Waiting for dinner

Waiting for dinner.jpg
Originally uploaded by jiggerpress.

A classic long exposure photograph. But this one is extraordinary not just because it is done with a digital camera, but also because it has packed so many factors of excellent photography in it.

The extra long (2491.5 seconds) exposure has recorded tracks of stars, movement of clouds, even a car driving across the desert scene. Night scene is transformed into day. Reading this picture, you see time frozen in this snapshot, yet you feel time flying away fast at the same moment.

This is only one example of the photographer's marvelous work.

Ah, Shanghai!

P1000084a
Originally uploaded by xie-wei.

The thumbnail version of the image did not show much beyond the magnolia in thick fog.

When I got to the larger sized image, I saw the TV tower further in the fog. This tower on the east bank of the Huang-Pu River has been a landmark of the new Shanghai.

It should be early spring now in Shanghai. Soon the wet season will begin. Shanghai, and large parts of China south of the Yangtze River, will be drenched by spring rain that never ends. But then the earth will become green -- may be it already is over there...

The layers in the photo is intriguing. The three birds not only balance the composition of the image, but also add motion to it as well. Over all a non-flashy photograph, very much like the subtle season in that land.

"Mary wasn't a virgin"

Flickr Queen is probably not at all an overstatement. I have admired her creativity for some time but I probably have never commented on her images before.

This one drew me in. It is good photograph, although may be not the best from her. The title certainly caught my attention.

Many people seem to agree with my thoughts expressed in my "God's Billboard" entry on this blog. I am not religious but I do admire people who truly believe. I just despise those who only want others to believe that they believe.


Back to the photo. The tension from her hands creates an attraction to the red flower in the center of the picture. Overall, the lighting is very well done and the red colors make the entire image dramatic.

[Edit]: The owner has chosen to remove access to the static image referenced here. But the image is still available by clicking the image above.

Giants

These giants always attracts my attention. These were seen on I-10 in California outside of Palm Springs. The scene on the day before was much more interesting. The air was clear. A sudden shower cleaned up the dust in the air. But we were running somewhere fast on the highway.

We drove around quite a bit the second day and took some pictures. But the perfect lighting and shadows from the previous day's clouds were gone.

Looks like California has moved one step ahead of the rest of the country.

Bush is a WMD

I can't agree more with that sign! If you don't, just take a look at the Iraq Body Count, and mind you, those are reported deaths. The Lancet statistical findings are much more shocking:

Three misattributed clusters were excluded from the final analysis; data from 1849 households that contained 12 801 individuals in 47 clusters was gathered. 1474 births and 629 deaths were reported during the observation period. Pre-invasion mortality rates were 5·5 per 1000 people per year (95% CI 4·3–7·1), compared with 13·3 per 1000 people per year (10·9–16·1) in the 40 months post-invasion. We estimate that as of July, 2006, there have been 654 965 (392 979–942 636) excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war, which corresponds to 2·5% of the population in the study area. Of post-invasion deaths, 601 027 (426 369–793 663) were due to violence, the most common cause being gunfire.

The first full sentence comes out of the movie Flags of Our Fathers is: "Every Jackass thinks he knows what a war is, especially those who've never been in one." This one certainly does not know what a war is. But from watching the two Clint Eastwood movies, the Flags and the Letters from Iwo Jima, the first thing a war does is destructing humanity. A solider does not just kill enemies, he (or she, nowadays) destructs him/herself in that process as well. That is true even for today's American soldiers in Iraq who have the ability to kill from miles and miles away. The ones who raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and murdered her whole family were not killed by terrorists. They are destructed by the war itself. War brings out the worst of man. Soldiers are just human sacrifice for those politicians who use wars for their own agenda. Bush is just the latest example of such politician.