091215 04:51
24/7 365 defines my life. No longer in harness to the agendas of others, I am at times surprised by such as remains of my family and life. Their vigor, beauty and youth reassures me that all is, more-or-less, well. I can leave the arena of life safe in their hands. And yes I cherish my role as a grandfather of sorts. The disconnect began too early and my focus turned inward; those hyper-vigilance blues became my theme song. But fate, karma or God always is at play drawing us into the healing pool of reality.
The days, hours, minutes become ineluctable and precious. Time parsed to this is that, and that is this, values conscious and conscience examined. At times I simply relax finding myself at rest and blest by the truths of everything.
What is Truth?
What is Trust?
What sees and evaluates the differences, and what remains the same, with or without being noticed? The more I presume to know the truths of others, their cares, woes and joys, the more I realize exactly how little I had to do with the child who now writes and annotates life with photographs.
“Its all about you!” --Norm Ouellet
Of the people who loving/loved/love me still when I knew myself unlovable and unworthy of life, remain beloved, yet more beloved is the force and power of life’s courses . . . a raging swollen river filled with boulders upon which some are smashed, and others flow over and around, immune from peril.
I am weeping now and a small quiet voice telling me it’s okay.
I’ve discovered heroes and in my inordinate, perhaps obsessive/compulsive, or merely addictive attention, come to love them, their choices and behaviors. I now want to follow them more closely and go wherever they went. Going as far as Life goes and beyond to whatever.
Odd for an old man, who was a broken dysfunctional little boy, to finally find the courage to live and love free of expectations and conditions; the gift given unconditionally--totally.
Why? Is, I now conclude and am convicted by, the shortest prayer in the Universe. Ask, and you will find answers given freely by the reality of your however you define all that is good, loving and true.
Since I’ve drown five, or more times over, and known the delicious giving up of my life to the ineluctable--inevitability of consciousness death and survived. Why? It was not for me to decide at that moment as Jesus, or Dietrich Bonhoeffer, did, when “their time came” yet. And so it seems that I join that which sees me and know there is more beyond the fear, and welcome, awaiting the choice of brothers dying for brothers and sisters who will remain safe, the gift freely given in love.
I have my love, and have not my beloved, yet.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
my longing to be face-to-face with . . . .
091215 05:33
The slow orderly minuet of death is fascinating to me.
By choice, or chance, I’ve attended both birth and death, plus much of the in-between, called life. It is my bliss at the cusp of departure to speak of values, meanings and beginnings and endings; the joy of a grandfather/grandmother to watch and applauded the play of children yet to be ground into the earth as I/we are and anticipate their adapting, improvisation and prevailing the trials and joys of their lives, safe in seeing them do so.
Curious? Of course!
From where and to what do they go? And of course--Why?
Happily I am not President of The United States, or have any authority to give or take life, save in what I am willing to live and/or die for. The Passion is something entered into as a consequence of my curiosity. Of the courage I found there I am too well aware that I lack it, in most of my days, hours, moments. Yet I remain conscious that “my time will come.” No one escapes; 100% die. And in death we become equal. The frenzy ends and everyday a Sabbath day, endless days of rest, all the same by any other name. All languages sing the same song in the end.
Fiction and children’s stories couch life in sugar coated pills unpalatable to me. Perhaps I read too much as a child seeking sanctuary in libraries?
I chortle at my choices. What would I long to have in desolation? Bible, Dictionary and Willie Shakespeare. Yes! Yet it seems in my slow dance toward what lays forward I would rather read the self who sees what I adore, present/past. And in reading that I see what sees me in the before and after life.
The Author of me/us, and all creation, is wonderful, and judges the ordinary of life, telling me to write instead of heal those whose pain I am all too well aware. And I welcome the shortness of my reach knowing that so long as I attend the extraordinary of everyday life, I am well, safe and going where intended.
