Category: The Arts

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Her Heart Soars

As explained nearly three weeks ago, I tend towards thrifty shooting with a digital camera—in this instance Leica Q2. The Featured Image is only one of three captures—the other two at f/5.6 and f/8, with the latter greatly expanding the field of focus. But in the end, wisely or not, I chose the photo made wider open, because of how the painted bricks lead the eyes to the graphic. Vitals, aperture manually set: f/2.8, ISO 100, 1/2500 sec, 28mm; 10:28 a.m. PDT, April 12, 2021. In post-production, I used DxO Perspective Efex to tweak the geometry.

The evening before, I encountered two of my neighbors walking their dog. The husband said that I would want to stop by his house “and bring your camera”. You can see why. The couple live on Meade below Georgia, and they are long-time University Heights residents—about 22 years, if I recall rightly.

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Make More Movies Like This

Superhero movies don’t really appeal to me, which is major reason I haven’t bothered watching “Justice League” (2017) or any other films in the genre. The so-called “Snyder Cut” debuted on HBO Max, March 18, 2021. Two days ago, the Twitterverse—heck, the universelearned that a black-and-white “Justice is Gray” version is “coming soon” to the streaming service. I love it!

During the early 1990s, I was an editor working for a general-interest magazine based in Washington, DC. I conceived, commissioned, and edited stories for print. Observed trend among successful freelancers: They would take one body of reporting/research and repackage it as different stories for several publications and their respective audiences. It’s a thrifty approach to news gathering that maximizes potential revenue for the writer, improves relationships with print (in this decade online) editors, and expands audience reach. Why shouldn’t filmmaking be something similar?

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CLAWS Dig In

We follow up my neighborhood’s lone Trump-Pence 2020 sign with something even more surprising: Black flag that is the Featured Image, which I captured using iPhone XS on August 16. Vitals: f/2.4, ISO 16, 1/1229 sec, 52mm (film equivalent); 11:51 a.m. PDT. The tabby nicknamed Ranger from my “Cats of University Heights” series lives in the same residence.

Have feline families formed a coalition against racism? Nope. It’s the meeting of art, entrepreneurism, and opportunity. “CLAWS is not a group or organization, it’s my idea/message/statement/artwork/design”, creator Ryan Patterson explains on his Cat Magic Punks page. “If you love cats and are against white supremacy, you’re part of it!”

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Sign of the Times

Two weeks ago, while walking around Hillcrest, my wife and I briefly stopped by the local, massive, used bookstore. To my surprise, the place was three-quarters emptied and going out of business. Yikes! I hadn’t shopped there for nearly a year, when purchasing a paperback for myself later given to my father-in-law. While 5th Avenue Books is gone, online counterpart Schrader’s Books will continue selling used titles through Amazon. As someone who almost exclusively reads ebooks, I occasionally—but, honestly, rarely—shopped out-of-prints not available in digital format, almost always finding the sought-after read.

That last purchase: The Past Through Tomorrow by Robert A. Heinlein, an old-time favorite selling for three bucks. When I first bought the anthology in high school, it came as a set with two other titles: Stranger in a Strange Land and Time Enough for Love. During the last year of my father-in-law’s life, reading became his main recreation. I donated the Heinlein title to that cause. Following the 95 year-old’s death nine weeks ago, I reclaimed the book to read and as remembrance. 

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Bump Art

Sometimes I am shocked to find myself out of touch with popular culture—and that’s a terrible admission living in Southern California, where pronounced body art can be seen everywhere. Yet, not until yesterday’s Flickr Blog post “Belly Paining” and link to small gallery of photos had I ever seen such a thing.

Yeah, my wife and I are middle-aged parents with a daughter in college—removed from immediate contact with expectant-mother lifestyle. Nevertheless, how in the land of tattoos could I miss something so interesting, creative, and personally expressive? What a wonderful way to celebrate the joys (and hardships) of pregnancy.