Harry Potter, Jack Kipling and Rupert Brooke

Daniel Radcliffe is once again Harry Potter. By now he ought to be getting his post-doctorate in advanced wizardry and finally figuring out that the girls with auburn hair are be best. He and his little crew are actually working on the final HP movie right now. Thus ends that series before the stars begin to draw their senior pensions.


Daniel has done some stage work in London and, for BBC, did a magnificent job portraying the son of Rudyard Kipling who was tragically killed during the First World War.


The Senior Kipling did assist his son to get into the military, but did not think that he would see combat. Jack was only seventeen and practically blind. He did enlist and gained a commission as a Second Lieutenant, in charge of a unit of the famous Irish Brigade.


If you think that Daniel can play the darker side in the Potter series, you can grab a roll of Bounty and rent MY SON JACK. Then you can say an even more fervent prayer for our men and women in the Armed Forces.


Another promising English poet who died young in World War I was Rupert Brooke. We aspiring writers in the Virginia mountains had to read him because of his metre and his passion.


Brooke's best-known work is the sonnet sequence 1914 AND OTHER POEMS (1915, the year he was killed), containing the famous 'The Soldier.' Poets have always glorified war, and Brooke did his best to continue the tradition, and sacrificed himself in this effort.


His death made him the hero of the first phase of the war and a symbol of all the gifted young people destroyed by the conflict. However, Brooke's poetry with its patriotic mood & naive enthusiasm went out of fashion as the realities of trench warfare and new weaponry were fully understood.

Sometimes Even Now
Rupert Brooke


Sometimes even now I may Steal a prisoner’s holiday,
Slip, when all is worst, the bands, Hurry back, and duck beneath Time’s old tyrannous groping hands, Speed away with laughing breath Back to all I’ll never know, Back to you, a year ago.
Truant there from Time and Pain, What I had, I find again: Sunlight in the boughs above, Sunlight in your hair and dress, The hands too proud for all but Love, The Lips of utter kindliness, The Heart of bravery swift and clean Where the best was safe, I knew, And laughter in the gold and green, And song, and friends, and ever you With smiling and familiar eyes, You—but friendly: you—but true. And Innocence accounted wise, And Faith the fool, the pitiable.
Love so rare, one would swear All of earth for ever well — Careless lips and flying hair, And little things I may not tell.
It does but double the heart-ache
When I wake,
when I wake.

Aging Prints and Great Dentistry

My dentist is also a great friend. He has been a fellow rafter of the Great Gauley River Express and is a medium-format photographer who is world-traveled.

Each year, for over 30 years, his family has made trips to exotic locations around the globe and he has brought home some marvelous 60mm transparencies.

His office is the gallery where many of his prints decorate each of his patient rooms. You get to spend time in Egypt, China, Japan, Germany, Russia, South America, the Arctic and Antarctica.

Most of my twice-annual visits are filled with his comments and questions about photography and his lack of time to do justice to the thousands of images he has yet to scan.

He recently made a trip to Vietnam, his first all-digital trip and filled all his memory cards and a portable hard drive with images. He said there were at least twenty out of the 2000. worth printing. Folks – that is a good, solid number. He was using a Canon 5D and two of their best lenses. He has viewed them on his HD TV, but has not worked on them at all.

Maybe a barter is in the works for that crown I need.

Anyhow, back to the prints in the office.

The pictures are exposed to fluorescent light about 10 hours a day. They are on archival paper and most are 15-20 years old.

Colors are leaving the prints.

I am sure the original chromes are intact and flawless. They are that stable.

20 years is the outside life for an image exposed to light and atmosphere. You can slow things down with museum glass, pH negative or buffered paper and protection from direct light, but dyes and even pigments rest on media that are affected by the environment.

Do enjoy your prints, but keep your original files and media. Refer to previous posts on just how to do that.

If you want to see some great pictures and need some dental work at the same time, I'll try to get you in to see my friend.

If you have an interest in photos, sailing or have grandchildren, be prepared for some great oral care and some one-sided conversation.                    © Tim www.timjohnsonphoto.com

It Was A Dark & Stormy Night To Be Writing In The Rain

Oh, what fun it is to write when the sky is talking loudly!