I realize that I am terrible to know in my rage and passion for others since, it is so very inconvenient to have one’s attention drawn, involuntarily, to that which is otherwise avoided or denied. I am guilty of attempting to cling to many different constructs which I now analogize as rapidly deflating ‘life preservers.’ Addictions, fetishes, fixed and immutable truths, never really became more than platitudes, or palliatives, inadequate to my needs.
I am humiliated by my longing to be face-to-face with God outside God’s presence in everyone and thing I see. . . .What human hand, invention, convention could hold my heart and mind healed now so sweetly as those hands holding me vertical when I would otherwise sleep?
I am no thief of other’s truths and generally, gently, leave them to their conceits. In that statement of intention and practice I discover that there is very little potential in one individual without community or communion; not war but negotiation; win-win.
The slow orderly minuet of death is fascinating to me.
By choice, or chance, I’ve attended both birth and death, plus much of the in-between, called life. It is my bliss at the cusp of departure to speak of values, meanings and beginnings and endings; the joy of a grandfather/grandmother to watch and applauded the play of children yet to be ground into the earth as I/we are and anticipate their adapting, improvisation and prevailing the trials and joys of their lives, safe in seeing them do so.
Curious? Of course!
From where and to what do they go? And of course--Why?
Happily I am not President of The United States, or have any authority to give or take life, save in what I am willing to live and/or die for. The Passion is something entered into as a consequence of my curiosity. Of the courage I found there I am too well aware that I lack it, in most of my days, hours, moments. Yet I remain conscious that “my time will come.” No one escapes; 100% die. And in death we become equal. The frenzy ends and everyday a Sabbath day, endless days of rest, all the same by any other name. All languages sing the same song in the end.
Fiction and children’s stories couch life in sugar coated pills unpalatable to me. Perhaps I read too much as a child seeking sanctuary in libraries?
I chortle at my choices. What would I long to have in desolation? Bible, Dictionary and Willie Shakespeare. Yes! Yet it seems in my slow dance toward what lays forward I would rather read the self who sees what I adore, present/past. And in reading that I see what sees me in the before and after life.
The Author of me/us, and all creation, is wonderful, and judges the ordinary of life, telling me to write instead of heal those whose pain I am all too well aware. And I welcome the shortness of my reach knowing that so long as I attend the extraordinary of everyday life, I am well, safe and going where intended.
I realize that I am terrible to know in my rage and passion for others since, it is so very inconvenient to have one’s attention drawn, involuntarily, to that which is otherwise avoided or denied. I am guilty of attempting to cling to many different constructs which I now analogize as rapidly deflating ‘life preservers.’ Addictions, fetishes, fixed and immutable truths, never really became more than platitudes, or palliatives, inadequate to my needs.
I am humiliated by my longing to be face-to-face with God outside God’s presence in everyone and thing I see. . . .What human hand, invention, convention could hold my heart and mind healed now so sweetly as those hands holding me vertical when I would otherwise sleep?
I am no thief of other’s truths and generally, gently, leave them to their conceits. In that statement of intention and practice I discover that there is very little potential in one individual without community or communion; not war but negotiation; win-win.
. . . silence of my moment consume me?
091215 06:24
Why can I not simply let the silence of my moment consume me?
Why now, before the first and best Christmas of my life, do I belabor the meanings of it, and the inevitable Easter to follow?
The cycles of time are now meaningless to me, and my oblivion precious, a wealth beyond any treasury in life. Astonished that I yet live when I presumed my life should have ended long ago. When you befriend, accept and love yourself, oddly wonderful things begin to enter into the ordinary of you day. The measure of one’s life is the value of being fully conscious of others and yourself in context--dancing. To flog dead dogs is pointless. When I meet death walking and talking I allow the Author to take over and know that all is well. The meeting and greeting merely Emily Post civility.
Maybe, perhaps, maybe not, that is why original sin is so beguiling . . . no longer amusing or bemusing . . . it seems my simpletons conviction “fear” is our greatest waste in life.
“Evil”
“Sin”
. . . equate as follows; Evil is waste and fear wastes life.
Speaking, of and for myself, I know better both qualities as choices denied. Of rage, mayhem and destruction these violence's have I inflected upon myself . . . yet I live? . . . Why?
