CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-05-13 17:02:08 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

The Tourist from Tabriz

i was ready for someone to pass the doorway
and create a dynamic portrait of light
but instead a man approached me from the darkness
which startled me and I clicked the photo,
but he simply said to me
"my american friend, I am from Tabriz,
there is no such thing as darkness,
only shadows,
emptiness,
and the lack of luminance"

Then he walked away
leaving me to wonder about my photos and tourists from Tabriz.

#blackandwhitephotography   #moodymonday  

2013-05-09 16:31:30 (8 comments, 1 reshares, 9 +1s)

Woman and the Sea

salutations...

#californiacoast   #thirstythursdaypics  by +Giuseppe Basile and +Mark Esguerra  #blackandwhitephotography  

2013-05-08 17:15:56 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 14 +1s)

Pairs...

..duo, dyad, duet, couple, twosome, partner, mate, match...
... moment

#blackandwhitephotography   #textureblendphotography   #california  

2013-05-06 16:50:50 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 13 +1s)

The Turnout

it was warm and sunny on the peninsula south of San Francisco this weekend, so why not enjoy the coast. Thousands drove up to Stinson Beach only to find the coast dipping in and out of fog and clouds, and temperatures dropping into the fleece/sweater range.

this photo was taken at a road turnout between Bolinas and Stinson Beach looking south.  Turkey vultures were circling in the sky, egrets walked by fisherman who were baiting their hooks, and hungry SUVs were desperately trekking their way to the small gas station in Bolinas, all the while the San Andreas fault was creaking underfoot. 

#blackandwhitephotography   #longexposurephotography   #seascapephotography  

2013-04-14 20:47:37 (0 comments, 4 reshares, 12 +1s)

Seeing inside your own eye

While Louis XIV was consolidating power and building Versailles, the French mathematician DeChales, was working on his own magnum opus. In addition to usual Euclidean topics, he wrote about optics, lenses, and methods that would eventually produce cameras and movies. Photographers and cinematographers interested in the history of their craft might know his work.

In 1674, when his multi-volume work first appeared in print in near crystalline beauty, Louis XIV was warring with anyone who questioned his authority, the English were seizing New York from the Dutch, and the Court of Holland was banning the work of Spinoza. When the second printing came out in 1690, the people of Salem were preparing for the trials of "witches".

Buried in the second volume is a discussion of light and focus that is the basis for seeing inside your own... more »

2013-04-11 16:22:50 (9 comments, 1 reshares, 29 +1s)

Waiting for my Ship to Come In


#longexposurethursday   #blackandwhitephotography  
#thirstythursdaypics  by +Giuseppe Basile and +Mark Esguerra 

2013-04-10 16:24:51 (2 comments, 2 reshares, 12 +1s)

Escher's Bridge and other Associations

.... well it's obviously the Golden Gate Bridge, but I associated the strong shadows and suspension cables with Escher drawings, the colors with the Hope poster, and the solitary person with a +Nathan Wirth composition. I liked the way they all fit together in my viewfinder, for a moment at sunset.

#goldengatebridge  

2013-04-08 21:48:54 (6 comments, 1 reshares, 15 +1s)

The Circle Game

"And the seasons they go round and round 
And the painted ponies go up and down 
We're captive on the carousel of time 
We can't return we can only look 
Behind from where we came 
And go round and round and round 
In the circle game "

Lyrics by Joni Mitchell

#moodymondayphoto  +Moody Monday  by +Philip Daly +Carole Buckwalter +Annelies Kroen #monchromemonday   #blackandwhitephotography #Brooklyn  

2013-04-06 20:51:32 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 15 +1s)

The Second Look

at Aphrodite.

Photo taken with a Rollei 35 camera using Kodak Tri X Pan film.

#Paris   #louvre  

2013-04-04 03:55:54 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 16 +1s)

Resistance

when standing on the edge of the Parco della Resistenza, in Urbino, 
it takes little more than a cloudy day to imagine the dark tragedy of war
and to recall those who had the courage to resist ... 

#Urbino #Italy

2013-04-02 21:02:17 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

Cloud Painting

iPhone long exposure

#iphoneography  

2013-04-01 20:56:20 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 14 +1s)

Stormy Weather, NYC

"Don't know why there's no sun up in the sky"
   -- lyrics from Stormy Weather, first performed in 1933 by Ethel Waters, later recorded by Lena Horne, Billie Holliday, and many more.

