Among the blogs that I follow is one of an English painter, someone who happens to like cars and shares many of my visual interests. Somewhere he came upon this wonderful photograph of an Oregon couple posing with their then-new 1951 Oldsmobile.
Be Careful of What You Read
Read Vijith Assar’s “An Interactive Guide to Ambiguous Grammar” in this McSweeney’s piece to see how meaning can be easily distorted and even lost:
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-interactive-guide-to-ambiguous-grammar
(My apologies if this seems redundant, as I already made some friends aware of this a few days ago.)
Out of Syria
Map the Syrian civilian population outflows with the interactive graphics here:
http://qz.com/498808/follow-the-flow-of-syrian-civilians-from-the-middle-east-to-western-europe/
rDay One-Hundred-Seventy: Wet Westies II
Scattered about amid the bushes and trees we find all manner of VW camping rigs and their owners and families. Only a drone could provide a photographic vantage point to take it all in with a single sweep (and, in fact, did during last year’s reunion). People were just arriving and setting up camp today, and many more are expected throughout the weekend. Mostly from Oregon, Washington and Idaho, but I have been told that previous events have seen attendees from all across the country, and some cross international borders.
During my brief visit today, I met a number of folks in various walks of life with stories to tell about their travels and their vehicles. A couple of portraits were grabbed along the way.
rDay One-Hundred-Seventy: Wet Westies
Today we venture across the valley to Catherine Creek, where the Wet Westies — a VW camping enthusiast group — gather for their 19th annual weekend at the State Park.
Learn about Wet Westies (co-founded by JamesA, an engineer and former German car tuner, whose hot-rod VW camper has appeared in these posts before, and who has been a co-conspirator in things ranging from computers to Porsches and beyond) by clicking here.
rDay One-Hundred-Seventy (9/11)
Another tedious visit to my doctor, where we have to endure the almost-unreadable collection of magazines (however, this time Kim managed to find an acceptably recent issue of Time), the almost-unbearable display of dozens of Thomas Kinkade reproductions, and just the wait itself. This is where an occasional infliction of pain is almost a welcome distraction. And it is the setting that inspires my new project and its Internet domain name, banalphotos.com.
Clarification
Regarding the posting from a couple of days ago on Charlie’s presence at the game table. I have been asked to make it clear that he did not forcibly intrude or cause any mischief. In fact, he was invited — actually, lifted — onto the table by Ivi herself.
rDay One-Hundred-Sixty-Nine, Late Afternoon
On the way to Grandma’s House …
rDay One-Hundred-Sixty-Nine
Someday I am surely destined to meet the owner of this Camaro — hopefully not by way of a traffic accident — but I keep seeing the car for just a moment at a time now and then. Like today, when I had about one second, while walking down the street, to quickly get the camera to my eye before it was gone. (Yeah, I know, this isn’t nice and sharp like a pro would do, using a prestaged rig shot or a roller, but it was what I could do in less than a second, spontaneously …)
And here is the same car (I think) grabbed under even worse conditions through the windshield as we were turning through an intersection before I could even see the viewfinder, about three weeks ago.
So much for my emerging career as an automobile photographer …
UPDATE 9/11/15: I see that I inadvertently posted this to the family blog rather than the intended car blog. Oh, well …
