Dry Slot

Picture This

Posted by: Bogon, 6:58 AM GMT en Noviembre 08, 2009

There's an old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. Exchange rates vary over time, however. Modern digital photo files can easily run several megabytes in size. Digital words, on the other hand, are comprised of characters, which take only a byte or two each. So if you reckon in terms of storage space on a digital medium, pictures are currently worth about a million words. Some inflation has occurred since the first photographers began coining adages.

Another old saying that I used to hear is that pictures don't lie. It didn't take long following the advent of the digital camera to officially lay that apothegm to rest. These days the word ‘photoshop’ is widely recognized as a verb of English. Seeing is no longer believing.

Not that it ever was, really. Photographers have always been free to choose where they took a picture, how they took the picture and how they developed the picture once they got their camera home. What you see when you view a photograph is not necessarily what the photographer saw when he took the shot.

Here's a case in point. Remember when I traveled past Grandfather Mountain last month? One of the pictures I chose for my blog was a zoomed-in version of this one:

Here you see the condos and power lines that were omitted in the shot I posted. Now pull back a bit further.

Looking Back from Banner Elk

This time the 'zoom' was accomplished not by adjusting the lens but by driving my car a few miles down the road to Banner Elk. Now the mountain looks rather small and distant, and we see that it lies amid a settled area with roads and cars and buildings. Is one of these photos more truthful than the others? I'll let you be the judge of that.

We might consider that there are different modes of perceiving truth. That is what art is all about. The artist guides our perception with his work. (Not that I claim to be an artist, but...) Let's talk surrealism...

Gotta Go

...or impressionism.

Sunset Beach

Begin with framing and focus. We can focus on the large, as with Grandfather Mountain. Or we can pick something small, a thing which is usually beneath our notice.

Mushrooming

Occasionally my eye is drawn to points of view that we habitually ignore. Here's the back side of a newspaper office in the town where I used to live. In the distance you can see the uplifted spire of a church and the blue dome of the old county courthouse. I took many pictures of those noteworthy edifices, but I only took one with power lines and chimneys in the foreground. In a way this one is more honest, because all too often the photographer's search for beauty is thwarted by some piece of unphotogenic infrastructure.

Behind the Herald

Here's a viewpoint that I'm sure the people who live nearby never consider. They see their yards and houses. I see a hillside drawn and quartered.

Fences Facing

This one reminds me of an M. C. Escher print, worlds within worlds.

Somber Reflections

Sometimes the camera captures something ephemeral, freezing a moment that will never return.

Kaffeeklatsch

Sometimes the captured moment is rendered timeless. It becomes a stepping stone for our imagination.

Appalachian Sunset

Of course, if you want to take a fine photo, it helps to have an exceptional subject.

Aerie

Even with a great subject in the viewfinder there's room for serendipity. Check out the sunshine on these clementines. You can't plan stuff like that.
Oh, I suppose some people might. Maybe that's what makes a professional photographer.

Tiger

Shucks, even a professional can't make that cat sit there like that. I know that cat. He does what he wants.

Perhaps I should explain that photography has never been a principal interest of mine. That explains, in part, why I have never invested in Photoshop or any of its competitors. I use an old (circa 2002) camera that only holds four dozen photos at a time. Last year my wife bought a camera for approximately the same amount of money that mine cost seven years ago. Hers is half the size with twice the features and a whopping four gigabytes of storage. It takes huge pictures that won't fit on my computer screen. That's one reason I still like my camera. It takes one megapixel pictures that are the perfect size for desktop wallpaper. File size of a compressed JPEG is around 300 kilobytes. It's a low budget operation.

Which leaves lots of scope for luck, serendipity, happy accidents and (sob!) misfortune in my photographic explorations. The great thing about a digital camera is that the mistakes, the bad luck and the hiccups are easily expunged from the record. There's no cost for film or processing. The rejects won't overflow your trash can. There's no stench of acetic acid from the darkroom.

Here's a mug shot of your long-suffering raconteur.

Me+Bug

Here we espy the subject wearing his favorite Pizzeria Uno t-shirt, his excellent John Deere hat and a passable smile posed against a lovely montane background. The volunteer photographer managed to set an optimum exposure. Everything came out perfectly... except for the bug on the lens. For redundancy's sake the photographer took two additional shots while I fidgeted on the stone wall. The bug flew away, but, alas, neither photo came out so well in other respects. This is the pick of the litter. Sigh.

