News Outta My Control / 08.02.2010

Top: Panorama of the entrance to the park across the street from our house taken during the blizzard (part of a series of photographs I've been taking). Bottom: Our street as I struggled to get back inside (our house is at the extreme left). Click on either image for a larger view. We knew it was coming. They had been warning us for days. The good people of the nation's capital thought we were seasoned winter citizens after the last big snow in December. But at the last minute we all panicked and cleared grocery stores of anything that was...

Commuting with Nature / 12.01.2010

Twitter allows you to send missives to your followers in 140 character bursts. For a storyteller these are often exercises in learning to be economical with one's words with the greatest amount of impact. Today I tried but a story unfolded in the subway that begged for just a little bit more. This required three successive tweets. Sometimes a tale demands just a little bit more. Here is my 376 character Twitter trilogy. Mr OCD's on subway. How do I know? He told me last time. He's nice & strikes up chat w/ everyone. He's talking 2 lady next 2...

News Outta My Control, Professional Auteurism / 03.01.2010

Glenn Beck as our species savior? Annalee Newitz recently posed this question: "When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like 'Avatar'?" And she followed it up with some interesting ideas on race and film making in America. While I would agree that Avatar and District 9 are Hollywood's metaphors for racial relations, by limiting her piece to just race she missed a larger issue: the broad scope and brutal reality of human nature reflected in these films. Avatar is James Cameron's epic about the Na'vi of the moon Pandora. Humans are so interested in obtaining the element Unobtainium (talk about transparent...

Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 21.12.2009

The beginning of an 18 inch snowfall. Click image for larger view. I live in the burbs of DC but on Saturday, like Lucy Pevensie in The Chronicles of Narnia I opened my closet door, I mean my front door to see this scene as the beginnings of what was to become an 18 inch snowfall unfolded before me. You might remember I took a similar photograph when I woke up to dense fog on Thanksgiving morning. I love the snow (as long as I'm sitting by a roaring fire in a Swiss chalet). What I don't like is shoveling our...

Barely Socially Acceptable, Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 12.12.2009

For the last year I've been getting email newsletters from the dealership where I bought my car. Although my Volkswagen is over nine years old the dealer wants to keep in touch with me. Naturally, they want to keep me loyal to their service department and, when it's time, entice me to buy a new car. I understand and appreciate this as part of good customer service. I like hearing about the new VWs and car safety. But the newsletter also clearly includes fluff pieces about new recipes, pushing one to try new experiences like skydiving and trapeze school,...

Fairly Odd Parents-Present, Idiosyncratic Celebrations / 26.11.2009

The view from our house. Click on image to enlarge. Woke up this Thanksgiving to dense fog. After a little breakfast in the peace and quiet of the early morning I put my coat on over my PJs and walked a few feet out our front door to take this photograph. The last of the colorful autumn leaves was a great counterpoint to the atmospheric mist just above the forest path. To my Southern California friends who are expecting an 80°F holiday, eat your hearts out. This is what Thanksgiving is supposed to look like! Now that everyone is up, Susie and...

Artistic Tendencies, News Outta My Control / 08.11.2009

An East German Volkspolizei guards the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in East Berlin, 1974, © Jeff Gates. Click on image for a larger view. I am slowly unearthing photographs and memories from my 1974–1975 trip to Europe. I took this image at East Germany's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I remember thinking the pomp and circumstance of the East German soldiers as they marched in front of the monument reminded me of ours at Arlington Cemetery. While smoking was much more prevalent in both the East and West in the 1970s, I took notice of the large number of people...

News Outta My Control / 01.11.2009

A family reunion at Checkpoint Charlie. Click image for a larger view. © Jeff Gates In 1974, I was a fresh college graduate when I decided to embark on my first trip abroad. I spent seven months traveling in Western and Eastern Europe, exploring my longtime interest in borders. Even knowing a bit of history, they just seemed so arbitrary. To think there was a man-made demarcation line where one side abided by one set of rules and the other side by another was profoundly intriguing. The United States was so large and so relatively homogeneous it was hard...

Artistic Tendencies, Commuting with Nature / 04.10.2009

When I was in San Francisco last week for meetings I stayed with good friends in Noe Valley. Being a seasoned commuter I left the house each morning precisely at 7:55 and walked down to Market Street to catch the MUNI downtown. My Bay Area mornings were like every workday morning for me --a walk and then a hop onto mass transit. And when I got onto my train I appeared to do what every San Franciscan did. I pretended to be in my own little world (as I pretend to do every morning on my commute from the Maryland...

Artistic Tendencies, Child's Play, Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 13.09.2009

I went to Santa Fe and all I got was this wonderful portrait of my daughters. Click image for larger view. It's the week after Labor Day. The girls are back in school and I've got deadlines at work. It's been rainy and cool and I'm starting to see just a hint of fall colors on the trees above my head. Way too early, I think. Summer, my favorite season, has instantaneously migrated to fall, my least favorite. I know what's coming (PDF). Our family vacation to Santa Fe just two weeks ago is starting to seem like a very distant...