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Black and White Photo Challenge Explanations
After being tagged by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tropicanaomega, I finished the seven day black and white photo challenge, and now I'm going to go against the spirit of the meme and explain all my pictures. I didn't do it during the challenge, so that counts, right?
I wasn't sure I was going to participate at all until I looked on the internet to make sure I understood the rules and I found this article about how terrible the whole idea is, written in a very "how dare you have fun!" way. I mean:
Day 1/7.
This is a deliberately ridiculous photo both in the context of the previous article, which is why it's a shot only of the left half of Kirby's face, and of the meme rules that disallow portraits. If pictures of cats are allowed, pictures of Kirby certainly are.
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schoolpsychnerd and I are slowly filling our apartment with Kirby plushes. One arrived last week, and we have another one in the way even as I write this. This particular Kirby is set up on the table next to our couch. It's a plush released to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the release of Kirby's Dream Land. It's from Aitai☆Kuji, a company that specializes in shipping video game and anime goods abroad, but with the advantage that they get their hand on stock of limited, lottery-only items or things that normally only come in crane games. This was a crane game prize, but I was able to get it just with an outlay of cash and without having to spend a bunch of time futilely flailing away with a claw and two buttons.
Day 2/7.
Art!
This was the first snowfall of the year that I was actually out in, and I was really looking for some picture opportunity that would work with the snow. I was struck by the way the snow swirled around the street sign, silhouetted against a black sky, and stopped as soon as I crossed the street to take the picture. I could have done without the glare of the streetlight overwhelming the top of the photo, but in some ways I think it works since it's so indistinct. It looks like a white blob or an diffuse glow...
Hmm. Now that I think about it, that's probably the best way it could have turned out. Maybe I just didn't recognize how nice it was.
Day 3/7.
Most "holiday" corporate events are just Christmas events with the serial numbers filed off. We all know that, we just don't talk about it, and I find it extremely funny that now conservative Christians are up in arms about secularizing the holiday when it was partially their influence that led to the removal of religious content from corporate Christmas originally (since it was debasing Christmas with filthy lucre). Filthy lucre is the real god of the kind of people who complain about the War on Christmas now, though.
Anyway, here we have a Christmas tree set up in HR, but every year they also set up a chanukkiyah over by the reception desk, and every year I take a picture of it. This is this year's display and picture.
I like that Magen David in the lower right a lot, actually. I'd use those for decor.
Day 4/7.
In the name of Elune!
This is my moonkin figure from World of Warcraft, taken from below at a deliberately pretentious artsy angle. I don't have any message or anything I was intending to make, I just like the way moonkin look a lot. Even if I hated moonkin form while playing a balance druid.
Day 5/7.
When unloading the dishwasher, I found that one of my mugs had cleanly broken. One of my oldest mugs that I inherited from my grandparents, who gave their custom of always drinking everything from mugs to my father and down that, to me. We don't have any glasses at all that aren't wine glasses, actually--our drinkware is all mugs and cups with handles. And that's good, because I drink a lot of tea andschoolpsychnerd drinks a lot of coffee, but that's an ex post facto justification.
I did actually feel like this makes a statement, a much lesser version of "look on my works, ye mighty." I had this memento of my grandparents and thought of them whenever I drank out of it, and then it broke.schoolpsychnerd suggested that we fix it and put it on the momento shelf we have, and we'll probably do that, but then I won't use it in a practical way and I won't have it as an aid to memory. Eventually it will break more, and I'll have to get rid of it the way I got rid of my maternal grandmother's plates when the shelf broke and they all smashed on the floor. And even if I keep it, if I have any children they will never meet my grandparents, and have no attachment to their memory, and if I pass down these relics to them, they will probably sit in the box unused and eventually get cleaned away as clutter.
We are all of us dust, and in the end the wind will sweep us away.
Day 6/7.
I have a bit of a tradition of taking photos of the sunset as I'm crossing the Wabash bridge south to go to Japanese lessons. Usually I take photos facing west, along the Chicago River between the canyon made by the skyscrapers. This photo was in the same spirit, but taken facing south across the river, and at noon instead of at sunset. I was hoping that I would catch the sunlight playing on the clouds and I was not disappointed.
The building on the left is the Jeweler's Building. Architecture like that is part of why I love Chicago so much.
Day 7/7.
The last leaves of the year. This tree is right outside my apartment, and all of it is bare except for those last few leaves valiantly holding on against freezing temperatures. It snowed last week, and the temperatures had dropped to -10°C, so I figured that winter was upon us and the leaves would soon be lost like all the others.