I oft times glibly project/imagine metaphors of fantastic destruction making “God’s Wrath” a joke. Save in retrospect, I am shown that it is I who did that to the other, and I am guilty, convicted and executed in abject humiliation.
My extremes never allowed the experience of the antipode. Grace, love, mercy, forgiveness is oft times the most impossible gift to receive, inconceivable to accept. . . .Why me? What for? At what cost does one receive such gifts?
Overwhelmed and rendered inconsequential dust easily blown/flown away.
I paused from my breakfast of sweet black coffee and the umpteenth, whatever, cigarette, stomach shrieking and fed the birds. I adore greeting the dawn’s loom with gratitude now remembering Christmas’s past abhorred. I know it is a silly thing to mention but upon the horizon I saw a flock of White Wing Doves wheeling in unison--a smile upon my lips.
Rage is the antipode of love and describes the height, width breadth of one’s being both.
Thank God, God is far more patient than eye.
Why can I not simply let the silence of my moment consume me?
Why now, before the first and best Christmas of my life, do I belabor the meanings of it, and the inevitable Easter to follow?
The cycles of time are now meaningless to me, and my oblivion precious, a wealth beyond any treasury in life. Astonished that I yet live when I presumed my life should have ended long ago. When you befriend, accept and love yourself, oddly wonderful things begin to enter into the ordinary of you day. The measure of one’s life is the value of being fully conscious of others and yourself in context--dancing. To flog dead dogs is pointless. When I meet death walking and talking I allow the Author to take over and know that all is well. The meeting and greeting merely Emily Post civility.
Maybe, perhaps, maybe not, that is why original sin is so beguiling . . . no longer amusing or bemusing . . . it seems my simpletons conviction “fear” is our greatest waste in life.
“Evil”
“Sin”
. . . equate as follows; Evil is waste and fear wastes life.
Speaking, of and for myself, I know better both qualities as choices denied. Of rage, mayhem and destruction these violence's have I inflected upon myself . . . yet I live? . . . Why?
I oft times glibly project/imagine metaphors of fantastic destruction making “God’s Wrath” a joke. Save in retrospect, I am shown that it is I who did that to the other, and I am guilty, convicted and executed in abject humiliation.
My extremes never allowed the experience of the antipode. Grace, love, mercy, forgiveness is oft times the most impossible gift to receive, inconceivable to accept. . . .Why me? What for? At what cost does one receive such gifts?
Overwhelmed and rendered inconsequential dust easily blown/flown away.
I paused from my breakfast of sweet black coffee and the umpteenth, whatever, cigarette, stomach shrieking and fed the birds. I adore greeting the dawn’s loom with gratitude now remembering Christmas’s past abhorred. I know it is a silly thing to mention but upon the horizon I saw a flock of White Wing Doves wheeling in unison--a smile upon my lips.
Rage is the antipode of love and describes the height, width breadth of one’s being both.
Thank God, God is far more patient than eye.
Requiem for a sparrow
091215 08:33
Requiem for a sparrow who crashed against my widow
laying supine dying? What to do? I covered, dare I say ‘it’, not knowing
male from female filled with sorrowed confusion to end it’s agony or wait
would I rather be ended so quickly crushed beneath the foot held in abeyance or
to die knowing each last exquisite breath?
Rejoice my prayer to not play at being the determinate factor the bird is standing
now moving out from under the dish towel given in comfort while dying.
"Education is the transmission of civilization." --Will Durant
. . . this date, this time: ‘It is not what we teach but what we demonstrate that teaches best the horror of life . . . and of joy?’ --xoj
. . . later on: Resurrection! The sparrow lives! and is flow while I watched joyous
Of life is memories now a life never lived but survived and my joy that the sparrow is flown is joy enough for eternity since it best describes joy life resurrected from death survived partially now reconciled and justified no fear of death, birth or eternity.
Memories and meanings, origins of now . . .
