Presence of mind

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Here’s one, sent in by a reader in response to yesterday’s post about “La Rapa das Bestas, that I cannot resist. It seems that on Wednesday Bill Hillman coauthor of “Fiesta: How to Survive the Bulls of Pamplona” was badly gored in the leg this past Wednesday during this year’s running.  And yes, as one might expect in this highly digital and connected world, it was all recorded in a photograph. It is a case, I suppose, of not following one’s own directions, since the book does point out that:

“My own final introductory words of advice are simple: if you want to guarantee you’ll survive running the bulls, stay off the street and watch it from a balcony.”

While the bulls are certainly dangerous enough, the event has been made all the more perilous by people who combine the event with a lot of heavy drinking, and co-author Alexander Fiske-Harrison blamed Mr. Hillman’s accident on another runner who pushed him.

I am, however, reminded of a statement attributed to the 19th Century British magazine “Puck.”  “What’s better than presence of mind in a train wreck? Absence of body.”  So you’ll definitely find me sipping coffee on the balcony.  

La Rapa das bestas

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Well it’s that time of year again – time for Pampalona’s historic, albeit a bit crazy – annual running of the bulls.  This past Monday there were four injuries, including one goring.  And this doesn’t consider the bulls. Psst! It never goes well for the bulls! I am sorry to say.  All of this needless-to-say relates to ancient bull myths, labyrinths, and minotaurs.

So let’s talk about something else, something equally Spanish, and perhaps (I’m sorry) equally crazy. I was really drawn on Monday to this gorgeous photo from Reuters showing the annual (and in Spain when they talk annual, they’re talking 400 years of annual) of this year’s “Rapa das Bestas,” the annual round up of wild horses.  Round up for what, you ask.  The horse are rounded up, wrestled bare-handed to the ground (8<{) and then had their manes and tails sheared.  The horse are then deloused and returned to the wild.  This occurs throughout the villages of Spain’s northwestern region of Galicia.

Like bull running and bull fighting, La Rapa das Bestas has its origins in ancient mythology and antiquated view of the relationship between man and animals.  It comes from earlier (if you watch the news you’ll realize why I can’t say more brutal times).  It is, not surprisingly very controversial.  The photograph is really well done, and like Picasso’s drawings of bulls, it truly raises the question of how something cruel can be seen as an expression of manhood and art,  It points to a quintessential ambiguity about what we see as “beautiful.”

Robert deBruce defeating Edward the Second

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In follow-up to yesterday’s post about cool events this summer, what could beat this past weekend reenactment in Stirling Scotland, of the Battle of Bannockburn, where Robert the Bruce in 1314 defeated the forces of Edward II in 1314. This year’s action was masterfully captured by Andrew Milligan for the PA.  It is one of the absolute best reenactment photographs that I have seen.

The Bruce was, of course, the great founder and champion of Scottish independence.  But the most bizarre element of his life occurred after his death.  It was his wish to have his heart buried at the holy sepluchre  in the Holy Land.  As he himself explained:”

“I will that as soone as I am trespassed out of this worlde that ye take my harte owte of my body, and embawme it, and take of my treasoure as ye shall thynke sufficient for that enterprise, both for your selfe and suche company as ye wyll take with you, and present my hart to the holy Sepulchre where as our Lorde laye, seyng my body can nat come there.”

The Bruce died 685 years ago on June, 7, 1329. His body was interred at Dunfermline Abbey.  His loyal friend agreed and pledged to take the embalmed heart on a pilgrimage and crusade to the Holy Sepluchre.  Douglas however, only reached Granada where he fell in battle laying the siege to Teba.  The embalmed heart was found upon the field of battle and returned to Scotland by Sir William Keith of Galston. It was buried at Melrose Abbery in Roxburghshire.

 

 

The sport of husbands

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Hmm! The world is mesmerized by the World Cup Competition in Brazil. And if that’s not your cup of tea, then perhaps you are thrilled by The Annual Scottish Highland games. Still no? Don’t worry! There is always the World Championship Wife Carrying Competition that just ended in Helsinki, Finland.

This year it was a real nail-biter. Finland’s Ville Parviainen and Janette Oksman finished the 253.5 meter obstacle course in 63.75 seconds, less than a second ahead of Britain’s Rich Blake Smith and Anna Marguerite Smith. Rules require that the woman must be over 17 years of age and weigh at least 108 pounds.  It is not required that the lady be actually the competitor’s own wife. He’s allowed to borrow a wife from a friend for the occasion. Importantly, in years past the winner received his wife’s weight in beer.

This year’s competition was documented by photographer Markku Ojala for the EPA.  The dramatic moments at the finish were documented by Ojala.  And in case you are wondering why everyone appears to be soaking wet take a look at Ojala’s picture of the Smith’s crossing the water obstacle.

The ghost of Fourth of July’s past

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Figure 1 - "The Day Before." From the Library of Congress Archives and in the public domain.

Figure 1 – “The Day Before.” From the Library of Congress Archives and in the public domain.

Continuing our saga – because of hurricane Arthur Fourth of July celebrations and fireworks displays are continuing here on the East Coast.  The Fifth is proving absolutely golden spectacular.  I have been amusing myself trying to locate the earliest known photograph of Fourth of July celebrations and the first ever photograph of pyrotechnics.  I’m afraid that I still haven’t figured it all out.

However, in perusing the archives of the United States Library of Congress, I keep being drawn to this wonderful stereo card image by E. W. Kelly from 1906 entitled “The Day Before,” and showing a darling little child, arms filled with fireworks and the American flag.  Hint that’s not an IPad in the child’s right hand. 8<}. Note the pinhole aperture effect of the shadows on the ground.