Joke's on me. When I left the apartment today to go to work, it was 6°C and I didn't even bother buttoning my coat. Those leaves may hang on until the new year.
tropicanaomega, I finished the seven day black and white photo challenge, and now I'm going to go against the spirit of the meme and explain all my pictures. I didn't do it during the challenge, so that counts, right? I wasn't sure I was going to participate at all until I looked on the internet to make sure I understood the rules and I found this article about how terrible the whole idea is, written in a very "how dare you have fun!" way. I mean:
Many people can’t leave the house without posting a photo on Facebook. So to frame this as a challenge is just asking for trouble. The prompt to eschew color, people, and explanatory text has given participants free rein to post cringe-worthy “arty” pictures they’d normally have the good sense to be embarrassed by: their shadow-dipped lattes, their brooding pets, their kids’ tilted-over toys, often framed diagonally to add that extra “I’m doing serious photography” edge. The leaves! The cars! The fences! I saw one photo of a faucet, for some reason. Is this Facebook, or are these the photos that come prepackaged with frames at Ikea?Someone is Mad On the Internet. And so to make them even madder, I posted my own photos. Explanations follow.
Day 1/7.
This is a deliberately ridiculous photo both in the context of the previous article, which is why it's a shot only of the left half of Kirby's face, and of the meme rules that disallow portraits. If pictures of cats are allowed, pictures of Kirby certainly are.
schoolpsychnerd and I are slowly filling our apartment with Kirby plushes. One arrived last week, and we have another one in the way even as I write this. This particular Kirby is set up on the table next to our couch. It's a plush released to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the release of Kirby's Dream Land. It's from Aitai☆Kuji, a company that specializes in shipping video game and anime goods abroad, but with the advantage that they get their hand on stock of limited, lottery-only items or things that normally only come in crane games. This was a crane game prize, but I was able to get it just with an outlay of cash and without having to spend a bunch of time futilely flailing away with a claw and two buttons. Day 2/7.
Art!
This was the first snowfall of the year that I was actually out in, and I was really looking for some picture opportunity that would work with the snow. I was struck by the way the snow swirled around the street sign, silhouetted against a black sky, and stopped as soon as I crossed the street to take the picture. I could have done without the glare of the streetlight overwhelming the top of the photo, but in some ways I think it works since it's so indistinct. It looks like a white blob or an diffuse glow...
Hmm. Now that I think about it, that's probably the best way it could have turned out. Maybe I just didn't recognize how nice it was.
Day 3/7.
Most "holiday" corporate events are just Christmas events with the serial numbers filed off. We all know that, we just don't talk about it, and I find it extremely funny that now conservative Christians are up in arms about secularizing the holiday when it was partially their influence that led to the removal of religious content from corporate Christmas originally (since it was debasing Christmas with filthy lucre). Filthy lucre is the real god of the kind of people who complain about the War on Christmas now, though.
Anyway, here we have a Christmas tree set up in HR, but every year they also set up a chanukkiyah over by the reception desk, and every year I take a picture of it. This is this year's display and picture.
I like that Magen David in the lower right a lot, actually. I'd use those for decor.
Day 4/7.
In the name of Elune!
This is my moonkin figure from World of Warcraft, taken from below at a deliberately pretentious artsy angle. I don't have any message or anything I was intending to make, I just like the way moonkin look a lot. Even if I hated moonkin form while playing a balance druid.
Day 5/7.
When unloading the dishwasher, I found that one of my mugs had cleanly broken. One of my oldest mugs that I inherited from my grandparents, who gave their custom of always drinking everything from mugs to my father and down that, to me. We don't have any glasses at all that aren't wine glasses, actually--our drinkware is all mugs and cups with handles. And that's good, because I drink a lot of tea and
schoolpsychnerd drinks a lot of coffee, but that's an ex post facto justification. I did actually feel like this makes a statement, a much lesser version of "look on my works, ye mighty." I had this memento of my grandparents and thought of them whenever I drank out of it, and then it broke.
schoolpsychnerd suggested that we fix it and put it on the momento shelf we have, and we'll probably do that, but then I won't use it in a practical way and I won't have it as an aid to memory. Eventually it will break more, and I'll have to get rid of it the way I got rid of my maternal grandmother's plates when the shelf broke and they all smashed on the floor. And even if I keep it, if I have any children they will never meet my grandparents, and have no attachment to their memory, and if I pass down these relics to them, they will probably sit in the box unused and eventually get cleaned away as clutter.We are all of us dust, and in the end the wind will sweep us away.
Day 6/7.
I have a bit of a tradition of taking photos of the sunset as I'm crossing the Wabash bridge south to go to Japanese lessons. Usually I take photos facing west, along the Chicago River between the canyon made by the skyscrapers. This photo was in the same spirit, but taken facing south across the river, and at noon instead of at sunset. I was hoping that I would catch the sunlight playing on the clouds and I was not disappointed.
The building on the left is the Jeweler's Building. Architecture like that is part of why I love Chicago so much.
Day 7/7.
The last leaves of the year. This tree is right outside my apartment, and all of it is bare except for those last few leaves valiantly holding on against freezing temperatures. It snowed last week, and the temperatures had dropped to -10°C, so I figured that winter was upon us and the leaves would soon be lost like all the others.
Joke's on me. When I left the apartment today to go to work, it was 6°C and I didn't even bother buttoning my coat. Those leaves may hang on until the new year.