interlude

A quick break in the Iowa pictures, with some things I shot on assignment this weekend. A Chinese dance class with young girls and traditional costumes and ribbons.

Iowa, part three

More glorious images from Iowa. I would call this series Allison In Motion, except that I added another picture at the end that blows that up. I'll let you guess the theme. (And if you guessed these probably work better in black and white, then you guessed right!)


Allison and Berkley in downtown Clarion. This is where all the magic happens.


Again, downtown Clarion, late in the day.


This is pure Iowa. Paint a sawblade to celebrate agriculture, make it into a clock, and when it breaks, display it in a museum.


A very little church across from the museum.

Iowa, part two

Some more pictures from the Iowa trip. This concludes the drive and the first 24 hours in Iowa.

Okay, so it's Black Friday, I've filled up my 512 card by this point, and I'm pressed into trying to find either a card reader or a new card to buy there in Clarion. None of the stores had anything. The Radio Shack guy, when I told him I needed compact flash, looked really confused and said that either I had an old camera or I was a pro. He said they were out of cards and readers, but that if I just needed to dump the card, he'd gladly burn it to a CD for me on his computer. Nice guy, saved me from driving an hour away to a big box retailer on the worst day of the year.

Anyway, pictures:


Allison at an Illinois rest stop. Very cold and very windy.


Carrie tries to help Aaron style his hair, but he's so picky about his bangs being just so that he freaks out and starts combing it himself.


Mmm, Susan fixing some creamed onions. Don't worry, they're better than they sound.


Chris and Carrie checking out the new furniture store in town.

Iowa, part one

A few pictures from the Thanksgiving trip to Iowa.


30 second exposure at 4am, just outside Cincy. I was supposed to have my attention on the road, but c'mon, it's a 22 hour drive.


Big-ass turkey. Takes two people to move it, and one to 'supervise' and make sure things progress well.


Beautiful sunset, but it was 18 degrees with 30mph winds and I didn't have a flash. What to do? Ask Allison to kneel in front of the headlights on the gravel road for a few minutes. I ever mention that she's too good for me? Yeah, I don't deserve her.


Grandma at Thanksgiving dinner.


Sidney takes a call. Gotta love that mixed light.

TimLyt

Oh, and big ups to TimTim for turning me onto the blogspot. I like it much better than LiveJournal, though I do like the social network that LJ promotes.


GhostTim does battle with the demonic light beasts.

The Mystery of Our Being

Here's something I ran across in my readings for PHI340, Philosophy of Science. The course explores the ideas behind science and religion, where they merge and diverge, how ideas like Creationism get mixed in that great soup.

Anyway, from physicist Max Planck (1858-1947), a piece he wrote called "The Mystery of Our Being." This excerpt is from a Q&A at the end of the essay:

Planck:[...] Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and, therefore, part of the mystery that we are trying to solve. Music and art are, to an extent, also attempts to solve or at least to express the mystery. But to my mind, the more we progress with either, the more we are brought into harmony with all nature itself. [...]

Murphy: Goethe once said that the highest achievement to which the human mind can attain is an attitude of wonder before the elemental phenomena of nature.

Planck: Yes, we are always being brought face to face with the irrational. Else we couldn't have faith. And if we did not have faith but could solve every puzzle in life by an application of the human reason, what an unbearable burden life would be. We should have no art and no music and no wonderment. And we should have no science[...] because science would thereby lose its chief attraction for its own followers -- namely, the pursuit of the unknowable[...]

hola

This blog will be a place for me to post a few pictures, some links, and some ideas that I run across that I want to hang onto. All of this will be photography-related, though how tenuous those relationships will be, I wouldn't care to guess at this point.