View allAll Photos Tagged existential
For We're Here - The Three Stooges Existential Balloon Factory
Put some zing into your 365! Join We're Here!
2 more from the "On the road '72"series which I have now (2010) been able to scan for the first time (the slides were too dark for my old scanner). This is a second and more subjective version of my "existential" On the road 1 image. I am not sure which I prefer - what do you think?
In 2017, looking at the full-frame photo again I realised what was wrong with it – that it was two completely different ideas combined, because I liked both of them and didn't want to lose either. The (fairly obvious in retrospect) solution is to make it into two separate images: this is the first, expressing the idea described already* and focussing on the subjective viewpoint. I shall post the other one next... ( → done).
* In summary "the idea is: humanity struggling towards an unknowable future, trying to follow a rather vague idea / belief (the white line) under difficult conditions." Please see the comments (below) for a more detailed discussion.
PS: This photo is now archived, having been posted for 10 years.
PPS 17/2/23: I have posted new higher quality versions of both the images based on this photo, to go with the other image I posted earlier.
COMMENT: Of Bots and Bad Pandas
After trying to log in to Flickr numerous times without success earlier today, I gave up. Too many Bad Pandas. No point posting photos if half the people can't get on to see them. I don't know why this platform is the only one we know that goes down so regularly. Looking at the Help Forum this is a worldwide problem. But that happens to be the least of our problems on Flickr.
There is something more important existentially that goes on every single day on everyone's page that far too many people are turning a blind eye to. I'm talking about bot use. For those who still live in a prelapsarian social media world, bots are either (1) pieces of internet code written specifically to trawl the pages of Flickr faving and in some cases commenting (generically) in order to garner reciprocal visits - you can buy them, or (2) humans behaving in a bot-like manner, simply faving and following as many people as possible in the hope of achieving the same goals - inflated views, faves and followers. Frankly I'm sick of it.
So much so that I will block any person I see that exhibits this bot-like tendency. My list of blocks is hundreds long. Of course this has seen a falloff in my own view numbers. We don't seriously think that all those views of our old photos are real do we? If say you post 3 photos a day and each of them gets 500 views in 24 hours and your total view count for the day is 5,000. I would argue a good percentage of all those extra 3,500 views are in fact unblocked bots.
Opponents of bots on social media platforms (and Flickr is by no means the worst here) estimate that up to 50 percent of all traffic on these sites is bot-driven. Now bots are easy to understand when the corruption of monetarization comes into play. That is not the case on Flickr. But ego is. And it seems to me that ego will drive some people to do very bad things to attract attention to themselves.
Have you ever wondered why that awful out of focus picture of the Grand Canyon has attracted 65,000 views and 1,500 faves? Well very likely this person is using a massive bot. And many people fave unthinkingly. Go to the Activities Feed and press the fave star and you don't even need to visit a person's page. You can fave thousands in an hour or two doing that. But what a hollow feeling. And what does it do for the photography community?
Explore is another area rife with gaming strategies. How many times do you see the usual suspects turn up on a person's page with "Congrats on Explore"? That's the only time they'll visit your page by the way (that's if you're lucky enough to ever get Explored because it seems only magic accounts do every 16-19 days). These are a group of people who fave (or by proxy their bot does) every one of the 500 Explored photos each day, in the belief it will garner them more "followers" (how I hate that word - CONTACTS is so much better). So if you have been in the habit of doing that there is an excellent chance I will have blocked you.
Of course the most dangerous bots of all are the ones pretending to comment. People think they are real, but AI is very clever now. And one in particular has been at the centre of attention during this week. Banned by Flickr after being clearly outed by a "bot catcher". He gets banned, and then the whistleblower gets banned too for exposing the biggest bot commenter on Flickr. All this ended up with the whistleblower rightly being restored, but also the return of the bot user. Some of you will have followed proceedings very closely.
Frankly I've advocated for a long time for view counts to be discontinued. Thousands of views do not make a good photograph. Social media has been bad for photography in that regard. It's made photographers complacent, and even worse, made them conform to particular styles or genres that "succeed" - as if that matters. Photography is an individual art and everyone is unique.
Always remember that not another soul saw Vivian Maier's photographs before she died. And I dare say you rarely see photographs on Flickr even half as good as the ones she spent a lifetime taking.
So if you feel like I do about the integrity of Flickr and bot use, please join us at this group:
....don't like bot-comments/faves? Join us, post your photos there.