A lot of my favorite photos are happy accidents. Take this orchid, for example.

Orchid

I saw a flower in a room. I had no idea it would come out limned in light, floating in space. Which is truth, the mundane room or the ethereal floating?

Consider this foggy morning.

Dawn

This looks like a black and white photo, but it's not. I really like this one. Great wallpaper.

Maybe it's just me, because this was taken right outside my front door in a place I lived for about ten years. It has a lot of personal significance for me. One old saying that certainly applies to photography is, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

Sometimes it's not so much what you see as what you don't. This view is obscured and blurry, but it still works.

Mountain Mist

Some things are visible to the eye but not to the camera. This is an attempt to photograph wind. I'm not sure how it will come out on your screen. First Weather Underground reduces the size, then your browser and your monitor each take a turn handling the rendering. In the original photo you can see certain effects of wind. It would be obvious in a video.

Wind

Things may appear in a finished photo that were never apparent through the viewfinder.

Rockwood Street

This is an ordinary street. You could drive along it and never think twice. But somehow, with this lens and camera angle, it becomes an ominous and outré landscape, a vast arid no man's land of asphalt and warning signs. Can you see it, too, or has Bogon been staring at pixels too long?

Maybe I should stick closer to home. Here's a fairly common sight in my neighborhood that you're probably not going to find in, say, Mongolia. Location, location, location: in that sense photography is like real estate.

Tarheel

Despite obvious potential for fakery and manipulation of digital imaging, the camera remains a fine tool for documentation. When I was growing up, North Carolina was renowned for its production of tobacco products. My grandfather grew an allotment of burley tobacco on his farm as a cash crop. (He enjoyed Prince Albert in a pipe, too. Grandpa reached the age of ninety-one, still smoking.) Today the tobacco industry has acquired an evil reputation, and many farmers in this part of the world invest their land in other crops, such as wine grapes or Christmas trees. Yet the rural landscape is dotted with old tobacco barns, some of them still redolent with the unmistakable scent of curing tobacco. I love that smell. I feel that these old barns are a vanishing part of my heritage, so I take pictures.

Barn

This picture comes to you straight from the camera. I use a shareware program called Irfanview to view photos. Irfanview knows how to perform a few simple tweaks to enhance sharpness, contrast and color. Sometimes I try those on photos that look like they could use a little help. If the result looks closer to what I am trying to achieve, I resave the tweaked file. Otherwise, I leave it alone. This photo has been left alone.

Does that mean it is a fair and truthful report? Is it worth more than a million words? Well, yes and no. Your visual system can surely process this image faster than even a thousand words. The picture shows one side of one barn at one point in time. You can see that side in considerable detail. You don't see the other side of the barn. You can't see the inside of the barn. You'll never see the barn at night or in summer. You don't know the history behind the barn. You can't tell much about the landscape around the barn. There could be a skating rink or a NASA launch pad behind the camera, and you would never know. For some things you need words — or you need to go see for yourself. Most of us don't have time or budget to travel everywhere that might strike our fancy, so we're obliged to make do with photographs. For that kind of use, for people who will never see this barn any other way, I figure this is dinkum documentation.

Examples of pictorial art in a gallery are typically displayed with a title. The title ups the ante, adding another dimension to our appreciation of the image. I call this one “Tracks in the Snow”.

I know you'll agonize for hours over whether the title refers to the railroad tracks or to the tracks left by the photographer as he laboriously slogged through the freezing cold to the correct location for the snapshot. I guess it's a kind of visual pun.

Now and again it's wise to turn around and take a retrospective look at how we arrived at our present predicament. Only then we can properly consider which way to proceed.

They Went Thataway

Here's “The Way”.