[Photo of Madison Square Park, the Flatiron is on the right]
#NYC   #moodymonday   #treetuesday  

2013-03-24 15:50:18 (6 comments, 2 reshares, 21 +1s)

When Less is Moire

these photos, taken in Williamsburg Brooklyn, are both downsized from the original and show a strong moire interference patten on the metal security doors. The pattern is caused by aliasing when reducing the size of the photo. Moire aliasing is also produced directly by a camera sensor.  Moire patterns are a well known and troublesome artifact in digital imaging and that's why most digital cameras have a physical filter over the sensor to "anti-alias" the image.

But moire patterns are much more profound than the nuisance to photographers.  Because moire patterns are related to interference between periodic line patterns, they are useful in the study of things periodic, such as mineral lattices, and in general matters described by Fourier transforms. They should be of great interest to all scientists studying data that are periodic.
more »

2013-03-23 04:40:01 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 22 +1s)

The Unbearable Lightness of Sunsets


#Tucson #Arizona

2013-03-21 18:36:34 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 15 +1s)

Reflections on Melted Snow

a strong wind is blowing
and your light is dancing on the water
i know you'll be gone tomorrow
and the night is only a breath long

#thirstythursdaypics   #brooklyn  

2013-03-20 06:24:02 (3 comments, 2 reshares, 14 +1s)

For Whom the Bell Tolls


#Williamsburg   #Brooklyn   #blackandwhitephotography   #streetphotography  

2013-03-18 04:26:47 (4 comments, 3 reshares, 18 +1s)

Dark Clouds over Liberty

...the view from Brooklyn

#Brooklyn   #sunset   #moodymonday  

2013-03-17 19:08:25 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 12 +1s)

Lucky Charms

This year's Los Angeles Marathon, on Santa Monica Blvd

#LAMarathon  

2013-03-17 04:18:01 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 14 +1s)

The "Goldilocks Planet"
The Breadth of a Breath of Air

When I took this photo, located not too far offshore from Naples' active volcanoes, I was sitting on a ledge of volcanic tuff, dangling my feet into the water, and with my tripod right next to me. The photo shows volcanic rocks barely above water, the ocean, and the atmosphere. 

I estimated the exposure required, imagined Herculaneum, visualized sea levels, worried a little about UV radiation, and then took a deep breath as I clicked the remote. That breath of air was about 20% oxygen, but Earth did not begin with oxygen in the atmosphere, or any atmosphere for that matter.  

The water in the oceans, initially produced by volcanic outgassing was critical for the evolution of life which began in the seas, and for eventually spreading to land. The temperature of the planet was "justr... more »

2013-03-16 04:27:52 (9 comments, 2 reshares, 20 +1s)

Night Falls on a Snowy Brooklyn Day

Brooklyn Heights, New York.

#brooklyn   #breakfastartclub  with thanks to #promotephotography  

2013-03-12 19:09:26 (4 comments, 1 reshares, 22 +1s)

Thinking of Paris

a brief snowfall in Brooklyn triggered dreams of Paris

#treetuesday #brooklyn #iphoneography

2013-03-08 16:33:47 (3 comments, 5 reshares, 18 +1s)

White Out

like many others I am out enjoying a snowy morning in #Brooklyn  Heights

#blackandwhitephotography   #breakfastartclub  

2013-03-08 01:03:04 (3 comments, 1 reshares, 16 +1s)

The Language of Color

a quick post ...

I had the pleasure of listening to Steven Pinker and Fran Lebowitz demonstrate the absence of coherence under the banner of a discourse on language at the Rubin Museum "Brainwave" series yesterday.  Two very fascinating personalities.

a handheld snapshot of a rainy night in #brooklyn  for
#thirstythursdaypics  by +Mark Esguerra +Giuseppe Basile  and some color for +midori chan and +Allison Sekuler 
#brainwave  

2013-03-01 21:18:58 (2 comments, 2 reshares, 23 +1s)

Crossing the Bridge

comfortable choices littered the past
distance between me and them was growing fast
so despite the dark sky and the oceans' unknown tide
i crossed the bridge to the future's side

[Brooklyn Bridge- this photo is posted under Creative Commons NC, so feel free to use it as a desktop background, etc, but please keep the attribution with the photo.  I'll be offline for a few weeks, see ya on the other side]

#blackandwhitephotography   #brooklyn   #brooklynbridge  

2013-02-28 03:42:41 (7 comments, 1 reshares, 15 +1s)

Man Crossing Street

under the Brooklyn Bridge

#thirstythursdaypics  by +Giuseppe Basile +Mark Esguerra 
#blackandwhitephotography  

2013-02-26 20:26:27 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 15 +1s)

A Walk in the Park

a wintery scene in Brooklyn

#treetuesday   #blackandwhitephotography  

2013-02-25 17:29:33 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 8 +1s)

Abstractions

On a rainy Brooklyn day, both the black hooded painter (who from a distance looked like the grim reaper) working in oils and brushes, and the photographer (me) working with optics, sought to convey something through abstraction of the Manhattan bridge. 

