Sno Cone maker

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Figure 1 – Sno Cone Maker, IPhone Photograph, Lincoln, MA, (c) DE Wolf 2017.

Photographically I am an aficionado of shiny metal. Like a little kid I want to touch it and photograph it, To this I will add that there is a certain amount of skill in striking the right balance in shiny metal as a subject in a photographic. And most of the time I feel like I’ve got a lot to learn.

All of which is to say that I was delighted to come across this “sno cone maker” at a local coffee shop. Now to definition, the Sno Cone or Snow Cone is a peculiar variation of shaved ice which is typically doused with flavored sugar and served in a paper cone. It is a relic of our antique childhoods, typically served in memory from man-powered street carts.

According to the all-knowing Wikipedia the snow cone has its origins in the ice industry of the American Industrial Revolution of the 1850 when wagons would carry ice from the Northeast to Florida and children in Baltimore would beg shavings from the drivers. The parents of these children would then flavor the ice, most commonly with a sweet vanilla egg custard.

By the time of the Great Depression snowballs had spread widely outside of Baltimore. They were one of the few treats that strapped people could afford and hence they were referred to by names such as the  Hard Times Sundae and Penny Sunday.  Your see them still sold on street corners and at street fairs today.

I am not sure if the machine of Figure 1 is actually used or is merely a decorative antique. Still child-like, I love its shininess and delightful curved shape. And in the end I do remember.

 

Arthur Eddington and the great solar eclipse of 1919

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One of Arthur Eddington’s photographs of the great solar eclipse of May 29, 1919, which “proved” Einsteins General Theory of Relativity. From the Wikipedia and in the public domain in the United States because of its age.

There’s a lot of discussion in scientific circles about the upcoming solar eclipse. And the world is dividing between those going and those not going. If you have a chance, I highly recommend it. The three-dimensionality of the corona, the shadow bands, and the wildlife driven to insanity are awe inspiring. We understand for the first time how primitive people must have felt from such a sight, and in our own way are just as filled with wonder.

My thoughts drift to what is perhaps the most important solar eclipse of modern times. The great eclipse of  May 29,1919. Figure 1 is one of the photographs take of that eclipse by British Astronomer Arthur Eddington (1882-1944). Figure 1 is one of the photographs that Eddington took of that eclipse. What is significant are the little star trails. Look closely you can see them. Just four years earlier, Albert Einstein published his General Theory of Relativity . which predicted that a massive object like the sum would bend like as it passed the star. This would be seen as a deflection in position. Eddington’s photographs and measurements offered the first proof of the General Theory.

Black holes, worm holes, warp drives. It all fuels the inguisitive imagination. It all began with these photographs.

Seeing and believing

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Figure 1 – 1937 “Spy” photograph purporting to show Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan, in the Marshall Islands after their crash landing. From the US National Archives and in the public domain.

Now almost 180 years after the birth of photography, it remains the case that seeing is believing. Indeed, this simple adage can define the use and abuse of photography, especially in a digital age. This coming Sunday the History Channel will air a new special, “Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence.”  Legendary aviator Amelia Earhart disappeared 80 years ago. But, we are told, a newly discovered photograph taken by a “spy” in the Marshall Islands suggests that she survived the ill-fated round-the-world flight only to die at the hands of the Japanese, although the Japanese government has no record of this. The picture is shown here as Figure 1. The photograph shows a woman seated on the dock with her back towards us, sporting Earhart’s signature pants and short-cropped haircut and who resembles Earhart, and a man facing the camera appears to be her navigator, Fred Noonan. If all this is true, then we’ve solved one mystery only to create 100 more.

I am looking forward to the show; so I won’t opine on the subject, except to comment on its symbolism in terms of the meaning of a photograph. Photographic evidence is eclipsed only, perhaps, by modern day DNA forensics. Seeing remains dominant to believing. And the limits of belief lie buried in the optics and grains, which define photographic resolution. Resolution is an ultimate limit to the eye. We can see it, or we cannot. It is a lot like the Heisenberg uncertainty theorem in quantum mechanics and its close-relative impressionist pointillism. Ultimately grains, pixels, and lens resolution set limits on human certainty.

The Fourth of July

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Figure 1 – Sudbury Minutemen Re-enactors, July 4th, 2017. (c) DE Wolf 2017.

