I totally censored myself!

Have I blogged this yet? Probably not. Can you believe a major photographic publication actually turned down the opportunity to publish this image? Ya, I can too... 

I still have no idea what this is saying. Someone somewhere must know. Find them and bring them to me!

Price of Perspective

Broken buildings are some of my favorite things. Decaying structures have a way of showing us construction techniques without even trying. They also represent the passage of time, the cycle of events and nature. They are bitter and they are sweet. They are toil and they are sweat, and pleasant moments. They are textures, contrasts, colours and shapes.



Perspective comes at a cost.

Potato Sack Patio Bucket

Potato Sack Patio Bucket, a photo by Complication due to Wolf. Harmony. on Flickr.

My daughter fills this bucket with gravel, then makes me carry it around behind her while she walks down the sidewalk picking up sticks. One of my favorite things to do on a cloudy afternoon in June.

I am working on this patio. It is much farther along now.

The potato sacks contain potatoes. Alive.

Dormant | Stagnant

2+ Months off. That's what I call bad blogging. According to experts, 1 post per week is the bare min for a successfully blog. Twice per week is better. Daily is best. This blog has been stagnant since the end of September. It is now mid-December. The "Holidays" are comin'. I should post more.

I have also been neglecting my flickr account... and my other blog has been dormant since the end of July. This one is easier so I focus on it more. Writing mini-essays about novels, comic books and TV shows takes a surprising amount of time. I will get back to it, I swear.

Zipper's up, but nobody's home.

 

I didn't know what to write about this for days after I put in the photograph's HTML. I cleaned these seats off a couple of years ago. They were someone's trash and they were very disgusting. I think there were 24 of them - went along with the table of which I beleive there were 6.

This seating area is behind a bug-netting-device. This device is not closed, so there are bugs inside. There is a candle on the table.

Gauze.
 

Beyond the Curvature of the Trail.

I just uploaded this to Flickr today, though I took the photograph about 10 years ago. Had these developed this July - after such a long time that I can't exactly remember when or where they were taken. I think this might be a walking trail in the north end of Waterloo, Ontario. Not sure.

What I want to highlight with this are two points:

1) Isn't it exciting to develop a role of film that you can't remember shooting? I don't know if anyone else is/was ever like this, but when I was younger and didn't have much cash, I would prefer to buy film than to have film developed... I've always been a very "instant gratification" sort of person, and I would assume that there would always be time to develop film later. Ironically, it seems I was right. I have about 5 left from that era and every few months I take a couple to the photo shop to have them developed. I figure I will get to all of them by the end of the year. Next up, a nice old Illford and a 36 exposure roll of Ektachrome.

2) Even better than greenery that just stands around looking chlorolly... Greenery that goes some place. I love taking photos of trails and paths. Always have. It's just so nice to imagine myself walking around that bend, not knowing where it will end up. This reminds me of a short story by Japanese surealist Kobo Abe called "Beyond the Curve." Dude is walking home from work one night and when he gets to a bend in the road, he completely forgets everything "beyond the curve." Good story... worth a read.

That is all.

Once Upon a Time I Lived.

Once upon a time I lived in this landscape. I loved this landscape. I love grasses, overgrown and wild. Lawns displease me. This is why I have a dislike for the game of golf. The game itself is entertaining and rather interesting, but golf courses upset me more than I can put into words. I always feel a little guilty when I mow my lawn.

On Blocks. Off Balance.

There are things I like about this photograph and things I don't. What ends up bothering me (which incidentally is exactly what bothers me - kind of a vague thing to say, I know but I will explain) is that the so-called experts would surely tell me that I have effed up my composition. I can just hear some gd windbag with a beer gut covered by a polo shirt and poorly fitting khakis letting me know, in as condescending a manner as humanly possible, "Well, I would have cropped that a little bit here, and here, and here. Your composition is a little off balance."

You see, this is why it bothers me. Because it bothers that guy and the fact that that guy and is crew's opinions matter, whether I like the composition myself or not.

Point is, i like this composition. It's a little off balance. It's unsettling. It's intended to be - and yet it unsettles me. Because I know someone somewhere will look at it on the internet and think. "That's off balance - I would have done it better."

Colours Against a Goddamn Wall.

This building no longer exists. The age of random quonset huts is at an end. All over the world they are being torn down and replaced with more "modern" facades. The new buildings are essentially the same - steel frames covered in flat or ridged steel paneling. The difference? Quonset huts are more interesting. Visually at least. That is, unless you prefer boxes.

These colours were once green.

My cat is still at large in the wilds of North Perth Township, Ontario.

Farewell Little Peeps. We Miss You.

Farewell Little Peeps. I missed you terribly the second you jumped out the window. I'm so sorry I scared you and made you run away. I will never forgive myself for that. Chaseroo is doing OK, but he misses you too. I think he thinks you're still coming back one day. Paul misses you also, but she isn't showing it.

Everytime I see a little black kittie on the street or in a field or in somebody's yard I think it might be you. I hope you weathered the rain OK on the weekend. Probably you are eating lots of mice and birds. I hope you are able to hook up with a group of barn cats. There is strength (and warmth) in numbers.

Again, I am so sorry I scared you. I hope you find us one day. Thanks for living with us at our house for all those years. Sorry we moved you around so much. If we'd just stayed put, you never would have gotten scared.

Peace out.

Carlos' Digit.

"... he had a baretta with a bar-rubbed off serial digit. And I know he got it from Carlos the Midget..."

I guess I don't particularly approve of firearms, really. Guns, grenades & bombs, other sorts of explosive devices, riffles and that sort of thing are not my kind of item. Still, it occasionally occurs to me that, after the Apocalypse, Armageddon or social-order-collapsing revolution, there isn't going to be much that my business experience and amateur photographic skills will be any good for.

