I recently discovered this service from theprintspace called thehub that lets you setup a gallery of pictures and an easy shopping cart system. The prints are made and delivered by them. The quality is impressive. So, I created one with my “Low Tide” pictures here. Maybe you’d like to order some of them. 🙂
P.S. Of course, let me know if you are interested in prints of any other pictures of mine. You can browse this blog (the tag cloud can be a starting point for search), or my flickr account.
Just think a bit about what has happened last weeks in London. Now just think in a different way as you may usually do. Let’s just call things with a different name, and ask some (really silly) questions.
There are people, who claim being in some kind of special relationship with a very powerful imaginary friend, that entitle themselves with the right of killing other people who, apparently, don’t talk to the same imaginary friend. This circumstance is a good reason to kill them, they think. I am just curious…
How can we really know we are talking about different imaginary friends? What if it is the same for everyone? How many imaginary friends do exist, one, two, forty two, one per each person alive in this world? What has happened to the imaginary friends that no one ever remembers now, the ones that were so popular some thousands of years ago? Why these imaginary friends never seem to answer our biggest questions, and seem to easily answer the most petty ones? I’ve never been able to talk to one of these imaginary friends. Has it happened to you?. If so, how that conversation went? Has your life, or better yet, the life of your loved ones, changed in a meaningful way after that conversation? More importantly, what makes you so special (on the entire universe) to be listened to by your favorite imaginary friend? Does your imaginary friend talk to other people in need too, I guess in his/her spare time? What is time and who did it, by the way?
My most educated guess is: We will never know. Because perhaps, imaginary friends end being just that… Imaginary? When I think in this silly way, a crystal (ball) clear thought comes to my mind: What a waste of human lives, along the entire human history, in the name of… nothing?
Another small gallery of pictures I’ve taken in the last year. Basically, places with trees. I am always attracted to trees, I don’t know why, I like to take pictures of them. What I’ve noticed too selecting this pictures is that they are very dark. I guess it comes with the mood of this last year. Comes to my mind too, that some day I’d like to visit Iceland. I see pictures of waterfalls and northern lights there and the news about volcanoes ready to erupt, and it all seems fascinating to me. Music from Bjork or Sigur Ros is quite often in my headphones while working or relaxing at home. TV shows like Trapped give me the shivers (literally) with those cold landscapes and its crime mysteries. But there are not many trees there, I heard. Perhaps it is an interesting place to escape from all this BREXIT nonsense. Have you been in Iceland?
The hypothesis of God, for instance, gives an incomparably absolute opportunity to understand everything and know absolutely nothing. Give man an extremely simplified system of the world and explain every phenomenon away on the basis of that system. An approach like that doesn’t require any knowledge. Just a few memorized formulas plus so-called intuition and so-called common sense.
A gallery of pictures taken at Brompton cemetery, in London. I visited this Victorian cemetery a few weeks ago. A cold, cloudy with drizzle day. Very appropriate for the mood of the place. I enjoyed it. A very quite and peaceful place.
I saw an exhibition with some of his pictures, some time ago, in London, at the Photographer’s Gallery. Pictures of ordinary things, mundane scenes of his life and places, things that could pass inadvertently to anyone else but him. The proof that you don’t really need fancy trips to remote and exotic places to find beauty. Good weekend everyone! 🙂
Here goes another set of pictures I took some time ago, also in the summer of 2015. The weather was nice enough to do some visits to coastal places in Norfolk, a region here in England I like lots. This time was in Cley Next the Sea. I went there with a friend, and we walked a lot. I even felt I burnt my skin, a thing that rarely happens here in UK. We visited the marshes, the town, an old abandoned church. I’m not a believer myself, but I do enjoy taking pictures inside churches and similar places. The atmosphere, light, sense of peace and tranquility… I don’t need to believe in anything to actually feel… something. I don’t need either to invent strange reasons or imaginary friends to explain these feelings. Of course, we ended in a pub, having a nice meal and some beers. Simple pleasures are the best ones… 🙂
Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
— The demon-haunted world: science as a candle in the dark, Carl Sagan.
A small set of pictures from Oxburg Hall, these ones taken last June, 2015. Is not very far from Cambridge, up north. I went here with my daughter and we enjoyed a lot this place. All these National Trust places have something to see. The pictures show a cloudy day, but that summer was one of the best ones I remember here. And not because the weather…
Just a small gallery of mobile pictures. These were taken in Cambridge, almost 2 years ago. Some parks I used to visit almost daily, the door to my small studio in Trumpington, a place full of memories. A pub called the Wrestlers, possibly the best Thai restaurant in Cambridge. A fish and chips van that was conveniently parked that night next to my place. A popular bar I went a few times for birthday celebrations and meetings with friends and colleagues. Some ice cream picture, of course. Another pub I used to go often with my daughter on Sundays. A beer on a table, I don’t remember where… Soon I will post a few more.
I think I’m going to start a black and white period of pictures. I love colour ones, but I feel like black and white is better suited these days. Black and white is less distracting, helping ease composition issues as pictures can become more abstract and schematic. Also perhaps it fits better with my current mood. Or the British weather, I don’t know…
Over a year ago, I wrote a post where I said that I was doing alright. It’s amazing how things can change so fast. A person that was like my anchor to this place, or so I thought, decided suddenly to search for greener pastures in another (more sunny) country. Also, the company where I was working closed its doors, suddenly too, for unknown reasons. So there I was again, feeling alone, in a place I really didn’t like. A place haunted by memories. After that, I moved to London, I found a job in another studio here, and everything seems to be back on track, almost. London, for all its charm and (photo) opportunities, is proving its fame of being one of the most unfriendly cities of the world. It seems very difficult to connect with people here. That’s what feels to me, so far.
2016 ended (thanks, it was time already…), and for this 2017, I have no idea what to expect. I’m scared of expecting anything. If last year new year’s resolutions were full of plans and ideas for the future, this one will be just about licking my wounds, as they say here. Yeah, I know, it’s a very dramatic way to put it, there are far more serious problems out there, but… Someone I used to know (and love) always said to me that everything happens for a reason. The same person that escaped to the sunny country, ironically. To be honest, I never believed in all that “the universe conspires to make me happy (or unhappy)” nonsense. It is, in my opinion, an irrational way of thinking. And a bit selfish too. An easy way out from (the sometimes hard to deal) reality. I’m sure the universe is busy with more important stuff, like burning helium in stars and throwing dust and gas into black holes. I am a more down to earth person, I guess. I’ll just keep taking pictures, reading, learning new things, doing my job the best I can, travelling with my daughter (my real anchor here, not an imaginary one) to places, etc… and see how it all goes. No plans ahead.
By the way, the picture for this post, completely unrelated to this rambling, was taken two weeks or so ago in London. In black and white looks more interesting to me. The colors for this 2017…
