An apparition of summer

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Figure 1 - An apparition of summer, Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge, Sudbury, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

Figure 1 – An apparition of summer, Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge, Sudbury, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

I’d like to follow-up on yesterday’s blog with an image that I took yesterday along a similar vein. I am calling it an “An Apparition of Summer.” This is Figure 1, and I did it in black and white, because what struck me here was the dark trees of the pine barren and a few remaining deciduous leaves on a little sapling that seemed to my mind’s eye to be floating like little planets in a void. And the second point that struck me is that the tree trunk seems to have a face, or at least a mouth frozen in a kind of frown.

This really captures my sense of late November in woods. A dreary darkness prevails, but flashes of light illuminate. The image appears to me to have a three-dimensionality. The little bright leaves seem to float in front of a flat background.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 70 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/250 th sec at f/7. with -1 exposure compensation.

The bleak time

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Figure 1 - Fall's last color, Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge, Sudbury, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

Figure 1 – Fall’s last color, Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge, Sudbury, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

Thanksgiving in the United States can be a wonderful holiday. You’ve got to picture damp, dreary, and chilly days filled with the warmth of family and fireplaces. And that is the whole point. Outside it is the “bleak time.” The sun sets early, plunging us into unforgiving darkness. The fall color is gone, well almost so. As Figure 1 testifies there are a few holdout leaves. Well maybe not holdouts so much as luck of the draw survivors.

Winter is coming and with it snow. But in the meantime we’ve got to put up with mininmalist landscapes. Of course, and on the other hand the whole forest has opened up. Familiar places become something other. And even the pale light can glow and trickle in to nooks and crannies that in summer defy illumination.The whole temperate world seems to be taking a breath before it goes about the process of storing up its energy in generative anticipation of next spring.

The picture of Figure 1, I took a few weeks ago. I loved the vivid color against black. Indeed, I would suggest that if you photograph flowers and want something different try shoot with flash at night. This picture proved very tricky to get what I saw, what I visualized, just so. But I like autumn’s swan song quite well.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 109 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/1600 th sec at f/7. with -1 exposure compensation.

Our cyber others

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Figure 1 - The cyber other in its infancy. ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Glen Beck (background) and Betty Snyder (foreground) program the ENIAC in building 328 at the Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL). From the Wikipedia and in the public domain because image was taken by a US Government employee in an official capacity.

Figure 1 – The cyber other in its infancy. ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Glen Beck (background) and Betty Snyder (foreground) program the ENIAC in building 328 at the Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL). From the Wikipedia and in the public domain because image was taken by a US Government employee in an official capacity.

Today I want to talk about “Our cyber others.” I mean Others fully in the context of that Nicole Kidman 2001 masterpiece “The Others,” which in and of itself has a wonderful theme of postmortem photography. Well it is a little more than that.

I like to rummage around antique shots looking through old photographs in search of something more than the mundane, which is rare but sometimes out there.  I might find an old and mediocre black and white photograph, perhaps with serrated edges, labeled Thanksgiving 1955, and we may imagine the story. There is papa in his very narrow tie, mamma in a Mamie Eisenhower hat and white gloves, little Jack in stiff wool pants with his hair slicked back a crusty mass, impervious to wind, and little Jane in glasses, a pleated skirt, and bobby socks, not realizing it at the time but wishing that she was in jeans. Their goal was to act and pose out a Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving.  I look at the back of the photograph. There are no names, only anonymity.  So we are going to have to refer to them as the “Unknowns.” They are almost forgotten to posterity, except for this little silver emulsion.

If their names were written on the back, you might be able to unearth a little about them from the web. But usually this is precious little, if any, information, unless of course they were “famous.”

Last night after a wonderful family dinner with family and friends, I dutifully uploaded photographs of the event to social media. Then I tagged everyone, which has the magical effect of connecting you to a whole other universe of friends of friends. It got me thinking about this huge cyber other that we have created on our road to the singularity.

We are not yet machines or one with machines. However, we have created an alternative world, where we dwell as disembodied electrons. By-the-way, do you know where your images are stored. “On the cloud,” you say. Where and what is the cloud? In the case of my Thanksgiving photographs, uploaded to Facebook, the images are apparently stored in Facebook’s, Lulea, Sweden data center. Who woulda thunk it? This is  cool place where locally generated hydroelectric power supplies the data center, chilly air cools it, and extra heat generated by “the servers” is used to heat the building.  The significant point is that while we may call it “The Cloud,” thus invoking a seeming mystic less than numinous diety, there must in fact be a tangible place where our data sits, allowing, of course, for multiple places.

Our sense of the internet as “Other” is palpable. Its otherness lies not in lack of place but more in the way that everyone is connected to it, so as to create an alter ego universe, and in the way that our images are stored. It is currently estimated that 2.1 billion humans or 43% of the world’s population is connected to the internet, including, unfortunately, our ever-tweeting president elect.

