Through the trees

 

River driftwood

 

Struggling still:

Defiant:

Dignity:

Pincer:

To pass by:

Slender hope:

Tim Wu’s, and Lawrence’s “Slow-Photography”

 

In an interesting article, http://www.slate.com/id/2279659/pagenum/2 , Tim Wu has some insightful things to say about the way in which and why modern people take photographs.

In my own case “slow photography” has an entirely different meaning.  Oh I quite agree with what Wu has to say about seeing and composing a picture, but beyond that, in my case, I post a days worth of photographs as background on my computer.  I set the “desktop” to change photos every thirty minutes.  My photographs progress very slowly in the background whenever I have my computer on; which is almost always. 

In some cases a photograph, after looking at it off and on for 30 minutes, will seem to fall short of whatever it was I thought I saw; so I will delete it.  In other cases, photos that seemed nearly okay when I took them will grow on me.  I’ll see more in them than I realized was there.  For example, in the series, “Duffy and the Pit Bull” he did appear suddenly to us and while I didn’t snap the photo the first instant I saw him, the first photo I took seems to capture his “suddenness.”

Another photo that grew on me was the last one in the sequence “How to swim in sand.”  I was some distance away when I took these photos and probably had my lens set on 70mm.  It wasn’t until I saw this photo on my desktop that I could see the mischievous little look from Duffy as he lay there luxuriating in river sand. 

I wouldn’t say that what I do is “record” my daily events in the manner that Wu denigrates; nor am I exactly striving for an artistic effect.  (Wu describes the addictive nature of Photo shop; so his ambitions probably extend toward artistic beauty.)  I am striving for the more mundane desktop slide show that will keep on pleasing me.

But what of the slide show of Wu’s photos that he has posted at the end of his article?  Are they “art” or are they a record of some of the beautiful places and things he has seen?  Do his photos rise above those he denigrates?  I see a lot of photos like his posted on the Olympus discussion sites.  His photos don’t rise above those, but is it important that they do?  Does it really matter? 

In the end Wu is perhaps asking the same sort of thing I’ve asked, can photography – photographs – be art?  He seems to have settled for something short of that: seeing things in a slow way – striving to really really see them.  Maybe that’s all there is, but I think there is a huge step between intention and result.  Is the result nothing more than the chance Wu refers to, the accidental two photos out of a thousand that seem great?  Or can it be the result of an intention that comes out in the photograph that is something more than that?  And if it is more than that, what is it?

On prejudice against cats and Muslims

 

We were all up in my study. High winds were predicted; so I decided we'd take a day off and stay away from the river. I was reading articles from an Olympus discussion group when we heard the yowling of a cat fight. Down we rushed. Cat fights are something my girls take very seriously. This one was occurring next door as it turned out. The owner who lives alone, or with his mother, or with his girl-friend was off at work so the cats had his back yard to themselves. Ginger seemed most interested. Her hackles were up as she rushed back and forth to watch the fight through the cracks in the fence. Sage was interested but not so intense. Duffy seemed not quite sure what was going on, but he barked at the strange sounds.

I boosted him up so he could see over the fence. He watched the fight with fascination, emitting a low growl from time to time, or a brief bark. The cats seemed tangled in some branches pruned from a fruit tree, and they were at very close quarters. Duffy seemed a little uncomfortable and squirmed a bit, so I set him down. He moved back away from the fence. Ginger continued prowling back and forth trying to see what was going on, but Duffy was done. That wasn't the reaction I expected. I expected him to bounce along beside Ginger looking through the fence-cracks. Why didn't he?

Two days ago we encountered a pit bull at the river. I posted some photos of him. Pit bulls have a reputation for being tough and aggressive, but aside from some dominance issues; which this pit bull readily surrendered, the girls and Duffy got along splendidly with him. The cats fighting in my neighbor's yard, on the other hand, were not creatures that could be gotten along with. I saw what Duffy saw: murderous ferocity. The girls had seen it before and were ready to chase it out of our yard should it try to enter, but Duffy was seeing it for the first time and he seemed intimidated.

Dogs are notorious for being prejudiced against cats. We used to have cats and our previous dogs got along fine with them. But we no longer have cats and Duffy is very likely to follow the girls' lead in being prejudiced against them. If all Duffy sees is their ferocity he is unlikely to ever expect them to be as friendly as the pit-bull he met day before yesterday. And if we are out walking in the neighborhood one day and he and the girls encounter a cat, they are probably all going to react in accordance with the profile they have formed in their minds: cats are ferocious alien creatures that need to be chased away.

Cats of course can't help it. It is their nature to fight each other. Muslims, perhaps, can help it. At least we hear that they can. But when read in newspapers and see on TV only their ferocity, perhaps we can be excused, as I excuse the girls and Duffy, for forming images of them based upon our experiences (for the Newspapers and TV reporting comprise our experiences).

Shame on our prejudices some say, but why bother saying that when what is needed is for the peaceful cats and Muslims to denounce their ferocious brethren, and for the reporting to stop fruitlessly saying "shame," and start describing an alternate Islamic reality (if they can find one). We only know the reality we have experienced. All we know is what we can see through the cracks in the fence.

How to swim in sand, by Duffy

 

Duffy and the Pit Bull

I have seen feral dogs at the river, but I don’t think this pit bull was one.  He was too friendly, and too tractable.  He was an in-tact male and tried to mount Ginger, but she took it as play and bounced him off.  When he tried the same with Sage I told him to stop and he did.  Duffy and the Pit Bull tried to be dominate each other.  I didn’t let that go on too long. The pit bull weighed at least 40 pounds, and at his last weighing, Duffy was 15 1/2 pounds. 

As to where he came from?  I have no idea.  Just suddenly he was there.

In the one below, Duffy had just kicked up some sand perhaps to signify that he was the top dog around here, but the others weren’t paying attention. 

Back at the Jeep I gave the dogs some water before we headed home.  The Pit Bull drank more than anyone.  Did I take him home?  No, but the thought crossed my mind.  There is a fellow living on the other side of Gray Wood that has dogs.  I hope this was one of them. 

Duffy on a warm morning

 

[Taken 1-17-2011, using an Olympus E-520 with a 40-150 Zuiko lens]