Please post it to the Anti-Bots and Anti-Fake group.
* A final point. Mr Ed was a talking horse and not a bot user.
Tried to find myself, but got lost on the way back.
Image imagined in MidJourney AI and finished with Topaz Studio and Lightroom Classic.
....dealing with an existential crisis, wondering if he's more potato than man, after his latest date called him a "spud muffin."
Image imagined in MidJourney AI and finished with Topaz Studio and Lightroom Classic.
Week No: 18
Theme: Cliché
Category: Creative (well, sort of)
Faded image and trite existential statement, does it get any more cliché? I figure the processing, while not psychedelic, far out, works for Sliders Sunday too. HSS.
April 8th, 2021
I am bored on an existential level.
Patience has never been my strong suit and a lot of my life has felt like waiting. I need to stop worrying so much about the future and enjoy the present moment. But worrying IS my strong suit so
Photograph published in News Junkie Post on 5/30/2020
newsjunkiepost.com/2020/05/30/climate-crisispandemics-and...
Photograph also published in The Duran on 5/31/2020
theduran.com/climate-crisis-pandemics-and-bad-governance-...
Also published in TeleSUR English on 6/06/2020
www.telesurenglish.net/opinion/Climate-Crisis-Pandemics-a...
... like being in a reality show where the camera is your anxiety and it never turns off.
Image imagined in MidJourney AI and finished with Topaz Studio and Lightroom Classic.
Sometimes when walking around in the darkness and watching the stars, I start thinking about existential issues. What´s up there? who are we in our little world in all this? and what is the purpose with life down here and so on.
To find out that it's hard to solve tonight and instead I pick up my camera to capture the moment down here by the lighthouse, before continuing the walk in the dark.
The lighthouse at Kapelludden, Öland, Sweden.
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SINGLE EXPOSURE
#Sony A7R II, #Samyang XP 14mm@f2.4, ISO6400, 15s.
The more I learn about myself, the more I fear myself. I’m told I should remain neutral. A Switzerland of the mind.
I've been super contemplative lately. Like, those existential 'here from there' types of thoughts we're all given to dwelling in and tripping on at different times of our lives. How who we are is just the result of so many events in a series who sculpted the present person we are. There are few things that can compare to peace of mind, knowing who you are. It feels to me sometimes like to be alive is to question our lives and want for things we don't have. Every day we walk through our existence full of wishes and dreams unspoken, ... or unrecognized. In this day and age of #blessed, many of us mistakenly believe our lives are 'less than' those which are constantly presented in the media. People used to compare themselves to the Cleavers and the Bradys, now they seem to compare themselves to everyone. The effect of this can leave many feeling desperate and alone, when the truth is that most of us (myself included) are frightened quite a lot. Or uncertain, lost, hurt, and misguided. While there is some merit to the saying 'fake it until you make it,' I prefer a more direct approach. For this coming year forward, I want to try my best to practice kindness and compassion over comparison. To live in and appreciate each moment as it happens and refuse to dwell on past mistakes. Above all else, to remember that I am a constant work in progress.
In a high priced neighbourhood where old homes are demolished as soon as they are sold and monster houses replace them, this old relic is an unexpected hold out.
Existential Coffee Shop Blues
You walk into the coffee shop
Your eyes fixed on the door
The old man with the purple hair
In a coat that you just wore.
The silent child begins to scream
While drifting to the shore
You have an urgent need to ask
What are you really in there for?
You’re not quite sure what’s going on
You get your coffee black
Everyone is mumbling loud
As you sit way in the back.
You take a sip then look around
The clowns have come to town
They’re neurotic, they’re psychotic
And they wear life’s dismal crown.
A man stood up, then cried aloud
A prophecy for all time
He yelled, he shook, he raised his fist
In a vision so sublime.
A single girl with yellow socks
Claimed what he said was wrong
She took a bite of her eclair
Then suddenly was gone.
Two men smoking cigarettes
Stood outside looking in
At two hundred day-old muffins
Not to eat them was a sin.
The cops came to arrest
The old man with the purple hair
Cause underneath the coat he wore
Was satin underwear.
The lady screamed I cannot see
As she danced around the chair
A man who had a melting face
Said I just don’t even care.
The Blue Man Group had wandered in
It was a sight to see
Someone asked won’t you perform
They said, we don’t for free.
