inbetween

Shot on the main road, Havana, Cuba way back in May, 2001. I wish I could remember more details, but I wasn't very good at keeping track of my photos back then. I believe the highway is the Malecón, but I just don't remember.

I spent six weeks in Central America, in May and June of 2001. It was a magnificant trip, the one where I discovered photograhpy. I left the country with twenty rolls of film, having only ever shot one roll. Such memories, like holding a taxi hostage and demanding the return of luggage; getting hit on by hot Cubans, stunning architecture, beautiful people, Fidel (saw one of his speaches, it lasted two hours), and of course poverty imposed upon the people of Cuba by the imperialist regime to the north.

This photo was taken with a Nikon F65, Kodak ISO 400 film and scanned to CD at the photo-matt, (no link: they did a sucky job). Of course, there was much photoshopping to remove the noise added during the scanning, and to make the colours match my memory.

Six interesting links you should read, in random order.

Bound for Glory: America in Color, 1939-1943 (Library of Congress Exhibition)

Bound for Glory: America in Color is the first major exhibition of the little known color images taken by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information. These vivid scenes and portraits capture the effects of the Depression on America's rural and small town populations, the nation's subsequent economic recovery and industrial growth, and the country's great mobilization for World War II.

via ongoing · Bound for Glory

Boing Boing: Duchamp's Fountain attacked with hammer

The attacker claims that his attack was a work of art in and of itself. It raises interesting questions about the nature of art, and about the validity of declaring an act of destruction artistic. The link to the full New York Times article requires a password, which sucks giblets.

[legacy] RTMARK: B.L.O. | Past projects

In 1993, RTMARK channel $8000 from a military veterans' group to the Barbie Liberation Organization, which used the investment to switch the voiceboxes of three hundred BarbieTM and G.I. JoeTM dolls. Read some of the resultant press on the Worldwide Web.

And on to religion, always fun:

The Blog | Sam Harris: Science Must Destroy Religion | The Huffington Post

Most people believe that the Creator of the universe wrote (or dictated) one of their books. Unfortunately, there are many books that pretend to divine authorship, and each makes incompatible claims about how we all must live. Despite the ecumenical efforts of many well-intentioned people, these irreconcilable religious commitments still inspire an appalling amount of human conflict.

I've had almost this exact argument with people over the years. I've even argued on both sides. Harris elloquently points out that we do not have the language, or perceptual abilities to reconcile the disparity between science and religion.

A does of live journal:

jwz - downside

And of course, everybody on livejournal started to share their stories of how it happened to them... Lets never be like livejournal here, ok?

And back again to the art.

Point Reyes (pc242265) on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

House on Leach Hill on Flickr - Photo Sharing!