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1 moment = 1/40 sec: photo by Prof Alex O Chevtchenko, 21 March 2013
One moment
One fortieth of a second
closer
Squirrel: photo by Prof Alex O Chevtchenko, 22 December 2012
[Untitled]: photo by Prof Alex O Chevtchenko, 9 May 2012
Riverside: photo by Prof Alex O Chevtchenko, 2 July 2012
old street: photo by Prof Alex O Chevtchenko, 26 November 2012
isle scan: photo by Prof Alex O Chevtchenko, 26 November 2012
winter trees: photo by Prof Alex O Chevtchenko, 23 January 2013
deep in the snow forest: photo by Prof Alex O Chevtchenko, 2 February 2013
snow snow: photo by Prof Alex O Chevtchenko, 22 December 2013
I think this is absolutely perfect. Curtis
ReplyDeleteCurtis,
ReplyDeleteI love the animal shots. "Goat family", with architectural evidences of prior cultural/religious history in the distance, and the goat turning back inquiringly to glim the shutterbug -- and too that wonderful ground-level "Squirrel".. and that entirely winning dog, on cracked pavement.
(I always like seeing cracked pavement, feels like home).
And the truly remarkable top photo, the more interesting the longer one looks/thinks about it.
I was fascinated by the slightly (or more than slightly) seedy, broken-down, semi-archaic look of the place, and lured into the work by the "Eastern Promise"-type mysteries possibly lurking there amid the frozen woods and the cracked pavements.
A few of the photographer's comments:
On the photo captioned "old street":
"You'd better not walking here after the dusk..."
On the photo captioned "winter trees":
"...hands were shaked of cold, but the Light allowed fast shutter speed..."
Yes, perfect! Goats, they are so smart, turning back
ReplyDeleteand taking us in.
noticing the bigger ears on the european squirrel led me to the wikipedia article 'red squirrel' - it turns out the north american eastern grey squirrel has been introduced in the british isles and italy and outcompetes the locals
ReplyDeletethe top photo reminds me of my first cat, gone for almost exactly four years now, of whom missus charley wrote at the time 'Pau was always present in our life being fully in tune with what was going on and ready to take action. I never knew anyone (human or animal) more assertive than him. He knew what he wanted, asked for it, and gave love all around to everyone who visited. He made no distinction. But he was always there for us when pain and sorrow hit us. We will always have him present.'
My hands were shaked of cold today.
ReplyDeleteIt's the squirrel that grabs me.
That top photo is fantastic. Is it real? A stuffed lynx in a diorama? A housecat pouncing on a feather duster?
ReplyDeleteAlso, I would like to hug that dog.
Over the past six shivering weeks or so, the goat(s), the dog and the squirrel have been abiding and benign characters in the nocturnal imaginal world created by this invalid to fill the insomniac dark hours.
ReplyDeleteThe cat, now, I don't know if the word "benign" would apply.
I'd have said "live" and "real", but Nora is now the second person driven by intelligible doubt into dubious wonderment.
A commenter remarked that the cat "almost looks stuffed".
But no, I don't want to believe that. And the enigmatic Prof isn't saying.
In any case, "intense" and "unforgettable" will certainly do.
What I particularly love about this brief poem is how it goes to the heart of photography, nearly capturing the heart of a moment (photography, that is), a mere one fortieth of a second off, so to speak.
ReplyDeleteAnd the open ended nature of how each moment is approx one fortieth of a second closer to ...
As always, stunning images, excellent poem.
Don
Don, thinking about that one-fortieth of a second shutter speed, along with the fact that if we lay all those fortieth-of-a-seconds end-to-end, we may be getting closer -- but close counts only in horseshoes like they say.
ReplyDeleteThe line of (il)logc probably resolves to something like Zeno's Achilles and the tortoise paradox.
"A fleet-of-foot Achilles is unable to catch a plodding tortoise which has been given a head start, since during the time it takes Achilles to catch up to a given position, the tortoise has moved forward some distance. But this is obviously fallacious since Achilles will clearly pass the tortoise!"
And too, some fortieth-of-a-second events just seem to take longer and be more intense than others...
Still, getting closer, bit by bit, tortoise-fashion.