Yearly Archives: 2014

Shakespeare and St. Valentine’s Day – wolves and Ophellia

Posted on by
Figure 1 - Hungarian actress Török_Irma in the role of Ophelia in 1901. Image from the Wikimedia Commons and believed to be in the public domain.

Figure 1 – Hungarian actress Török_Irma in the role of Ophelia in 1901. Image from the Wikimedia Commons and believed to be in the public domain.

Happy St. Valentines’ Day everyone!  For me Valentine’s Day is filled with Shakespearean connotations.  For regular readers of this blog, there’s no surprise in that!

First of al,l St. Valentine’s Day was meant to replace the ancient Roman holiday of the Wolf, the Lupercalia. So, of course, Hati and Skoll is going to celebrate it.  The Roman holiday was, in fact, celebrated on February 15, but what’s a day in 2100 years.

Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar begins during the feast of the Lupercal.  Mark Anthony in his “Friends, Roman, countrymen…” eulogy alludes directly to the point:

“You all did see that on the Lupercal
      I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
And, sure, he is an honorable man.”

 

And then there is the fair Ophellia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, who met her untimely  death by suicide, driven mad by Hamlet, on St. Valentine’s Day.  It is, of course, fitting because in a sense she dies for love, caught up in vortex of ambiguity at being in love with her father’s killer.

 ‘Tomorrow is St.Valentine’s Day
And early in the morning betime,
I’m a girl below your window
Waiting to be your Valentine.”

 

For years I thought of Ophelia as a hopeless twit.  But then in 2009 I saw Sir Patrick Stewart’s made-for-television Hamlet and I was quite blown away by Mariah Gale’s Ophelia.  She is stunning!  For the first time ever, and I have seen a lot of versions of Hamlet, I related to Ophellia and felt sorry for her.  So as an aside, if you love Shakespeare as much as I do and have never seen this version, do so.

There are some really amazing images of Ophelia over the years.  Some of these are paintings: for instance John Everett Millais (c1851), John William Waterhouse (1908), and, of course, Dante Gabriell Rossetti (1884-1888).  Figure 1, shows a photographic postcard of one of the great beauties, who has played Ophelia, Hungarian actress Török Irma c 1901.  It is such a lovely image that I thought that I would share another image of Török Irma from the Hungarian Wikisite as Figure 2.  It shows her in  Herczeg Ferenc’s “The Nabob’s Daughter.”

Figure 2 - Török_Irma in "The Nabob's Daughter" 1893. Image from the Hungarian Wikipedia and believed to be in the public domain/

Figure 2 – Török_Irma in “The Nabob’s Daughter” 1893. Image from the Hungarian Wikipedia and believed to be in the public domain/

 

Sochi from the ISS

Posted on by
Figure 1 - The Sochi Olympic Village photographed at night from the USS. Zoom in on the stadium and you can see the Olympic Torch. Photograph from NASA and in the public domain.

Figure 1 – The Sochi Olympic Village photographed at night from the USS. Zoom in on the stadium and you can see the Olympic Torch. Photograph from NASA and in the public domain.

I know that I have been posting a lot about space pictures, and I have been trying to cut back despite there appeal both as examples of two favorite themes: robotic eyes and the magic of photographic.  However just as I was on a roll of abstinence, I say this amazing picture taken by an astronaut onboard the ISS and showing a night view of the Sochi Olympic Village.

The image becomes really amazing when you zoom in on the Olympic Stadium and suddenly realize that you can easily make out the Olympic Flame, which you may recall actually visited the USS.  The Russians have really outdone themselves with the Olympic Torch.  This is the largest and most powerful torch ever – burning enough gas, I think, to supply a decent size city with heat this winter.  Well maybe that’s an exaggeration.  But wow you can actually see it from space!

Dramatic weather

Posted on by

It seems to me that as winter rolls around, we find ourselves talking more and more about the weather.  We talk about it in person, we talk about it on social media, and we are bombarded by images of the weather .  This is arguably the great oppression of winter.  The rest of the year you hardly think about.  But winter…

Anyway, this morning I was scanning the weather photos and found a couple that pretty much say it all.  The first taken on February 6 in Bakersfield, California by David McNew for Getty Images shows a sign warning people not to jump off a bridge into the river below.  It is sage advice since the river bed is total dry and free of water free. California is in its third year of drought and is suffering through the driest year in 119 years of record keeping.

The second image was taken by Mathew Horwood on February 5 and shows waves breaking over the harbor wall in Porthcawl, United Kingdom.England has been experiencing an unusually rash period of storms and flooding this year. More than 130 severe flood warnings were issued since December 2013.  This contrasts with only nine in the whole of 2012.

