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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A salutary lesson
I took our seven year old son to see the Disney movie Earth today. I confess the prevailing emotion going into the theater was dread. Dread that this would be yet another saccharine ‘animals behaving like people’ horror so beloved of the Disney studio, replete with overt cuteness and with a mile thick sugar coating to protect all and sundry from the brutal survival that is the natural world of wild animals.
Mercifully, the movie is made by the BBC, which still shows vestiges of taste now and then, and we both enjoyed it. Winston, my son, loved it because of the photography, the great pictures of animals and the short length. I enjoyed it because of the photography, orchestral music well played by the Berlin Philharmonic (though doubtless Herbert von Karajan is spinning in his grave at the prospect of his orchestra playing movie music) and punches-only-lightly-pulled when something eats something else. The gore is edited out but you get the message. Mother Nature is anything but nice, polar bears are dumb as two bricks and survival goes to the fittest. (Like Wall Street – just substitute ‘bankers’ for ‘polar bears’).
However, the broader lessons learned from something like this are that working with animals may be as frustrating as working with actors, but they don’t sue and their appearance fees are low. Further, the reality dawns that the amateur photographer – be he movie or still – really is wasting his time trying to improve on the polished professional work on display here. Clearly the work involved was enormous, requiring hundreds of people and a huge ratio of scrap to gold, and dictating the use of ultralight aircraft, balloons, diving equipment, and so on. And lots and lots of takes, considerable risk to life and limb and a cornucopia of top class gear.
Judging by the clearly visible dirt in many frames the whole thing was made on film, rather than digital; we were viewing it on a large (I would guess 250″ plus) screen and the detail definition was startlingly good. Which brings us to two final lessons. There is no way on earth that you are going to be able to reproduce the impact of such a movie at home. And that narrator James Earl Jones has the best voice franchise in the US, if not the best voice. That belonged to James Mason, but he left us a while back.