Body and Soul Salon - Charlottesville

Click above for a larger image

Using the “wayback” machine, this is the same beauty salon as in the prior post, but before the restoration of the Paramount. I remember initially being interested in taking this because of the contrast of the beauty parlor with the standard pistol target pasted on the brick wall in the background. These targets showed up in a number of walls in the area, and on the pillars of the Belmont Bridge. They were evidently very difficult to remove, and were painted over in addition to scraping.
This was taken on a 6X7 cm. Rapid Omega 100 camera, with a 58 mm lens (about the same as a 28mm wide angle on 35 mm as far as perspective goes), on Tri-X film.

Stranger Than Science

Click above for a larger image

What are these people doing. Any guesses?

Saigon Cafe Still Life

Click the image to Supersize your order

We've been eating at the Saigon Cafe since the beginning of time. Vietnamese dishes, Chinese also, all the "hot tea" you can drink.

Night Photograph - Behind the Paramount Theatre

click above for a larger image (recommended) . . .

I made some images recently using the Rapid 100 6X7 Cm camera, a vintage item from the 1950’s. It has some wonderful features. The pressure plate, which keeps the film flat, presses down on the film immediately before the exposure. As you press the shutter button, you are also moving the pressure plate against the film. This gives one of the flattest film planes available on a film camera. The lenses (These pictures were taken with the 58mm Koni-Omegaron, equivalent roughly to a 28mm lens on a 35 millimeter camera) are still highly regarded. It’s one of my favorite cameras. It’s a range finder, which is combined with the view finder, and the focus is a very quick knob on the right side of the camera. You don’t have to reach around to the front to focus.
The photograph is of the building right behind the Paramount on the Charlottesville pedestrian mall. It had an old barber pole “light” on the right side. The old striped interior has fallen to the bottom of the tube. It is the “Jackson II Body and Soul Salon” and has been for many years. Shot on color negative (Fuji NPS 160), 90 second exposure (tripod mounted) at F-16.

The Art Police

Click above for a larger image

Once again, who knows what this is, or why someone took the photo. It is another mystery, even though I committed the crime.

I was challenged by an art critic “on scene,” as a matter of fact. Evidently they are dispatched somehow. This one was cleverly disguised as a “drifter” or something. I had the 4X5 graphic on a tripod in the back of the Foods of All Nations parking lot. That’s the old sports center dome in the background, and the dumpster is there to serve the Market. It was way past closing, so it was just me and the mole from the art police. He asked me what I was taking a picture of. He was slurring a little bit, another clever cover maneuver.

Unfortunately, for me, that’s a button that gets pushed. I can’t figure out what I’m doing either, so I’d rather people don’t bring it up, especially when I’m caught red-handed, doing it. So, I prattled on about the lighting and the dumpster, and some nonsense about unintended architecture. He said, “Oh, Ok.”

He shuffled off slowly, and I saw him head back around “Foods.” That’s the Foods with the fool in the parking lot taking a picture of the dumpster.

Election Excitement Runs High (Not)

Taken on an early morning on the Charlottesville Downtown Mall.
Well, it looks like the “mall” CVS is also not able to summon much excitement in regards to politics, either. This was their window display on a recent Saturday.

I’ve voted in every election I could for many years now. Whoever I vote for doesn’t win, with the exception of very local elections.

As I mentioned in the sidebar, I don’t have a TV anymore. Nonetheless, I was at a friend’s house and saw a discussion between two news clones recently. Essentially, it was a discussion about how well each candidate would “sell” in various states. There was not a trace of any interest in either candidate’s agenda. It was a marketing analysis.

Well, one of them is going to be voted “off the island.”

Jill Bolte Taylor and "My Stroke of Insight"

I had my first session in a university class entitled “consciousness” recently. I figured I needed some help in this area.

A classmate mentioned the experience of Jill Bolte Taylor. She is a neuroanatomist. She experienced a stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain, and it radically changed her perspective on consciousness.

There is a video of her presentation made at T.E.D. She’s a very effective presenter and I recommend the short video for anyone interested in the theory of consciousness, and the evident bias of our evolution toward the left hemisphere.

Forgive me for dragging out my own brain, which appears above. The image is a fanciful spin on an MRI I had.