Citizen of the Month

the writing and photography of Neil Kramer

Tag: photography (Page 7 of 9)

The Photo of the Sunset

May 29, 2012 / / 10 Comments

I unfollowed everyone on Twitter, and then slowly re-followed everyone back. I brought the final divorce paperwork to the court, and then got it returned by mail because I was missing one of the forms. I grew a beard, and then sheared it off like the wool of a sheep, feeling the facial hair too hot to wear in the summer. My life is in constant flux.

Yesterday, I stood at the water’s edge and waited for the day to end. I had my iPhone in my hand. For years, I had made fun of the cliched photograph of the sun setting into the Pacific. But I wanted to try to capture it myself, just to see what made it so special.

As the afternoon shifted into evening, the sky above the Pacific was painted by nature’s brush in the bright color of a tangerine. A red-yellow neon shimmer took to the water, dancing with the waves. I started shooting, almost 200 photos in all, never stopping my thumb from clicking on the iPhone screen, except for that one brief moment when a buxom woman in a bikini passed by my view.

As evening turned to night, the sky turned into a rainbow of colors. At “photo 95” the sky darkened, and the atmosphere grew ominous, as if the world was going to end. At “photo 110” the vibrancy picked up, as if God was running his artistic creation through his own Instagram filter.

But I found the exact moment of sunset, the dipping of the life force into the horizon, a disappointment. I preferred the imagery when the sun was at a 45-degree angle and the blue of the sky was sprinkled with hot flames diffused by the clouds.

At the end of the night, when I looked over the photos, most of the shots were “nice,” except for the one or two shots where my finger got in the way of the lens. But none were perfect. Even my favorites of the bunch, “photo 61” and “photo 101” had flaws. When the ocean bristled with energy in one photo, the sky faded into the background. When the sky exploded with color in another photo, the sea darkened in the foreground. It was impossible to capture the momentum of the sunset in one shot. Maybe that is the ultimate challenge of it all. The event was one of movement, of flux, of time, the ebbing and flowing of the water, the shining and dimming of the light. Never static, like life.

The Perfect Couple

February 21, 2012 / / 38 Comments

It was Sophia’s birthday on Saturday, and we went to LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art).   We had a great day together.

“Are you two getting back together?” a friend texted me.

“No,” I answered. “Just a fun day out for her birthday.”

“You just seem so perfect together.”

“Perfect?!  Ha.  We are far from it.”

Sophia and I love each other, but the perfect couple we’re not.   We never were.

We tried our best, but we both want something more from a partner, a love that boils over and makes us want to shout it out to the world.   Something a little bit closer to the perfection of a Perfect Couple.

Does this Perfect Couple exist?   Or is it an illusion, the relationship equivalent of the bikini model drinking a Coke?

But then, on Saturday evening, as we left the museum, Sophia and I encountered them. It was the Perfect Couple, right on Wilshire Blvd in Los Angeles.

If God was a chef, this couple would be his signature dish. They would be spiced with respect, love, and passion, and as they marinated in His blessings, happiness and joy would waft through His kitchen, out the window, and throughout the world.

And they were standing right in front of us.

“Take an instagram photo!” said Sophia, as we both stared, confronted with our own  inadequacies.

After taking a few photos of the Perfect Couple on Wilshire Blvd., we discovered that we had stumbled into someone else’s photo shoot, and this couple were models.

But the Perfect Couple is a standard that is hard to let go, even if it is a fantasy.

Favorite NYC Instagram Photos – Nov. 2011

December 1, 2011 / / 15 Comments

November in NYC was balmy this year. I wore a t-shirt just two weeks ago, walking down Broadway. And then the tree went up in Rockefeller Center, the Christmas shoppers arrived, and winter finally arrived.  I like how the photos show a passage of time.

December is a month were we traditionally think about our plans for the upcoming year.   I have a ticket to return to Los Angeles on December 18th, which means, at least for the month of January, a return to the bright palette and frequently superficial lights of the West Coast.

This Week’s Favorite NYC Photos – Week Five

July 14, 2011 / / 17 Comments

Thanks for letting me share with you these NYC photos over the last two months.

Next Thursday, I’m flying out to Los Angeles to take care of a few things left unsettled.  In the beginning of August, I will attend BlogHer.   After that, I’m seriously debating finding a place in Los Angeles, thinking it would be the best step, career-wise.  But I’m still not sure yet.

And if that is the case, I’ll be missing the tall skyscrapers at sunset, the subway cars screeching around the gritty tracks of Queens, and the thin uptown women in the polka dot dresses crossing the wide city streets in their fashionable shoes.