The Way

Categories: Photos

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1. charlesimages 6:59 AM GMT en Noviembre 08, 2009
wow some really great shots here!! Member Since: Mayo 25, 2006 Posts: 344 Comments: 29243

2. masshysteria 4:51 PM GMT en Noviembre 08, 2009
Wonderful eclectic and amusing pics you've taken! Well done and enjoyable!! Member Since: Junio 21, 2006 Posts: 52 Comments: 7117

3. Bogon 4:55 PM GMT en Noviembre 08, 2009
Thanks. Coming from you people that means a lot. :o) Member Since: Junio 26, 2008 Posts: 72 Comments: 2761

4. surfmom 5:01 PM GMT en Noviembre 08, 2009
thank you Bogon, what a wonderful journey through your eyes this morning - a visual and reading pleasure - I enjoyed your world, insights and pictures - hummm still haven't picked a favorite - but I think that TomCat stole the show for me. Good points about how we see, what we see and perspective - up close and long view : ) Member Since: Julio 18, 2007 Posts: 30 Comments: 26538

5. Bogon 5:22 PM GMT en Noviembre 08, 2009
surfmom, Thanks for stopping by. My wife calls this cat Tiger. He's getting pretty old now, but he still has plenty of attitude. I hear the surf's up in the Gulf of Mexico. Not sure which side of the peninsula you're on. I hope you can get some good rides... and still have a safe house to go home to when Ida blows away! Member Since: Junio 26, 2008 Posts: 72 Comments: 2761

6. aquak9 5:33 PM GMT en Noviembre 08, 2009
Excellent blog post, Bogon. I really appreciate all the time you took. What man? All I saw was a bug on the lens. Oh yeah, him. Awfully hard sometimes, to capture something in the viewfinder, when it's 360º all around you. I had this problem when I visited NOLA and areas, post-Katrina. Sometimes emotion says no, you can't put me in a viewfinder, I'm too big. My grandpa cured deertongue -a tobacco filler- in his barn. Your mention of the smell brought back memories. hillside drawn and quartered- yes, chop chop thru God's land. Like anyone can truly own it. Clementine Cat- she was posing, she knew it, she knew the world would see her one day. Her eyes see further ahead in time than yours do. But...she still let the clementines take front row. Humble cat. Thanks again for the blog. Might come back and ramble some more. Well needed mental/visual break from Idaknow. Member Since: Agosto 13, 2005 Posts: 163 Comments: 25002

7. OGal 5:33 PM GMT en Noviembre 08, 2009
Ok my favorites, the toilet and the tar heel. Love all your pictures. Beautiful picture of the snow on GFM. The picture of the Vanda Orchid is lovely. Was the picture of you taken on the Blue Ridge Parkway? I think I know where that was. Member Since: Agosto 28, 2005 Posts: 72 Comments: 19170

8. Bogon 5:42 PM GMT en Noviembre 08, 2009
Aqua, You nailed the photographer's ultimate dilemma. How do you cram the whole world into a little box? You have to slice and dice. All those bits and pieces are only part of the truth, and each is, in a sense, wholly a lie. Ogal, The bug picture was taken at Craggy Gardens on the Blue Ridge Parkway north of Asheville. Member Since: Junio 26, 2008 Posts: 72 Comments: 2761

9. RobDaHood 3:23 PM GMT en Noviembre 09, 2009
Just passing thru... Wanted to say thanks for sharing a really cool collection of pics! Member Since: Septiembre 2, 2008 Posts: 78 Comments: 25904

10. Bogon 7:50 PM GMT en Noviembre 09, 2009
Hi, Rob. Sorry I missed you. Had a 10:30 appointment downtown. Member Since: Junio 26, 2008 Posts: 72 Comments: 2761

11. surfmom 9:45 PM GMT en Noviembre 09, 2009
Hey Dude I'm on the right --did you hear me calling your name? LOL Member Since: Julio 18, 2007 Posts: 30 Comments: 26538

12. Bogon 12:24 AM GMT en Noviembre 10, 2009
Hey surfy, I wasn't sure if that was a buoy or a gull! Member Since: Junio 26, 2008 Posts: 72 Comments: 2761

13. Skyepony (Mod) 7:03 PM GMT en Noviembre 10, 2009
Thanks for sharing your pictures! Member Since: Agosto 10, 2005 Posts: 144 Comments: 29249

14. synthman19872003 7:13 PM GMT en Noviembre 10, 2009
Cool pics here Bogon! Like the Tarheel flag pic as well ;) but my cousin wouldn't, she's all for Duke LOL! Member Since: Mayo 18, 2006 Posts: 51 Comments: 4045

15. NumberWise 9:38 PM GMT en Noviembre 10, 2009
I thoroughly enjoyed both the photos and your thoughts. Spending time reading this blog was a real pleasure. Member Since: Octubre 22, 2005 Posts: 0 Comments: 1566

