Video of fungi on cow dung firing spores at 55 miles an hour. Set to the anvil chorus.

Now turn the computer off, go outside, and practice paying attention,

Video by Nicholas Money of Miami University and students, via 3quarksdaily

I took a two-day trip to Assateague Island recently. For those of you that don’t know, wild horses live on the island. Once a year they are rounded up and the yearlings are auctioned off to raise money for the nature preserve there and to keep their numbers in check. As we were sightseeing around the preserve, I noticed gawkers lining up along the side of the road. I quickly took out my video camera and was lucky enough to stumble upon a roundup in progress!

I also shot some footage of vacationers on and around Assateague’s sister island, Chincoteague, as well as marsh birds and the famous lighthouse and put it all together in a short video. This video is an example of a new trend that I’ve been noticing. Vacation photo albums are being supplemented with dreamy, wordless videos set to music, like this. Some do it well…others not so well. This is my entry into the genre.

I was at the Japanese Festival at the Missouri Botanical Garden on Labor Day. What did I see there, besides plenty of Japanesery? (Or is it Nipponica?)

Sex.

Well, okay. Tropical plants flagrantly (fragrantly?) spreading their petals and waiting brightly for consummation may not be so scandalous. But look to the right. Two couples, different species, copulating carnally for all to see.

Here’s a closer look at one of the pairs “doin’ it”:

I guess it isn’t too surprising at a venue that sells Beer and Saki together.

Ever been to Chicago’s Millenium Park? If so, you’ve probably had some from at the “egg,” more properly known as “Cloud Gate.” My family and I just returned from a perfect three-day trip to Chicago, where we made two visits to “Cloud Gate,” a tremendously fun and interactive sculpture at Millenium Park.

According to this Millenium Park site,

Cloud Gate is British artist Anish Kapoor’s first public outdoor work installed in the United States. The 110-ton elliptical sculpture is forged of a seamless series of highly polished stainless steel plates, which reflect the city’s famous skyline and the clouds above. A 12-foot-high arch provides a “gate” to the concave chamber beneath the sculpture, inviting visitors to touch its mirror-like surface and see their image reflected back from a variety of perspectives.

Cloud Gate invites you both to stand back and view the city and to reach out and touch your own reflection.

The reflections can be simple, or complex if you enter the arched side of the “egg,”

or very complex.

My favorite Cloud gate photos are at night, however.

It is probably obvious that Chicago is one of my favorite places to visit, for many reasons (see here , here and here).

Thanks to my daughters for helping me with these photos . . .

I always carry a camera these days, hoping to capture something worth sharing. Whether I’ve succeeded will be for you to judge. Here’s the best I could come up with over the past few weeks. These photos really don’t have anything to do with each other other than that I thought that each of these images were worth noticing. That’s not going to stop me from trying to spin them into a coherent story. Actually, this faux series of segues reminds me of a saying regarding graduate students (not that I’m really a graduate student): “You know you are a graduate student when everything is relevant to everything else.”

This first photo is a collection of heads. This is noteworthy because I think I know where these heads came from.

Here’s another sort of collection. Grandfather clocks. This shop is in Belleville, Illinois. Some of the clocks cost thousands of dollars. I asked the store clerk whether these big expensive clocks were mostly purchased by institutions. She said no. Most of them are bought by people who put them in their homes.  I didn’t buy one, since I’m happy with my $20 digital watch.

Here’s yet another collection. If this is your car, let me know and I’ll give you full credit.

Speaking of vehicles, I wouldn’t recommend parking next to a sign that says “free stuff.”

And what do you put into cars? Gasoline. Have you noticed all of the greenwashing of gasoline these days? The gas pumps are often painted the color green, as well. And why not make the cigarettes look healthy too, decorating them in forest green and ocean blue?

Cigarettes? That reminds me of death, of course. And that reminds me of my recent trip to a huge Catholic cemetery . I hadn’t before visited the graves of my grandparents. They are all in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis. It was a moving experience for me, even though I don’t believe in life after death. But many people do believe in ghostly beings, of course. And there are many statues to celebrate the purported life after death. The pair of statues below reminded me of just how often earthly religions depend on social hierarchies.  Lots and lots of people bowing to each other and groveling before each other [Yes, and the word "groveling" reminds me of Monte Python's movie "The Holy Grail,"--you know the scene I'm referring to]. Now what would religion be without all the groveling?  Of course, these earthly social pecking orders are imitations of the supposedly heavenly pecking orders, with God the infallible at the top of the heap, giving the orders. For me, these parallel pecking orders constitute proof that “God” is truly made in man’s image and likeness.