What is, of course, the most amazing aspect of the second picture is all the people standing there and watch.  I mean, “Hello!  Anyone worried about being swept at to sea?”  I guess not.  I mean you can just go home and watch the videos and look at the photographs in you dry and cozy living room.

Now I know that I am supposed to stop here and not get into the subject of climate change.  However, I get kind of upset whenever there is an affront to science as basic as this.  There are natural weather and climate cycles – but there is also a very troubling manmade effects.  Indeed, the British Met Office is coming down pretty strongly in arguing that these winter storms are caused by global warming.   The effect of mankind on the Earth’s climate is a proven fact – despite all the claims to the contrary made by hosts of people, who are not qualified to express their opinions on the subject.  There are many places on the Earth, where people live dangerous close to the temperature limit where human life becomes untenable.  We are expert at not reacting intelligently to global problems both because they are difficult and because they are inconvenient.

So while to first order these pictures are beautiful even whimsical, at another level they hold a much deeper and profound message.  It is a message that we cannot really afford to ignore!

New at the Hati and Skoll Gallery

Posted on by

Thanks to all of the loyal readers of the blog at Hati and Skoll Gallery.  I have finally gotten my act to together and have brought the galleries up-to-date.  So there are a few changes.  First, I have move the images from the New Gallery to the other galleries as appropriate.  The New Gallery is currently empty but will be repopulated soon. Second, I have added some new photographs to the Man-made and Places galleries.  And finally, in keeping with my New Years’ Resolution to take more portraits I have added a gallery called En Persona, which features some of the better portraits that I have taken over the years.  And as I say more to follow.  Thanks again to everyone!

Extreme selfie-ing

Posted on by
Figure 1 - Extreme Selfie of the Artist, (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Figure 1 – Extreme Selfie of the Artist, (c) DE Wolf 2014.

The other night I was watching the Olympics on television.  There are all these new sports.  It is just a bit bewildering.  And in the United States, if you watch the coverage on network television, you really don’t get that much coverage of any given event.  I understand the problem, but they never have found the right formula.  So when you find yourself contemplating the broadcasters, who haven’t lost a single lock of hair in the past thirty years, you start to wonder what is going on.

One of the interesting points is that winter sports keep going more and more extreme –   “extreme skiing, extreme snowboarding.”  So that got me thinking what about extreme “selfie-ing?” And needless-to-say since the whole show was getting pretty soporific; so I found myself trying it for myself.  As a result I give you Figure 1 – Extreme Selfie of the Artist.  I first tried it out with the front-facing camera on my IPhoe.  But as we discussed the rear-facing camera is a whole bunch better, and since you cannot see what you are doing past a certain distance it really doesn’t matter.  Just stare close into the lens and try to hold the phone straight and flat.

I am actually pretty impressed with the result.  The depth of field is pretty much nonexistent.  But where it is in focus, it’s surprisingly sharp.  And then we can go off on one of those mindlessly profound stories of how the eye is the portal of the soul, or some such.  Well, Dr. Freud, sometimes a pencil is just a pencil, and more often than not, a selfie, even an extreme selfie, is just for fun!

Documenting change with photography

Posted on by
Figure 1 - A dramatic, fresh impact crater dominates this image taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Nov. 19, 2013. Researchers used HiRISE to examine this site because the orbiter's Context Camera had revealed a change in appearance here between observations in July 2010 and May 2012, bracketing the formation of the crater between those observations.

Figure 1 – A dramatic, fresh impact crater photographed by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Nov. 19, 2013.  The last images of this region were taken in May 2012 and showed no crater.  Image from NASA and in the public domain.

My friend Howard, who is an astrophysicist, recently posted on his Facebook page the image of Figure 1. It was taken by NASA’s Mars Orbiter and shows a new impact crater on the surface of the Red Planet. By now you know that I am a lover of the art form of these space images. I cannot help but marvel at these robotic eyes. There is so much wonderful technology in building them, in getting them there, and even in the ability to transmit high resolution images using next to no power the 35 to 250 million miles to Earth. It’s truly a marvelous invention of Man. And yes there is man or woman subtly omnipresent in the image. The composition, the choice of coloration, the delicate debris stream that radiates outward from the crater all bear the signature of artistically sensitive man. Science reunites with humanism a hundred million miles from Earth.