If you look at an old photograph you see and perceive it. It was meant for human eyes and is instantly translated from dots of silver to “image” in our brains. Now, of course, there are a lot of assumptions in the photograph. The most significant one being that it is assumed that you will view it at an appropriate distance so as to perceive correctly its content. View it with a magnifying glass that reveals individual grains of silver and you will have no comprehension of subject.

The cyber other image is different. It is stored as a matrix of bits. A machine must translate it into a format that the human eye-brain can comprehend.  The machine recognizes the file type (e.g. .jpg or .tif) and the machine translates this and sends it to another part of the machine for display. Machine, machine, machine! This is the very point that identifies this as the path to the singularity. This cyber other that we connect so intimately with is stored on machines and require machines to interface us, both to and from. And it all creates the illusion, or delusion, than the “Unknowns” discovered in a cobweb and dust filled antique store were somehow less than us, more anonymous.

New camera – when bigger is better

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Figure 1 - The main mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope revealed this past month. NASA/Chris Gunn (public domain).

Figure 1 – The main mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope revealed this past month. NASA/Chris Gunn (public domain).

Good lenses are expensive. But this is ever a matter of perspective; so I thought that I would post today about what might well be one of the biggest and most expensive cameras ever. Try buying the optics of Figure 1 on BHPhotovideo or Amazon!

This past month the next, great, space telescope was revealed. This is the James Webb Space Telescope and is scheduled for launch in October 2018. It has been twenty years and $8.7 B in the making, which are sobering numbers.The telescope is named after NASA James Webb, who led NASA during the glory days of the 1960s. It is the long awaited heir to the Hubble Space Telescope. It’s kind of like being a short person and having a giant child. Figure 1 shows the main optic a 20-foot giameter array of 18 hexagonal mirrors The James Webb Space telescope has seven times the light gathering power of Hubble. That means that it can see much fainter (often translating to more distant) objects. The cost of the new space telescope has consumed much of NASA’s budget. Originally, it was budgeted as costing $500M, but …  A major aspect of the telescope is its ability to take infrared or heat images. To do this it will be placed a million miles from the Earth and it will be equipped with giant umbrella to shield it from sun and moonlight.

Regular readers of this blog know my fondness for discussing captured moments from the past. The James Webb telescope will redefine this concept, when it images events from the origin of the universe, the Big Bang, which occurred 13 billion years ago. It is certainly fun to speak with certainty about scientific discovery, but the really amazing images will not be those we imagine but those we cannot.

A Christmas star

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Figure 1 - Christmas star. IPhone photograph. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

Figure 1 – Christmas star. IPhone photograph. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

This morning it was cold and bleak in Massachusetts. There is a raw beauty in this that New Englanders love and that causes them to swear that there is no better place on Earth to live. I went over to the local mall. It is not as lovely or as vigorous a place to walk, but it does have the advantage of coffee at the end, which makes for a perfect Sunday morning. For some reason, I found myself in a good mood, enjoying the kids running around and the seasonal decorations. This one store had giant Christmas decorations, and I took the image of Figure 1, a giant Christmas Star, with my IPhone.

What I like about the subject is the metallic specular reflections. In my experience, metal surfaces of this sort can be surprisingly difficult to capture – especially with the complexity of surfaces like with this star. They seem to be exciting subjects to photograph, but often they do not live up to expectations. It is all a matter of the play of the light and the skill of the artist.

Before online dating

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Figure 1 Wives wante, Montanna 1901. In the public domain in the United States because of its age.

Figure 1 Wives wanted, Montana 1901. In the public domain in the United States because of its age.

Online dating services have become an integral part of our culture and modus operandi. But what did people do before the internet? Last night, I came across the photograph of Figure 1, which offers one solution attempted (we don’t know if they were successful, but hope they were) by a group of gentlemen in frontier Montana in 1901. Well, the wild west could be a mighty lonely place. We are told that these are early residents of Lake McDonald, left to right Bill Dauks, Fred Gedhun, Esli Apgar, and Dimon Apgar. Also, just like on today’s social media these fellas are advertising their sensitivity by “posting” pictures of their pets!

The up escalator

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Figure 1 - IPhone photograph of the escalator at the Cambridge Porter Square Red Line MBTA stop. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

Figure 1 – IPhone photograph of the escalator at the Cambridge Porter Square Red Line MBTA stop. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

Figure 1 is a photograph that I took while riding up the escalator at the Porter Square MBTA stop in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Your alternative is to take the 199 step adjacent staircase. The longest span, the one shown, is 143 feet long. That’s 43.6 m.; so not anywhere near a record. The longest single-span escalator in the United States is at the Wheaton Station Stop on the Washington Metro Red Line, coming in at 230 feet or 70 m. The longest escalators in the world are installed in the Saint Petersburg Metro coming in at 449 feet or 137 m.