16. Bogon 2:22 PM GMT en Noviembre 11, 2009
Thanks for the kind words, everyone. I have more pictures stashed under my mattress, but these are some of the best. I may have to take a few more before we do this again. Dry No Longer The Storm Formerly Known As Ida continues to drench the site formerly known as Dry Slot. What began as desultory drizzle has become a steady downpour. Yesterday was dead calm, but since late last night we've had enough wind to spatter the windows. NWS has posted a flash flood watch and a wind advisory for my area. They predict the wind will pick up after the rain passes. Looks like I'm on hiatus from disc golf for a few days. The area of rain associated with the storm is crossing my location along its longest dimension, meaning that we derive the maximum benefit (if 'benefit' is the right word). Hey, I'm getting a free car wash, right? At this rate it will be next summer before I have reason to employ the word 'dry' in its meteorological sense. Meanwhile watch for parsimonious doses of acerbic humor in this slot. :o/ Member Since: Junio 26, 2008 Posts: 72 Comments: 2761

17. PeaceRiverBP 1:10 AM GMT en Noviembre 12, 2009
Bogon: Wonderful photos and wit! It's been nice to see and read about the world from your point of view. Thanks for sharing it with us. :-) I hope Ida departs your area without doing any harm. (So you can get back to your disc golf.) Member Since: Noviembre 16, 2002 Posts: 70 Comments: 7158

18. surfmom 1:16 AM GMT en Noviembre 12, 2009
IDA WAVES SRQ 11/11 Member Since: Julio 18, 2007 Posts: 30 Comments: 26538

19. Bogon 4:42 PM GMT en Noviembre 12, 2009
Still raining. Ida has passed to the east, but leaden skies persist along with fitful wrap-around rain. The restless north wind bears a late morning temperature of 47°. The front has cleared Cape Lookout. Heavy rain continues to pound the northeastern corner of the state from Cape Hatteras to Currituck Sound. Judging by isobars on the weather map the worst winds are reserved for DelMarVa and Chesapeake Bay. Dr. Masters reports on the storm surge. Member Since: Junio 26, 2008 Posts: 72 Comments: 2761

21. Beachfoxx 11:54 PM GMT en Noviembre 12, 2009
I hope Ida doesn't leave you with too much rain! I love the photos... sure make me want to visit home soon! Member Since: Julio 10, 2005 Posts: 153 Comments: 29283

22. RobDaHood 12:39 AM GMT en Noviembre 13, 2009
Hey Bogon! Just checkin'! parsimonious doses of acerbic humor in this slot hmmm, sounds prophetic! Member Since: Septiembre 2, 2008 Posts: 78 Comments: 25904

23. Bogon 4:17 PM GMT en Noviembre 13, 2009
Today dawns a little brighter, a little warmer and a little dryer. On satellite the cloud shield appears to be eroding from the west. Could it be that we will see blue sky today? That would make for a much finer Friday. 1023 AM EST FRI NOV 13 2009 THE FLOOD WARNING CONTINUES FOR THE HAW RIVER AT HAW RIVER. * AT 10:15 AM FRIDAY THE STAGE WAS 20.7 FEET. * FLOOD STAGE IS 18.0 FEET. * MINOR FLOODING IS OCCURRING AND MINOR FLOODING IS FORECAST. * FORECAST...THE RIVER WILL CONTINUE RISING TO NEAR 20.9 FEET BY THIS AFTERNOON. THE RIVER WILL FALL BELOW FLOOD STAGE TONIGHT. * IMPACT...AT 20.0 FEET...WATER OVERFLOWS THE RIGHT BANK OPPOSITE THE WATER TREATMENT PLANT The forecast for Sunday is sunny and 74°. After the last few days that seems pretty hard to believe, but, hey, bring it on! Member Since: Junio 26, 2008 Posts: 72 Comments: 2761

24. Bogon 8:10 PM GMT en Noviembre 13, 2009
Sunshine! Woohooo! It was only a peekaboo moment, but I can hardly overstate the significance after three days of gloom. Did I mention that one week ago I toured the Red Oak Brewery? I mean one week exactly -- 3:00 PM last Friday. That makes this my anniversary, and I have come prepared. Twelve ounces of amber lager, freshly opened. Here's to sunshine! Member Since: Junio 26, 2008 Posts: 72 Comments: 2761

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