As child I fed the horrors of home, merely my parent’s house, upon a tricycle at something like four--I’ll ignore the panty less girl who oft times accompanied me--and remember only seeing a nest fallen from far above the tenement towering above my short stature. Four, or more, baby, probably, pigeons--beaks rictus of hunger and closed eyes in astonished death.
. . . I think now I know the cause of my destruction all preceding this bliss, The Land of Enchantment, the camera in mind recording what otherwise would cause unmanly weeping in harness the agenda’s of others no longer my concern save my own now. . . .for you, all You are precious to God.
Requiem for a sparrow who crashed against my widow
laying supine dying? What to do? I covered, dare I say ‘it’, not knowing
male from female filled with sorrowed confusion to end it’s agony or wait
would I rather be ended so quickly crushed beneath the foot held in abeyance or
to die knowing each last exquisite breath?
Rejoice my prayer to not play at being the determinate factor the bird is standing
now moving out from under the dish towel given in comfort while dying.
"Education is the transmission of civilization." --Will Durant
. . . this date, this time: ‘It is not what we teach but what we demonstrate that teaches best the horror of life . . . and of joy?’ --xoj
. . . later on: Resurrection! The sparrow lives! and is flow while I watched joyous
Of life is memories now a life never lived but survived and my joy that the sparrow is flown is joy enough for eternity since it best describes joy life resurrected from death survived partially now reconciled and justified no fear of death, birth or eternity.
Memories and meanings, origins of now . . .
As child I fed the horrors of home, merely my parent’s house, upon a tricycle at something like four--I’ll ignore the panty less girl who oft times accompanied me--and remember only seeing a nest fallen from far above the tenement towering above my short stature. Four, or more, baby, probably, pigeons--beaks rictus of hunger and closed eyes in astonished death.
. . . I think now I know the cause of my destruction all preceding this bliss, The Land of Enchantment, the camera in mind recording what otherwise would cause unmanly weeping in harness the agenda’s of others no longer my concern save my own now. . . .for you, all You are precious to God.
Monday, December 14, 2009
joy of liberation: the yoke of obligation
091214 08:26
It is difficult to articulate the joy of liberation: the yoke of obligation. Oft times I say ‘retarded’ instead of retired and laugh at myself, since in gleeful joy do I no longer labor to witness and record all “sorts & conditions” of activities prized by some, but despised by me.
. . . narcoleptic with reprise.
So it follows that I must fearlessly assassinate my former providence having justifiably won a meager stipend of Social Security.
There is a man of comparable age, here retired, who once like me, labored for The New York Times, never on staff but merely freelance. Upon learning this I was very rude to him vocally. It was dark after our meeting at the Dona Anna Camera Club mutually attended, yet well I remember his unspoken offense at ‘knowing his parentage’ too well.
. . . how can you call doing something you love above all activities ‘labor’?
Forgive, please, my offense. You see though White, I was bred, taught, trained, to be a Junk Yard Dog; no bark--all bite. And someone, or something, has loosed the barrier behind which I formerly snarled watchful.
I now capture images that stand alone for me delightful and care not who sees or says anything so confident of my voice am I.
Oddly I fell into a recent expulsion from another Blog site. If what I now do is “write” it is like my photography, contemporaneous response.
Additionally, an odd thought, a reprise the voice of Mother; “you will weep for sleep some day.” Yet I sleep when tired and eat only when hungry, and so I am a mangy coyote too well aware Navajo reverence for them, the coyote was metaphorically a prankster and God.
Astonished? No. I anticipated the bottom hurling upwards towards my plummeting conscious/conscience. No one commented, and I thought no one read, or attended anything save my photographs which were then counted by the hits.
Surprised. Yes. Since their censure was affirmation that at least one had read me well and knew me as whatever I am.
Beloved friend, spiritual adviser and retired Catholic Priest; Father Denis Tejada occasionally replies; “I’ll remember you in my curses!” And I, of course, am convulsed with laughter.
Point taken and celebrated.
I do nothing now for profit, or prophecy, since my love is terrible and the cost is beyond measure for me, or my “audience” --what audience? Love is meaningless without community.
