Skip to main content

Naked no more

Due to negligence on my part, my camera, all attendant equipment, and my iPod were stolen at the end of August.  I've gone through just about the peak of autumn without a camera.  Finally, after much rigamarole, I've got a new camera (I replaced my iPod about a month ago).  It is an upgraded version of my Canon Rebel.
     I don't know why I feel naked--perhaps naked isn't the best metaphor--let me say something was missing--without my camera.  I have this need to document scenes and events in my life visually.  This is obviously something ginned up by the camera manufacturers starting with Kodak and Eastman.  Yet, people have expressed themselves visually on caves and rocks for quite some time.  People even had portraits made of themselves through painting, so there's more to it than just consumerism. 
     I'm just fascinated by the play of light on certain surfaces, or the color of a leaf in mid-autumn.  Perhaps it's grasping at immortality to try to grab the ephemeral and fix it to paper for 15 to 20 years.  I don't know.  What I do know is that I'm glad I can write with light again.

Comments

Anonymous said…
http://ncronline.org/books/2012/10/connecting-trees-author-explores-paths-reverse-forest-destruction

Saw this article and thought you might appreciate it. Didn't have your e-mail address, so that I would contact you here.
Anonymous said…
https://www.facebook.com/ecojesuit
Scot said…
Thanks, Father Greg.

Popular posts from this blog

Worth Quoting

There are but three social arrangements which can replace Capitalism: Slavery, Socialism, and Property.                                                                                                 --Hilaire Belloc                                                                                                The Servile State

Good reads of 2009

I haven't made a list like this in a while, and I believe I discussed most of these on the blog as I finished them, but I thought I'd make a handy short-hand list for you and me. These are only in the order I read them and do not indicate any preference. The Open Door * Frederica Mathewes-Green The Children of Hurin * J.R.R. Tolkien The Omnivore's Dilemma * Michael Pollan Agrarianism and the Good Society: Land, Culture, Conflict, and Hope * Eric T. Freyfogle Wonderful Fool * Shusaku Endo Up the Rouge: Paddling Detroit's Hidden River * Joel Thurtell and Patricia Beck Johnny Cash and the Great American Contradiction: Christianity and the Battle for the Soul of a Nation * Rodney Clapp (I started the following in December, but I haven't finished them--so far they are excellent: Love and Hate in Jamestown * David A. Price and The Picture of Dorian Gray * Oscar Wilde) Try one of these--let me know.

Independent Women?

      During breakfast today I was reading an excerpt from a play in The New York Times Magazine (I know, I was a day behind and read Saturday's edition yesterday) entitled Rust .  The play, written by a professor at Grand Valley State University, here in Michigan, is a nonfiction drama about the closing of a GM plant in Wyoming, MI.  The play itself sounds interesting and I enjoyed the excerpt, but what caught my eye was something a character said.  The character is "Academic" and plays a historian and guide to the playwright, also a character.  He is explaining the rise of the automobile factories and the effect of the car on American culture.  He says, "Women became independent, they go from producers of food and clothing to consumers of food and clothing."  This was meant as an earnest, praiseworthy point.     I would counter with "How far we've fallen."  To say that a woman (or a man) is independent because she has moved from producer to cons