Which leads me to think of what life on earth really is about. For those of us who are afflicted with existentialitis, it is about learning the truth, above all (in the long run, of course, when we’re not busy eating or sleeping). Why? For “Strength?”  This quote can be interpreted several ways, one of which makes truth seem so utterly un-holy, so much the tool of a self-centered manipulative person.  I prefer to interpret the quote as a reminder that hard-fought truth (contrasted to dogma) is the tonic that can turn bickering individuals into a highly functioning community.  Truth makes for strong and healthy communities.

Here is a plaque displayed at Washington University in St. Louis, located about six miles from my house. I’ve had the opportunity to audit dozens of credit hours of courses at Wash U, and I have grown so found of the school, its impressive teachers and students that I now consider it to be “my” school, even though my degrees are from other schools. You see, the deep value in a school is really really really not about getting a degree. I believe that unflinchingly. Nor is a school the only place to get an education. Nor should education stop after one finishes getting degrees.

To bring this series of images to an end, for now, what is the purpose of all of this education and thinking? Why do some of us engage in all of the hard work that it takes to hone our understanding of anything worthwhile? Honest people know that we don’t really know, and the most honest people are the most humble. Sometimes, I think that the moon passes overhead to remind us that we are physically small and that there is much that we don’t know (yes, I know that this sounds like a non-sequitur). The photo below is the moon passing over my front yard tonight (or is it more accurate to say that this is me spinning under the moon tonight?). With this last meandering thought brought to its knees by a clear photo of an awe-inspiring object a quarter of a million miles away, that’s where this word salad is going to end, for now.

For those of you seeking close-up photos of mosquitoes sucking human blood, this is your lucky day.  Really terrific photos here, along with clear commentary.   The site is entitled: “The Wild Party: A Diary of Urban Entomology.” The site is filled with beautiful photos of insects.  Well worth a visit.

I was impressed with the clarity of this photo.

[Thanks to Reality Carnival for the link.]

I carry a little camera with me much of the time, just for moments like this. I was riding a light rail train across the Mississippi River today. The west end of the bridge consisted of a series of heavy metal girders and cables, as well as stone arches. The train was going about 30 mph, with the light from the windows flashing by, the south view of the river in front of me and the north view of the river reflecting off of the train windows. I took about 10 photos, most of which weren’t interesting. I found this particular photo delightful, though. It looks like a montage, kind of a “life on the river while gliding across an old bridge” pasting of images. I can assure you, though, that this photo is completely (completely) untouched. You can also see a blurring about many of the edges, due to the speed of the train. This photo is expandable, if you want to see more details.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then here are about ten thousands words’ worth of photos for you. A few months ago, I bought a small camera that I try to take everywhere I go. The plan was to make myself look more careful at the world around me, which I actually do when I’m thinking of taking photographs.

It’s been a week where I’ve seen all kinds of unusual things. These days, life is thick with memorable images. Take a look and maybe you’ll agree. For starters here a baby giraffe and his mother (at the St. Louis Zoo). It’s really hard to believe that this huge animal is only about 10 days old.

Quick! What colors are zebras? Wrong! They are brown and white all over. Here is a sample of zebra fur up close, thanks to one of the volunteer educators at the zoo.

Here’s a photograph of my cousin. Really.

Rats? Almost. This is a capybara, the world’s largest rodent. I learned about capybaras by watching “The Tick,” the cartoon superhero. The Tick adopted a capybara as a pet and named him “Speak.”

And speaking of pets, have you seen the latest in treats for your dog? I took this photo in my local grocerey store. This new product is called Frosty Paws, a frozen ice-cream like substance made largely out of wheat and soy. Only $4 per box. Let’s see . . . what else do dogs supposedly need? I wonder what desperately hungry people would think of this.

The floods are still around in St. Louis. I took this photo from an airplane flying over St. Charles County. Lots of farmland is under water.