Lightning! Thunder!!! Rumbles long ... sharp bursts. Piercing light that for a fraction of a second is hotter than the sun's surface.

My friends know that when most people believe the best place to be during a storm is the innermost room of a sturdy home, hunkered down just in case there's a tornado or a more sophisticated wind-shear effect, my favored place is the midst of the storm.

I have threatened to climb to the rooftop and wear a collander on my head and aluminum foil on my fingertips while sitting on an old steel rocker. No umbrella - couldn't take pictures and hold the thing.

Taking pictures of lightning is like photographing fireworks – except you must have a tripod and you must be ready to jump if you feel the hair on the back of your head start to rise.

That rising is a sure indication that you are standing on the spot where the positively charged electricity in the cloud wants to meet the negatively charged energy in the earth. It is best not to be present when they merge. The result would be shocking and it would ruin your film and your day.

Your family and friends would mutter at your graveside that they KNEW you would go out this way. In my mind, better this way than listening to Greg Fishel muttering something about a very interesting weather event taking place over mini-city.

I have, in my lifetime driven under trees and brush being swirled by an itsy-bitsy tornado. Yep, I looked up into the beast and kept on driving. It missed me by about 50 feet. It had done damage at Crossroads Ford and was going to hammer a nearby school. Me, it missed – that day.

Once, while heading to Jordan Lake to catch a sunset, I drove into a thunderstorm. Lightning, thunder and it quickly passed leaving a rainbow – 75 feet offshore. We saw the end of the rainbow. Gold coins boiling up at the surface and little leprechauns bobbing in and out. 200 yards away was the other end of the rainbow.

Fortuitous and funny and exciting. Wet and wild.

Hurricane Fran hit central NC and did a lot of damage. 7 of my friends and I missed the NC portion of the storm. We were in West Virginia – rafting in the face of the remainders of the hurricane which made the normally wild Gauley River plainly wicked. LOVED IT. Exhausted and exhilarated we came home to saw trees and clean up the damage.

“Strormy Weather” has a way of cleansing things, refreshing the heart, bringing out the primal spirit and, for me, putting me in a frame of mind to do something with my hands.

That's why I have to lay me down to sleep just now – to the sweet voice of the receding thunder – whispering, “Good night, Tim, the freshened world will be waiting for you tomorrow”.


© Tim www.timjohnsonphoto.com

Rechargeable Batteries & YOURSELF

In a previous post I wrote about caring for your media during the summer months. This is a brief reminder that there is something you can do to extend battery life all year long.

I want to direct your attention to www.batteryuniversity.com. There is much to be learned about batteries and much of our overly convenient life depends on them.

In a previous incarnation I was a dedicated explorer of the earth's nether regions. I had grown up (in some areas of my life) in an area of natural and man-made caves and mines and was fully aware of the dangers that dwelt BELOW.

I sometimes wore carbide lamps on my head. I also had some battery powered lanterns. It is amazing to reflect on how much my life and the life of my climbing partners depended on the batteries and the tiny and fragile elements inside the little lamps inside our flashlights.

We had backups and backups of backups, but, like the rivets of the Titanic, they could all have been of poor manufacture and all of them could have failed.

Unless you have been in the dark of a 3 mile descent on rope, pitons and have squeezed through holes lubricated with thousands of years of foggy cave dew and slime and slept and awakened without light and known the only “down” was the gravity of your rear on the floor of the cave and “up” was where you were determined to return – you could not know this “dark side of the moon” experience.

I was glad to do this, I saw hand prints left hundreds or thousands of years ago. I saw ancient streams and I saw light and the end of the tunnel we had successfully climbed.

Warm food and green grass and a hot shower were the rewards of surviving. Yes, I did it more than once.

Yep – you don't want your batteries to fail. You want your alkaline and rechargeable batteries to have the greatest life possible.

And you want to live as well.

Recharge your batteries and find ways to recharge yourself. Maybe that downward trip is a good trip inside.

Hmmm.