Attribution --Father Denis, now my brother.
How to end what is endless process?
To serve is to first attend and accept/love yourself enough to know being precious, unique, explicitly created and trained for survival in the face of all crisis.
. . . i’ve never laughed, nor cried, so hard in all the silence preceding this moment. Why me? Why not? What for? For you to be the best You/you were created, and trained to be.
period . . . it is impossible to be anonymous save to yourself and i am so very tired of immolating myself to see the next step alone in the desert night
God Bless you all, you are you know, already from beginning to end; endless present from the Parent of everything . . . kill me now, please, otherwise the hot air blowing through like a McDonald’s red plastic straw will melt meaninglessly
It is difficult to articulate the joy of liberation: the yoke of obligation. Oft times I say ‘retarded’ instead of retired and laugh at myself, since in gleeful joy do I no longer labor to witness and record all “sorts & conditions” of activities prized by some, but despised by me.
. . . narcoleptic with reprise.
So it follows that I must fearlessly assassinate my former providence having justifiably won a meager stipend of Social Security.
There is a man of comparable age, here retired, who once like me, labored for The New York Times, never on staff but merely freelance. Upon learning this I was very rude to him vocally. It was dark after our meeting at the Dona Anna Camera Club mutually attended, yet well I remember his unspoken offense at ‘knowing his parentage’ too well.
. . . how can you call doing something you love above all activities ‘labor’?
Forgive, please, my offense. You see though White, I was bred, taught, trained, to be a Junk Yard Dog; no bark--all bite. And someone, or something, has loosed the barrier behind which I formerly snarled watchful.
I now capture images that stand alone for me delightful and care not who sees or says anything so confident of my voice am I.
Oddly I fell into a recent expulsion from another Blog site. If what I now do is “write” it is like my photography, contemporaneous response.
Additionally, an odd thought, a reprise the voice of Mother; “you will weep for sleep some day.” Yet I sleep when tired and eat only when hungry, and so I am a mangy coyote too well aware Navajo reverence for them, the coyote was metaphorically a prankster and God.
Astonished? No. I anticipated the bottom hurling upwards towards my plummeting conscious/conscience. No one commented, and I thought no one read, or attended anything save my photographs which were then counted by the hits.
Surprised. Yes. Since their censure was affirmation that at least one had read me well and knew me as whatever I am.
Beloved friend, spiritual adviser and retired Catholic Priest; Father Denis Tejada occasionally replies; “I’ll remember you in my curses!” And I, of course, am convulsed with laughter.
Point taken and celebrated.
I do nothing now for profit, or prophecy, since my love is terrible and the cost is beyond measure for me, or my “audience” --what audience? Love is meaningless without community.
Attribution --Father Denis, now my brother.
How to end what is endless process?
To serve is to first attend and accept/love yourself enough to know being precious, unique, explicitly created and trained for survival in the face of all crisis.
. . . i’ve never laughed, nor cried, so hard in all the silence preceding this moment. Why me? Why not? What for? For you to be the best You/you were created, and trained to be.
period . . . it is impossible to be anonymous save to yourself and i am so very tired of immolating myself to see the next step alone in the desert night
God Bless you all, you are you know, already from beginning to end; endless present from the Parent of everything . . . kill me now, please, otherwise the hot air blowing through like a McDonald’s red plastic straw will melt meaninglessly
‘Winters of discontent.’
091214 07:18
I’ve had many ‘Winters of discontent.’
And within those long nights, longed never to wake up.
Without reference to my daily expanding journal of quotations; I do transliterate them, now, accepting a newly discovered sense of great and humble thoughts as seeds attempting to leach the rain from my darkest frozen night, rain/snow clouds.
The torrent of my tears, resulting, is blest best in solitude since they do alarm even me. Happily they, being my tears, will drown no one except myself in joy, become bliss, then pacific, humble, gratitude; serenity.
. . . or acceptance, the foundation of love.
