MEMORIAL DAY 2010

On this Memorial Day I do hope everyone gives more than a passing thought to what the holiday is all about.
Formerly known as Decoration Day, the Memorial Day (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day) weekend has deteriorated, for most people, into a time for sales on merchandise, mini-vacations and just another day off.
There's nothing wrong with these activities, but during the weekend I feel that some attention ought to be given to remembering that the freedoms we currently enjoy were purchased by the blood of patriots.
Even today we have men and women on our home and foreign soil fighting for our essential freedoms. Those modern soldiers are helping keep us safe by taking the battle to the homeland and hideouts of the people that despise us enough to attack us.
9/11/01
If you visit the National Cemeteries you will see that flags have been placed on each grave. At the cemeteries the national flag is raised and lowered each day, with honors, as is appropriate on this hallowed ground.
Veterans don't sell as many red paper poppies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_poppy) as they once did. These little flowers were worn to say, “I remember and I appreciate the military.”
Around the world there are American Military Cemeteries. They are managed under the Executive Branch of our government and exist in Europe, Africa, Asia and in the Americas.
In these cemeteries are the remains of the men and women who died in battle and whose families felt it was appropriate that they be buried near where they fell. You can view Hallowed Ground by clicking on the film at the American Battle Monuments Commission website:http://www.abmc.gov/home.php
At any cemetery you will find markers belonging to veterans. Privates, Seamen, non-coms, warrant officers and officers are laid to rest all around the globe.
Some bodies are marked by stones engraved, “Unknown”. The photo I took at the top of this post was taken at Raleigh's National Cemetery. 
All of the Unknowns are honored by the watch at the tomb at Arlington. http://www.arlingtoncemetery.org/News/ANC_News.html
If you can find it, you ought to watch, “Section 60” - a story about the section of Arlington set apart for those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Gen. George S. Patton is appropriately buried in Europe where his brilliant victories and sad demise took place. Peacetime would not have suited this warrior. Too bad he did not have his head to proceed marching against the Communists.
HBO has been showing all ten episodes of its miniseries, The Pacific. This was quite a departure from Band Of Brothers but was well done as it keyed its story on a few Marines and their exploits during WWII. Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg have not outdone themselves … they have created a new approach to understanding war.
Their two remaining projects would be miniseries on the air war and the war as fought from our ships.
Expect to see Platoon, Glory and some John Wayneish films on your TV this Memorial Day. The Longest Day is classic and tries to touch the scope of what was accomplished on D-Day.
When you swallow your hot dog or hamburger or after you have taken advantage of a Memorial Day sale, remember that it was a veteran that bought your freedom to do so. © tim www.timjohnsonphoto.com