#blackandwhitephotography   #brooklyn   #moodymonday  

2013-02-24 17:04:28 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 15 +1s)

Bessemer Mucho

early sunday morning
water falls from a saturated sky
light is dispersed by droplets in suspension

a young girl sings besame mucho
and dances on the rocks
under the bridge made by Bessemer's furnaces

without Bessemer's steel
the city would seem smaller to the eye
but appear bigger in other ways

#zensunday  +Charlotte Therese Björnström +Nathan Wirth 
#brooklyn   #NYC   #sciencesunday   #blackandwhitephotography  

2013-02-23 00:55:28 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

anonymity

#blackandwhitephotography   #portraitphotography  

2013-02-22 14:39:38 (2 comments, 7 reshares, 10 +1s)

Ballad in Plain D

#blackandwhitephotography   #nyc  

2013-02-20 17:22:51 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 11 +1s)

Nicotine

and Smoke (Hisami Kuroiwa) and photography.


#blackandwhitephotography   #brooklyn  

2013-02-18 15:17:07 (2 comments, 5 reshares, 24 +1s)

Be: Cosmic Rays

In addition to large objects such as asteroids and meteoroids  the Earth is constantly being bombarded by high energy atomic particles such as protons and neutrons. These particles originating outside the Earth's atmosphere are referred to as cosmic rays. 

Cosmic rays, discovered by Victor Hess in 1912, are important for many reasons, one of which is the impact these high energy particles have on life and evolution. Cosmic rays also produce the radioisotope 14Carbon, which is formed in the upper atmosphere, and is strongly modulated by the Earth's magnetic field.  When the magnetic field weakens, which it does periodically, more cosmic particles hit the surface of the Earth and everything else on the surface... like us.

Be, not the imperative of "to be", refers to Beryllium, and  certain isotopes of Be are only produced by cosmicrays... more »

2013-02-14 03:49:37 (2 comments, 2 reshares, 13 +1s)

Bending Light

the engineers calculated the arc
but the variations around the main streams
are perhaps even more profound

#thirstythursdaypics  by +Mark Esguerra +Giuseppe Basile 
#longexposurethursday   #blackandwhitephotography   #Portland  

2013-02-10 16:26:07 (4 comments, 6 reshares, 17 +1s)

Inverting Reality: What you see is not what you get

When your eyes focus on something, an image is projected through your lens and onto your retina, upside down. Your brain then inverts that image so you are perceiving the object right-side up.

In the 1890's George Stratton reported on an experiment in which he wore lenses that inverted the image so that retinal image was right-side up, and he "saw" the objects upside down... at least for the first four days. On the fifth day, his brain had "adapted" and the images were again right-side up.  

He also reported on how his sensations of reality changed during the experiment, which reinforce the idea that what we sense with our senses (ie., the data that our senses collect) and our perceptions of reality are modulated and may not be in direct correspondence.

#sciencesunday    +S... more »

2013-02-05 00:45:08 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 12 +1s)

The Blue Note

when a photograph is no balm
   and poetry seems shrill
'cause turbulence won't calm
   music brightens me still

[enjoying a late afternoon in Tucson, wishing you all a great week, #blackandwhitephotography   #lensbaby   ]

#monochromemonday  +Monochrome Monday  by +Hans Berendsen    +Jerry Johnson  +Steve Barge  +Nurcan Azaz 
#moodymonday  +Moody Monday  by +Philip Daly  +Carole Buckwalter 

2013-02-03 18:59:43 (2 comments, 9 reshares, 24 +1s)

When the Truth is a Lie

Let's start with the facts.
1) This is a photograph, un-retouched, no photoshop alterations.
2) This is the image recorded on a digital sensor, an unbiased record of this moment. 
3) The photo was taken using a 300mm lens.
4) THIS NOT what my eyes saw, or any other human eye would see. I saw a completely sharp reflection of myself in the window.

How is this possible? Did my brain process an illusion?

There is nothing supernatural going on here. The human eye has an effective focal length of about 22mm and in bright light an f-stop of about f=8, and so when I look at this window, my reflection appears to be in focus.  In fact the depth of field (the distance from our eye that is in focus) is about 30 feet. 

But my 300mm lens (at f=8) only has a depth of field of about 2 inches, and so my reflection appearsou... more »

2013-02-01 18:55:43 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 12 +1s)

White Oleander

“Remember it all, every insult, every tear. Tattoo it on the inside of your mind. In life, knowledge of poisons is essential. I've told you, nobody becomes an artist unless they have to.” 