Politically Correct Instagram Photography

July 10, 2011 / / 12 Comments

“Hello, would you mind if I take a photo of you walking across the street in that sexy polka dot dress so I can put it on Istagram, a photo sharing app on the internet, so thousands of strangers can view it under the title “NYC Woman I Wish I Could Shag?”

“Sure. Sounds like an interesting project. And I am a patron of the arts. I even subscribe to the New Yorker.”

“Great. I just need for you to initial this contract on the dotted lines.  Please be aware that I reserve all rights to change the color of the photo, including the ability to transform the image into black and white purely for dramatic effect. But let me assure you that making this color choice is purely a creative decision, and has no bearing on whether YOU are black or white, because I do not base my “NYC Woman I Wish I Could Shag” photos on skin color, ethnicity, or native language.”

“Thank you for being so open to different cultures.”

“I believe it is my duty as an artist.  Now please put your initials here, allowing me to have exclusive rights to both the digital and print versions of your image as you walk across the street in your sexy polka dot dress, and the ability to reproduce this photo in various sizes. And by size, I mean the resolution of the image, and not YOUR size, because I strongly believe that a “NYC Woman I Wish I Could Shag” can be beautiful in any size from thin to curvy girl.”

“I wish there were more men like you who understood that women can be sexy in all shapes and sizes.”

“I believe it is artistic temperment that allows me to see beyond the cultural mores of the day.”

“You are terrific!”

“Thank you. Your support means a lot to me.  Now please check this box here, acknowledging to those viewing the photo that this image is completely spontaneous, and that you in no way changed your natural appearance or demeanor as you crossed the street as a “”NYC Woman I Wish I Could Shag,” despite you first signing a permission form, or accepting the one or two slight recommendations that were offered to you, such as the suggestion that you open up a second button on your blouse, a matter solely related to artistic effect, with little bearing on the true authenticity of the photograph.”

“Absolutely. Authenticity in artistic expression is soooo important to me. So, just two buttons?  I just wish I had wore a bra today!”

“Don’t worry about that.  I appreciate the authenticity.”

“Thank you!   I love the way you are approaching me with this photo you are about to take titled “NYC Woman I Wish I Could Shag.”  So many other men would take the photo secretly without even asking permission.  How rude and arrogant!”

“Perverts! Peeping Toms, I call them. Now, I just need your signature at the bottom of the contract, and then we can proceed with me taking your photo of you crossing the street in the polka dot dress as the “”NYC Woman I Wish I Could Shag.” But please note, that when I ask for your signature, any type of text-based symbol would suffice, because I aware that many in modern society have reading disorders or dyslexia, so I wouldn’t want to embarrass you or cause you discomfort by asking for your full signature.

“You are such a doll!  So considerate.   I wish all street photographers were like this!  Let’s take that photo and put it online!”

A Month of Instagram

June 14, 2011 / / 12 Comments

In the last month, I’ve taken over 300 photos of my neighborhood in Queens and around the New York City, and posted them on Istagram, which is a Twitter-type app on the iPhone for photography.   I’ve also greatly enjoyed seeing the photos of other bloggers also using this iPhone app.   Instagram is an interesting place to visit, a mixure of professionals and amateurs from around the world, all putting up random photos of their lives in an never-ending stream.

I rarely take photos, even on vacations, but during the last month of photo-taking, I’ve learned some interesting tidbits about myself, the creative act, and YOU, the viewer.   Maybe I’ll talk about these insights during my next post.  This exercise has been a lot of fun, even a little sexy.   Life is interesting, and colorful, so why not capture it in images?

Writing is a different animal.   Words frequently fail me when I try to recreate the real world on the blank page.   I hide behind the words.  But the real world loves the camera.   It doesn’t play games.   It begs for our attention, like a spoiled movie star in a low cut dress crying, “Take my photo!”

I suggest you take some photos this weekend, throw some filters on top of them, and publish them on your blog.  Visual art energizes a different part of the brain.

I don’t know how much longer I will be running around town taking photos, or whether LA will inspire me in the same way, if I end up returning there.  I like that there is a little story behind each photograph, even when the subject is the most ordinary.  Especially when the subject is the most ordinary.  That makes it even more intriguing.  It’s an important lesson to remember for writing.  The other photos are on Flickr.

A Week of Photos

May 20, 2011 / / 23 Comments

This week was one of my most pleasurable weeks online that I’ve had in a long time.

I had fun.

I played around on Instagram, an easy-to-use photo social media app that is on my phone, taking random photos of Queens and Manhattan.   And when I say “played around,” I mean I PLAYED AROUND, focusing on the activity, not on the trappings of who, what, or where.   And I enjoyed playing around with other individuals who were having fun, not jockeying for position or pimping posts.