It was a magnificent Fourth of July in Massachusetts; the weather was just perfect, and the company more perfect. Our town has a small town parade and that is really the essence of the meaning of the whole holiday. We have the memory of the Minutemen to live up to; so excuse us if we are a bit concerned about the ability of our institutions to survive these latest tests – or whether we even deserve their survival.

I took the image of Figure 1 of the local Minutemen (Re-enactors) this afternoon. Black and white somehow seemed appropriate.Tomight there will be the Boston Pops Concert and the fireworks. The local and national television stations have been broadcasting about the dangers of playing with fireworks. More simply, we may be reminded of what Mark Twain said about thisproblem.

” Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day than in all the other days of the year put together. This proves, by the number left in stock, that one Fourth of July per year is now inadequate, the country has grown so.”
–  Mark Twain –  Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar

On being watched

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Figure 1 – Eyes, Natick MA. (c) DE Wolf 2017.

Have you ever had the sense that you are being watched. Video cameras are everywhere. It is as if the walls have eyes and ears. And if the walls have eyes do they blink? That question was answered yesterday, when I came across a multitude of peepers staring at me at my local Luis Vuitton store. I watched for a while and it definitely blinked at me. In fact, one time it winked – as if returning the amusement. I tried to do a sequence shot with my IPhone, but the camera just doesn’t respond rapidly enough. So I had to be content with the shot of Figure 1 captured in mid blink.

But we still have not answered the question of whether we are being watched. In the words of poet and novelist Catherine Fisher, from her Incarceron:

“Walls have ears.
Doors have eyes.
Trees have voices.
Beasts tell lies.
Beware the rain.
Beware the snow.
Beware the man
You think you know.

-Songs of Sapphique”

What are we to do?

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The TSA and the airlines seem to be moving towards banning electronic devices on airplanes coming into the the United States. I have to ask, what are we to do? Strap yourself into your seat-belt in, say Amsterdam, and consider the problem of facing six to eight hours of mind numbing time spent listening to the roar of the engines or better still watching last years’ movies on a screen that’s about a foot from your face – a space also occupied by your knees. They’re already charging for “extra legroom.” Can paying for the movie [again] be far behind? You’re already paying for the internet. But now you can’t, because no computer. Oh and the Captain just announced that we are forty-fifth in line to take off. Do I exaggerate?

One option is to read a book. That’s carbon! Ixnay on the indlekay! One piece of good news is that without my laptop I don’t have to spend my time rejecting spammer comments on this blog. By the way, it’s the Russians. I know that because the IP addresses are from Russia and, get this, the comments are in Russian. Yes, Mr. President, it’s the Russians. But I digress.

Getting back to the runway in Amsterdam. Back in the 15th century Amsterdam was the center for Flemish art. And it is in Flemish art that photographer Nina Katchadourian may have found the solution to the laptopless traveler’s dilemma. Head into the  restroom, use the materials at hand such as paper towels, and take selfies of yourself dressed as subjects in a Flemish portrait. Ms. Katchadourian has amassed an impressive portfolio of images called “Seat Assignment.” The project began spontaneously in 2010 and now consists of nearly 2500 photographs and videos, made on nearly 200 different flights. That’s a lot of frequent flyer miles.

I recommend highly that you do two things. First, check out “Seat Assignment.” Second, try it out for yourself before the airlines start charging for trips to the restroom and by the paper towel.

Killdeer

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Figure 1 – Adult killdeer, June 2017, Wilmington, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2017.

I was driving home from work yesterday and was passing an abandoned section of the parking lot. Abandoned here means a section never used that has in part surrendered to grass and weeds. I noticed two killdeers (Charadrius vociferus) and so decided to bring my bird lens in today to see if I could find them again.

I also decided to bring my car. I had heard that birds run or fly away from humans but not from automobiles. They seem to see cars as part of the landscape; so they are the perfect birding blind. Well, I can now say “true enough.” I immediately found the killdeers and the fuss. They had their fledge with them, and this little bird was darting about but staying close to its parent’s cry. With the car I was able to get remarkably close. And they didn’t seem to be particularly bothered by my slowly driving into a more advantageous position.

The Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology’s website makes the interesting point that with the inland killdeer, you don’t have to go to the beach to find this close relative of the semipalmated plover. The killdeer is another one of those birds whose name derives onomatopoeically from its call – here a distinctive “Kill-Deer.” Their most dramatic behavior is the broken wing act that they use to distract predators away from the nest.