© Tim www.timjohnsonphoto.com

Gentle Pressure To Take The Picture

Many people have transient dreams and some have grand schemes but the dreamers and schemers never apply themselves to the big and small tasks that get them to their goals.


I have just finished reading a wonderful book set on the island of Newfoundland. More than ever before, I need to go there. I feel a personal connection with the people - not just the ones that are there now, but the people that have inhabited the land throughout the ages.


There are three books within the book and two of them are histories. The characters are really characters, none of whom would have made good neighbors.


One in particular made a life of loudly and angrily pontificating on the wrongness of life, his in particular.


I finished reading this book while on a working weekend to a North Carolina island. That was pretty cool.


Gentle, sweet, persistent pressure. That’s what really shapes and moves us.


I don’t hear yelling. I can’t tune into it. I guess i had my fill in my earlier days when I was the subject of so much of it.


I CAN feel the tug of my grandson’s soft little hand pulling on my fingers when he needs something. I remember when Alayna, my granddaughter (the 1st) and the one who named me Papa, pulled apart one of my eyelids and looked deeply into that eye with both of hers and asked if I would get up and help her get some juice.


The pull of the pen and the paper and the camera is so strong and persistent. It is not what I do, it is what I am. I think with my hands. Wrapped around a quill, a pen or a marker, my hand is in its right place. On my Hasselblad or Pentax, it knows the controls for the shutter speed or aperture. The film advance is geared, but my hands don't notice the sweet motion and the focusing and other adjustments are intuitive.


The image is more felt than seen. I do need my eyes, but my whole person is involved in the process. The technical stuff is involved and I can explain it to anyone who cares to listen and these are those that can interpret what I have said into more basic terms. I tell my students that I can almost feel the light impacting the film or the digital media.


LOOK! See the better picture. Take the image and get it connected to another heart.


By the way, that book about Newfoundland is called, The Island Of Unrequited Dreams. I saw many dreams come true.


Release the shutter. Press the RECORD button and let’s take a look. © Tim www.timjohnsonphoto.com

Runny Nose Runs Away With Blog

Along with the news, sports and weather, a couple of our local stations give allergy, sun-sensitivity and pain indexes. Most of the time I give little notice to these things because I am not one of the people susceptible to these things.

HOWEVER

Last weekend there was a sharp increase in the grass pollen. Grass pollen was never one of the things that bothered me. Cat dander, YES. Mold spores, YES. Hardwood pollen, YES. Mildew, YES. Dust mite dander, DAMN!

But, last weekend the formerly innocuous antigen jumped all over me. My sinuses and eyes were assaulted. My Living Air machine generally protects my breathing environment. This stuff got by it.

I needed a French drain for my head. The isolation and lack of usefulness while enduring this sort of thing adds to its misery. I heard the days were rather pretty.

I loathe antihistamines. I am against most anti-anything. They failed and the fall-back is a short course of steroids. Great. Breathing and trembling – after 3 days of absolute wretchedness. For two days being wretched would have been an improvement.

Draining is the opposite of being clogged. Been there too.

I'll take clogged. When clogged, at least I can still blog.

When free-flowing, blogging is not an option.

Sitting at the keyboard means sitting upright.

It is good to be back, off my back and letting the words come and hopefully connect to you.

I'm going to be looking for a fresh medication to thwart the evil effects of my new nemesis and be prepared for the assault of the ever-fun ragweed. And be in touch with my inner allergy-free self. In that world where I never sneeze, never weep and every breath carries that extra-happy h-air that makes this world bearable.  

Unclogged blogging - breathe it IN.

© Tim www.timjohnsonphoto.com

Sorry Duncan, Boogey On Down Betty

Measuring time is a sick addiction. Many of my clocks are tuned to the single atomic clock that is averaged out and corrected thousands of times a day. Still, the people that love me the most know that “ish” has to be added to most any appointed hour. They also know that when I am with them I am WITH THEM.

I do have one clock from which I have removed the second and minute hand. Maybe the hour hand is next.

Night and day seem to mark time nicely. Light and dark. Very natural.

