Time Capsule: Tintype
Taken yesterday, by Silver Creek with one of my favourite people in the world- my son, Brian, (who’s even more private than I am). The apple doesn’t fall far they say…
Dirty Water
Dishwater. I’m probably obsessed. iPhone SE. Fluorescent kitchen light reflected in bubbles. 2.23.22.
Little Worlds
Birth
The Birth
Eyes squeezed
Liquid
Pours into the mouth
No matter how tight it may be
Murky depths and water
Flood the slitted eyes
Death in its black and hollow cave
Extends a hand, quickly
Slapped back by the light
Which is growing yellow
Fat and bright
Wraps itself around the scene
Like a cobra
Shedding its last skin
The breath which was muted
Comes fast and loud and rough
Eyes burst open
Liquid spills and rolls down little hills
A final sigh as breath is held
Smiles are passed around like Cuban cigars
In the other room
More liquid
Filling and spilling from eyes
The baby cries
-B. Lindsey (original)
9/7/13
Black History MONTH?
How about just…Black History? Like, all year round like White people get. Yeah, that’d be cool.
Queen of X’s
Iphone SE – 2.1.22.
So I just learned from a professional that if there are X’s in one’s palm print (AKA: Timeline), it’s indicative of success, wealth and greatness. Um, I have about 50 of them. Keep in mind I don’t associate money with wealth in any way, whatsoever. The same can be said for success and “greatness” (and I use that term very loosely). I prefer happiness to greatness. But for me, money pays my rent and bills; that’s about it. It’s definitely not my drive, direction, focus or happiness. We create our own happiness (or sorrow) by the choices we make in life- every day. My happiness comes free and easily.
One can have all of the material possessions he so desires- lacking nothing! But still be sorrowful in his soul. The flip side is true too: one can have not a home or a pair of shoes on her feet, and the world is hers for the taking. (Gender plays no role; I simply wanted to be fair in the whole she/he thing.)
I’m not hating my palm print. 😁
It’s definitely decorative, and I don’t quite understand all of its implications, but I dig it.
Monochromejunkie
There’s a reason I chose the username Monochromejunkie: It’s because I’m obsessed with black and white photography. To me, nothing is more beautiful than a bold black and white image with heavy, dark blacks and stark whites. These days, people are so used to simply slapping a filter on something or doing a quick and easy B&W conversion.
it takes a well-trained eye to look out upon a landscape or street scene and be able to convert that over to a B&W in your mind and truly “see” a black and white. Because reds, greens, and blues all convert into various shades of black, white, and grey, you need to know what would truly make a good black and white, because not every scene does.
This past year, I’ve been in a photographic funk and sorely uninspired. 2018 was one of the hardest years of my life. So many troubles with some of my children and their private struggles, along with the death of close friends and loved ones. It really kicked me in the teeth and that alone can kill your passion for your art.
After coming back to my blog and writing again, I rediscovered my friend Gav’s black and white photography. He’s an excellent street photographer, but what he’s really good at, more so than anyone else I’ve ever known, is staying in black and white mode. Nevertheless, year after year, he continues shooting in black and white and never seems to grow bored with it.
Seeing his beautiful black and whites have woken up my first love: black and white photography. I’ve wanted to shoot in B&W mode (only) for a year straight- for a long time, but never had the courage to take that plunge. I know though, that if I don’t do that, then I’ll never commit. And if I don’t commit to truly knowing the ins and outs of black and white and really learning it, then I never will grow as a photographer and artist to the degree that I want to.
I’ve decided to finally take the plunge! I’m putting my camera in monochrome mode and leaving it there for an entire year. It actually began yesterday, so until March 8th of 2020, I’ll be shooting in nothing but black and white. This way, rather than focusing on various colours, I can keep my focus on lighting and exposure. So Gav, if you’re reading this, thank you! You’ve been a major inspiration and have woken up my love of black and white again. It’s not for everybody. But for people like us, it’s what drives us.
I took these yesterday, at Sellersburg park (Indiana) while taking Chance and Diamond on our mile walk. Just as we were getting ready to leave, it started snowing. That was a nice touch. 🙂 (These are basically SOOTC/straight out of the camera.)
A new bud gets its first taste of the snow. Carl Zeiss Jena Flektogon 35-2.8
When Praying Isn’t Enough
Yep. I said it.
So recently, there’s been a family-type situation in which a new mom has been keeping the kid away from the new dad and it absolutely sucks. Really badly. She’s playing dirty and not even trying to hide it. She basically tossed the dad out of her life (in record time, I might add) and replaced him with a new guy. She won’t let her x have any visitation whatsoever (even axe murderers in prison get to see their kids, do they not?) and so she’s just really doing some dumb stuff right now to make him suffer. Unfortunately, this isn’t uncommon, as a certain female I was raised with did the same thing to her kid. She was pretty hell-bent on destroying her x so she poisoned her kid against him. It was so evil. Accused him of molesting their kid…the whole shebang. Unfortunately, that’s not uncommon either and it really is the first thing evil moms do when they want to punish their exes so they can keep the kid all to themselves. It’s a form of Munchausen Syndrome, actually. Moms who abuse their kids so they can swoop in to save them later. It’s sick.
Anywho, back to my original rant. So this new mom is doing her (very bad) thing, and another person came in and commented on a FB post: “Really, we just need to pray for them both and show them both the love of God.”
Um….NO. Just NO.
First of all, if somebody is being an evil bastard, where does it say that we need to toss flowers at their feet and hold hands and sing Kumbayah with ’em and all of that? I don’t think so. My Bible is full of Scriptures that talk about “the evildoer” (in Proverbs) and “the wicked” and all sorts of other references for people who do evil *&^% and none of it says that we’re supposed to encourage their evil deeds by “showing them the love of God”. Nah, man.
There ARE Scriptures, however, that says something about “The Lord will show himself merciful to those who are merciful and He’ll show Himself froward to the froward” and so on. (II Sam. 22:27 and Psalm 18:26)
When I was younger and much more naive, I used to think the best course of action for virtually everything was to pray. Pray pray pray! Pray if you’re happy, pray if you’re sad. And pray especially when you have problems. But now that I’m maturing a bit, I see how that can sometimes be a copout. Don’t get me wrong, praying is wonderful. It’s lovely and necessary. But too many people will use prayer as a hopeful remedy rather than a supplemental act.
I think it’s absolutely irresponsible to tell somebody that what they need is “to pray” (only), rather than rolling up their sleeves and getting to work! It’s lazy. if we simply prayed (again, only) for every problem we have, we’ll have so many more problems as a result, because we’ll inadvertently be shoving our own responsibilities over onto God, expecting Him to do it all.
Yes, God is a big God and He can and will fulfill our needs, but He gave us hands to work with, a brain to think with, feet to run with, and mouths to speak with! He also gave us common sense to know when we need to get off of our butts and DO SOMETHING rather than telling everybody to simply “pray”.
/rant
My two week break is almost over and I’ll be hitting the books again soon. I’ve enjoyed the heck out of my little vacation. There’s almost nothing I love more than to kick back with a new adventure game and lose myself in another world. Escapism at its finest! Sheer bliss. 🙂
Until we meet again, WP. x
Lensbaby Composer/Canon Rebel/winterscape- in black and white
m o n o c h r o m e j u n k i e † 