Figure 1 – And there are more good things to come… (c) DE Wolf 2016.

I am always looking for cool geometrics to photograph with my IPhone and yesterday I ran into this simple sign. It was my favorite kind of sign, namely translucent white. It bore a very simple message “And there are more good things to come…” Literally in this particular store, as the arrow indicates, these are upstairs. But that aside, I am taking this as a deeper, more existential message. Don’t despair AND there are more good things to come.

Obviously, I have dramatized the typographical geometric elements and emphasized the contrast. All of this to emphasize the simple elegance of the ampersand and its cheerful message to a world dominated by the @ symbol.

Figure 1 – Dragon in the Olympic National Park, August 19, 2016, IPhone photograph, (c) AB & DE Wolf 2016.

Dragons – we know them as mythical creatures, and I learned from the Wikipedia that there are two mythic traditions:

• European dragons, typically depicted as reptilian creatures with animal-level intelligence,. four legs, and a detached set of wings.
• Asian dragon, more serpentine creatures with above-average intelligence, four legs, and wingless.

And it is an important point that someone is always headed off to slay the dragon. In our cultures dragons have major great  spiritual significance. They are “revered as representative of the primal forces of nature, religion and the universe. They are associated with wisdom—often said to be wiser than humans—and longevity.” And, of course, they often possess some form of magic or other supernatural power. There is, after all, this ability to breath fire. Oh, and, many can talk! Pete’s Dragon, Puff the Magic Dragon, The Reluctant Dragon …

I remember as a boy being disappointed that dragons do not really exist. Somehow it seemed that the world was less without them, having loss a major force of magic. Magic was not real. So I abandoned it for science, and found the magic again.

Still “anything can happen in the woods.” And yesterday my son was hiking along the Klahhane Ridge in the Olympic National Park, when he came along this fine fellow, whom he photographed with his IPhone. I’ve “worked the image up;” so it is a father-son collaboration.

Figure 1 – Workers on the roof, IPhone photograph using “Noir” filter. Willmington, MA, (c) DE Wolf 2016.

Last night I went back and looked at the date of Hati and Skoll’s first posting, and it was August 19, 2012. So today is officially our fourth anniversary! That boy, Wolf, sure has a lot to say!!! So I really want to begin today by thanking all of my readers for your continued interest and support. Please keep the comments coming. You make it all worthwhile.

Regular readers of this blog will recognize my infatuations with black and white photography and with testing the limits of my IPhone 6 as a black and white camera. Recently, I started “playing” with the automatic filters available with the IPhone and I became enthralled with the “Noir” filter and its ability to really emphasize clouds. It is ever so reminiscent of film days with a deep red Wratten A filter. The “Noir” filter by surprising blues and favoring reds creates the illusion that you are doing infrared photography. It is, of course, nothing of the sort. But it does result in some very dramatic photographs.

Hence, the other afternoon, I was taking a walk around the building at work and noticed some workers on the roof with some beautiful clouds in the background. The result is Figure 1. I achieved the effect that I wanted even though I had to deal with the usual problem of not being able to see the image on the screen because of the intense sunlight. I much prefer looking through the viewfinder of my DSLR. I know, I know, such a techno-dino!

Figure 1 – A water tank with shades of the ritual of Chud, IPhone photograph, Wilmington, MA.

Yesterday I was out walking and came upon the water tank of Figure1. It is industry-proper orange.  It may even be that traditional triplumbic tetroxide, or red lead, finish that we used to see on park benches. It immediately reminded me of the outlet from the Derry sewer system in Stephan King’s novel “It,” wherein the creature Chud dwells. Chud is a giant evil spider that lives(?) underground, It can only be be defeated by the Ritual of Chud. This scary fellow harkens back to two classical horror fantasy elements: the arachnid character Mordred in J. R. R. Tolkein’s “The Lord of the Rings” and H. P. Lovecraft’s “Cthulhu Mythos of dark evil creatures beneath the Earth”

I offer all of this ominous foreboding from a lunchtime stroll and a simple IPhone photograph. But the great power of Stephan King as a horror writer lies in his realization that you do not have to be in Transylvania to be bitten by a vampire. They are all around us, even at McDonald’s.

Figure 1 – Bunched cloth, IPhone photograph. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

I am strolling with my IPhone again, well I’m actually always strolling with my IPhone. So this past weekend I took the image of Figure 1, one of my favorite subjects for this kind of photography – bunched cloth. Here a tee-shirt tied in the back. This represents a purity of subject, simple, yet elegant, lines and texture. Here i have gone to black and white, surrendering all color to the simplicity of black and white, which is dominated by geometry and dynamic range.

Figure 1 – Electric outlets. IPhone photograph. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

Think about it. All around the world people are plugging in, tapping into the energy source, the so called grid. It is a great symbol of modern technological achievement – the wired network. Of course, a little more than a hundred years ago it didn’t exist. I am tempted to ask, who then would have thought it possible? However, that is just the point there are dreamers – people like Tesla and Edison.

So it makes you wonder whether it might someday be possible to have a wireless source of energy, and there are already inductive schemes like those charging disks at your local Starbucks and airport. Two things come to mind. First, that with high voltage power-lines the energy is actually stored between the wires, and second there is so much energy nowadays in electromagnetic waves that we are essentially bathed in, that you can build a little antenna/circuit and charge your cellphone without plugging it in.

Fifty years ago we were slaves or captives to wired telephone systems and now wired systems (landlines) are becoming antiques.  The dreaming here is very obvious. “Kirk to Enterprise. Beam me up, Scotty.”

Tele-transporting? Is that next? There are about one hundred reasons that it makes no sense in terms of physics. And then there is the problem of the call “dropping.” I mean would you really trust your carrier with your elements?

Captain James T. Kirk: You ready, Bones?
Dr. McCoy: No. I signed aboard this ship to practice medicine, not to have my atoms scattered back and forth across space by this gadget.
Captain James T. Kirk: You’re an old-fashioned boy, McCoy.

Figure 1 – Photopictorialism Study #15 – Translucent pictorialism, IPhone photograph. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

One of the more dramatic forms of illumination that you see in shopping centers are transparencies illuminated from behind across a milky plastic surface. It creates a very dramatic and intense late and makes colors essentially explode. I made use of this today and photographed a detail of such and ad to create a kind of impressionist of photopictorialist image. The result is the intensely colored image of Figure 1.

Figure 1 – Windows IPhone image. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

Yesterday I talked a bit about minimalist structures consisting of dots and lines, or strings of broken glass. As a follow-up to that I’d like to post an image that I took this morning of windows, seen through windows, seen through windows, seen through windows, seen through windows, seen through a store window. Or put more simply Figure 1 is an IPhone image of windows.