Thanks, Beverly, for sending these pictures my way. I enjoyed them and want to pass them on here…
Yet Another Picture Collection
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Tag Archives: Slide Show
Getting the Perspective Just Right
In the olden day of photography, you know – before Photoshop and digital cameras, you had to get it right the first time. Sure, you could go back and try again once you saw the result, about a week after getting back home, but there were times when that was just not feasible. It always was an exciting time when the envelope with the developed slides was in the mailbox.
Sometimes the excitement went away quickly, but more often than not it was then, the following evening, after all the mishaps had been sorted out and discarded, that the slide projector was set up, aimed at the silver screen and everybody gathered in the darkened room to relive the time a few, or at least one, weeks back.
Slides and the silver screen were the best means to watch pictures at that time, much less expensive than prints and a lot bigger. That is why slides had always been my medium of choice when I took photos as my artistic expression.
Slides and the silver screen went out after I moved to the US and it became very difficult to actually buy a slide projector. Slide projection was replaced by – really nothing. Until about now. Now I am using a 32 inch monitor which is located much closer to me than the silver screen had been, so the apparent size of images viewed on that monitor is comparable in size, maybe even bigger. Additionally this is an active light source – not reflective as the silver screen – so the luminance is much higher, and I don’t have to wait to the evening or darken the room.
So, yes, we have come around and caught up with the size of the slide show in the evening and surpassed it in convenience and speed. Now I can take the picture and view it pretty much right away.
Slide scanners have also given me the opportunity to view these old slides on the new display medium. I never had noticed the grain in the images when viewing the slides natively, but with some creative filtering we can reduce this shortcoming over the film emulsion.
On looking through some old slides taken in Paris, France in the Tuileries (the gardens surrounding the Louvre) I ran into one image that prompted me to write this post…
It’s one where, if I had the chance, would go back and take it at a slightly different angle so that the hand would be really exactly above the head of the statue. With a lot of Photoshop work I could probably fix it after the fact but I decided to leave it as it is and just enjoy the charm of “missing it by that much” (quote Maxwell Smart.)
As for some newer pictures that get it just right, here a little collection of photos that made it into my mailbox (thanks, Beverly!)
Irena Sendler v. Al Gore
Got this very interesting and heart-warming story of Irena Sendler presented in an email today.
Here first the story, then I will tell what impressed me most:
There recently was a death of a 98 year old lady named Irena.
During WWII, Iliana, got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist.
She had an ulterior motive…
She KNEW what the Nazi’s plans were for the Jews, (being German). Iliana smuggled infants out in the bottom of her tool box she carried, and she carried in the back of her truck a Burlap sack, (for larger kids). She also had a dog in the back, that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in, and out of the ghetto. The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog, and the barking covered the kids/infants noises. During her time and course of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants. She was caught, and the Nazi’s broke both her legs, and arms, and beat her severely. Iliana kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out, and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it, and reunited the family. Most of course had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes, or adopted.
A while back Iliana was up for the Nobel Peace Prize….
She LOST.Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming.
Check it out: www.irenasendler.org
I will say nothing about the story itself as I have decided quite some time ago that it is not possible for me to decide what about all the atrocities during WWII is true and what’s not. There are indications that’s just the story the victors want to tell to look good, but there is also the other side which would indicate that there really is something to all this mass murder.
But the fact that I have no first hand information and no way to get them, combined with my solidifying conviction that there is no independent reality I have given up deciding what historical story might be true.
So, nothing about saving Jewish kids, but what caught my attention was the tone of the writer in the last sentence, that Al Gore won the Nobel price for a slide show.
I just love it when politicians are finally seen for what they really are. And if the population starts to laugh about these guys for giving themselves prizes in self-adoration then I have high hopes for all of us that we will get over this celebritizing (hey, Oxford dictionary editors, this is a new word for you!) of our tyrants, kick them out and finally build a non-violent stateless society – one in which Irena would get acknowledged for her brave action.