-Janet Fitch, White Oleander

#floralfriday  by +Tamara Pruessner 
+Breakfast Art Club by +Simply Arlie 

2013-01-31 17:09:44 (4 comments, 2 reshares, 12 +1s)

The Early Morning Fog

a solitary tree greets a new day in California

#thirstythursday   #thirstythursdaypics   #natureartthursday   #landscapephotography   #blackandwhitephotography   #50mmphotography  

2013-01-30 16:51:52 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 11 +1s)

Desperate Hopefulness

... an expression from Octavio Paz (The Labyrinth of Solitude) described a universal human capacity to transcend the reality of humanity's self-destructive war making.  The Spanish Civil War was, for many individuals, the fulcrum that shifted the balance from personal hope to desperate solitude.  Robert Capa was able to capture such moments through his photography, and when I came upon this scene in California recently, I thought of Capa and the origin of +Magnum Photos  

Photo near Lost Hills, California.
#blackandwhitephotography   #landscapephotography   #50mmphotography  
#magnumphotos  

2013-01-30 03:04:30 (12 comments, 1 reshares, 16 +1s)

Light on the Canyon

it was almost sundown, and it didn't seem like the clouds would would break. Eventually I turned around and began to leave... and then the sun light came through the clouds, and I smiled, and took this photo. It reminded me how a moment can make a day memorable.

#mytowntuesday   #landscapearttuesday   #blackandwhitephotography   #landscapephotography  

2013-01-28 04:02:54 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 10 +1s)

Intersections

Earth and sky interact and each one affects the other

#blackandwhitephotography   #landscapephotography   #Tucson   #monochromemonday   #moodymonday  

2013-01-27 05:39:20 (4 comments, 1 reshares, 11 +1s)

Tucson on a Winter's Day

those are the Catalina Mountains.

#blackandwhitephotography   #landscapephotography  

2013-01-27 05:13:57 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

Silly Physicist, kX are for Kids

want some kX?
you'll need some F, where F is force and X is the displacement. This relationship, F=kX, known as elasticity and Hooke's Law, governs the deformation and recovery of a wide variety of materials.

Kids using a bungee trampoline know that F=fun=kX, perhaps without even knowing they know. 
 
#sciencesunday  
+Allison Sekuler  +Robby Bowles  +Rajini Rao  +Chad Haney   +Buddhini Samarasinghe  +Rich Pollett   +ScienceSunday 

2013-01-25 02:04:41 (12 comments, 2 reshares, 16 +1s)

Stormy Weather

Rainy day in Tucson on a #thirstythursday   #thirstythursdaypics  by +Mark Esguerra and +Giuseppe Basile 

2013-01-22 05:19:08 (4 comments, 3 reshares, 20 +1s)

Dancing to the Rhythms of the Sea

#seatuesday  by +Julia Anna Gospodarou 

2013-01-21 03:31:25 (7 comments, 6 reshares, 19 +1s)

The Dimming of the Day

"This old house is falling down around my ears
I'm drowning in a river of my tears
When all my will is gone you hold me sway
I need you at the dimming of the day"

Lyrics by Richard Thompson, and sung by Bonnie Raitt, and others.

a photo from Tucson at dusk for #moodymonday  +Moody Monday and for +Breakfast Art Club  #breakfastartclub   #albumart  

2013-01-20 02:13:57 (4 comments, 3 reshares, 14 +1s)

Moon Memories

Yesterday the weather in Tucson was clear and dry. The moon was bright and beckoning. I was drawn by its mysterious symmetry of light and dark, that midpoint in a cycle when something is moving towards its climax, or its end.

The moon has a near perfect memory, at least on its surface.  Every event: each rock, meteor, asteroid, that has hit the moon left a record for us to read. It's all there, even the sequence of events. In total there is about 4.5 billion years of memory punched in a cosmic braille on the moon's surface. 

Earth doesn't have such a perfect memory. On Earth, erosion erases the history of those impacts. And for Earthlings, well human memory is incredibly fascinating but, that discussion is for another post.

Based on history of crater formation on the Moon, scientists, who can read cosmic braille, estimate thatd... more »

2013-01-18 15:27:36 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 14 +1s)

Heading Home

yeah, looking northeast at dusk, and shot through the window of my pickup.

#landscapephotography   #arizona  

2013-01-15 18:30:30 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 10 +1s)

The Portal

we're feeling the winter solstice after effects in the western US.

#treetuesday   #blackandwhitephotography   #portolavalley  

2013-01-11 16:19:51 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 18 +1s)

Snow and Light

Early one morning in the Sierra Nevada, California. 

#blackandwhitephotography   #landscapephotography   #50mmphotography