Important, But Not Photography Or Calligraphy

One of the most interesting food service businesses that I enjoy when I visit my brothers are the delicious and dependable offerings of a small chain called Wifesaver.
This post is unsolicited, but they can reward me with a chicken plate anytime - if they so choose.
Click on this link to check out their history and business philosophy: http://www.wifesaver.biz/ 
I have never been IN one of their restaurants because all their goodies have been delivered to me in nearby Jackson, SC. 
For me a trip to the closest restaurant is a 5 hour trip - but I have driven a lot further for a lot less.
My brothers are manly men and good cooks in their own right. My mom was the best of cooks and I am not bad with pan, fork and flame - but we try to minimize our labor and maximize our fellowship whenever we get together. Wifesaver is already cooking.
Then, when mom was sick and at her passing and around my brother's memorial services people came with a lot of things from Wifesaver - saving their wives from having to work in the kitchen even at a time like that.
There would be fewer and less painful country songs if men paid attention to the name of this company and applied it to their marriage relationship.
"Save your wife!" Yes. Deliver her from drudgery, non-communication and stay in touch with her.
Do her chores even when it hurts. Maybe one brilliant soap suds maker will eventually come out with Duck Tape scented dishwashing liquid. 
Wouldn't THAT be THE sponsor for the grandest of SOAP OPERAS: GENERAL HOSPITAL!!! brought to you by "xxx" maker of the manly man's duck tape scented dishwashing  detergent ... tough on grease and so strong it hurts your hands and makes you cry. But you will like it because you are a manly man.
Don't be afraid to vacuum, even if you can't spell the word.
Put your used dishware ALL THE WAY into the dishwasher (near does not count, sweet as it may be) and even wash the things in the sink.
That might make your nasty hands softer and cleaner for her to appreciate and hold.
Watch your wife and make a ledger of all that she does. You will get tired while making the list. Then, take over some of the items. Set her free. Save her.
Monkeys can wash and fold laundry. Start by gathering your own clothes and getting them near, if not IN the washer. Learn how to do the laundry correctly.
Don't spare the soap in the shower, use more razor blades and then clean the drains. You don't like picking up a cat's hairball, so why should your wife clean up yours?
If you look more like your lounge chair than you did in your wedding pictures, start walking ... with your wife. At first you don't even have to talk. It will be hard, but do it. 
If you get really riled up and think about painting a room, get a note from her first. In fact, the best paint shop in this area is Askew-Taylor and they won't let a husband buy paint without a note from their wife. It is a warning on a 3x5 card nailed to the wall and has probably saved many an argument or hours of SILENCE.
You may be tired, but let her take a nap. You get or fix dinner. You can cook anything but Marie Calendar's nasty steamy lasagna mentioned in a former post.
Cut up some vegetables and fruit. Fold the napkins or paper towels ... in half to start because you don't want to freak her out.
If she is puzzled, curious or suspicious, keep up the activity for a decade. It took you that long to get sloppy. 
Undigging a hole is hard work.
If you suggest a nap and she says, "If I sleep now, I will be awake all night!" 
Just grin and keep your mouth shut. 
  © tim www.timjohnsonphoto.com

I GIVE YOU MY AWL

Homo sapiens tjvarietieus.
This tool-making man enjoys making things. I always have and always will.
As a kid I saw a whole community make the most of everything. We made electricity out of coal and rayon out of goop and hydrochloric acid (Celanese Fibers). We made beautiful leather from tough hides (The Tannery).
Pollution and environmental friendliness aside, the hills of Virginia were alive with makers and doers.
Just up the road, at a town called Radford (Radford Arsenal), came together the elements to make explosives - and many of the elements had been in the Virginia soil since creation. I even made some crude, but effective, black powder from Giles County elements.
I saw womenfolk get all the good from garden goods and all the good there was to get from the pig, even laughing at their final squeal. They knew hard times and survived.
Now, I give you my awl.
This simple tool has undergone many modifications and revisions over the years. If you look in tool catalogs you can find dozens of varieties of awls - punch, scratch and taper - but this is my awl. 
This awl is made of bamboo, a hardened nail, JB Weld, waxed cotton cord, heat-shrink tubing, copper wire and an eye-screw and golden tassel for dressing it up. This would be the Sunday go-to-meetin' version that would look stylish in a jacket pocket or purse if housed in a proper presentation box. Maybe that is what that old Rotring pen case is really waiting to do.
I have given my awl many times to people who needed it.
People who were hanging pictures needed my awl. People making frames needed it too.
Perfect, precise and hard, my awl was what they needed and I gave it to them.
When I give my awl to someone I do make another. It will be similar, but not precisely the same.
I use worn or broken screwdrivers sometimes to make awls. They are not dressy, but they do the job. One awl I made is ground from a wide-bladed screwdriver that I ground from both sides and left a sharp point in the middle. The point is a sixteenth of an inch high and makes a perfect hole for starting screws, nails and making marks without leaving too much damage to the surrounding surface.
My grandfather spent many hour making wonderful knives from broken saw blades. Lumbermen knew that and would bring him this great heavy spring steel, mostly from the Freud factory in Germany. He would make a knife with a handle for them and then have a lot of steel to make all kinds of blades for family and friends. handles were made of bone, wood and aluminum and were fitted with brass and copper pins.
Many of the men I knew were machinists and I saw precisely milled tools and parts come off of their machines.
The women took cloth and made everything for their homes and closets and made rags into quilts. They could knit and crochet and, when I needed therapy after breaking my arm and fingers, my PT was doing clumsy crochet with my stiff and wounded hands. The fine movements did bring movement back to my hands but I hurt them again when I had to whip up on a guy for making fun of my doily.
My granddad and uncles taught me nautical knots and how to rig all kinds of fly and fishing lines.
Everyone taught me the joy of sharing.
I have created tools for my calligraphy and photography and many other pursuits.
And now, I give you my awl. © tim www.timjohnsonphoto.com

