This is why I love What The Duck. Aaron Johnson, the strip’s creator, has an uncanny grasp of what’s funny or ridiculous about photography, and knows just how to present it in a simple, three-cell strip. Any photographer out there, amateur or professional, can relate to the subject matter. When I discovered What The Duck, I couldn’t resist, and went through the entire archives in a couple of days, laughing out loud at most of the comics. What can I say, I love it!
Given our obsession with popping pills for just about every condition, symptom and imagined thing, I think it’s worthwhile to have a look at this next video:
There’s also a funnier take on this.
Reuters is running a video on a man named Lechi Vataev, a Chechen refugee currently in Russia. He can channel 220-volt electricity through his body naturally, without damage or convulsions. He doesn’t know why he can do it, or how he came into his powers. After seeing the video, I have to say the fellow is surprisingly un-electrifying for a man with electric super-powers. His current motto: “I feel tired and I have a headache sometimes.” If that’s not enough to get you running to see him, then you’re not alone. At least it’s still pretty cool to watch him light a bulb while holding live wires plugged into an electric outlet.
Finally found some time to update my blogroll and links sections with the blogs and sites I think are worthwhile to read (I check them daily myself.) So in case you’re looking for a few interesting blogs to add to your feed reader, check out the sites I’ve highlighted.
On a related note, sorry for the less-than-regular posts, I am trying to complete some consulting projects. I’m also going through my photo library (18,000+ photos) and uploading the better ones to photo sharing sites. As both of these activities are time consuming, my free time has been significantly reduced. On the bright side, I get to make my clients happy and share good photos with the world, so it’s not that bad.
Autumn is always a bitter-sweet season for me. I still remember it as the time school starts. When I was a child, I dreaded September, because I knew school was coming. Those feelings lingered through college, and they tinge my thoughts even now. Autumn also meant harvest with all its bounty: apples, grapes, corn, potatoes, and so on. How I’d love to help my grandfather pick them from his garden! Maybe I was just happy to get away from homework, but I loved it. His delicious Concord grapes, crisp from the vine, were just the ticket for me on a cold autumn day. My grandmother would beg me in vain to wash them as I wolfed them down in sheer delight. Ah, youth, it’s wasted on children…
Then there are the colors of autumn. Is there a season more colorful than it? Winter isn’t it. Spring may be colorful, but only so in concentrated spots, like gardens with flowers or flowering trees. It’s mostly brown and green and blue. Summer is constantly and mostly green and blue. Winter is just dull. It alternates between the brown of mud and the white of snow, bespeckled here and there with an occasional cardinal bird and some evergreens, to speak nothing of the mostly dreary sky. Now autumn, that’s the ticket for color! Where else will you find different colors everywhere, even in lowly trees you wouldn’t otherwise notice?
I’ve been taking photos of fall colors for a few years now. I probably got some of my best shots this year, and I wanted to share a few with you. Join me in saying goodbye to autumn. In memoriam…
Raoul Pop 