Arising from beneath the Earth in Cambridge, Massacchusetts the “Athens of America,” is instantly reminiscent of Dante rising at last from the depths of the underworld to once again see the stars.  

“The Guide and I into that hidden road

Now entered, to return to the bright world;

And without care of having any rest

We mounted up, he first and I the second,

Till I beheld through a round aperture

Some of the beauteous things that Heaven doth bear;

Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars.“

While merely an IPhone photograph, I want this picture to be the kind that people look at 100 or 200 years hence, and say, “Oh how quaint! See the silly way people dressed and transported themselves a century or two ago.” So this raises two questions. First, is whether this is a transitional technology. Second, whether it is soon to be replaced by something better.

The first escalator was patented (U.S. Patent #25,076) on August 9, 1859 by Nathan Ames. There is no evidence that this device was ever built. In 1889, Leamon Souder successfully patented the “stairway,” but, again, it was never built. On March 15, 1892, Jesse W. Reno patented the “Endless Conveyor or Elevator.” Shortly after that, George A. Wheeler patented a moving staircase escalator. As for tangible reality, Reno built his first prototype and installed it alongside the Old Iron Pier at Coney Island, New York City in 1896. In 1895, Charles Seeberger who ultimately teamed with the Otis Elevator company began designing moving stair-based escalators similar to those patented by Wheeler in 1892. His first commercial escalator won the first prize at the Paris 1900 Exposition Universelle in France. All this means that escalators have been around for at least a century; so are not transitional technologies and are not likely to be replaced soon.

The question of what next is an interesting one. I do not hold my breath for transporter beams, as anyone who has had a call drop on their cell phone should agree. Star Trek’s Dr. Bones McCoy, on the transporter: I signed on this ship to practice medicine, not to have my atoms scattered back and forth across space by this gadget.” It was never quite clear what the writers of Star Trek wanted the transporter to be. However, there are certain issues of reality and the quantum mechanical paradox that you might not become who you are. It gives one pause. And while Star Trek writers tell us that this problem is fixed by “Heisenberg Compensators,” one’s gotta wonder.

So what is next? By definition we do not know. But at a future date, when we are nothing more than electrons captured in an array that defines an image, those who look at us will know and they will nod knowingly at our dogmatic quaintness.

Looking backwards again

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Figure 1 - Barricades rue Saint-Maur. Avant l'attaque, 25 juin 1848. Après l’attaque, 26 juin 1848. Technique et autres indications : Daguerréotypes Avant l'attaque : 11,2 x 14,5 Après l'attaque : 12,2 x 14,5 cm Lieu de Conservation : Musée d'Orsay (Paris) ; Référence de l'image : 02CE10881/PHO2002-41 --- 02CE10879/PHO 2002-42

Figure 1 – Barricades on the Rue Saint-Maur, before the attack, June 25, 1848. Daguerreotype in the collection of theMusée d’Orsay (Paris); (Image reference : 02CE10881/PHO2002-41 — 02CE10879/PHO 2002-42) and in the public domain because of its age.

All of this talk about nineteenth century photography keeps taking me to its origins in France. Those were unsettled times in France. I have always found 19th century French history enormously complex. But it bears the indelible fact that Democracy is a fragile dedication, and you cannot take it for granted. In 1830 Charles X was forced to abdicate and Louis Philippe, the Bourgeois Monarch, assumed the throne.  Louis Phillipe was a businessman and he exploited his monarchy to become enormously wealthy. On the surface, he claimed to be a supporter of the little business man (the petite bourgeoisie). Reality was otherwise. Discord fermented, Workers lost their jobs, bread prices rose, and people accused the government of corruption. Alexis de Tocqueville put it succinctly,

“We are sleeping together in a volcano. … A wind of revolution blows, the storm is on the horizon.”

In February of 1848, a revolution toppled King Louis Philippe and established an elected government, the Second Republic, to rule France. This government steered an increasingly conservative course. On June 23, 1848, the people of Paris rose in insurrection. This is the June Days Uprising by Paris’ workers.  Again, democracy was fragile. On December 2, 1848, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte was elected President of the Second Republic, largely on peasant support. Exactly four years later he suspended the elected assembly, establishing the Second French Empire, which lasted until 1870 and the Franco-Prussian War.

As we look forward, we should look back. And here photography once again gives us the frozen in silver opportunity. Figure 1 is a daguerreotype showing the barricades along the Rue Saint-Maur before the attack on June 25, 1848. What connects us in human terms are the apartment windows looking over the street, the man working on the barricades, and the store advertisements on the sides of the building – the chocolate shop.To me it is amazingly eerie in the mood that it creates and the remarkable clarity and sharpness.