It goes to show both the similarities and the differences between Americans in 2014 and Americans in 1906.  Today parents would shudder to see their child laden down with deadly explosives! It was then just part of the glory of early twentieth century childhood.

Doing the laundry

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So what about a photograph of someone doing the laundry. The thought brings to my mind the image of someone beating the dirt out of clothes with a rock in a river, ever wary of crocodiles, I guess. Or it brings to mind a street scene with colorful laundry billowing in the breeze across clotheslines. Well today we have neither. Instead we have this intriguing image by Alexander Zemlianichenko of the AP showing an employee at the the Russian space training center air drying on a clothes line the spacesuits of cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin and flight engineers Kathleen Rubins and Takuya Onishi after a training session. Those babies do not look like beach wear to be sure!  And it really isn’t the high tech solution to the problem that one might expect. Is it?

But to the significant point that like everyone else, astronauts certainly have laundry too. No beating your space suit on a meteorite or stray piece of space debris for them. Indeed, it has always struck me that to hang out on the International Space Station you need to be able to set aside any OCD tendencies towards super cleanliness that you might harbour. Of course, the views are amazing!

It’s not raining on my parade!

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Figure 1 - The Sudbury Minutemen march in the rain at the town's Fourth of July Parade 2014/ (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Figure 1 – The Sudbury Minutemen march in the rain at the town’s Fourth of July Parade 2014/ (c) DE Wolf 2014.

As many people know.  This year’s Fourth of July was a bit of a washout in the Boston area.  The first hurricane, named Arthur, of the year barreled up the East Coast.  The Boston Pops Concert on the Espanade, which has defined the Fourth of July for me, even years before I moved to Boston, was shifted to the Third of July, and even then they had to curtail the playing of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture because a cold front was driving storms  into the area. Pure sacrilege!  People scrambled and raced from the Esplanade as a deluge of biblical proportions bore down on the City.

Hmm!  Sudbury’s hometown parade was rain or shine! And as the Sudbury Minutemen marched up the street (Figure 1) playing their fifes and drums, one might have thought that it was raining on our parade.  Well never mind that.  As little Charlie recognized you can have fun in the rain if grandma Donna is willing to dance in the puddles with you (Figure 2).

Figure 2 - "Dancin' in the rain." (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Figure 2 – “Dancin’ in the rain.” (c) DE Wolf 2014.

On the brink of disaster

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Figure 1 - Photograph of the Archduke and his wife emerging from the Sarajevo Town Hall to board their car, a few minutes before the assassination. From the Wikimedia Commons uploaded from http://www.europeana1914-1918.eu/en/contributions/1225#sthash.RbkTiJmq.dpuf and puyt in the public domain under creative commons license.

Figure 1 – Photograph of the Archduke and his wife emerging from the Sarajevo Town Hall to board their car, a few minutes before the assassination. From the Wikimedia Commons uploaded from http://www.europeana1914-1918.eu/en/contributions/1225#sthash.RbkTiJmq.dpuf and put in the public domain under creative commons attribution license.

Last week,June 28 marked the 100th anniversary of the assasination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, who was heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg.  The assassination was carried out in  Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, one of a group of six assassins.  WE should remember this event because it ultimately triggered a month later the First World War by setting in motion decade old treaties. We have only to look at the sectarian battles in the current Middle East to recognize that the brutal effects of that war are enduring. The triumphant European powers carved up the old Ottoman Empire into convenient states, oblivious to sectarian and religious lines.

But the subject here is photography, and what strikes me is how we hunger for images to show us what happened and if possible to explain it.  In a world where everything occurs under the robotic eyes of surveillance cameras, it is very unsatisfying that the only pictures that we have of this event are a picture of the Archduke and his wife getting into their carriage moments before the assassination (Figure 1) and a picture of Princip being arrested (Figure 2).

In a haunting way we may see parallels with John and Jackie Kennedy arriving in Dallas and of Lee Harvey Oswald being killed in a Dallas jail.  The photographs, in these instances, don’t really explain anything.  They only provide a visual context.  They are ultimately (merely?) memes –  in this case to events that we only know through history books.

We recognize in all of this how visual a species we are.  The death toll of this war was, and sadly continues to be, unthinkable. It was a very defining moment – a critical point where the world changed forever.  It was the end of innocence, the breakup of iron-fisted monarchy.  These are the lovely thoughts for a Sunday afternoon.  For the thousands who died in that senseless war, who continue to die, we have only the words of the British poet Wilfred Owens who died in this “War to End all Wars” to explain how they felt.  Eponine is not singing at the barricades.

“I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now. . . .”
Wilfred Owen
Strange Meeting
Figure 2 - The arrest of Princip, from the Wikimedia Commons, uploadeed by Anominski and put in the public domain under create commons attribution license.

Figure 2 – The arrest of Princip, from the Wikimedia Commons, uploadeed by Anominski and put in the public domain under create commons attribution license.

 

Lining up

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Well here’s something pretty amazing. This photograph by Wang Zhao for AP-Getty Images shows Chinese honor guards lining up with the help of a string as they await the arrival of Myanmar President U Thein Sein and Chinese President Xi Jinping, during a welcoming ceremony outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Friday, June 27.

At a technical level there are a number of fascinating features. First of all, of course, the rule of thirds – both horizontally and along the diagonal. Second, is the string itself leading your eye.  The way in which the focus moves along the line of soldiers left to right, leaves no question about where your eye should go.  The squinting commander is really wonderful. And it all goes to show that a photograph is all about perspective and composition.  Here the perspective was perfectly chosen, and the composition excellently executed.