Some days I feel like, if I knew how to fire a weapon, grow food without the help of my local garden center, or build an electric car out of trash that I find in the street I and my family would be much more secure should the worst possible scenario take place.

Maybe I should even learn to fish, too.

Anyone out there know how to make tofu from scratch?

Either way, if any of these scenarios do take place, this photograph reminds me of where I would like to be when I am weathering that storm.

Note the greenness of the locale.

Pink Flamingo, Panther Stomp-out.

At one time I worked in an office. Actually, I have worked in a lot of offices, but I am thinking of one in particular. The first office I worked in, actually. There were a lot of grabby people in that office and for some reason it was not considered taboo to grab a colleague's beverage and take a drink from it. I found this very irritating which, I think, is quite reasonable. One day I decided to start bringing chocolate rice and/or soy milk to work with me. That solved it.

Also, the guy with the Panther tattoo came back. The sheer violence with which he stomped that dandelion to death was astounding. Nearly forces me to stutter.

Maybe he was assing out a cigarette and the dandelion just got in the way. Either way it was astounding.

There is a forest behind the screen in the background. I thought I should mention this as a way of keeping myself on-theme.

Dirty high-top shoes.

Is there anything green in this photograph? Anything at all? What am I even looking at?

Can't be a guy with dated denim shorts, dirty high-tops and no shirt on with his drawers sticking out, can it? No, that ain't there. His tattoos, btw, are actually pretty impressive. The pouncing panther being the most impressive... if not a little incongruous on his pale white skin. It's the poorly trimmed and asymmetrical mustaches and goatee that are really bothering me just at the moment. And the way he keeps pacing back and forth in front of my office window with a rather aggressive and threat-ful expression beneath that poorly maintained "beard."

"Got yr dirty high-top shoes, baby!
Yeah, dirty high-top shoes!"

Springtime is nice for Commies.

Springtime is nice. I spend a lot of time wishing it was fall. I tend to glorify the annual adjustment from green as mentioned previously. But the truth is that the explosion of pale blossoms that are my favourite side effect of the springtime warming is almost better. Because the green is still there. They share.

Once I considered myself a communist. Now I don't, but I still think sharing is a good idea. European communism never really ended up being about sharing anyway. I think the Cubans might have a better handle on it.

Against all darkness.

This is a photograph of flowers. And it is a photograph of darkness. It is also a photograph that I have no memory of taking since I developed this role of film 10 years after shooting it. Clearly I was attempting to experiment with night photography.

At first I thought I had used a flash, but I don't think so anymore.

Clearly this was a long-exposure of a flower pot under direct lighting at night. It has been so long since I used my tripod.

There's green in this photograph, so I feel that it fits with the continuing theme of this meat blog.

Why I like skids. And how does this relate to greenery?

I recently read a post in a blog that I am following involving a personal anecdote which was used to illustrate the author's point about a topic/issue. Also recently, I related a personal anecdote to someone online to illustrate a topic/issue. Today I will relate that anecdote again, here. It isn't nearly related to the photograph except that the time period of the anecdotal story and when the photograph was taken are near to one another and/or overlap. Here is the anecdote in the exact form that I related it previously... I like to call it, "Why I like skids."

_________________________________________________________

I love skids, stacks of skids, pictures of skids, broken skids and leaning skids.

I once knew a guy who built them for a living. Got paid a dollar a piece. Dude started taking body building supplements and got himself up to $72 per hour. That was pretty impressive. It drove him completely insane, and I had to disassociate myself from him. He wasn't that nice to begin with, so I wasn't very aggrieved that I had to stop hanging out with him. Now every time I see a skid it reminds me of that guy.

_________________________________________________________

The photograph itself relates to greenery, not skids. It's nearly entirely blue, not green. And, as discussed previously, blue is not one of the colours that greenery escapes to later in life. But, like many things, green is incredibly affected by light and reflection. Greenery can be blue, too.

Bluery.

Minimalism.

Continuing on the theme of greenery. 2 things to point out.

1 - I like flowers as much as the next person, but what I really LOVE about flowers are their leaves and stems. tulips are no different.

2 - One of the most interesting things about flowers, and in plants in general, is the fact that they turn brown, yellow, orange or even red when the cease to be green. Scientists have an explanation for this, but I prefer to believe that they have just become bored with displaying just one colour for most of the year and have (consciously) chosen to change. For their sanity.

At one time I also told people that I believed flying insects to be small birds.

It's a sentiment.

Is it a sentiment? Cats believe we in the lab workin' on some new shit?

OK. That doesn't fit.

The sentiment is, still, greenery. This ain't green. It's grey. But it's still greenery?

Under. Through.

I mentioned yesterday that I enjoy greenery. This is true. I do enjoy greenery. In fact, I enjoy it at all costs.

Quite the opposite photo to the last. This time greenery is having trouble taking over and the man-mades have not yet lost the battle with time.

I think this is a photograph of a parking lot, then I realize that it is a photograph of weeds breaking free of asphalt.

The straw in the foreground is kind of menacing.

Once were bleachers.

These bleachers are old. This field and the school that once owned it are also old. The school is no longer a school, it is instead a victim of time and of municipal amalgamation. People come here to train horses and to graze them. At one time they came here to learn and to play baseball. The wood is decaying and the metal is rusting which is also a form of decay. I like this photograph because it reminds my of the past and also of the future.

Decay is balanced by new growth - apparent here in the form of greenery. Greenery is one of my favourite things.

N8 Wolves' Manifesto

This is a "photography blog."

I will post photographs and they will have captions. Sometimes the captions will be descriptive. Other times they will be ridiculous.

I will get started fairly soon.