But in this particular image, I think that there is something more.  The image is meant in this case to document change.  This crater has appeared as if out of nowhere between May 2012 and November 2013.  It is reminiscent of the jelly doughnut rock.  There is geology at play on Mars as on Earth.  The Martian terrain bears witness to the forces of change: water, ice, wind, and sun.  We have already spoken of how rocks seem to grow over the winter in our lawns, driven, in fact, to trhe surface by a frost heave effect – that is by the expansion of ice when it freezes.  Yes there are meteorite impacts that form craters that throw rocks, and there are volcanoes that spew rocks for hundreds of miles.  The point is that geology is not static but all about change.

And it is a curious thing that photography that is the most precisely instantaneous and immutable of media is used, in so many instances, to bear witness to change.  With the jelly doughnut rock and with this crater it is geological change that the photograph is documenting.  But think of how much you enjoy leafing through old family photograph albums.  The appeal is to see a precise sequence of insanely instantaneous moments that display the change in ourselves and in our families and friend.  They make us smile, laugh, and even cry.  “Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth…”

This is also, of course, part of the appeal of old photographs.  Being black and white adds to the magic.  Sepia toning is best at setting the mood of authenticity that “yes, this is an old object.”  We love to look at old pictures.  Our eyes strain to digest every instance of change.  But is it really change that we are looking for?  In old family photographs we gain satisfaction in familiarity.  No matter how much younger you or your parents were, in the end, they really look like you.  They really are you.  And in the case of old photographs the appeal is ultimately in consistency.  They were people like us.  The clothes have changed – fashion does.  I often focus on the neckties.  But the places are ultimately the same – add a touch of nostalgia for a moment in time that you otherwise never experienced. And magically through the power of the photograph we realize that in the end they were – even are – just like us.  Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Selfie delusions – the quest for good front-facing cameras on cell phones

Posted on by
Figure 1 - IPhone 4S image taken with the low resolution front-facing camera. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Figure 1 – IPhone 4S image taken with the low resolution front-facing camera. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Why does the Nokia Lumina cellphone offer a honking 41 mega pixel camera on the back and only a 1.2 megapixel front facing camera.  That’s the one you use for all those important selfies.  Remember that the selfie is the new self-expression medium.  So this is important people.  And why is this what all the cell phone companies do?  Well you’re not going to get an answer.  It has become one of those great rhetorical questions like: what is the meaning of life and why is there air?

Fortunately, New York Times reporter Molly Wood has posted a very entertaining and informative video “Your Best Selfie” to answer the next best question: what cellphone gives you the best selfie?  And since she’s done a nice side by side, apples and apples comparison you can weigh in with your own opinion.  Ms. Wood compares the IPhone 5S with its 1.2 megapixel camera, the Nokia Lumina also 1.2 megapixels the Samsung Galaxy S4 at 2 megapixels, and the HTC One with its 2.1 megapixels.

IMG_0587

Figure 2 – IPhone image taken with higher resolution rear-facing camera. (c) DE Wolf 2014

Ms. Wood correctly points out that it’s not all about the number of megapixels.  This agrees with all that we have said here about image sharpness.  There’s also optics and sensor quality as well as focusing accuracy.  For my mind there’s also the ability of the camera to accurately judge the white balance.  I mean you can do it yourself, but who wants to do that.  I find that warm orange glow of incandescent light kind of soporific and yucky.

Ms. Wood disses the consistency of the IPhone 5S.  I’m not so hard on it.  But her winner for the best selfie sharpness and color is the HTC One, with the Nokia Lumina being the runner up.  Look at the pictures that she shows and I think that you will agree.

I also decided to do a little testing myself.  Figure 1 was taken with my IPhone 4S’s low resolution front-facing camera – not so great.  Figure 2 was taken with the rear-facing 8 megapixel camera – better but still less than I like.  I decided to leave the glare in the pictures.  It’s a common problem with my IPhone.  Yes, it’s due to the overhead lighting, but my Canon T2i would do a much netter job dealing with it.  And ultimately that’s why we sepend big bagels on cameras.  Both of these selfies could use a lot of improvement.  I have not yet tried out the newer versions of the IPhone or other cellphone cameras myself yet.  But Molly Wood does a pretty nice job in her video.

The thing is that a cellphone is becoming much more than a wireless on the go telephone. People use it to surf the web and take pictures.  A selfie photography with the front facing camera is becoming more and more a popular sport.  So the important question, of course, is when will the industry respond to the user.  I mean cellphones are already growing in size suggesting that two points: first that the initial read about the market that smaller and smaller would always be better and second that people just don’t like squinting at their cellphones.  Makes one wonder if we will retro-evolve (retrovolve?) back to the Maxwell Smart shoe-phone size cellphone all the way back to “Hey why don’t we put this baby on the desk?”

