become a standard part of a woman’s wardrobe and look sexy and alluring on many different body types, which give them a universal popularity.

We see a lot being said today about body shaming and its detrimental effects. While there is unquestionable validity to the movement, what ultimately matters is how a woman feels about herself. Corsets are attractive and for some women help them to feel more sexy and confident. While no one should ever feel forced to wear anything or feel obligated to look a certain way, one needs to feel good about themselves and corsets help do that. Whether over, under, or as the only garment, corsets produce a shape that is as unforgettable as the person wearing it.[/one_half_last]

PotD

Independence For Myself

July 4, 2015

Princess (2011)

“I think it’s neat you do what you want. Not enough chicks do that, if you ask me–just tell society and their expectations to go fuck themselves. If more women did that, we’d be better off.”― Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Independence Day. As a country, we are very loud, very proud, and nothing short of ostentatious in proclaiming the anniversary of our nation’s birth. I’m not sure any other country in the world is quite as over-the-top in their celebrations as are we. I’m okay with the annual pomposity to a large degree. Yes, we have a multitude of problems and we’re damn sure a long way from perfect, but that the wheels have yet to come flying off this experimental bus is, in the perspective of political history, quite amazing. So yes, let’s celebrate what we have that separates us from other countries on the planet.

Equally important, though, is that we celebrate our own independence, who we are as individuals and what separates me from you and you from the rest of the pack. We are taught that, at the most basic genetic level, no two people are alike. Yet, we still struggle to differentiate ourselves, men from other men, women from other women, photographers from other photographers, clowns from Republican Presidential candidates (I’m sorry, that last statement really is insulting to clowns and I hope they’ll forgive me). Our world is so overcrowded that it is difficult to find our own voice in an environment where too often we can’t even hear ourselves think.

We also have to face the danger that in our effort to separate ourselves from the pack we lose sight of the fact we are all still human. For all our talk about individuality, there are still some aspects of our existence where we must join together and act as a unit, putting all our differences aside. We do this to protect our common good, provide for the general welfare, and to secure the liberty we hold so dear. When we become so separate as to not participate in the necessary aspects of humanity, we sacrifice not only our independence but our common brotherhood. [/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Anytime we declare independence on any level, we have to realize that we are bucking a system that would prefer we all be homogenous, follow the rules, and do what we’re told. Just as the British fought back against the colonists, we often find ourselves at war to establish our own rightful place in the world. Sometimes that battle is against tradition, values and belief systems that have been handed down from generation to generation. Others fight against strong biases that say, “you can’t ….” Still others end up fighting against their own family when they choose to do or be something that no one in the family has done or been ever before. Fathers scold sons. Mothers chastise daughters. Honor is questioned.

I’ve known more than a few people who had to strike out on their own at an early age, leaving behind what barely passed as a family in an effort to somehow survive the conditions into which they had been unceremoniously dumped. Crack babies can grow up to graduate college with honors. Abandoned children who were almost twelve years old before they found out food was supposed to be hot went on to become strong, solid, caring individuals. A young man whose father was murdered in a drug deal goes on to be a successful entrepreneur. A little girl who was told she’d never amount to anything becomes CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

Independence. Mine. Yours. Some wear it in their hearts. Others wear it on their skin. No matter how your independence evolved or how it presents itself now, that do-or-die individuality within you is worth celebrating. Go ahead, light a sparkler or two, set off a brightly colored rocket, or put a match to a string of firecrackers. Celebrate our Independence. Celebrate your Independence. As different as we all are, when it comes right down to it we’re a great country.[/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary / Uncategorized

Independent Thought

July 1, 2015

Tied To TV (2006)

“No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore to us the belief in our own guidance.” ― Henry Miller

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Our obsession with media was predictable, and widely predicted. Even by 1964, when television was allegedly in its Golden Age, children’s author Roald Dahl saw the enslavement factor so obvious as to include it in one of the characters in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Saying matters have only grown worse since is a severe understatement. Not only have we become more enslaved by media, but we continually create new forms of media to keep our minds, and our opinions, closely tied to whatever output mechanism manages to keep our highly unreliable attention for more than five seconds. We know we’re addicted and that our habit is bad for us, but we are absolutely unwilling to even attempt to break the cord, firm in the belief that we are better off with the knowledge that media imparts.

