Category: Storytelling

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Seventh Star Dreamer

In early 1979, I moved into my first apartment, for the rip-roaring rent of $40 per week. I had never lived alone before and spent much of my off-job time listening to music or songwriting. I wrote short “Seventh Star Dreamer”, lyric and melody, 36 years ago this month, sitting at the kitchen table late one afternoon.

By choice, I worked third-shift at a factory producing laminate tabletops. My typical day ended as most other people’s began. But there was something refreshing about my nocturnal lifestyle and evening walks, with stars above, to my job. The Milky Way inspired my writing.

From my catalog of other lyrics or songs posted for this year: “Cries by Day, Cries by Night“; “Dank Deep Eyes the Darkness“; “Disco Queen“; “Empire State“; “Road to Jericho“; “Surrealistic Pillow“. 

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Flickr a Day 109: ‘Two Seconds of Hesitation’

Our selection compliments Day 108. Both photographs use different techniques to split the viewpoint between subjects. Here, the mirror image creates dynamic perspective and leaves anyone looking closely wondering. Because to the far right, there is a man’s partial face in the reflection, watching her. The questions raised by his presence make the image more interesting—even more so with self-title “Two Seconds of Hesitation”.

Thibaud Saintin used Nikon D700 and 50mm f/1.4 lens to shoot the pic on Jan. 1, 2013, at the “Edelweiss cafe, Georgetown, Penang”. He lives in Bangkok, Thailand, where he teaches French. Vitals: f/2.2, ISO 1000, 1/40 sec, 50.4mm. 

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Flickr a Day 98: ‘NgaNga’

Dramatic is my reaction to this protest shot from Freedom II Andres, in Makati City, Philippines, on Oct. 4, 2013. The second “Million People March” rallied against the country’s so-called pork-barrel scam that a Philippine Daily Inquirer investigative series exposed about two months earlier.

The photographer’s name is appropriate for a protest shot like this one, and spotlights his family heritage. The second of four sons, “we are all named Freedom“, he explains, “simply because our father was one of the student-activists of his time in the 1970s, when Filipinos fought against the dictatorship of then president Ferdinand Marcos”. 

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Flickr a Day 97: ‘Stranger Portrait No. 44’

I post today’s selection with sense of angst, and not for the first time in this series—whenever the photographer is absent online for sometime, which appears to be the situation with Chris Zerbes. His website generates a DNS error, the most recent status on his Facebook photography page is June 2013, and the last dated Flickr pic is October of that year.

I came to Chris’ photostream by way of this image discovered when searching Flickr for “Berlin”. The graffiti and model shot was my first choice until finding self-titled “Stranger Portrait No. 44” being used or referenced by several sites and subsequently my taking a closer look at the album/set from which it comes. The 68-pic collection is most interesting from No. 37, when he begins giving some backstory about the subject and/or his shooting technique.

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Flickr a Day 96: ‘Stranger 2/100 – The Constant Gardener’

The second of three random street portraits comes from the photographer simply known as ταηjεεr. The image is among his contributions to the 100 Strangers Flickr Group, which we met yesterday. The project’s challenge: To become a better shooter and improve social skills. Subject storytelling is part of the process.

Self-titled “Stranger 2/100 – The Constant Gardener” refers to Mohammad Nurul Huq, who “works as a Site Caretaker for the historic Lalbagh Fort in Dhaka, Bangladesh”,  ταηjεεr explains. “What intrigued me most was how extremely proud he was for his work. His eyes lit up as he proudly announced that every taka he ever earned was absolutely honest”. The government employee is from Shariyatpur.