Figure 2 – Fledgling killdeer, June 2017, Wilmington, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2017.

Figure 1 – Canon T2i with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens at 310 mm, ISO 800, Aperture Priority AE Mode,1/2000 sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.

Figure 2 – Canon T2i with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens at 400 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode,1/4000 sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.

Of cookie kittens and amazon warriors

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Figure 1 – Cookie kittens, IPhone photograph, (c) DE Wolf 2017.

What could be sweeter than a basket full of kittens? The photograph of Figure 1 is a hint. The answer, arguably, is a basket full of cookie kittens. Note I did not say kitten cookies, which are liable to be catnip and liver flavored, which could turn you off to cookies for ever, or at least a long time.

I found these at my local grocery store and snapped this less than perfectly framed image with my IPhone 6. I could not find any suitable quotes about cookie kittens; so the old Irish nursery rhyme must suffice.

“There once were two cats of Kilkenny,
Each thought there was one cat too many,
So they fought and they fit,
And they scratched and they bit,
Till, excepting their nails
And the tips of their tails,
Instead of two cats, there weren’t any.”

However, the story cannot end there. We have not connected cookie kittens with amazon warriors. As is often the case with nursery rhymes, the origin of the limerick is obscure., and is, in fact, a fascinating story in and of itself. Clearly, it leads to the term “Killkenny Cat,” a tenacious fighter, ready to go at it to the end. 

In early Irish legend the vicinity of Kilkenny is associated with a monster cat, named Banghaisgidheach, who made its home in the Dunmore Caves in Kilkenny County. In the ancient Book of Leinster the amazon warrior Aithbel overcame the cat monster of Luchtigern. Or more specifically, in English at least:

“Aithbel, she was a jewel of a woman, mother of Ercoil, the wife of Midgna, Who killed the ten Fomorians in the strand at Tonn Chlidna, Who burned the seven wild men in the glen at Sliabh Eibhlenn, Who scattered the black fleet against which the men of Ireland failed, Who hunted the red hag that drowned her in the midst of the Barrow, Who trampled on the luchthigern in the door of Derc Ferna.”

Beauty is not caused. It is.

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Figure 1 – Daguerreotype of Emily Dickinson 1846/7. Original in the collection of Yale University. Public domain.

“Beauty is not caused. It is.” Such were the words of American poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886). And if you consider the words for a moment, you come to realize that they define our artistic endeavors as photographers. Seek beauty in all its forms and in all its places – realizing that it is everywhere.

I came to the subject of Emily Dickinson as a follow-up to my blog about her English contemporary, Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861), in the American Age of Crinolines. People say that they don’t understand or don’t like poetry. But really poetry is always there, like the wind in the forest, whispering greater meaning to us and to our lives. I’d like to think that photography does the same.

Emily Dickinson is local to us in New England, having been born in Amherst, Massachusetts. And we pride ourselves in a common spirit of resilience.  She attended the Amherst Academy for seven years as a youth, and also briefly attended the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. However, she soon returned to her family home in Amherst, where she became a famous recluse, noted for wearing white and her reluctance to greet guests at her home. Indeed, most of her close friendships were carried out by letter – epistolary intimacy.

Figure 1, a daguerreotype, is the only known (authenticated) portrait of Emily other than as a child. It was taken at Mount Holyoke in either 1846 or 47, when she was 17 years old. The original is held by the Todd-Bingham Picture Collection and Family Papers at Yale University. The photographer, as is so often the case, is unknown.

We are taken by so many delicacies. A pretty, young girl, a modest, yet flattering, dress, a delicate ribbon around her neck. Is that a flower in her elegant hands? Her lips are slightly awry. You must wonder about her future reclusive lifestyle. Like Barrett Browning, we know Emily’s heart through her verse.

But what do we really know? Does notoriety really animate the image any more than the hundreds of anonymous faces we look at in daguerreotypes of the day? These people, famous and anonymous alike, are ultimately remote from us. And the question of the meaning of their lives slips away from us, like so many grains of sand through our fingers. We may become desperate for an answer, because ultimately their meaning is our meaning. Always these photographs torment us with the ultimate existential question. In Emily Dickinson’s own words:

“I am nobody. Who are you?”