Granted, there was one a time when media such as printed pamphlets and newspapers were beneficial. In fact, one can reasonably argue that our country’s Declaration of Independence from England would never have happened if not for the influence and information distributed by Thomas Paine is his Common Sense pamphlet. Since 1837, the press has wielded sufficient influence as to be referred to as the fourth estate (a reference to pre-revolution French society divided into the estates: the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners). As the reach of the press grew, so did its influence. In 1897, Francis P. Church validated the presence of Santa Claus by telling little Virginia that, “If you see it in the Sun, it must be true.”

As the reach of the press grew, so did its influence. In 1897, Francis P. Church validated the presence of Santa Claus by telling little Virginia that, “If you see it in the Sun, it must be true.” Edward R. Murrow was the voice of all that was true in the 1950s and following him Walter Cronkite became known as “the most trusted man in America.” Not that everything in the field of journalism was always reliable, but there was a basis of trust and expectation of honesty that allowed people to ingest their information with a sense of security.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]The media monster to which we are now tied has no sense of security to it at all. We have gotten to the point that we allow the media we consume to do all our thinking for us. If something is not validated by our preferred source, then it simply cannot be correct. That multiple sources are never in agreement doesn’t seem to bother us. We choose sides and assume that one is always wrong while the other is always correct, when often the truth of a matter is nowhere near what we’re being told by any major source.

Thomas Paine said something that I think is poignant:

There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts: those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord.

Notice what is missing from that definition: external influence. Not that Paine expected people to just automatically know everything, but rather he expected that they would take information, such as what he produced, and use that to think, reflect, and come to a reasonable opinion of one’s accord. There’s not accommodation here for allowing any external party to make our opinions for us. In fact, Paine and his peers would find the degree to which we’ve surrendered our thought process to be quite alarming.

Declaring Independence from media is difficult. One has a need to be reasonably informed and the expectations of today’s society are such that one’s need for information is almost immediate. At the same time, though, we should never allow that media to do our thinking for us. Talking heads spouting opinion rather than fact need to be severed from the public arena and not fed their diet of shares and likes and hashtag mentions. We need to take time to step away, to reflect on what we’ve been told and form our own opinion, then see what thoughts might bolt into our minds of their own accord. [/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

An Independence Of Your Own

June 28, 2015

Being In Control (2010). Model: Angela Denton

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I anticipate a lot of talk this week about Independence and what it means. There will be a lot of flag waving, a lot of history (heavily slanted to match one’s opinions), and a lot of chest thumping on the part of Americans. All that is well and good, I suppose. We’re coming into this week all riled up because of everything that happened last week and it probably does us well to take some time and really look at our heritage, the good, the bad, and everything in between. While I’m not sure an honest assessment has ever been possible (the victor writes the history books), to understand why our country was founded and the conditions for that declaration on July 4, 1776 is an obligation we have as citizens. If there’s one thing on which our country is largely united, it is that our Independence is well worth celebrating.

Plus, we really like to blow stuff up. I mean, we REALLY like to blow stuff up. The bigger, the brighter, the louder, the better. I don’t know how it is where you live, but my neighbors have already started, much to my chagrin. I’m an early riser. These posts don’t write themselves, after all. Being that by 4:30 AM I’m usually up and slinging various curses at whatever piece of furniture upon which I’ve stubbed a toe, I typically can’t help falling asleep around 10:00 each evening. This week, however, my neighbors have taken to random acts of patriotic celebration just a wee bit early. Their timing is perfect; just as I’m about to doze off, BOOM! Blowing stuff up is a time-honored means of celebrating our country’s Independence. Folks get upset when one complains.

We also like to take this time to brag about how great America is and tout all our accomplishments over the past 239 years. Nothing wrong with that, either, though one might argue that the list is getting shorter rather than longer. As the world changes, military and economic powers inevitably come and go in terms of superiority and influence. We do well to be proud of our country, but should be cautious that we don’t allow that pride to blind us to our own shortcomings and the need for continued progress on more issues than I have space to list here. Flying an American flag means little when beneath that flag there are still people starving, homeless, and relegated to second-class citizenship for any reason.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Independence is more than just a national thing, though, and if we’re going to celebrate it we should look as much at the individual side of that word. Personal independence, to not be under the influence or reliant upon external entities of any kind, is something many of us tout, but few actually have. Those who do are often labeled as troublemakers because they don’t follow along blindly with the group, or loners because they don’t have the need to be constantly surrounded by people who agree with them. Independent women, especially, are likely to be insulted, referred to in unkind terms, and outcasts from male-dominated portions of society. She may even be told that she is violating the tenets of her religion. If that woman happens to be a person of color, her independence is likely critical to her survival but be sure she will be criticized at every step for expressing that independence.