I can get away with saying any and all of this because today is my 61st birthday. It's not that I am shy about expressing myself at any time, but marking another year is the time for generalized reflection.

My hands were steady enough to produce some dandy lettering work this week. My client was happy. It is always gratifying to think that am able to do what I love to do and that I get paid to do it.

Tomorrow I get to travel to the beach to do a wedding. That's decent work too.

Never in my younger days did I imagine this life for myself.
I also never imagined having a birthday without a Mom-made Boston crème pie.

Yep. Home-made just isn't the deal. My Mom is the real issue. Her death 8 years ago brought to an end the saga of the oddity of my birthday treat.

Once upon a time in the mountains of Virginia I happened to eat a bite of heaven. My only request for BIRTHDAY CAKE after that was Boston crème pie. That tradition lasted till I left the mountains.

Mom did make the occasional pie when I visited, but it was not birthday Boston crème pie, but it was heaven.She made the whole thing from scratch and love. Duncan, Betsy and all the other imitators just couldn't “measure” up.

You had it Mom, you always will – maybe you'll have a slice of heaven waiting for me there.

I'll get that birthday hug too. Your sweetness and the sharp, starched apron.

Then, no clocks, only FOREVER: Boston crème pie and everyone and everything Precious.


© Tim www.timjohnsonphoto.com

The Joy Of Work

When our tasks are filled with satisfaction and harmony with our minds we are at peace.

When there is no struggle in the production of what we must do or make, there is a unity between ourselves and our labor.

Sometimes we do sit under the tree of discipline to learn a new skill or see through learning a new technique or even enduring a life-lesson. But the outcome will be a wiser, better and stronger us.

Usually this happens when we have in mind a very clear focus for our work.

I am doing this work because it will please someone. I am doing this because it will get me closer to my degree. I am working on this because it will make my family happier and more secure.

If this is where we are in the work we have chosen to do it is no longer a job, it is a profession. This is an ELEVATION.

Personal standards rise, expectations are higher and others see the difference in the way we present ourselves. Our work certifies us, experience and competence stand higher and quality comes along.

Many people today are struggling with how to reconstruct their resumes. Just how does an outplaced (fired) person of great experience (older than 50) put into words just how valuable their wisdom really is? How can it be marketed and how do they compete with the younger generation?

Remember a simple fact: it IS a jungle and the rule is eat or be eaten. Prepare mentally, emotionally and physically. Assume nothing. Forget scratching and clawing: attack and gnaw.

Our generation knows grammar, manners and we know how to fight and win.

Perhaps a whole life cannot be summed up into a single page resume, but you must have a knockout one page CV.

Be prepared for a phone call and answer crisply and succinctly.
When interviewed, look good and be prepared.

When hired, thank God for the chance to work and work hard for your employer.

Years ago, I was hired to hand-letter this piece for a company. This is a version set in Quark. It really is a great attitude adjuster:

© Tim www.timjohnsonphoto.com

Seeing Great Photography and A Chance To Prove It

In the next few weeks, a triumvirate of judges (Dave Horne, Rick Meyers & myself) will converge on West Regional Library (Apex, Cary off  55) to award prizes to exceptional images in a Teen Photo Contest. The library is accepting teen entries through July 31. Call the Library for entry details – 919-463-8500.



I’ve been a part of this contest for some time and each year the judging gets more and more difficult. My eyes are not failing and the prints are not that different, but there is another dynamic at play:


The young people are learning to see more deeply into their world and they are getting what they see onto their prints.


Each year the library has held a workshop on photography or photo manipulation prior to the contest. We generally tell the young people what we are looking for in the images. At the awards gathering we also meet with interested entrants and share pointers on how to improve their images.


Then, they have several weeks to go and get the pictures they think will win.


Some contestants have entered the contest for 3 or 4 years.


Good photographs are not made from better equipment. Good tech does not hurt, but it is not the main thing.


Two years ago, we three old photographic heads really struggled over presenting the Best In Show or Best In Group prize to a young lady who had made a 28 k image by using her cell phone camera. Yes, it really was that good.


