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Test of time in photography

  When pictures are more than a frozen moment in time and you can construct your story from just it You build the story from one frame, from many small details captured in the picture. It is rare, because we, as humans, probably more in these days than before, crave for simplicity, for design, for simple forms/shapes/compositions. Maybe that is the reason that we buy industrial canvases that are just simple decorative objects. The pictures I will refer to are not decorative, they convey a story that is your to build it if you have the sensibility to be moved by the elements present there. In general, as humans, we are moved by humans captured in pictures rather than landscapes or still compositions or abstract representations.   I will start with a picture of Cristina Mittermeier , “Last hunters of the North". It shows an Inuit hunter looking at the sky with a resigned face. It tells you the eternal problem of his people , for generations, to survive in the North lands...
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Is food heated in microwave dangerous for your health?

Photo by MChe Lee on Unsplash   I was interested by the subject because healthy cooking and meal preparation is a subject important for me, day-in day-out. I read even a few studies and browsed "Scientific American" on the subject.  I had arguments with people around me on the subject. I stumbled on an article which is more than revealing, it also marks the unknown of the facts - It is safe to microwave food? . The summary: It is safe to microwave food, just be aware the containers to not be plastic.

Azopan, anonymous memories

  Photo by Mr Cup / Fabien Barral on Unsplash   I don't remember how I stumbled upon Azopan website but I do know being lost in memories of my childhood and of photographs taken on B&W films and only in late 80s on color films. It is a very interesting project and although I did not browsed the options of posting there, it seems to me that local history and family photos are amalgamated to transport you in pieces of life of a different time and place - Romanian mountains, seaside, Danube river, 1989 events, etc... The subjects and photos have the "family" feeling and rarely you  see an artistic photo. Most of them are about public events, families captured in candor moments, kids staring to the camera in a "I-know-you-take-a-picture" smile and many staged pictures. The surprise factor for me was the humanity and the raw emotions captured in people's look, events you forgot you participated just because their significance escaped you, the freedom to be ...

Photography, theme obsessed

  Photography by Gabi, August 2020, Niagara on the lake, Ontario   If you are interested in photography probably you have been browsing some of the storing/managing/commercializing photo platforms - 500pix, Unsplash, Photo.net, Dpreview, etc.. From time to time, they ask you if you want to send photos encompassing an idea or a concept, like - B&W in the city, Smiles, Dancing, Blazing light, Winter dreams, etc... The concept is not new and even for film-makers they have those spread over time periods when an idea is coming to fruition based on an urge to express something which is dear and close to you. From an idea, to concept, to gathering chapters for the movie, it is a long time and often it might be buried along the way. With photography is like a bookmark in a book, you come back and refresh it or have a new revelation and express it. I was thinking in the same vein when perusing my own photos. I really enjoy photos combining images, reflections and shadows. Very heav...

Smile for yourself, but mostly for others

  Photo by Jessica Rockowitz on Unsplash Coming from a communist country I was always circumspect of people who were smiling all the time.  Life is hard and how can you be so radiant, how come events and people and years of living have been giving you that wide smile you brandish like in advertisements? Smiling was a proclamation of happiness in a regime known for oppressing and regimenting people in an universal mold. Laughing was questionable and at a certain point viewed as an act of opposition, underground fight. Then you read on many studies about the benefice of just "faking-till-you-making" - physiology winning over your mind and creating an overall well-being state. I was told by my mother that I was a curious kid, whenever it happened to be among people, looking intensely and scanning their gestures, talks and faces. I was probably absorbing life in its manifestation, interested to see how we interact, how we react, looking for fragments of life in people's fac...

Conspiracies, Asian medicine and going oblique in life due to social distancing

Photo by davide ragusa on Unsplash The social distancing forced families to stay together and live confined for many hours in a row. Habits exposed at work were transferred in  the family setting and did not fit or led to conflict. The simple way of spending time revealed that suddenly when the time is lapsing slower than usually, people don't know how to stare or leave in contemplation. For unknown reasons: 1. what became obvious to everyone during the corona virus: people have time to think and question and fall on the same old theories - the gods are cheating on us, there is a large conspiracy of big pharma, the government is sold to big corporations, etc.. 2. when there is no skin in the game, there is no incentive to innovate - education, health, management of limited resources, cooperating among nations at safeguarding resources  3. there is no planning for all elected officials and there is no pay-back for the ones who really played the system - I ...

The sprint to stop an epidemic - Corona virus

Photo by Trust "Tru" Katsande on Unsplash I was reading about the developing efforts for a vaccine reflected through the stock market. It happened to have a few shares of the VIR Biotechnology ( VIR ) company when the chase of finding a vaccine started. It was an incredible ride, even for a guy accustomed with the up-and-downs of the shares in a company and the political game played when companies are bought or acquired. Just for illustration, please see the chart of this stock for a three month period. There is excitement, at the beginning  of March about the possibility of developing a vaccine for Corona virus, and the stock surpasses 70$/share when before is was lingering under the 17$/share threshold. There are many companies in the race - Moderna ( MRNA ), Gilead ( GILD ), Inovio Pharmaceuticals ( INO ) and probably a few of them will find a virus. What I don't understand is the effort spent in parallel of fighting the same cause. It is a lot of ...

When gaffes are used strategically

Photo by Kyle Head on Unsplash You probably heard that swimming in rough waters in life will reveal your own character and of all the people with you, caught in that moment. It is always unexpected and, exactly as in movies, it begins with a peaceful background and a monotone sound. Everything is unfolding slowly and without any clues that deep gaps will be revealed in any way. It is like a crack in someone's emotional fabric which becomes a wrecking ball for the characters caught in the event, for a short time span, sufficient to project them on a different life orbit, for good. Some people are calling those events "interventions", others fear them as "dark spots" where secrets are emerging as an iceberg unbalanced by some life event. The repercussions are deep and memorable and entail subsequent turmoils, like a burning lava which will flow down for many days to find a peaceful landscape to cool off. The characters are the same like in normal life ...

The Big Split

Photo by CDC on Unsplash   Detect immunity One of the numbers broadcasted every day is the number of COVID-19 patients who recovered. Instead of being fixed on detecting people with corona virus, we should be fixed on detecting the ones who had a mild version of corona virus or even were asymptomatic. Once we know they can freely move, socially mark them in a certain way (with a special certificate).  They could be the soldiers of opening closed businesses or helping important economic sectors. They are on the other side of the fear, all the COVID-19 restrictions should not apply to them. It is not known for how long is the immunity lasting, but at least, these people should come back and revive the industries and get the jobs and make the economy re-start. It is a small number, but they can propel some ideas for the ones in the isolation (see below). That should be the second most important decision of our governments - detect immunity, instead of just...