Tonight, while one of my daughters and I were cycling through Tower Grove Park (in south St. Louis), we happened to run across some civil war re-enactors. This cannon is not original equipment–it is a replica, because these fellows like to actually fire them.  They “work” as an artillery unit–about six soldiers operated a single cannon.  During the civil war, the soldiers who operated the cannons were often highly educated guys (unlike the soldiers who fought in the infantry). This particular type of cannon comes with a sight that works well enough that an expert artillerymen could nail a carriage from 1/4 mile away.

This is a piece of stone that was being thrown away by a local granite and marble kitchen shop (I was told that it is slate). I salvaged it because I thought the colors were striking. I hung it on my office wall on Friday. People come by and take a look because they wonder what I’m doing with the Ten Commandments hanging on my wall. I didn’t shape the stone at all, however. That’s a “natural” Ten Commandments shape (in a take-home-stone-that-a-merchant-is about-to-throw-away sort of way).

And yes, there are still lots of people covering their cars with bumper stickers.

Finally, my family’s refrigerator broke today and a neighbor kindly let us put some of our food into his extra freezer in his basement. I couldn’t help noticing all the butter. Hey, Joe, WTF, man! I wondered whether he was stocking up for End Times or whether he just (really really) loves butter. He says it’s the latter. Now I know what people do with those extra refrigerators in their basements.

I hope you enjoyed the little show.

Today we biked over to see the 2½ hour long gay pride parade. “You’re here, you’re queer, we’re used to it.” About 40,000 other people came to see the parade along the edge of my neighborhood today.

You can see the crowds looking down Grand Boulevard. Many people were festively dressed. There were many couples of every gender combination, and many pets and some children.

See Mayor Slay at the head of the Gay Pride parade, waving under a mural of Jesus on the Messiah Lutheran school.

Did you ever notice the yellow lilies in the median on Grand? Here, the throng standing on the southbound side watch the bees in the northbound lanes.

And it is no surprise to have a heavily cheered and well attended block of Obama supporters in this parade.

Yes, there were beads, beads, beads!

And the scattered showers failed to scatter the crowds:

Even unsheltered riders in the parade were undeterred by the rain:

And the rain passed, and a good time was had by all:

And after the parade, there were the stage shows and the booths. Food, drinks, finance, churches, travel, home improvement, wearables, and more.

It was a colorful day in one of our landmark parks, this 28^th annual Gay Pride Festival in Saint Louis, Missouri. On the eastern edge of this “red state”.

Hardly a day goes by when you don’t hear yet another Republican claiming that the “surge” is working in Iraq. And see here and here.

If the surge is really working, let’s see daily videotape showing Western reporters strolling freely through Baghdad’s neighborhoods, outside of the Green Zone, chatting with Iraqis.   Better yet, let’s celebrate the “surge” by having a parade in downtown Baghdad. Perhaps George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice and John McCain can lead the parade.  Let’s count the number of McDonald’s in Iraq.  Let’s consider the number of Westerners going to Iraq for vacations.  Consider, also, that strong-arming the Iraqi government to build 58 permanent military bases in Iraq. That’s our long term “solution.”  Isn’t that like saying domestic violence is a “solution” in an abusive relationship?

More important, let’s count the number of Iraqis who have been permanently displaced.  If the surge is working, why are so many Iraqis still living in places like Syria?  Consider this report from DemocracyNow:

Refugees International estimates that up to five million Iraqis have been displaced since 2003. That’s one-in-five Iraqis who have had to flee their homes since the US-led invasion of their country. Two-and-a-half million Iraqis have been internally displaced, and an equal number have managed to leave the country to Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey, the Gulf States and, most of all, Syria, which hosts 1.5 million Iraqis.

Consider, too, how the “surge” is working. You won’t see this in the American corporate press.  You’ll hear a host of lies, including lies from the mouth of John McCain.

American citizens are now being conned about the “surge” just like they were conned about WMD.  Here’s the truth about the “surge.”  If we dared to freely publish photos from Iraq for only one week, that “war” would be over and the American soldiers would be on their way home.

When we think of skies, we often think of blue sky with white clouds. As adults we often forget to appreciate the natural beauty available to us simply by looking up.

There are many other types of skies, of course. For the past ten days, we’ve had lots of turbulent weather here in the Midwest (St. Louis). We’ve seen thunderstorms almost every day. We’ve also see lots of sun, and we’ve seen many of combinations of bright sun while new storms were brewing. It makes for some spectacular skies. I couldn’t help noticing and photographing the dramatic cloud formations.

The photo above is actually a stitching together of three photos, looking to the north from a midtown St. Louis overpass. If you click on it you’ll get a much better view (you are invited to click on any of these, to enlarge them).

The above photo was taken by Charlotte, my seven year old daughter, who exclaimed that the huge clouds dwarfed the airplane.

Charlotte took this one too:

She snapped the photo out of the car window, which you can see from the blurred telephone pole.

I took the photo below outside my office window today. The formations changed so dramatically and so often that I found myself glancing out the window repeatedly. It made me feel like a kid that I was taking the time to notice the vista. It’s like living in a lava lamp.

If it weren’t that we so often have the chance to see spectacular skies, we’d stop taking them for granted. If they occurred only once each year, we’d probably gather outside to stare at the skies on that special night–we’d probably even create a holiday for that day where all of us would show up with our cameras. We’d sing special cloud songs and eat special cloud-watching food.

Truly, the colors, the formations and the movement make Fourth of July fireworks look amateurish.

Maybe we should even cancel the fireworks this Fourth of July to remind each other that we can also be peaceful people. We really could start to celebrate our peaceful moments as well as our war-like history. And we can do it with naturally-occurring glorious backgrounds many days each year.

You can find some artistically inspiring monuments in cemeteries for the rich and famous. For example, consider the elegant mournful figure below:

The above monument can be found in Bellefontaine Cemetery, in St. Louis, Missouri. The brochure distributed by Bellefontaine rightfully indicates that Bellefontaine is “recognized as an arboretum as well as a sculptural museum.” Bellefontaine includes dozens of aesthetically memorable monuments tucked among equally memorable trees. It is a large, quiet and contemplative space that I visit each year or so, even though I don’t know anyone who is buried in Bellefontaine.

Bellefontaine is “home” to many notable personalities, including Thomas Hart Benton, Adolphus Busch (the brewer) and Sara Teasdale (the poet).

Yesterday, I took my two daughters to view the monuments and trees of Bellefontaine, including the monument marking the grave of William Clark (of “Lewis and Clark”). At Clark’s burial site, he is accurately touted as a great explorer. It’s a simplification of this complex man, however, chiseled in stone. Clark accomplished far more than co-lead the famous expedition. In cemeteries, we make cartoons of the dead, and we overlook their faults entirely.

While my daughters and I walked about Clark’s grave site, I commented that it’s sometimes necessary to see their graves to remind yourself that the famous people in American history once really lived and walked about. They weren’t simply stories or legends. (more…)

It is springtime here in the city. For a week or so, my cat and I have been fascinated by the periodic choruses of peeping from the highest boughs of our spruce tree. His interest was dietetic, mine just aesthetic. This morning, the peeping dispersed.

From inside my kitchen, I spotted a fledgling on the grape arbor. I took a quick snapshot from inside, and then tried to slip quietly outside to get a clearer picture. As soon as the youngster saw my front-facing, predator’s eyes through the glass, it flapped madly for the overhanging wires. It didn’t have enough loft, and was shedding down as it bumped the wire. Finally it gave up and flapped toward the lower concealing cover of the lilac bush. So all I got was this through-the-door snapshot.

What are we to make of this latest flap over a teen icon revealing herself as a potentially sexual being?

I was only dimly aware of Hannah Montana till the Vanity Fair scandal (if scandal is the word). Now it seems I can’t get away from her, which is, of course, the goal of marketing—to make something inescapable for the general public. There are elements of the incident that require less froth and more examination. The accusations of “whose idea was it in the first place and how was Mylie Cyrus manipulated?” are loud and in many ways naive.

First off, Hannah Montana is a Disney product. I don’t think we’re yet quite comfortable with the idea of a person—even a fictional one—being a “product” like a box of soap or a car, but this is indeed what the character is. Designed, engineered, and road tested, Hannah Montana is a money-making machine for Disney and the various participants in the show and franchise.

Pause for a moment and consider: Disney.

It is difficult to imagine a marketing machine that is better at what it does. Which means the chances of something being done with one of its properties that it (a) doesn’t know about and (b) doesn’t approve are next to zero. Especially when you add to that:

Vanity Fair.

Big magazine, famous magazine, a magazine people in show business lust to get into. In the vernacular, Lot A Bank there.

So we’re talking about two major corporate entities, huge public presence, who are involved—without a doubt contractually—in a presentation of a property. Again, the oddness of talking about a person as property is unsettling, but this is a show business idiom quite common. Agencies discuss “properties” all the time and they’re talking about musicians, actors, artists.

Throw into the mix Annie Liebowitz, who is arguably iconic herself. From the early days at Rolling Stone up through the present, Annie is a public figure. Meaning that, especially “in the business”, everyone knows what she does. She would also have been involved in the arrangements between Disney and Vanity Fair.

So far so good. Everyone knew what was going on.

Now, the photoshoot was crowded. Lots of people there. Including Mylie Cyrus’s parents. Not sure who mom is, but dad—Billie Ray—is an entertainment industry insider. He’s been around a long time. He has survived quite well. He knows the ropes. He is not a “stage dad” in the sense of not knowing what’s going on.

I’ve laid this out at some length to show how utterly unlikely it is that the photographs of 15-year-old Mylie in a pose more appropriate to a 20-something were an accident. That no one knew what was happening. It’s not like this was done in a basement studio, digitally, and the shots immediately posted to the web. Disney would have had to clear the shots. I cannot imagine it wasn’t in the contract that someone at Disney would get to look at them and say, one way or the other, whether they could be published. Of the two, Disney is by far the bigger gorilla—Vanity Fair was not likely to hold them over a barrel.

So what then is the Big Deal? And, if this is so inappropriate, why was it allowed?

Control over a teen-age superstar is doable. Look at Leann Rimes. Her burgeoning sexuality, while certain present and eminently marketable, was not “unleashed” till she was over 18. Her parents kept a handle on it. We can doubtless find other examples. Reese Witherspoon. Jody Foster. Helen Hunt. Even earlier, Annette Funicello.

(Though Annette is a curiosity—she never really stopped being a Mousketeer. Her emergent sexuality—blatant and impossible to get around—somehow failed to take her into “adult” consideration. Management may have been too tight and she remained—popularly—the girl on the beach who never went past the first kiss. This happens—actresses who have the audacity to “grow up” and find themselves trapped in an adolescent image. Sally Fields is a case in point. She went from Gidget to The Flying Nun, completely bypassing a mature sexual phase, and nearly remained stuck with it. She made a minor film—I forget the title—in which she appeared nude. In an interview, she admitted that the decision to do so was calculated to shatter the Gidget/Flying Nun image so she could then be taken seriously as an adult actress. The tactic might be questionable to some, but the result was a critically-successful career.)

Managing the property is the whole game here. And Hollywood (and Nashville, etc) have a problem with starlets like Mylie. Once they establish them as an icon for preteens to teens—what is called “tweens”—what do you do when they grow up and start acting like women?

Age here isn’t the issue. Let’s face it, sexuality strikes in the teen years, some sooner than others, and the limelight of a successful career seems somehow to advance the timetable. We are all-too-familiar with the meltdowns in instances where the transition is, well, bungled—Lindsey Lohan and Britney Speers are the poster girls of crash and burn. (more…)

Because I have a tiny new camera (a Canon SD1100IS), I have lots of excuses for taking photos of familiar things.   It’s amazing how taking photos forces me to see.   It makes me appreciate many of those sights that I otherwise take for granted.  With this new little camera, then, I had an excuse to go see.  

BTW-my new camera, a Canon SD1100IS is a small moderately-priced consumer-level camera that is incredibly packed with features.  It has so many features that I would bet that I’ll never use half of them.  It’s an 8-megapixel, 3x optical zoom camera that measures only 3 1/2″ x 2″, small enough to take everywhere.  Some of its features (including image stabilization) allow it to handle existing light photos fairly well (for those of you who haven’t yet sworn off cheap flash units, you might want to consider turning off your flash and noticing the difference).   The problem with turning off the flash indoors is that many digital cameras do not offer a fast enough ISO to allow for a sharp image.

I admit that I processed these photos a bit, but only a bit.  The only processing I used were a few of the features offered by Picasa, a well-designed (and free) photo organizing program from Google.

Here’s a good way to start a weekend day in St. Louis.  It’s called “City Diner” (It was formerly “South City Diner”).  Located within walking distance of my home, this is where you must order the “Greek Omelet” for breakfast.  If you have young children, they will try to eat your omelet, no matter what they have chosen to order.

On the way back home from breakfast, one might happen to pass through Tower Grove Park, a large and  incredibly beautiful Victorian city park. This stern fellow is one of the many composers surrounding the Composer’s Gazebo.  

This is Busch Stadium.  I suspect that it’s some sort of church.

I needed to go to work today, even though it was a Sunday.  But that burden led to this opportunity to watch the evening descend upon the Gateway Arch and the Mississippi River.  In the foreground is the “Old Courthouse,” where Dred Scott was tried and given his freedom (before his victory was taken away by the United States Supreme Court).

(more…)

Japan’s Kaguya lunar orbiter is sending back some incredible photos, including this photo of an earthrise.

Here are many other photos (click the HDTV tab).  Here’s a post (by NASA) discussing the lunar missions of Japan and China.

This is a view on my way home from work tonight.   The 180-foot tall Compton Hill Water Tower is decorated, at its base, by traffic lights and the lighted traffic flowing by during this long exposure shot. 

Located near my home, in St. Louis, Missouri, the Compton Hill Water Tower:

is a remnant of another time. When it was built, William McKinley was president, and the population of St. Louis was just over half a million. The water tower was built on a 36 acre park, called Reservoir Park, where the wealthier families of German descent chose to make their homes. But the city was outgrowing the existing water delivery system. The pumps used to send water through the city created dangerous surges in pressure, making pipes rattle and shake. In an effort to equalize water pressure, a 5 feet wide, 100 feet tall standpipe was installed. For cosmetic appeal, the tower was built in 1898 to camouflage the standpipe. 

“There is no evidence whatsoever that flowering plants evolved.”  

Answers In Genesis

I can understand this resistance to believing that orchids evolved without the help of God-the-Artist.  I understood this resistance while strolling through an extraordinary display of orchids today at the Missouri Botanical Garden.   

It was like looking at fireworks.  Just when you thought you had seen it all, you would see yet another dazzling package of color and shape.  Why would “Nature” waste such time on crafting such masterpieces?  For those primed by a religious upbringning, the emotions would compel the thought that flowers of this type must be no less than “God’s” aesthetic gift to Humankind.

Such thinking, of course, is prevalent among creationists.  Prevalent and wrong.   Not that orchids sculpted by natural selection are any less stunning in appearance that those that might have been crafted by an omniscent deity.   They are what they are.  They are compelling beings, those orchids.  They are beautiful and they are alive.   And they can be appreciated by anyone, of any world view, who comes to view them.  I imagine that, today, many creationists lined up with those who are convinced by evolutionary theory, all of them appreciating the orchids. 

Viewing this orchid display reminded me of Darwin’s writings regarding the many versions of finches Darwin observed on his trip to the Galapagos.   Regarding those finches, Darwin concluded that, in geographical isolation, the various species of finches evolved from a small number of common ancestors so that each species was thus modified to suit “different ends.”  Darwin’s conclusion that the species of finches specialized due to geographical isolation was key to the development of his theory of natural selection.  

Darwin studied orchids carefully after publishing On the Origin of Species in 1859.  Darwin later published a book called On the Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised by Insects and the Good Effects of Intercrossing.  Rather than argue that the beauty of orchids was God’s effort to please humans, Darwin argued that the various species of flowers were honed by natural selection to attract specific types of insect cross-pollinators.   Incredibly, there are more than 22,000 known species of orchids.

The following excerpt, published by Nature (on the PBS site) notes the significance of orchids to Darwin:  (more…)

For its entire existence as a sport bodybuilding has struggled to gain acceptance with a mainstream audience. Some say it never will. They say that the freakishly exaggerated physiques of bodybuilders will never be applauded by the general public. And so, bodybuilding remains a cult sport. Looked down upon by many as a freak show.

As hard as it is for male bodybuilders to gain acceptance as legitimate athletes, it’s even harder for female bodybuilders. The male bodybuilder creates an exaggeration of the male form. They have taken the shape and the characteristics of male-ness and pushed it to its limits. They give the impression of being a “super-male”. Though freakish to some, at least it’s consistent with their gender.

The problem for very muscular women is that as they become more muscular the general public sees them as becoming less feminine and more manly. This has been a growing problem for women’s bodybuilding since the early nineties as advances in training and chemistry have enabled female bodybuilders to far exceed their natural muscle building capacity. Debates about “feminity vs masculinity” in female bodybuilding are an eternally hot topic on bodybuilding forums around the world and discussed with the same fervor that “God vs no God” is debated here on Dangerous Intersection.

Into this fray jumps celebrated photographer Martin Schoeller. Martin’s latest project is a series on female bodybuilders that is being exhibited at the Ace Gallery starting in March. Known for his stark brand of portraiture, Martin’s work has a frankness that is often controversial. Presidents, royalty and celebrities have all sat in the glare of his harsh lighting. The result has been described as honest or raw; real or unflattering, depending upon your point of view.

Martin’s art intrigues me as a documentary filmmaker. Martin attempts to get a photograph of the “real” person by removing all artifice and getting them to let down their guard. He does this by stripping away every crutch that photographers, the photographed, and we as viewers have come to expect. There are no costumes, no props, no scenery, no backdrop, sometimes no makeup, no sense of place or time or fashion. What is left is deceptively simple and leads people to think that it is cheap or easy. It is not, because the hard part comes when he then attempts to disarm his subject, relax them and catch them off guard. A tactic that I endeavor to employ every time I shoot footage for my films.

True to form Martin photographs the bodybuilders when they are at their most vulnerable. Spirited away in the midst of their contests before they know their placings, some of them literally right off the stage, the women are exhausted, insecure and dehydrated. He then strips them of their last crutch…he does not allow them to pose. Asking a bodybuilder not to pose is like asking a singer not to sing, a dancer not to dance or a politician to be silent. There is nothing left to do but be yourself. (more…)

We were just getting warmed up with the photos in the previous post.   You really must also view these incredible photos that are winners of the 2008 World Press Photos contest.  Truly spectacular work.

For reference, here are the results from the World Press 2007 photo contest.

Visit this site to view this years winning photos in the 2008 PDN travel photography contest.   You’ll find superb work in the categories of:

• Human Condition
• Extreme Exploration
• Urban Landscapes
• Snapshots
• Wilderness, and
• Open Series

You won’t be disappointed.  The contest is co-sponsored by National Geographic Traveler.

I have the privilege of working in an 15th floor office with a view.   Most people with offices downtown wouldn’t consider my view to be a great view (because I can’t see the Arch or the baseball stadium from my window), but it’s interesting enough that most people who come to my office look out the window and comment about what they can see.   Even though my window is north-facing, I get some sunlight (there’s no tall buildings butted right up to my building).

What’s interesting to me is that I actually took the time to notice my view today and I was reminded that it is a interesting and worthy view, in an urban downtown sort of way.  You can see lots of activity on the street.  People walking about.  You can see serious construction activity in the old buildings where new lofts are being carved out.   During the day, hundreds of people walk the streets of St. Louis downtown.  Due to the increasing number of lofts, we have a noticable increase in night-time foot traffic too.  You can now see lots of people walking dogs after work.  That was a rare site a few years ago.  More and more restaurants are now opening. 

Again, what is interesting to me today is that I had to make myself take the time to look.  I spend hundreds of hours in this office every month and I don’t think I’ve taken the time to consciously look out my window for many weeks, perhaps months.  

Many of us get so very busy that we get tunnel-vision.  And it almost gets crazy.  It gets to the point where, if you want to do something–anything at all, even something fun–you need to put it on your Outlook calendar.  Maybe I should put a recurring event on Outlook each month:  “Look out your window to see what there is to be seen.”  Sounds like good therapy. 

It makes me wonder what else I’m not paying attention to.  

(Click on the photo to enlarge image.) 

I enjoyed this image of geese in Forest Park (St. Louis, Missouri), so stopped the car and I took this photo.   We don’t seem to have much snow in St. Louis anymore, so picturesque winter scenes are especially fun when they do occur. 

Sifting through some of my photos from last year, I found a shot that tickled and confused me at the time that I took it, and still does now. I would like to share it with all of you.

But first some background: Last summer, I was watching my city’s Gay Pride Parade in my city’s token “gay area”. Amid the drag queens, Log Cabin Republicans, gay flag teams and buses full of lesbians, stood this curious man:

I still wonder about you, Gay Pride Confederate. Do you bear the flag as a sign of irony? If you do support what this flag represents, why do you live in the “gay” side of town? Do you brandish the flag as a symbol of your southern roots, as you drink wine topless at 10 in the morning? Do you represent life in a modern age full of contradictions? Mr. Gay-Pride-Confederate-Who-Also-Appears-To-Be-Black, you fascinate me.