I’ve no idea why, or for what, this has been bestowed upon me. Accustomed to hard-scrabble subsistence farming daily reality. Yet in reflection upon all of what was then, and is now, my life I am discovered wandering unfamiliar pathless deserts lead by a distant, yet to loom light; a star? A new day? Or as I spoke, and thus stunned myself, yesterday; “Today is the first and last day of eternity”?
Did I say that?
What does it mean; “Be Here Now”?
I’ve said, and seen, the slogan so often it remained a pebble in my mouth become a bolder. Metaphorically, i once was a lemming now become a dragon, overleaping the cliffs of life and soaring amongst the stars within my heart.
It is not for self-pleasure that I write but for my love of humanity with all its warts, wattles and wrinkles seen when I briefly shave in mirrors should I be so constrained, or obligated, to leave my crib. Let us not speak of, or praise ‘Morning Dragon Mouth’ -- ‘Bad Hair Day ’ Please. Least I slay myself with exhaust.
Of Doves & Seeds--“they neither reap nor sow” and from whom &/or why am I fed like the birds i feed daily? In and of myself I am now voluntarily impelled to be servant as those or he who in servitude saved me from myself loathing.
I love women inordinately yet would never enslave another to my imposition again. How do I know this? Mother was taught to despise being a woman and I, the worst evidence.
Now go in peace rejoicing tranquility past all comprehension, apprehending fear never more. . . .Awaiting the near day celebration of the eve all new creation.
I’ve had many ‘Winters of discontent.’
And within those long nights, longed never to wake up.
Without reference to my daily expanding journal of quotations; I do transliterate them, now, accepting a newly discovered sense of great and humble thoughts as seeds attempting to leach the rain from my darkest frozen night, rain/snow clouds.
The torrent of my tears, resulting, is blest best in solitude since they do alarm even me. Happily they, being my tears, will drown no one except myself in joy, become bliss, then pacific, humble, gratitude; serenity.
. . . or acceptance, the foundation of love.
I’ve no idea why, or for what, this has been bestowed upon me. Accustomed to hard-scrabble subsistence farming daily reality. Yet in reflection upon all of what was then, and is now, my life I am discovered wandering unfamiliar pathless deserts lead by a distant, yet to loom light; a star? A new day? Or as I spoke, and thus stunned myself, yesterday; “Today is the first and last day of eternity”?
Did I say that?
What does it mean; “Be Here Now”?
I’ve said, and seen, the slogan so often it remained a pebble in my mouth become a bolder. Metaphorically, i once was a lemming now become a dragon, overleaping the cliffs of life and soaring amongst the stars within my heart.
It is not for self-pleasure that I write but for my love of humanity with all its warts, wattles and wrinkles seen when I briefly shave in mirrors should I be so constrained, or obligated, to leave my crib. Let us not speak of, or praise ‘Morning Dragon Mouth’ -- ‘Bad Hair Day ’ Please. Least I slay myself with exhaust.
Of Doves & Seeds--“they neither reap nor sow” and from whom &/or why am I fed like the birds i feed daily? In and of myself I am now voluntarily impelled to be servant as those or he who in servitude saved me from myself loathing.
I love women inordinately yet would never enslave another to my imposition again. How do I know this? Mother was taught to despise being a woman and I, the worst evidence.
Now go in peace rejoicing tranquility past all comprehension, apprehending fear never more. . . .Awaiting the near day celebration of the eve all new creation.
Photoshop vs. Sagelight 48-bit Image Editor
by http://www.flickr.com/photos/jack4spratt/
I write to humiliate myself. regarding how stupid I feel, for several aspects of my non-relationship, apprehension, incomprehension and applications impossible with Photoshop anything. Worse I’ve wasted $3,000.00 over several computer platforms, et cetera, for Adobe period.
Sagelight 48-bit Image Editor: to the rescue! There is a free version but be quick!
http://www.sagelighteditor.com/ you will want the $30 something version soon afterwards.
