Thursday Doors 21 May • Making Sense For The Postman
In one of my previous posts I had focused on the number of doorbells per door, as an indication of the number of singles, couples or families living behind that door. But how does the postman make any sense of that?
Letterbox to the sideAnother letterbox to the side
One door, one name, one doorbell and one letterbox. Not much can go wrong here… so you think. Unless you’ve got an illiterate postman, or one one who doesn’t give a s***. Every year I receive dozens of letters that are clearly addressed to someone else. With a different address and a different zip-code. I stopped my mailman twice to confront him about it, quite nicely that is. At first. The grumpy bastard just didn’t give me any indication he gave a flying f***! Or maybe he was just masking his illiteracy. Or maybe both.
Another vertical letterbox beside the doorLetterboxes to the side and in the doors
One thing I grant him, things can become a bit confusing, like in the above case. Which letterbox to use for #82? Or does it even matter?
Another case of letterboxes to the side and in the doors3 Letterboxes to the side4 Letterboxes to the side4 Letterboxes in the door
My postman isn’t the only one struggling. Delivery guys (girls) of door-to-door advertising folders and door-to-door weeklies have a hard time knowing what to deliver where. Hence the stickers you see
NO door-to-door advertising folders. NO door-to-door weeklies. NO door-to-door advertising folders. YES to door-to-door weeklies.
Making Sense For The Postman for Norm‘s Thursday Doors21 May.
WARNING I’m Bored • Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #97. For the ins &outs, head over to Sue’s blog The Nature Of Things who is our host of this edition, with the theme pastime.
Boredom: the desire for desires
Leo Tolstoi
I’m so so glad this quarantine is not deemed so strictly necessary anymore. Cinema’s and museums are open again since yesterday (two of my favorite pastimes that I so dearly missed). And restaurants, terraces will follow on June 1. And hopefully the beach clubs will open the day after tomorrow, since I live approx. a 20 minute walk from the beach. So yes, this being more or less cooped up in my or my girlfriend’s apartment has made me bored to the point that I’m contemplating buying this mouse pad…or worse. Just to spruce things up a bit.
Another favorite pastime of mine was city trips with my girlfriend. Both in the Netherlands as elsewhere in Europe. Just roaming the streets of an unknown city, having a drink and a meal on a terrace and photographing anything interesting that comes in front of my camera.
Berlin Central Station
But these will not be on the cards again anytime soon because of the Covid-19 lockdown and my worsened physical condition due to my Parkinson’s Disease. But both things will get better in due course I’m convinced.
I’m bored
So how did the past few months just dawdle past? By spending time catching up on reading…
My To-Read Pile
My mentor when I started out in advertising taught me an invaluable lesson: Read weird shit’. So I still do. And for the first time I’m interested in history. A sign of old age?
Passion goes, only boredom remains
Coco Chanel
And then there was Netflix… I have been watching a wide array of series and movies. From La Casa de Papel to the history of the Vietnam War to The Last Dance to Peaky Blinders to Le Mans 66. But, finally, I got bored of watching TV.
Did I tell you I’m bored…
So there is only so much even I can take before boredom sets in. I miss going for walks in unfamiliar places, learning about their history, savoring the best the local cuisine has to offer and taking my Leica with me. Being outside, where the action is.
Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination; both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.
Susan Sonntag
For more of my entrees in Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, click here.
Have you ever wondered, like me, what’s behind that door browsing through all the entries into Norm’sThursday Doors challenge? In the western world we tend to keep our front doors firmly shut for a multitude of reasons. Not so in Cuba…
Doorway Flower Shop • Thursday Doors
…where people tend to use their doorway to sell flowers for instance
…where people tend to leave their front door ajar
…or have no front door at all
A Look Inside A Cuban Grocery Store • Thursday Doors
These photos are from my archive and were taken on a road trip through Cuba in 2016
For more of my submissions in this challenge, click here.
Cropping For Effect • Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #96 For the ins &outs, head over to Patti’s pilotfishblog.
Photography helps people see
Berenice Abbott
Cropping That Helps People See More
One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned, and this was a long time ago, is that there is a difference between a pretty picture and a good photo. And that difference is largely determined by how close you get to your subject; deliberately avoiding the ‘noise’ that otherwise distracts from the photo’s message. Thus cropping can help people see.
Cropping For Effect: The Napalm Girl
1973 Pulitzer Prize • The Napalm Girl
We all recognise (I hope) this photo by Nick Ut of the 9 year old Kim Phuc Phan Thi – a.k.a. the Napalm Girl – that won him the Pulitzer Prize. The scene is one of sheer horror.
The Original
Nick Ut’s Uncropped Version Napalm Girl
The uncropped image shows the otherwise unknown third of the photograph. It reveals on the right of the image a man absent-mindedly adjusting his camera, completely unaware of the chaotic events unfurling around him. His inclusion certainly paints a different picture than the cropped version which previously excluded him.
I have to think this is one of the most significant crops of all time. With the right half of the photo suddenly claiming more storytelling weight, it’s stunning how much it competes, diluting that dramatic scene burned into all of our heads. Studying the “new” cluster of figures and the body language of the soldiers at the edge and across the road, the guys look like it’s Miller time. Even more incredible, however, is the specter of the soldier attending to his camera. Given that he’s almost parallel to the burning body of Phan Thi Kim Phuc, the message is that he’s got some time right now, that there’s nothing going on right that moment that’s worth capturing, or even deserving of his notice. …Just wow.
So my question is: was this photo cropped entirely for effect? for simplicity sake? or, because the nonchalance of the soldiers, in juxtaposition with the scorching of the children, would — from a compassion standpoint — have been like a second napalm hit?
Now, before I rub someone the wrong way, I think the cropped version is by far the most powerful of the two. In a way, the original doesn’t come close to the cropped one. So I think Ut’s crop was justified. To come back to Abbott’s quote, it helped make me see the horrors of war.
Before you go, there is more…
This is not the only controversy surrounding his photo. According to Wikipedia: Audio tapes of President Richard Nixon, in conversation with his chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman in 1972, reveal that Nixon mused, “I’m wondering if that was fixed”, after seeing the photograph.
And far more recently, back in 2016, Facebook removed this photo from a post since it contained nudity. I kid you not, just head over here.
And currently, there’s discussion this photo should be removed fromWikipedia: ‘This is a copywritten image owned by the Associate Press, it is not Public Domain‘.
For more of my entrees in Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, click here.
This Clock Door is my entry into Norm’sThursday Doors challenge.
Clock Door • Thursday Doors
Over the past few months that I’ve been door-hunting, this is the only one with a large clock on top that I’ve come across. The clock has stopped working however, which is a shame. Took this photo at noon, this January.
For more of my submissions in this challenge, click here.
