Category: Storytelling

Read More

Flickr a Day 147: ‘Old Lady’

If you asked reasons for today’s selection, several would stand out. Top of list: Exhaustion that makes me identify with the subject. That’s how I feel after searching the photostream of Oliver Degabriele; I could choose any and most every image for the Day. Composition, color, and contrast also appeal, and I find something old-worldly and interesting about self-titled “Old Lady”.

But I like “Soundcheck” as much, but passed even though it more topically represents the photographer, who also is a musician. As the series progresses, increasingly my choices are influenced by previous picks. We bad musical performance themes on Days 121692, and 100

Read More

A Life Lesson

For three summers during high school, I participated in federal assistance program Upward Bound at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. My parents divorced when I was 13, and my then 31 year-old mother chose to raise four children alone. Jobs were scarce in Aroostook County during the early 1970s, and mom couldn’t earn enough. We were poor, by most American measures.

That circumstance and college plans qualified me to spend summers in Southern Maine and someday to attend a school like Bowdoin (I didn’t). The program has expanded such that if I were a high school student today, my UB participation would be at the University of Presque Isle branch rather than the one at Bowdoin. While closer to home (next town over), the benefits wouldn’t be as a great: Getting out of the County’s confines, experiencing life on such a prestigious college campus, watching Shakespeare at the Theater at Monmouth, or traveling—even for a day—to Boston. 

Read More

Flickr a Day 142: Beloved

To celebrate my wife’s birthday, I select a self-portrait she shot, at age 21, during the hopefully-not-forgotten fine film photography era. Ha! And youngsters today think selfies are some new thing. Annie doesn’t have a Flickr, so I—ah, hum—unexpectedly feature my own. That’s something not planned when starting this series nearly five months ago.

Annie used the Pentax K1000, which she bought for a college photography class. “It was a great camera for me”, she says. “I loved photography and really enjoyed developing photos”, although she concedes to not fully “developing my craft”. 

Read More

Flickr a Day 138: ‘Cold Soul’

For once I am glad for a photostream with so many images licensed All Rights Reserved, which means instant disqualification. This series only features Creative Commons works. There isn’t a Hamed Parham pic I wouldn’t pick otherwise, making the selection next to impossible, if not for the small number designated CC.

Some photos command character. Hamed goes further, by way of composition and perspective revealing each subject’s character. His street portraits are classic. Iconic. They’re ripped from the present and transported into the past.