Category Archives: Photographs

The civilized home

No more overheating.

The BMW airhead may have been more than happy on the frozen Russian front in 1942, but an Arizona garage is no place for an old bike in the summer.

Daytime highs here often reach 110F meaning that, along with the greenhouse effect, the garage gets to 130F. That’s murder on rubber and batteries and while I do not care much about the cars, another summer in that garage would see lots of rubber parts being replaced on the old bike.

I decided to move the machine to air conditioned luxury for the four hot summer months and with my son tugging mightily on the luggage rack we managed to wrestle the 425lb. beast indoors, after first draining the tank.




In the lap of luxury. My 1975 BMW ‘Airhead’.

Oil leaks? Nah, not a problem. This is not a British bike.

iPhone 11Pro snap, UWA lens, with LR distortion correction profile.

Tom Haugomat

No clutter.

For an index of articles on art illustrators, click here.

While there is a myriad of filters available for most post-processing photo applications, the one which is missing is ‘de-clutter’. You know, something that takes out all the noise in most photographed images and renders a clean whole. It’s something that Henri Cartier-Bresson was so adept at accomplishing ‘in camera’. Few photographers since have learned that skill.

The advantage a graphics illustrator has over the photographer is that he can de-clutter to his heart’s content, image composition and content aggregation being one and the same. Such a one is Parisian illustrator Tom Haugomat, and while the image below has a special place in my soul, for I am a long time motorcycle rider, it’s just one of many that Haugomat has produced.




Wrenching on the machine.

You can see more of Haugomat’s work here.

Paris – beautiful again

No backpack set.

It has long befuddled me that the greatest western European cities are so ignorant of the basic economic concept of supply-demand elasticity. Along with the airlines they seem unaware that there’s a choice between having ten tourists spending $1,000 each compared with one spending $10,000. While the revenue garnered is identical, the high cost version comes with immense benefits. Less pollution, less wear and tear on plant, equipment and infrastructure and, crucially, a state of affairs where the city is beautiful and approachable once more. And legroom is restored on the flying sardine cans passing as aircraft. There are no crowds and disease spread is far lower owing to healthy affluence and shortage of sources. And as for those comparing this elitism with that of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, I aver that the $10,000 spender has likely earned his way to this rich reward, one to which his poorer cousin is not at all entitled. First he has to earn it. Then he can enjoy it. Otherwise he can simply check National Geographic.

A recent NYT article grudgingly admits that an empty Paris is infinitely preferable to one crowded with masses of unwashed tourists, each determined to get a glimpse of the Mona Lisa through the crowds and protective glass.

Before immigrating to the United States in 1977 I made it a point of visiting this most beautiful of western cities and while it may not have been as empty as it is today, it was certainly very approachable and livable, as my images disclose:




On the Champs-Élysées.


The colors of France on the Métro.


Sunset in the Tuileries Gardens.


Wedding in Parc Monceau.


At the Holocaust Memorial.


The oldest profession.


All images on a Leica M3 with 35mm Summaron and 90mm Elmar (the chair) lenses, using Kodachrome and TriX films.

Bourke-White redux

MAGA.

Morons Are Governing America.




Bourke-White by Annie Telnaes

Annie Telnaes, the WaPo cartoonist, does Pig best. That means she shows him red faced, bloated and ready to blow, like the pig he is.

For the story of the original image by Margaret Bourke-White, last referenced here when yet another moron was in the Oval Office melting down the economy, click here.

Cheesed-off

Something good from Canada.

My community here in warm, friendly Scottsdale numbers many ‘snowbirds’ amongst its winter residents. These folk come from northern climes where you have to saw a hole in the ice to go fishing much of the year, and where bathing costumes are strictly things to be contemplated with longing.

Indeed, the splendid people across the road, hailing from Calgary, some 1,500 miles north of here, are members of Genus snowbird.

When they come here for their winter sojourn they do so on tourist visas, as they make their living north of the border. Now, unfortunately, the cretinous wanker in the Oval Office, aka Pig, has decided to refuse entry or extend visas for these furrners, so they are forced to hop in the old Ford and hightail it back home before ICE/INS/the Cops come knocking with arrest warrants. Their loss is my gain as they see to it that the contents of their normally burgeoning refrigerator end up in mine, as a sort of departure gift. They also have something of a cheese habit, meaning the fridge here is stuffed to overflowing with gouda, cheddars of various sorts, boursin, cream cheese galore and you name it. Indeed, you might accurately observe that we are extremely ‘long’ cheese:




Long cheese.

Thank you Maureen and Kevin for your splendid generosity, and safe travels back to the land of moose and maple syrup.

Meanwhile, if you crave the best in British supply chain management – and cheese – you need go no further than here.