Prescriptions, Recipes and Treats

The sharing of recipes and other formulae is ancient and is at the root of every cultural advance. What is not freely shared is stolen from one people and used by another.
Over the weekend I watched a program about the sack of Rome by the Vandals. Pity. Robbery, rape and pillage. However, as a historian, I do ask for your consideration, "How had the Romans come by these treasures?" Hmmm? 
You know that tribes of people on every continent had terrible recipes and healing concoctions and other tribes had hit on better ones.
Magda's roasted badger marinade made everyone queasy and gassy, but no one knew any better way to fix the critter. Then, one of the hunters dragged home a woman from a distant land that sneaked some of the Colonel's herbs and spices into the stew pot while Magda was hunting and gathering something else and "Dang!" the badger meat fell off the bones and the gassy concert never came. The recipe was reinvented, claimed by Magda, and shared.
Somebody chewed on burdock and got relief from aches and pains and even gout. Burdock is found in many of today's medications - just as eyebright and feverfew are used for VISION issues and to reduce FEVER.
Now there are some really bad things (in my opinion) still in circulation and making modern humans queasy and gassy. They are still showing up at church dinners and family potlucks.
Rx and recipe are the same. Foods that taste medicinal and medicines that taste like food ought not to be.
Medicines ought to taste bad and food ought to taste good. Bad tasting medicine weeds out the people that are just pretending to be sick.
My great aunts made great use of varieties of alcohol in their holiday baking and undue further saturation of what they had baked.
I thought frag grenades and bouncing betsys were awfully dangerous, but try choking down a 10 month old rum ball with a chunky Christmas nog that was never set too close to the candles.
Prescriptions that we miss include paregoric. This drug was opium stewed in alcohol. It would settle any raging stomach and quiet any restless child. I'm sure that it was over-prescribed and socially abused.
Children were drugged because their parents were tired. I really cannot image THAT.
We do share things like NOT cleaning glass with paper towels when newsprint is CLEARLY better ... but then you have to read a newspaper to have the paper for cleaning windows but reading the news might make you so upset you don't care if the glass falls out of your window frames.
Not everything Marie Calendar makes is worth eating. Yep, I do occasionally have a one and only meal and usually she is dependable. But, her new lasagna boily, drainy dish for one was so bad the dogs would not fight over it.
Photographers experiment and share darkroom and exposure secrets.
Calligraphers play with ink and gouache.
Players play ...
Where did I put my badger marinade recipe? B for badger or M for marinade or R for roadkill?
By the way, enjoy the muffins! They are too good not to share. © tim www.timjohnsonphoto.com

AN ANNOUNCEMENT, AN INVITATION & PHOTO GUIDANCE

Beginning next Monday, the entrants and winners of this year's teen photo contest will be on display at the west regional library, just off of hwy 55 in Apex,Cary, Morrisville. The young people did a fine job and we had over 70 entries to consider. I am grateful to the library and to Helen and Michele for their support and work on this project. In addition to the judge's choices. there will be a "people's choice" winner and prizes will be presented to the first-place winners in the young teen, teen and people's choice categories. People attending Saturday's reception will get a copy of the following:

Tim Johnson’s Short Guide To Better Photographs

1. UNDERSTAND what you are saying with your images. Most people know the Asian wisdom that says, “One picture is worth a thousand words.” However, most people do not realize that there is an equally profound proverb that says, “One word is worth a thousand pictures.” See the GOLDEN MEAN [http://www.thegoldenmean.com/why.html] and understand and use the RULE OF THIRDS [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds]. The photographer works to simplify, remove and reduce the image to its essence so that the observer sees and understands what the photographer is seeing and feeling. REMOVE DISTRACTIONS & LOOK FOR THE PHOTOGRAPH IN THE IMAGE.

2. KNOW your equipment. Read and understand the functions, potentials and limitations of the hardware, firmware, lenses and ISO. This applies to film and digital cameras. Light is the only tool you have. The rest is worked out with technology, time and talent. A professional photographer can create great images with simple equipment. Make a pinhole camera and create a masterpiece photo. These cameras are simple boxes created from items as simple as Pop-Tart boxes, oatmeal boxes or simple wooden boxes. Digital equipment can be inexpensive or very costly. The real deal is not the equipment, but the heart, dedication and expertise you bring to your work. Note: The SUN will burn your sensor in a digital camera. That cannot be removed and is expensive to replace. Use a film camera for images involving our nearest star.

3. PLAN your work. Even when you are hitting the street to photograph what catches your eye, be prepared. Lenses, filters, any toys are all fine. The real thing to have that will greatly improve your success in taking good pictures is a sturdy tripod. In fact, I would spend more on a tripod than on the camera. Camera movement ruins more images than any other factor. Even image stabilization can’t do what a good tripod can do. A decent camera and a good tripod will also draw a crowd. Note: if you are using a tripod, turn image stabilization OFF. Modern, slow lenses have a shallow depth of field. Focus on your subject and let the rest fall away.

4. BRACKET. Digital and film cameras usually have settings to automatically bracket images. To bracket means to underexpose, average-expose, and overexpose in order to create multiple choices when looking at prints. Bracket every exposure you make. By doing this you will learn a lot about your eye and your camera. When using film and taking it in for printing, tell the technicians that you bracketed so that they will not make adjustments.

5. LEARN photo manipulation software. Adobe Photoshop, Corel Paintshop Pro or The Gimp. It is important that your monitor is calibrated to the place where your images are going to be printed or viewed. The destination of your photograph determines how you will treat it. The human eye can see at about 312 dpi. Higher resolutions are for large, professional installations. Understand the nature of the ink and paper you are using. Pigmented inks may not be vibrant on some glossy papers. Dye sublimation inks may react differently on different textures. Experiment! Print at the highest resolution for maximum impact. Most commercial photo labs in the Triangle (most use Fuji Frontiers or Noritsu) like 4x6x300 dpi. An 8x10 print can cost $2-20 dollars and come off of the same printer. For larger prints you can use 8"x12"x600dpi. You should ask the lab technicians what they prefer and what their machines are capable of doing. Try using a single lab so they know you and your images

6. Mat and mount. Presentation mounting should be SIMPLE. Archival papers, mat board and adhesives will protect your images. Matting and mounting should be about 10% above the center of the board. Protect your art from UV light. Live with your images and improve them. Keep working and growing. Dig within for inspiration and keep your eyes open and a camera nearby.

Growing tips: Attend classes and workshops. Look at other art and define what you enjoy. Test your limits and that of your equipment. Carefully and deliberately add equipment to your bag or studio. Study commercial work in magazines and books. Ask for a restaurant wall to have a public showing.

Ó 2010 TIM JOHNSON  Photographic Illustration, Giant Prints & Instruction

 919.345.4615    www.timjohnsonphoto.com  BLOG tim@timjohnsonphoto.com