By now you are likely asking what any of this has to do with today’s photo. Provocative, isn’t it? I chose this picture because if there is one place where personal independence has exploded it is with our sexuality. We have gone beyond occasional expressions of one inclination or another to fully embracing who we are, who we choose to love, and how we choose to express that love. We have also tossed out the window the reliance on old stereotypes and are beginning to let who and what we are in the bedroom extend to more of our lives outside that space. Look at the picture and you see a young woman who is very much in charge of the moment, exercising her independence in a very personal way.

Personal independence takes many different forms and what is appropriate and necessary for one may not fit another. Independence for a child is being able to go to the restroom on their own. Independence for the elderly may be caring for themselves in their own home. Independence for a wounded warrior may be the ability to stand on prosthetic legs after losing theirs to an improvised exploding device. Independence is being able to exercise the right to vote without unnecessary rules getting in the way. Independence is being able to proudly say I am who I am and no one can tell me to be different. This is the independence worth celebrating. Fireworks optional.[/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

And The Living Is Easy

June 27, 2015

A Quiet Moment (2012). Model: Sarah Harris

“All in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer — one of those summers which come seldom into any life, but leave a rich heritage of beautiful memories in their going — one of those summers which, in a fortunate combination of delightful weather, delightful friends and delightful doing, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world.” ― L.M. Montgomery, Anne’s House of Dreams

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]So much has happened this week. Global media and the Internet hardly know where to turn because the amount of excitement, and in some cases concern, is overwhelming. We do well to focus on one thing at a time and this week has seen the country grapple with issues of race and symbolism, healthcare, affordable housing (hope that one didn’t sneak past you) and marriage equality. We’ve been so very busy with what’s going on in our own country that we’ve largely ignored anything happening elsewhere. Greece appears to be going into default. The self-proclaimed Islamic State killed dozens in France, Tunisia, and Kuwait. China has been selling 40-year-old meat. The Vatican officially recognized the Palestinian State. This has not been the quiet summer week I had anticipated when we started on Sunday.

In fact, if this is how the summer is going to start, I’m rather fearful of where we might go next. Both of the really big Supreme Court rulings have been handled now. There’s no more good news left to immediately anticipate. Should we be setting ourselves up to deal with disaster, death, and destruction? Certainly, there are some who are calling for such in the wake of this week’s rulings, but we tend to look upon those as extreme views, and, like almost everything Americans say, we don’t actually expect anyone to follow through on those threats.

Summer is that time we want to just live in the moment, not worry about what happened yesterday or might happen tomorrow, but throw caution to the wind and enjoy what is happening right now. Certainly, we need those moments. We need a lot of those moments. Our minds do not respond well to this constant overflow of information and we desperately need and long for days where the valve is shut off for a few minutes and we can just soak up the sun and give our minds time to process. If we keep going at full tilt, then we put our health and perhaps even our lives in danger. Stress kills and has a large arsenal of weapons at its disposal. [/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]At some point in the future, maybe ten or even twenty years from now, we might look back on this summer and remember something, but what will it be? Will this week’s SCOTUS decisions be the highlight? For those directly affected by the outcome, perhaps so. I have friends from high school who were quite anxious about applying for a marriage license yesterday. For the rest of us, though, there remain several weeks of summer where we might still find even more monumental events. If so, I do hope they are happy ones.

Not everyone gets happy summer memories. Another friend’s father died today, rather unexpectedly. I don’t have to wonder how he’ll remember this summer. The obituary page is never empty and for every name listed there is someone whose summer has been devastated. So it is with every summer. Some win. Some lose. Some are fortunate if they come out even. Kat’s little ones might remember this as the summer of their first garden. Some will remember this as the summer of the great floods, while others remember the severe droughts, dramatic water rationing, and life-threatening heat. Everyone’s experience is different and everyone’s memory unique, even when it’s faulty.