The Beatles in America

Posted on by
Figure 1 - The Beatles waving to fans on their arrival at JFK Airport in New York City on Feb. 7, 1964. UPI photograph, photographer unknown, from the LOC via the Wikimediacommons and in the public domain.

Figure 1 – The Beatles waving to fans on their arrival at JFK Airport in New York City on Feb. 7, 1964. UPI photograph, photographer unknown, from the LOC via the Wikimediacommons and in the public domain.

The problem with great moments in history is that soon enough your own lifetime encompasses so many of them, and your brain fills with images and olfactory remembrances.  Well, fifty years ago today on February 7, 1964 the Beatles arrived in America.  It was as much as any one cultural event, a truly defining moment.  We were moving rapidly from the age of the by then murdered John F. Kennedy to the age of Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon.  The early sixties were one world the ten years from say 1964 to 1974 quite another.  To my mind what we now refer to as “the sixties” really spanned that shifted decade, and the Beatles arrival was one place marker of its beginning.  Anyway, I remember it all too well!

Figure 1 shows the Beatles arriving at JFK airport in New York and waving to fans.  It is from the archives of the Library of Congress and was taken by an unknown UPI photographer. More significantly, I was reading John Estrin’s Lens Blog in the New York Times, which details the career of Bill Eppridge (1938-2013). He is, perhaps, best known for his 1968 image of busboy Juan Romero comforting the mortally wounded Robert F. Kennedy.  At age 26, Eppridge covered the Beatles’ arrival for Life Magazine.   Eppridge recognized the significance of the event and followed the Beatles for the six days of their US tour. He shot an amazing 90 rolls of film.  But with the exception of the four images published by Life these were unknown until this week when Eppridges work will be published by Rizzoli in a new book, “The Beatles: Six Days That Changed the World.”

Of course, there’s nothing like seeing the real thing.  Bill Eppridge’s photographs of the Beatles’ tour will be on exhibit at the Museum at Bethel Woods in Bethel, N.Y., beginning on April 5, and at the Monroe Gallery of Photography in Santa Fe, N.M., starting April 25.

 

Thinking about snow and the Donner party

Posted on by
Figure 1 - Summit Peak, California in 1866 showing the tree stumps cut by the Donner Party in 1846 at the snow line. From the LOC via Wikimedipedia and in the public domain.

Figure 1 – Summit Peak, California in 1866 showing the tree stumps cut by the Donner Party in 1846 at the snow line. From the LOC via Wikimedipedia and in the public domain.

It has been snowing like crazy here in Massachusetts today.  So it isn’t surprising that my thoughts today center around the white fluff.  I just made a dash to the mailbox and that was quite sufficient to bring to mind the ill fated Donner Party and some very memorable photographs.

The Donner Party was a group who set out in 1846 for California during the great western migration.  Arguably the hardest part of this journey was the perilous 100 mile trip across the Sierra Nevada. The Sierra Nevada mountains contain 500 distinct peaks over 12,000 feet.  But more ominously because they are constantly bathed in the air currents that carry the moist vapors of the nearby Pacific Ocean they receive a huge amount of snow.  This year (2014) is a radical exception.  But for the early wagon trains of the California migration the key was making it to and crossing the Sierras before the snow fell. The Donner Party was delayed by a series of mishaps and didn’t reach the Sierras until early November of 1846.  They were forced to winter in the Sierra Nevada.  Snowbound, their food ran out and some of the emigrants resorted to cannibalism to survive, eating those who had succumbed to the deprivations of a bitter winter.  Their story is legendary and considered to be one of the great tragedies of western history.

Figure 1 is an example of one of the photographs that I was speaking about. It was taken twenty years after the tragedy and shows the “Stumps of trees cut by the Donner Party in Summit Valley, Placer County.”  The cut line towers over the man in the photograph, illustrating just how high the snow pack was in 1846 – just how hopeless the plight of these people was.  The image is a gray-scaled albumen print, half of a stereograph. It is from the Library of Congress and was originally published as “Gems of California scenery, no. 778 (1866).”

I think that it is significant to note that the photograph does not show any of the horrors and deprivations that the Donner Party endured.  Rather it accomplishes the same effect by allusion and association.  You look at the man and then at the tree stumps and the whole story floods back into your mind.  Photographs do not always need to depict terrible events graphically.  Sometimes the associations is enough.

I once saw a British Documentary about the holocaust that followed the return of a woman, who was a physician, to Auschwitz.  The documentary showed nothing graphic.  It didn’t wrench you away with vividness. Rather it was defined by a moment when the woman entered a rooms, started to point out what was what, and then started to cry uncontrollably.  It was that association which made this the most effective such documentary that I have ever seen.