Whyne or cylence

Deep down in Louisiana close to New Orleans
Way back up in the woods among the evergreens
There stood a log cabin made of earth and wood
Where lived a country boy named Johnny B. Goode
Who never ever learned to read or write so well
But he could play a guitar just like a-ringin’ a bell.

Johnny B Goode. Chuck Berry

On the streets of Tokyo, pre-pandemic, nice guitar case! and work hard to be goode! OnSunday nights n the 1990s we used to watch a Japanese TV show featuring pop music groups, The often looked and acted weird, but when interviewed the weirdness was obviously a visual part of the act, they were just normal US pop stars on the other hand, in interviews were always acting weird and saying weird things like they were the angst representatives of the pop world as they were raking in millions of dollars doing lowest common denominator pop music.

Alameda Creek

Film and digital images are called photographs because they use reflected light to make an image.

Film uses (used??) a chemical process to expose grades of value from light to dark; digital measures the values and color using small pixels of a single color designed to work with each other to create an image, like a Seurat painting but very, very, very much smaller.

The film is continuous tone—the value goes from light to dark in a smooth transition—but with digital, no matter how small, the pixel occupies a certain amount of space and there is always a hard edge between pixels, though not necessarily perceived by the human eye. Ever wonder whether a hard drive full of data weighs more than the same hard drive with no data? Does information have weight or even mass ?

We have met a few times on the trail , the conversation develops about Buddhism, he is from India, and has much to say about Buddhism with a more historically traditional Indian view, perhaps more Pre Mahayana/Theravada period?

What is the story of the photograph? Is there supposed to be a story in a photograph? Can it just be some color, shapes, lines, all just for fun?My photographs are like illustrations looking for a story.

Just because you can say a word doesn’t mean you know what it means. How do we learn what words mean? How to use words in a conversation? Or to use words as a language. Words came before writing, and before dictionaries, before schools,

As you look at the photograph, your mind differentiates the things one from another—puts them into words— in the image and then attempts to build a relationship between the things. This is experiencing the photograph visually. The goal of the mind and thus the visual experience, is to “understand the photograph literally,” when you have an word for what it means you have “understood the photograph,”

At this point your mind tells you its time to stop the visual experience. In my photographs it doesn’t matter, the photograph is visual, there is no literal meaning, it is, only a visual experience and no one passes it off as a “real” photograph.

EndPapers

The door slid open, and this time, half a dozen old-style Japanese books in arm, it was no puppet that sat faintly white in the shadows beyond netting,

Some Prefer Nettles Junichiro Tanizaki the last sentence and paragraph of the book

While spending time with my mother over 3 1/2 years following her stroke with severe memory loss and expressive aphasia, occasionally it was necessary to take her to medical related outside appointments.Before I went to a new place, I would do a practice run b y myself to see how long it took to get there, where was parking, the stairs, elevators, what was the waiting room like, where were the bathrooms.

Sitting in the waiting room could be a challenge, mom’s patience was short, and she was more than eager to verbally express her frustration while watching other patients being called to the “magic door.”

While in Japan for 15 years she studied Ikebana—Japanese Flower Arrangement— earned a Master level in Ichiyo school, teaching certificates in Ikenobo and Sogetsu.schools, served as President of Ikebana International for two years and on retirement in Albuquerque, her own school of Ikebana for 20 years. I made these images or a brochure and many years later when she lived in memory care residence I made this poster for her wall. I never knew if she experienced any identification with it or not, all I could do was to believe in the Power of Design and hope there were moments when she remembered her life .

I always had my point&shoot with me, sometimes one hand was busy with her while the other was making a photograph. No way to set this up on a tripod. pre plan it, make some proofs, fix the lighting, and then after everything is set up for the shot, turn to mom and say “Ok Mom , back again to the second to the last pose we did, and hold it while so we can finalize the lighting.’

My parents, Ray and Lynn, had been high school sweethearts, married 64 years , The last two years of his life he suffered severely from Alzheimer’s but his woman ,which is what she was just as he had always been her man, would never put him into a memory care residence., There had been a negative family incident, may be she could just deal with being alone . . . they lived for 2 years in an apartment while my father used to have episodes ,which increasingly got worse until he had a stroke, was put in a nursing residence, then Hospice at home and he passed.

Lynn’s Ikebana arrangement for Ray at his funeral.

Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha