Creative ideas that make me happy

Sometimes I get turned on by the simplest of ideas.

Here’s one from Anthropologie.

I love how the image is cropped and the simplest watercolor painting is embellishing the edges.

Such a quick idea that takes an image to meh to whoa.

Of course, Tina thought the makeup was atrocious. It’s imbalanced from eye to eye (above) and a few of the images in the catalog we have at the house are soft (out of focus).

But the idea is neat.

Now that I look at it again, the girl above looks like she’s pitting out.

 

Belief systems I can support: Nelson Rose

Nelson Rose isn’t your typical believer. He recently published a blog post called, Can anyone “prove” God exists?

Rose writes:

I, personally, am not a believer of an anthropomorphic deity.  You know the one that billions of people believe in and atheists completely detest and reject.  The God that judges and has had fits of rage that result in global flooding or fire and brimstone raining from heaven is an irrational concept to grasp or believe with any sense of reason.  Nor do I believe that God was a man who walked among us 2,000+ years ago in the flesh that had to subject himself to execution in order to forgive me for sins I hadn’t committed yet because that was the only way he could forgive me.  When you put God in a delusional dogmatic box like that, most rational people will not truly believe.  In fact, the only reason many people do believe it is because the genetic lottery caused them to be born into a family that believes it and thus the indoctrination as a young age begins.

Read more of Can anyone “prove” God exists?

I’ll try to follow up to more thoughts on this later. But I thought you’d like to check out what Rose wrote now. 🙂

Gay, Tennessean pitbull gets death sentence … the world reacts.

This story — which hasn’t been declared completely legitimate — is going around.

Published yesterday at the Examiner blog:

Tomorrow, a dog, name unknown, will be put to death at an overcrowded animal control in Jackson, Tenn., after his owner surrendered him there because he believes that his dog is “gay.”

According to the prior owner, the dog was seen “hunched over,” another male dog, therefore, in this owner’s mind, the dog must be gay.

The former owner apparently does not know that “hunched over, aka humping behavior” is typically a sign of dominance in dogs, rather than something to signify a dog’s sexual orientation.

I wonder if gay dogs are an abomination or something of lesser, pejorative value.

Seen at JMG.

 

My brother went to heaven and sent me back a picture

My brother is a gigantic music lover.

He’s a musician and he performs as much as he can. He’s nothing short of an audiophile, as well.

When we were growing up, his taste in music was so vast and somewhat esoteric. We lived in podunk North Carolina, but he somehow knew about bands that even Tina is surprised I know about.

I’m really not sure who influenced him, but he’s always been my influence for new, fresh and great music.

To give you some idea how nuts he is about great music and sound, he bought a lot of vinyl records over the course of a year or more. But he didn’t own a record player to play them.

He knew what he wanted, and bought records when he could afford them and then the “right” record player when the time came.

That, dear reader, is dedication.

Right now, my sister-in-law and he are in Los Angeles. He sent me the above panorama taken at Amoeba Records, which according to him is, “Biggest record shop I’ve ever seen…amazing.”

Click to enlarge!

 

Dirty! It’s Wednesdog

 

As long as there are no submissions, Talulah gets top billing.

It’s been such wonky weather around here. Usually in January, Talulah runs across snow or brutally hard ground.

This week has been unseasonably warm. Yesterday I ran in shorts and a t-shirt.

And we’ve had a crapload of rain. So the ground is mushy and sopping wet.

I’m afraid this photo doesn’t give the muddiness justice. She was covered in black mud. I had to give her a bath.

So give three cheers for Talulah and Wednesdog.

She’s a dirty mess.

Betty Bowers sings the hits

Jesus told His followers to give all their money to the poor. (Mark 10:21-23) Of course, that would make His followers poor. So someone would have to give it all back to them. Conservative Christians skip a step and just keep it.

Read the article she links to here.

Edit: I found more on this post at Joe My God. It’s a response by a Christian blogger. Check it here.

photo way out of context

 

Image of two little girls in halloween costumes. One girl has swastikas printed on it. 

For context, see Stan at TYWKIWDBI

 

Dumbass democrats calling whiteys “crackers”

How dare democrats like Karen Finney call out the Grand Old Party for their uncanny attention to whiteness and old white dudes.

It’s a travesty!

On MSNBC she said:

FINNEY: And point being –we saw in droves, you know, the Latino community moving over to the Democratic Party largely because of the tone. You have even Republicans in the Republican Party who are Latino just disgusted with the tone. So, these guys have to be very, very careful. The other thing that these guys know is that those, you know, crazy crackers on the right, like if they start with their very hateful language, that is going to kill them in the same way that they learned at their little retreat that let’s not talk about rape.

She should have said “fucking crackers.”

Read more: 

 

Jesus Christ Posed … I shot Soundgarden last night

Last night, I photographed Soundgarden at Riviera theater in Chicago.

It was one of the best experiences I’ve had shooting a band. Good light. It was a band I’ve loved since I was a teenager. The stage was low.

At one point, another photographer wearing a Detroit Tigers hat was standing next to me. The Ben Shepard, the bass player, walked all the way across the stage, tapped the guy on the Tigers hat, gave him a thumbs up and fist bumped him … explosion hand and all.

I slapped him on the shoulder and said, “He just fucking fist bumped you, dude!”

More of my photos will appear in Time Out Chicago (link to come). The shot I posted last night is killing me. I didn’t get Chris Cornell’s feet in, because I was so excited to get that band formation.

But all in all, it’s one of my favorites. I got some great closeups of him too.

More to come.

 

concert photography

Click to enlarge.

Seriously.