Two of our regular contestants are the offspring of professional photographers. Some have really elaborate equipment. None of that matters when the photographs are laid out side-by-side and comparisons and judgments are made.


The Golden Mean and Rule Of Thirds, as in all art, applies to photography. Primarily, our eyes and hearts must be drawn to the piece. Is it balanced? Do we LIKE it? Does it have a VOICE? Does the photographer deliberately eliminate as much as possible from the image so that the viewer can immediately seize on the SUBJECT?


The library is working hard to serve the community and this donated time is our way of helping encourage young people to engage in creative work. I would suggest they carry with them advice for a sage photographer who continues to inspire me.


Try for a record of emotion rather than a piece of topography. Wait till the building makes you feel intensely in some part of it or other; then try and analyze what gives you that feeling, see if it is due to the isolation of some particular aspect or effect and see what your camera can do towards reproducing that effect, that subject. Try and try again until you find that your print shall give not only yourself, but also others who have not your intimate knowledge of the original, some measure of the feeling originally inspired in you – greater or less, according to the success you have attained. This will be “cathedral picture taking” something beyond mere photography, the result to the critic shall be, not merely “what a clever bit of photography” but “what a noble, beautiful, fascinating building that must be and how priceless is that sort of photography that can so record one’s emotional union to it.” Frederick Evans, March 12, 1904


Mr. Evans was known for his platinum prints of the great cathedrals of England and France


© Tim www.timjohnsonphoto.com

The Pain Of Pursuing Perfection - Thank You Michael Jackson

Today the life of Michael Jackson was celebrated.

In this day and age, anyone that dies at the age of 50 is passing too soon.

Michael grew up in a musical family and was phenomenal. From dictionary.com we get this: Phe*nom"e*nal\, a. [Cf. F. ph['e]nom['e]nal.] Relating to, or of the nature of, a phenomenon; hence, extraordinary; wonderful.

That he was, troubles and all. His personal troubles probably stemmed from being over-managed by his father, much like Elvis was brutalized by the Colonel.

As a performer, he was perfection personified. He pushed his voice and his body to their limits. Anyone that attended his concerts came away mesmerized, having been feted to a banquet of sound and sight, shared by the thousands in attendance.

Little Michael grew up, had a family of his own and lavished love on them. He didn’t know where to stop with his generosity.

He created “Thriller” - and how do you follow that? Should you fold your tent and do the occasional tour, retire, or push on? Michael pushed his need for perfection inside.

He fretted over his physical appearance. He endured pain to get somewhere that his body would not take him. His ears seemed more attuned to the voices of detractors than to those that loved him.

Legal matters chased him away from his creation of Neverland and then to his last rented home.

His legacy is his music: hundreds of songs, memories in millions of hearts and that thing that is simply wonderful.

Thank you, Michael. You were a tender and loving thriller. © Tim    http://www.timjohnsonphoto.com/

The Space Of Space And Space In Life

Image courtesy NASA

The crescent Earth rises above the lunar horizon in this spectacular photograph taken from the Apollo 17 spacecraft in lunar orbit during the final lunar landing mission.


Apollo 17 was the eleventh manned space mission in the NASA Apollo program. It was the first night launch of a U.S. human space flight and the sixth and final lunar landing mission of the Apollo program. The mission was launched at 12:33 a.m. EST on December 7, 1972, and concluded on December 19. It remains both the most recent manned moon landing and manned flight beyond low Earth orbit.


We are headed back to the moon. New technology and a different approach to take-offs and landing will help us establish a base of the moon for interplanetary flight. In October, we are going to slam a capsule into the moon to see if there is water on there. If so, fuel could be created there and the moon could become a campsite and launch pad.


If you want to keep up with these things, sign up for news feeds from NASA, just like me.


The thing that has been on my mind since seeing this terrific image is the thing that is most striking about photography, calligraphy and life. It is sometimes hard for me to convey to my students about the power of negative space in a photograph, a letter or in life.


There is the necessity of letting the meaning of our work and intention being clear. This is a picture of the moon and in the background is the earth. The eye can see that and the brain easily wraps itself around that.