So, perhaps it best that we end this week of summertime joys with a moment of reflection, looking back on all that has happened this week and pondering what might yet come down the road. If you are lucky, perhaps you can do that pondering while sitting on the end of a springboard, dangling your feet in a pool. Maybe you can have the moment of reflection while sitting in the shade of a great tree or snuggling with a pet. Whatever your situation, take a moment to turn off the intake valve and rest. There’s still a whole lot of summer left to enjoy.[/one_half_last]

PotD

Skinny Dipping

June 23, 2015

A Morning Dip (2005)

“If it could only be like this always – always summer, always alone, the fruit always ripe and Aloysius in a good temper…” ― Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]One of the joys of growing up in the country was slipping off on our bicycles in the middle of a summer afternoon to the low-water bridge about a mile from our house and going skinny dipping. Not that we ever actually admitted that we were skinny dipping. I’d get my shorts wet anyway so that Mother wouldn’t be suspect. Still, the joy wasn’t just in being in the shallow pool of cool water that flowed over that crumbling slab of concrete; the delight was being naked, au naturale in nature as though, just maybe, the gods had intended for us to be that way all along.

According to Poppa’s sermon, technically, that philosophy was right. While I didn’t have any direct proof that Adam and Eve ever went skinny dipping, if they didn’t have any clothes then they wouldn’t have had much choice, did they? The only other option was that they didn’t bathe at all and that would have just been gross, even if they were, in all likelihood, totally fictional. Even fictional characters should be clean, shouldn’t they? And little boys need to be clean, as mothers are so often fond of reminding them. Going skinny dipping always seemed like the perfect solution, especially if we had spent the earlier part of the day getting absolutely filthy.

Skinny dipping in that tiny little pool made our summers right up to the point when, mid-way through the summer we were 16, someone saw a water moccasin in our pool. I didn’t see it, but the scream of “SNAKE!” was all I needed. We were all out of the water and pulling on our shorts as quickly as possible while simultaneously, every one of us, trying to hold our hands over our family jewels. If there was one place on our body we absolutely could not stand to be snake bit, it was our penises. They had only just recently grown to a point of not being totally embarrassing. We didn’t want to lose them to a damn snake.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]That was the last summer in that little watering hole. We moved the next year and I was far too upset at the lack of attractive girls my age to be terribly interested in skinny dipping. There was that place way back on Turkey Creek that was suitable, but driving all the way out there was a pain and if it had rained in the past couple of days one was likely to get stuck crossing the pasture. I did sneak off a couple of times with that blonde I met at church camp. I’ve often wondered whatever happened to her… if only I could remember her name.

Skinny dipping is a bonus that comes with living in the country in the summer. City dwellers are much more uptight about being naked in their public pools. The model’s boyfriend let us into the pool at their apartment complex before the sun was fully up for us to catch today’s photo. We were early enough we didn’t think anyone would notice. Someone did, of course, and he damn near lost his job over it. City people really get stressed and worked up about these matters. Perhaps, just maybe, if they spent a little more time skinny dipping they might be better able to relax and enjoy their summer. If one can’t kick back and relax a bit when the weather is this lovely, when is it ever possible?

I’ve not been skinny dipping in over 30 years now, I’m sorry to say. It’s not as easy to slip off, not as easy to find a place suitably secluded, and as an adult if one gets caught it tends to result in the police getting called. That’s almost as bad as a snake bite; no one really needs either one. Still, I have some wonderful memories of those carefree days from my youth and even an old man can still fantasize a bit. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll stumble across the perfect little pool of water while no one’s looking. Who’s down to join me?[/one_half_last]

Photography / PotD

Of Highlights and Shadows

June 6, 2015

The Other Side (2010)

Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography. – George Eastman

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I chose today’s quote quite carefully and with deliberate intention. I’m not sure anyone has ever understood light in relationship to photography quite as thoroughly as did George Eastman. When a friend suggested he make a photographic record of a trip he was about to take, Eastman found the wet plate camera and equipment so bulky and difficult that he ended up never taking the trip! Born from that frustration, though, were innovations such as fixed-lens cameras, rolled film, and a chemical development process that was significantly less likely to kill the photographer. Eastman saw what photography could become and then took the steps to make sure it got there. The bulk of his contributions to our profession are unparalleled and quite likely will never be surpassed by any one person.

