From Mumbai with love and grief

Thanks to twitter I found the blog of Arun Shanbhag, who took his camera out onto the streets of Mumbai as the dawn rose, and has posted many of his photos on his blog.

Warning: some of the pictures are graphic, no mangled human bodies, but still disturbing. However, if you think you are up to it, the pictures and comments are well worth a look.

His most recent update, with the newly burning Taj Hotel photographed against the night sky, says that after keeping his composure all day, he is finally reduced to tears by the sight of the Taj in flames.

I don’t have words, really, except that I am so sorry for the awful losses of those in Mumbai, and angry at the mindless brutality that caused them.

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Gazing into another time

A little piece in today’s newspaper led me to this blog. The short version: photographer finds excellent photographs from the 1930′s and 40′s among the other offerings at an estate sale and buys as many as she can. Then she follows up and finds that they were taken by Ellet N. Shepherd (1901 – 1965), Denver lawyer and judge. She gets the rest of the unsold photographs and has shared several of them with the rest of us on a blog.

On reading the article I clipped it out, grabbed my coffee and moved into the study to visit the blog. And I’ve been somewhere else for the last half hour as I look at the pictures and read some of the newspaper articles about Ellet Shepherd’s time as a prosecutor and a judge.

I’m visiting a Denver I have often wished I knew, a much smaller town that I might not have liked but suspect I would. It is I’m sure a longing driven by the desire for simplicity and certainty.

I have visited that place before, often by way of some of Sandra Dallas‘ novels – especially New Mercies. And I pored over the details of the town and people in Mainliner Denver (heck, I even met one of the lawyers in that case, who was still around many years later when I moved here fresh out of law school and passed the bar).

Honestly? One of these days I may just go down to the public library and read old local newspapers on microfilm or however they are stored now, just for the heck of it and not in search of anything special.

In the meantime, I am engaged with Judge Shepherd’s pictures, and the places I go when I look at them.

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Warm, sunny and pretty

It’s friggin’ cold and windy here.  So last night, using Virtual Painter 5, I had fun with some pictures I took at the Botanic Gardens in warmer seasons.  Here are a few of my creations.  Look ma, I’m an artist!

 

Wherever you are, be safe tonight.  Happy New Year!

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Breaking up is hard to do

We met nearly ten years ago, and got acquainted mostly sitting there in the dining room of my old bungalow.  He was talented, easy to get along with, and not one of those high-maintenance types.

Of course, we both changed as the years went by, although our working relationship remained strong.  I came to depend on him.  He was there for me to help me edit my pictures from my first digital camera and my first scanner, and we both developed our skills along the way.

But over the last several months, he’s changed.  He’s gotten tempermental and unreliable.  He often just quits in the middle of something, and because I’m so used to him and his ways, I’ve put up with it for longer than I should have.  I’ve even spent more money than I should have, trying to make things work between us.

But I decided the other day that it’s over.  And now I’m looking for something to replace what I’ve lost, and I’m bummed about it. 

Yes, finally, after all these years, I am parting ways with my old favorite photo editing software, Paint Shop Pro. 

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First snow of the season

It fell on Sunday morning.  By Monday afternoon - yesterday – it was going fast.  Solar snow removal – we’re good at that around here.

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Window or aisle seat?

One thing about digital photography:  you can take literally hundreds of pictures in a short time.  Especially if you carry spare batteries and memory cards – which I do.   But another thing about digital photography:  you have to do something with all those pictures you took.

I’ve been editing the photos I took on a few recent trips.  I’ve spent hours at it over the last couple of weeks.   And I’m not done yet.   I’m posting the finished products on my zenfolio page.  

The most time-consuming project:  the zillion or so pictures I took on a 26-day vacation trip to Australia, New Zealand and Fiji last May.   That’s my longest trip ever.  We flew 22,000 miles on commercial flights and covered a few thousand more on road trips.  During which I decided I prefer aisle seats on airplanes; a practical choice.   In an aisle seat you can get up and move around without bothering your neighbors (or waking them up) during the flight, pop up and get something out of the overhead bin, and position yourself to get the heck off the aircraft after it lands. 

What you lose, of course, is the view out the window.  I’m glad I had a window seat on the flight from Melbourne to Alice Springs.  I was so awed by the vast red landscape below us that I snapped some pictures of it through the window, including this one.  Knowing of course that taking pictures through airplane windows is a dubious proposition.  Although I’m often fascinated by what can be seen from those windows.

I’m rethinking my aisle seat preference, because I’m reading Window Seat, a book by Julieanne Kost which you just need to go get your hands on.  Now.  It’s subtitled “The Art of Digital Photography & Creative Thinking” and it’s full of cool pictures and thought-provoking words. 

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