But look at the blackness that is the major part of the image. It is just a small slice of the extent of the open universe. The universe is not empty, by any means. It is full of particles, energies and stuff beyond stuff we have not yet discovered or defined. We are joined to all of it.


But here are two visible points: moon and earth. We are observing a photograph taken years ago and the photographer was an astronaut inside a metal can with an artificial atmosphere and his camera was a Hasselblad modified by a technician at Kodak who would retire to Cary, NC and would wind up in one of my calligraphy classes. I would explain to this engineer that it is not just ink on paper that makes letters but the space within and between the elements of the letters and words that give them energy and life. Small universe!


In universal terms, the distance from the earth to the moon is a hop. To the Apollo 13 astronauts, their failed trip was almost too long. Their vehicle broke and they nearly perished.


Letters need their space. Leading and kerning are mechanical adjustments to help letters satisfy the eye. Some people have a natural gift for seeing this and their hand lettering shows this gift in ink and colors.


One of these days, someone with some sense of the esthetic will climb Raleigh’s water towers and shorten the bottoms of the “L” in each rendering. This will bring the “E” closer and the word will look right, for a change. Maybe. I dream.


Give the letters their breath and they will show their life.


All this energy pulls and pushes us from and toward something.


Our exploring nature needs to go and it also wants to get home for show and tell and rest and sometimes for profit.


Nurture propels us to new heights and greater depths. These are more wonderful if there is a companionship for mutual encouragement, sharing of talents and pooling resources.


The space between will vary, but the union will never break.
© Tim www.timjohnsonphoto.com

Go Fourth To Celebrate Something GREAT

This long weekend we will be celebrating the daring defiance of a few brave souls who saw our relationship with Great Britain as offensive to the natural law of humanity and downright wrong in many general principles.
Living in colonial America was taxing enough without having imported and exported goods taxed as well. Hunger, disease and oppression were negative elements standing in the way of the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.
By casting off the British Crown and all its invasion into our way of life, our founding families risked and paid dearly so that the United States could become a reality.
At first there were separate colonies and then states. Few of these states really wanted to band together – because they were so very diverse.
What did the frontiersman have to do with the southern plantation owner and what did the merchants of New York really have to do with the pioneers in the westward city of Cincinnati?
At first we could have really been called the Un-Tied States Of America.
Getting people together was a chore since water and road travel was slow and dangerous.
Getting the elected delegates to agree on much of anything was almost impossible.
However, the British Crown dug deeper into colonial pockets and lives and, with a few shots fired in our direction, war was ON.
THE LEADER of the army was George Washington, our second choice. But he was the only correct choice.
THE AUTHORS of the Declaration Of Independence and The Constitution were the best intellects and commanders of the language and law of the day.
The families that put their husbands and sons into the battle lines were the bravest – to stand against the greatest land army of the day – as well as hired mercenaries, the Hessians.
They, and the generations of soldiers that have served this country are the best. They braved lead slugs, cannon fire, disease and horrible medical practices to learn to fight, to face the enemy and to WIN.
July 4th was when the Declaration was ratified and then signatures had to be added. Look at the names affixed and realize that they were never in the same room at the same time. It took months to get all their signatures and to distribute copies to all the states.
The war was already being fought on many fronts.
Our families ran out of lead, needles, paper, cloth, ink, food, and endured privation – for the dream of a free land.
I encourage everyone to read through the Declaration sometime during the weekend. Copies are easy to find.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/jeffe...


After reading it and about its creation, I ask one thing: Would you have signed the document? Weighing the risk, would you commit your life, honor and fortune to the cause of independence? Would you have endured Valley Forge with General Washington? Would you have played a deadly chase through the swamps and hills and been willing to face down the barrels of muskets and cannon?
We were roused by an ideal. We Americans are like that. We are fighting for several just now. We are not an imperial nation and we just want the best for everyone.
We will fight and die for peace and the tens of thousands of graves of our troops and even the unsung hero wives and children of our troops bear witness to their dedication to a grand dream that still beats in each of our hearts.
Peace be on America; peace be on our world; peace be in your heart this weekend. © Tim http://www.timjohnsonphoto.com/