The man with no legs then shook hands
With the man who had no arms
It was an existential challenge
That had its certain charms.
Albert Camus then looked up
As Sartre crossed the room
Pretending that he wasn’t there
While secluded in his tomb.
All heads turned as a man dressed as
Guy Fawkes came in the store
Parliament seemed safe for now
The masses seemed so sure.
He sauntered slowly to a booth
Sat down and began to say
The King must be beheaded
As he sipped his iced latte.
You take one last drink from your cup
Unsure of what you’ve seen
A short detective sidles up
Whose name was Mister Green.
Can I ask you a quick question
Said the small obnoxious man
You laugh at him quite loudly
But then that was your plan.
Then suddenly there were balloons
Some blue, some black, some red
A cultural dystopia
That meant we were all dead.
This cannot be cried everyone
Who jumped high in the air
Existential coffee shop blues
Are simply never fair.
We're Here looks at Poetry and Pictures today and since I thought immediately about existentialism and a coffee shop, I decided to write a poem to accompany a visit to The Happy Tapir Cafe.
The pinnacle of human achievement: floating in water that smells faintly of volcano and triumph. Jen here, looking like a Renaissance nude recast for the Instagram era, is practicing advanced not-giving-a-shit in 38-degree bliss. SPF 50 and existential release.
📝 This image is available under Creative Commons 2.0 (Attribution required). Please link to the original photo and the license. License for use outside of the Creative Commons is available by request.
"The End" by the Chinese artist Xiang Jing.
Xiang Jing is a profoundly introspective and innovative Chinese sculptor whose work explores the complexities of human nature, identity and existential truth.
Rather than aligning with a strictly feminist stance, she approaches her art from a
woman's perspective, using the female form as both subject and statement. Her sculptures, though realistic in appearance, carry a deep emotional and psychological weight, challenging conventions of beauty, self-awareness and gendered experience.
Her artistic process is meticulous and deeply personal. Working primarily with fiberglass, Xiang Jing layers hand-painted details onto each piece, ensuring every sculpture possesses an individual presence and emotional depth. Her practice is problem-oriented, engaging with themes such as the relationship between observer and observed, internal desire and the shifting boundaries between realism and abstraction. She is a fiercely independent thinker, constantly pushing the limits of contemporary sculpture while maintaining an introspective approach.
"The End" from Mirror Image series stands out for its ambiguity.
It features girls dressed in white, shielding their eyes with their hands yet tilting forward as if trying to peer through their fingers to catch a glimpse of something interesting. It's composition and treatment of the gaze introduce an open-ended, interpretive quality.
explore 6 may 2008
so here's the thing. our old internet router broke. the new router doesn't work with the old computer (holding all my pics), so if i want to upload, i have to drag everything onto a memory stick, and transfer it over...blah, blah, blah... so i begin questioning the VALUE of the pictures... and quickly pirouette into existential angst about THE MEANING of it all. then i get my holga film developed, and i'm liking the randomness and mechanics of film again. SO i've just bought a new lens for my old, manual nikon... and am about to take a deep breath and explore what may happen. anyone else hit the photographic wall...?!
Questions about Life, Death, and Everything
Looking deep into the night sky, raises existential questions.
Sharpless 171 is a red emission region in the constellation Cepheus. With its smaller companion, Sharpless 170, it resembles an exclamation mark up in the sky. But looking more carefully, Sharpless 171 gives the vague impression of a scull floating in the stars of the milky way. It is surprising that the star illuminating the nebula is one of the hottest stars discovered near our Sun, exhibiting a surface temperature of nearly 45000 degrees Celsius and a luminosity about 100000 times that of the Sun en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_7822.
Technical Details:
89 x 60 sec frames taken under suburban skies on September 29, 2019. Canon 550D at ISO 800, Samyang 135mm f/2. Tracked with a Star Adventurer Mini bundle. More details at AstroBin.
The waiter, far right, just stood, staring off into space, for several minutes, as if life had lost its meaning...
systemic existential concerns
improvised protection against fallout
improvised protection against fallout
improvised protection against fallout
march is here again
WAH are visiting the three stooges existential balloon factory. I am the first to admit that I am a bit of a Brit philistine. I have of course heard of them, but haven't knowingly ever watched anything they have done. so this is a copy cat of an internet shot (see comments) This was the only decent shot. but was fun (116/215)
Also for uncertain wednesdays