Were I Thomas Knoll, I’d either kill myself, or kill Rob Nelson, author of Sagelight. Tom, of course, is the genius behind Adobe, and Rob is stealing hubcaps & dumpster diving to survive. One is a genius in service of avarice and the other a servant to this poor old, once-upon-a-time, whatever that was, that stopped suddenly at age 65--43 years freelance for The New York Times; to name my first/last client; one amongst hundreds of other publications.
Sagelight taught me, and does, everything I need. With a single press of a radio button I can turn on or off Ron’s {text . . . maybe he can give us a voice-over?} insights telling me what to do and why. Otherwise I’d still be stumbling about in the darkness of chemical photography totally obsolescent.
Photoshop is a fetish like all the Hundreds of Thousands I wasted on equipment to “MAKE ME A GENIUS PHOTOGRAPHER!” Really, sincerely, it didn’t work, and can not do what takes years to grow. Of course I am more furious with myself now realizing the folly of my greed for being memorable to others, while ignoring my fear of being too stupid to live, or be loved; or even remotely memorable. Apparently Thomas Knoll, and the legions of other people getting rich attempting to teach my peers, of whom not one knows how to use, fully, or even partially, Photoshop.
I write with rancor since at my, nearly terminal, age in life, I cherish my years as teacher, critic and author of a column on photography. Consider it “dues” being paid, never required, for the loving attention of The Greats; Paul Caponigro, Aaron Siskind, Minor White, Harry Callahan, Gene Smith and Robert Frank. The latter not well known, personally, save for my being a photographer at all.
Of the two software engineers, I sing their praises, for their love of photography; from personal experience of their acquaintance. Both love photography as much, possibly more so than I? A teacher loves their students more than themselves; and are willing to be taught by them as well. For Ron Nelson I’d walk through Hell. For Thomas Knoll I’ll go nowhere ever again for him. Not one Lincoln penny, no more.
I write to humiliate myself. regarding how stupid I feel, for several aspects of my non-relationship, apprehension, incomprehension and applications impossible with Photoshop anything. Worse I’ve wasted $3,000.00 over several computer platforms, et cetera, for Adobe period.
Sagelight 48-bit Image Editor: to the rescue! There is a free version but be quick!
http://www.sagelighteditor.com/ you will want the $30 something version soon afterwards.
Were I Thomas Knoll, I’d either kill myself, or kill Rob Nelson, author of Sagelight. Tom, of course, is the genius behind Adobe, and Rob is stealing hubcaps & dumpster diving to survive. One is a genius in service of avarice and the other a servant to this poor old, once-upon-a-time, whatever that was, that stopped suddenly at age 65--43 years freelance for The New York Times; to name my first/last client; one amongst hundreds of other publications.
Sagelight taught me, and does, everything I need. With a single press of a radio button I can turn on or off Ron’s {text . . . maybe he can give us a voice-over?} insights telling me what to do and why. Otherwise I’d still be stumbling about in the darkness of chemical photography totally obsolescent.
Photoshop is a fetish like all the Hundreds of Thousands I wasted on equipment to “MAKE ME A GENIUS PHOTOGRAPHER!” Really, sincerely, it didn’t work, and can not do what takes years to grow. Of course I am more furious with myself now realizing the folly of my greed for being memorable to others, while ignoring my fear of being too stupid to live, or be loved; or even remotely memorable. Apparently Thomas Knoll, and the legions of other people getting rich attempting to teach my peers, of whom not one knows how to use, fully, or even partially, Photoshop.
I write with rancor since at my, nearly terminal, age in life, I cherish my years as teacher, critic and author of a column on photography. Consider it “dues” being paid, never required, for the loving attention of The Greats; Paul Caponigro, Aaron Siskind, Minor White, Harry Callahan, Gene Smith and Robert Frank. The latter not well known, personally, save for my being a photographer at all.
Of the two software engineers, I sing their praises, for their love of photography; from personal experience of their acquaintance. Both love photography as much, possibly more so than I? A teacher loves their students more than themselves; and are willing to be taught by them as well. For Ron Nelson I’d walk through Hell. For Thomas Knoll I’ll go nowhere ever again for him. Not one Lincoln penny, no more.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)