Eastman knew, among many other things, that photography needed to be accessible, that people needed to be able to capture all the moments of their lives, not just those for which people had time to sit and impatiently wait. When he introduced the Brownie camera in 1900, it sold for a mere one dollar and while a dollar was still of significant value at that time, Eastman’s invention put cameras in the hands of more people, and made it possible to capture more images, than anything or anyone had done prior. In his opinion, Eastman felt that there was absolutely nothing, no single aspect of the human existence, that was not worth photographing.

One of the challenges Eastman faced, though, was the fact that many of the people buying these new cameras of his had absolutely no concept of what photography was, how it worked, or how to take a good picture. Those early Brownie users had no idea that a subject sitting fully in the sun was likely to be over-exposed, while those sitting in the shade were going to be quite in the dark. A very high number of unrecognizable pictures could have very easily caused the new inventions to fail in the market. One of the most under-recognized aspects of Eastman Kodak amateur film was its ability to balance out some of those lights and shadows so that errors of ignorance would be less severe.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Over time, we’ve come to understand more about highlights and shadows and how to manipulate the two so as to achieve different styles and tones and ranges of depth in our photographs. We are able to meter with relative position the best camera settings for images such as today’s photo. Our highlights are high enough to be bright, but not out of gamut. Our shadows have nice, measured gradients that gently define curves and muscles. Eastman would have unquestionably been amazed by the ability of contemporary cameras to translate and manipulate highlights and shadows to such accurate levels.

Highlights and shadows are not only part of photography, though. They are part of business and they are part of life. Eastman Kodak has struggled to adapt and find its way in a digital world. The company that once defined photography for a large number of people around the world is now but an afterthought and many younger photographers don’t even recognize. George Eastman had his own shadows as well. Faced with increasing pain from a spinal disease that made it difficult to walk, on March 24, 1932, Eastman penned a short note:

Dear friends —

My work is done.
Why wait?
GE

He then shot himself through the heart, ending an era of some of the greatest innovation photography has ever seen.

Natural light is an amazing tool and certainly the more we understand light better able we are to create stunning photographs. We do well, though, to mind the highlights and shadows, to use them effectively and be careful to keep them in balance, both on camera and off.[/one_half_last]

history

Women’s fashion is a subtle form of bondage. It’s men’s way of binding them. We put them in these tight, high-heeled shoes, we make them wear these tight clothes and we say they look sexy. But they’re actually tied up.—David Duchovny

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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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The paradox of education is precisely this – that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.—James A. Baldwin

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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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You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.—Mahatma Gandhi

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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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The whole thing of clothes is insane. You can spend a dollar on a jacket in a thrift store. And you can spend a thousand dollars on a jacket in a shop. And if you saw those two jackets walking down the street, you probably wouldn’t know which was which.—Helen Mirren

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Fashion is mysterious, as a rule. Why are blue jeans a classic? You just hit on something that happens to be timeless and right.-Diane von Furstenberg

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I have often said that I wish I had invented blue jeans: the most spectacular, the most practical, the most relaxed and nonchalant. They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity – all I hope for in my clothes. -Yves Saint-Laurent

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Just because people throw it out and don’t have any use for it, doesn’t mean it’s garbage. ― Andy Warhol

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When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence. ― Ansel Adams

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I’m definitely a Polaroid camera girl. For me, what I’m really excited about is bringing back the artistry and the nature of Polaroid. —Lady Gaga

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Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts. —Walker Evans

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Photography deals exquisitely with appearances, but nothing is what it appears to be. —Duane Michals

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The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself, whether it be polished steel or palpitating flesh. —Edward Weston

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Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything. —Aaron Siskind

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Be pretty if you can, be witty if you must, but be gracious if it kills you. –Else DeWolfe

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“The bottom of a cup of coffee is not as good as the bottom of her body—which is actually in the middle of her body.” ― Jarod Kintz, I love Blue Ribbon Coffee

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A girl should be two things: sexy and fabulous. –Coco Chanel

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“I think it’s neat you do what you want. Not enough chicks do that, if you ask me–just tell society and their expectations to go fuck themselves. If more women did that, we’d be better off.”― Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

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“No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore to us the belief in our own guidance.” ― Henry Miller

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“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

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“If it could only be like this always – always summer, always alone, the fruit always ripe and Aloysius in a good temper…” ― Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

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Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography. – George Eastman

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