All posts by Thomas Pindelski

About Thomas Pindelski

The author

Aboard Air Force One

Photographs

A pleasant memory

Yesterday’s column reminds me of my Air Force One experience. We were told to line up just so and under no conditions were we to take pictures. Probably five to life at Guantanamo if you dared.

Screw that, says I. I own a part of this plane – I paid for it. Or, as its last custodian once famously remarked when some leftie tried to cut him off at a meeting he had funded – “Mr. Chairman, I paid for this microphone!”


Aboard Reagan’s Air Force One

A moment’s clandestine work with my point-and-shoot digital – near silent and unobtrusive if the flash is off – is all it took. The guard securing this national treasure and repository of military secrets – in reality a 40 year old Boeing 707 which you couldn’t give away for scrap – was but two feet away.

You can enjoy the same experience by making your way to the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, just north of west Los Angeles, and while you’re there, you can learn about the last great leader our nation enjoyed.

The line waiting to get in:

The arrogance of power

Photographs

Pricey snapshot

The WSJ reports that the flyby in NYC, causing so much panic, cost $300,000. The intent apparently was to take a snap of Air Force One flying by the Statue of Liberty – a laudable idea, but …. $300 Big Ones in these times suggests a certain disconnect with the working man, no?


The resulting picture

One of the costlier pictures of 2009. Though I must add it’s simply a show stopper. Beats me why they didn’t erase the clutter in the background.

Marking time

Photographs

Spotted in Morro Bay, CA

Just messing about, not really looking, I came across this wonderful Austin FX4 diesel taxi abandoned in a derelict lot.

It pays to take the back roads.


5D, 24-105mm at 24mm

As a kid in London I can only remember having been in these twice, a scarcity directly correlated with my lack of money (or poor parental choice, if you prefer). The smell of the leather was simply intoxicating.

The Jackling Mansion

Architecture, Photographers

Great pictures of this controversial building

Click here for a wonderful selection of pictures of the Jackling Mansion, Steve Jobs’s home that he very much wants to pull down to build something useable.

Can’t say I blame him looking at these. It’s what I think of as a Wrecking Ball Special. Jobs probably needs to step up the bribes, er …. computer donations, if he’s serious about tearing down this eyesore which looks more like the No Tell Motel than any mansion I have seen. Once, a long time ago in America, a man’s home was his castle to do with as he saw fit. No more, it seems.

You can see more of Haeber’s work here.

So waddya care if it’s posed?

Photographers, Photographs

It’s the result that matters, not the means

Apropos nothing, I was reminded of a comment a fellow photoblogger made, addressing one of my snaps. I was heavily into photoblogging three years ago but got tired of all the sycophancy and lightweight comments passing for constructive criticism. Hardly a conduit for learning and improving.

His words were to the effect of “I would rate it a 10 if it was not posed”. Charming and comical at the same time. Viewed logically, he was awarding points for a mixture of luck and skill in taking the picture clandestinely. I’m not sure I understand that. I’m all for rewarding spontaneity when it comes to the performing arts, say, or scientific research. That’s how breakthroughs happen. But for a medium whose sole appeal is to the sense of vision, what does it really matter whether the picture was spontaneous or not?

Allow me to illustrate with four examples – Posed, I’m Not Telling, Sacrilege …. and a Real Corker:

1 – Posed:

Surely on the short list of all times great ‘decisive moment’ snaps, is Robert Doisneau’s ‘Le Baiser’:

Doisneau, whose work I adore, was your typical French leftie-with-commie-sympathies but, God bless him, was happy to admit that his most famous picture was posed.

2 – I’m Not Telling

This is my picture which occasioned that funny remark at the introduction to this piece:

All I will say is that it’s always awful fun snapping pictures of my beautiful son.

3 – Sacrilege

The thought that the single greatest photograph of the Twentieth Century was posed is pure sacrilege.

Yet it is that very thought that gave life to this entry …. have you ever wondered that the balletic figure on the wall and the fatso about to splash are just too much of a coincidence?

4 – A Real Corker:

You think I was going to ask a guy who does not even speak English to pose for this? Get real:

Still, whether it’s posed or not is irrelevant. All that matters is the result.