Category: Living

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Flickr a Day 252: ‘Happy Hour’

The animal parade continues, and choosing wasn’t easy. Ingrid Taylar presents a National Geographic-like menagerie of beasts and birds that captures character and detail. Self-titled “Happy Hour”, which she shot on May 31, 2013, takes the Day for being interesting. How often do you see something like that? Ingrid used Olympus OM-D E-M5 and Panasonic Lumix 100-300mm lens, because “my workhorse, the Olympus E-3 is in the shop”, she says. Vitals are not available.

From San Francisco, Calif., but living in Seattle, Wash., Ingrid is what I call a “lifer”. She joined Flickr in August 2004, about six months after the service was founded. Her blog, “The Wild Beat” is a real treat,

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Flickr a Day 231: ‘The Courage Wall’

First looking at the photostream of Dan Reed, I puzzled over the perspective and subjects, which are unlike anything else yet featured in this series. He shoots streets, buildings, and such from vantage points that are atypical. Then I read his bio. He’s an architect and city planner. Dan looks at things with a dramatically different eye than I would; he sees things in another context that is refreshing and revealing.

Dan shares his insights at blog “Just Up the Pike“, which refers to Maryland Route 29, or Columbia Pike. Our daughter was born when we lived off 29, just outside Silver Spring, which is Dan’s hometown. 

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Protesting Greenpeace?

The weather is perfect here in San Diego—what my wife and I call a Maine Day: 22 degrees Celsius and breezy. We hauled off to Ocean Beach, where navigating people busking or begging for money takes almost as much talent as negotiating a kayak through rocky rapids. Sure enough, I looked left and missed the approaching, friendly fundraiser from the right. Smack!

The singing circle of happy people distracted me. Oh no! Greenpeace? Again? Just cut an artery why don’t they and bleed me? But this dude—the one holding the yellow sign—had a different pitch. Greenpeace hires for two-week jaunts, he claimed, and those who don’t meet their quotas are dismissed from service. There be women with kids about to lose their livelihood. Yikes! The small cadre raised money against Greenpeace. 

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Flickr a Day 220: Chat

For some people, photography is a way of life. For shooter Erik Hagström, it is a way of living—of expressing himself in ways his body otherwise limits. There is a cool, somber ambiance to his art I could see, before learning his story, that captures more than just images in around the French Alps, but essence.

About himself, Erik explains: “After two cerebral accidents vascular in 2007, making me lose most of the control of my members, reconquered gradually, not being able more to play of musical instruments, or use pencils to draw and paint, I turned to the photograph”.