Instagram will eventually be ruined too, going the same way as every other social media application.   People will notice who is and who is not following them.  A marketing company will create a list of the Top 50 Instagram Moms.  A professional photographer will write a manifesto with rule #1 being:  no more photos of your lunch.

But for now, I am clueless.  I’m not a photographer.  I don’t care if you follow me or not.  I’m not even sure I will continue using this app next week.   But this week, I enjoyed seeing YOUR photos of your kids, dogs, patio chairs, and what you had for lunch.

Thanks for inviting me over!

Next week, I will return to blogging and Twitter.  Maybe my week of photography will inspire me to have fun again online.

see my recent instagram photos on Flickr

Find Me a Photo of Lindsay Lohan!

November 6, 2010 / / 15 Comments

Since this is a post about stealing, I should be upfront right in the beginning, and say that I am stealing this post from myself — I already asked this question on Facebook.

It all started when I read Mom 101‘s post about some magazine titled Cook’s Source stealing a blogger’s written content because they considered it “public domain.”  If you don’t know about this story, Google it — it was the drama of the internet for a day or so.

I have respect for the written word, so I was pretty outraged by the entire subject.  I would never do such a thing.  OK, maybe in junior high, I swiped a few paragraphs from the World Book for my report on Cuba, but I TRY my best not to steal other people’s words.

But when I thought about the incident, I did feel a sense of guilt because apparently I DON’T have the same respect for photography as I do for writing.  My blog is chock full of “borrowed” images taken from Google Images, usually nothing very personal — an apple, a kitchen sink from a catalog — but stolen nonetheless.  In the past I used to credit every photo, but I got lazy — always throwing in the photo during the five seconds before I pressed publish.  I’m such a small time operator, so I figured it didn’t matter.

But after being scolded by Sarah on Facebook (she’s a photographer, natch), I promised to amend my ways.

From now on — I will be a good Citizen of the Month.  I will try to use material from Flickr, take my own photos, or to clearly give credit whenever I use a photo.  I can’t complain about assholes stealing my material if I am end up doing the same.

The question remains, what if you write an article about Obama, and want to use a photo of our good President.  Can I use one from the New York Times, given with proper credit?

Or let’s make believe I want to write a sensationalistic post about Lindsay Lohan.  Smart, right?  That will grab a lot of readers.   One problem.  The post is going to be dull as dishwater without a sleazy shot of the actress being drunk or not wearing her underwear.

So, how exactly WOULD I proceed to honestly get a photo of her.  Could I swipe it from say — the Entertainment Weekly site or The Superficial, and give them credit for the photo?  Don’t they buy it from stock footage companies like WireImage?  Can I find Lindsay Lohan on Flickr?  Are some of you members of a stock footage company where you get your photos?  Isn’t that expensive?  Can we still be small time blog operators, making no money –  and still make our blog posts dramatic with photos?

Can someone help me find a LEGAL photo of Lindsay Lohan?!

(first in a long imaginary series of “trying to act more professional online.”)

Update:  Just out of curiosity, I wanted to see how Babble Media handles their photos for their sites, and they have this posted, which gave me some insights into how it is done —

Babble Media Image Terms of Use

“Babble Media is committed to the presentation of online content that provides the best possible user experience, while also protecting the copyrights of the content producer as outlined in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

Babble Media hosts a variety of blogs, articles and features that contain images posted by bloggers and editors. The types of images bloggers and editors are authorized to use on Babble Media sites include:

Images licensed from photographic archive vendors.
Images supplied to our editors or released into the public domain by public relations and marketing companies for press purposes.
Reader-submitted images, with the implied representation that the person submitting the image owns the copyright in the image and the right to give it to us for use on our site(s).
Images published on Flickr or other public photo sites with licenses granted under Creative Commons, with attribution in accordance with the CC license granted in each case.
Images commissioned by Babble Media.
Images that we believe to be covered by the Fair Use Doctrine, such as:

– Thumbnail images of 150×150 pixels or less, cropped or reduced in size from the original source.
– Images used to illustrate a newsworthy story, where the image itself is the story.
– Images used in a transformative manner, such as for parody.
– Images so widely distributed that they are deemed to have become part of the news.

If Babble Media receives notice that an image posted is not in keeping with these terms and conditions or the intended use of the Comments section where it is posted, we reserve to right to remove that image.

If you think we have published an image or text that infringes your copyright, and does not fall into the categories listed above, we will address your concerns. If it does not comply with our terms and conditions we may remove the image from our site.”

Interesting. Since the law is fairly general, I could say that a photo of a drunk Lindsay Lohan “illustrates a newsworthy story,” or that it is “so widely distributed” that it is part of the news. It sounds like I might have a bigger problem posting a photograph of an apple.

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2025 Citizen of the Month

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial