13 April 2020 - CLANCY TUCKER PHOTOGRAPHY - WILDLIFE

CLANCY TUCKER 

PHOTOGRAPHY

 - WILDLIFE -

G'day folks,

Welcome to some more of my photographs of wildlife. Some of these were taken here in Australia and others were recently taken in Laos and Burma. 

Clancy's comment: The squirrels fascinate me. They also drive me crazy because they move so fast, and it's not easy to snap them whilst I'm holding a heavy camera. However, they are cute, and they are not all the same colour. Some are white, black, ginger, red, and often a mixture of colours.

I'm ...

30 August 2015 - JACOB RIIS

JACOB RIIS

1849-1914

G'day folks,

Welcome to the life and times of a photographer, social reformer and writer.  Jacob Riis was a photographer and writer whose book 'How the Other Half Lives' led to a revolution in social reform.

Synopsis

Jacob Riis was born in Denmark in May 1849 and emigrated to the United States in 1870. After a series of odd jobs, he became a police reporter, a job he enhanced with his natural photographic skills. Led by his interest in New York City's tenement life and the harsh conditions people living there endured, he used his camera as a tool to bring about change. With his 1890 book How the Other Half Lives, Riis put those living conditions on display in a package that wasn't to be ignored, and his career as a social reformer was launched.

Early Years

Jacob Riis was born on May 3, 1849, in Ribe, Denmark, and emigrated to the United States in 1870 on a steamship. All he carried with him was $40 and a locket containing a hair from a girl he loved. Upon his arrival in New York City, Riis struggled his way through various jobs—ironworker, farmer, bricklayer, salesman—all jobs that gave him an up-close look at the less prosperous side of the American urban environment.

In 1873, Riis became a police reporter, and he quickly found that his deep dive into New York’s underbelly was just beginning. His beat was the Lower East Side, a neighbourhood riddled with crime and poverty. With a little digging, Riis discovered the depth of the area’s despair well represented in the fact that in certain tenement buildings the infant death rate was 10 percent. 

The Photographer

Riis was moved by what he saw in the neighborhood, and he taught himself basic photography and started taking a camera with him when he hit the streets at night. In a stroke of good timing, flash photography had only recently been invented, and Riis became a pioneer in its use, employing the new technique to capture stark indoor and outdoor night scenes. The images he brought to the public’s eye were full of crowded tenements, dangerous slums and poignant street scene—images of a downtrodden underclass that most readers had only previously read about, at best. 

How the Other Half Lives

Riis’ unflinching photos appeared in books, newspapers and magazines, and before long they were used as tools for social reform. In 1890, Riis’ book of social criticism, How the Other Half Lives, was published, and perusing its pages proved to be an eye-opening experience for the reader.

The book presented statistics about New York’s poverty and contained drawings of the photos from Riis’ unending tour of the city’s worst slums. Riis said that his motivation for presenting such a dark tableau was “that every man’s experience ought to be worth something to the community from which he drew it, no matter what that experience may be.”

  The book was an instant success and had an immediate impact. Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt, intent on improving life in New York, famously say to Riis, “I have read your book, and I have come to help.” Together Riis and Roosevelt walked around New York, with Riis showing the future president the deplorable conditions in which so many people lived. Roosevelt was moved to close the worst of the city’s police lodging houses, which he described as “simply tramp lodging-houses,” and demanded that city officials pass the first significant legislation to improve the state of affairs in immigrant neighborhoods. 

Legacy

Now a legend for his work toward social reform, and for his use of photography to bring previously hidden worlds to light, Riis went on to write many other books, among them(1900), The Battle With the Slum (1902), Children of the Tenements (1903), and autobiography, The Making of an American (1901).

 Riis died on his Massachusetts farm on May 26, 1914.

Clancy's comment: What an interesting man. I've seen many of his photographs and admire them. I'm sure he was ahead of his time as a photographer and social reformer. Good for him.

I'm ...

R I P

 

5 September 2014 - ROLF McEWEN - Special Guest

ROLF McEWEN

- Special Guest -

G'day folks,

Welcome to an interview with a man from Albany, Oregon - Rolf McEwen. Rolf is a writer, photographer, author, teacher and editor. He has published several photo books including Tripping through Oregon, Oregon Coast Drawings, Hawaii Pencil Drawings, Mediterranean Travel Drawings, Sketch Art, Portland Images - Travel Photos of Oregon, Salem Images, Seattle Images, Travel Hawaii - A Photo Montage, Dramatic Images, Images Black and White, Explosion of Color, Flower Wave, Urban Art, and Light Wave - Fluid Photos.

He has written plays including The Honeymoon, Mad Love, Inspector Strangelove, Love Will Find a Way, The War, The Joseph Story, Esther the Queen, The Institute, Cranking Up America, and The Fan. He also created adaptations for Moliere plays including The Miser, The Middle Class Gentleman, Tartuffified, Deceits of Samson, Ladies of Learning, and The Hypochondriac. 

Rolf also wrote a how-to book regarding theatre arts programs entitled For Love of Drama, describing how to create successful and financially profitable high school drama programs.

Welcome, Rolf ...

1.    TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOURSELF AND YOUR WRITING JOURNEY.

I started writing at age 16, mostly love poetry to my girl. During college I studied for a year in Vienna and Rome, so I wrote about my observations, thoughts, and travels. After college, I worked through psychology and anger on paper. I tried to figure things out and write down my decisions. It was cathartic.

2.     WHAT TYPE OF PREPARATION DO YOU DO FOR A MANUSCRIPT? DO YOU PLAN EVERYTHING FIRST OR JUST SHOOT FROM THE HIP?

I don't have a plan when I write, unless it's a play for which I need a plot. Poetry just overflows from observations or feelings, from sensations. If it's a novel I will have one or two characters in mind and begin writing about their relationship. The plot develops from there. I don't need to know where it's going because I allow the characters to direct the action.

3.    WHAT DO YOU ENJOY MOST ABOUT BEING A WRITER?

Writing is exciting. It let's my mind unfold. It's creative. I like to put thoughts and feelings into words, to define them, to reveal beauty and frustration.

4.    WHAT IS THE HARDEST THING ABOUT BEING A WRITER?

I love the creative impulse involved in the first draft of a manuscript. I love to get my thoughts out. The challenge is editing, correcting, formatting--the details for me are difficult. I love the emotions.

5.    WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST WRITING ACHIEVEMENT?

I'm always satisfied when I create a poem or a book that speaks my attitude clearly.

6.    WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON AT THE MOMENT?

I just completed a novella, Mad Man, Wild Woman, recently. I'm resting now, waiting for inspiration and energy to arise. Soon some new idea will emerge.

7.    WHAT INSPIRES YOU?

I'm inspired by beauty, whether it be nature, people, music, art, or poetry. So much about life is beautiful, and much is ugly.

8.    DO YOU HAVE ANY TIPS FOR NEW WRITERS?

I think a person must go with the flow, must follow the heart--be yourself.

9.    DO YOU SUFFER FROM WRITER’S BLOCK?

Not that.

10. DO YOU HAVE A PREFERRED WRITING SCHEDULE?

When I'm inspired, I'm obsessed and busy. If not, I don't force it.

11. WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST JOY IN WRITING?

Finding the words that express exactly what I feel or believe.

12. WHAT’S THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT YOU EVER RECEIVED FROM A READER?

                        I love it.

13. WHAT WAS THE WORST COMMENT FROM A READER?

It sucks,  and "You're really stupid."

14. WRITERS ARE SOMETIMES INFLUENCED BY THINGS THAT HAPPEN IN THEIR OWN LIVES. ARE YOU?

All of my writing emerges from personal experience, joy, anger, frustration, ecstasy.

15. OTHER THAN WRITING, WHAT ELSE DO YOU LOVE?

Music, painting, sculpture, dance, ballet, poetry, nature, and travel.

16. DID YOU HAVE YOUR BOOK / BOOKS PROFESSIONALLY EDITED BEFORE PUBLICATION?

I edited my own books, which is a challenge.

17. DESCRIBE YOUR PERFECT DAY.

Walking through the streets of Barcelona with my wife, eating and drinking and ....

18. IF YOU WERE STUCK ON A DESERT ISLAND WITH ONE PERSON, WHO WOULD IT BE? WHY?

My wife--we share stuff.

19. WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IF YOU HAD THE CHANCE TO SPEAK TO WORLD LEADERS?

Create more art; forbid war.

20. WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THE FUTURE?

Read and write and walk and talk.

21. WHAT FIVE BOOKS WOULD YOU TAKE TO HEAVEN?

The Bible.

22. DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN ANY OF YOUR CHARACTERS?

I am usually one of the characters in all of my books.

23. DOES THE PUBLISHING INDUSTRY FRUSTRATE YOU?

Yes.

24. DID YOU EVER THINK OF QUITTING?

Yes, but I write to release my thoughts, and that is necessary, published or not.

25.  HOW WOULD YOU DEFINE ‘SUCCESS’ AS A WRITER.

Enjoy doing it.

26. WHAT SHOULD READERS WALK AWAY FROM YOUR BOOKS KNOWING? HOW SHOULD THEY FEEL?

 Life is beautiful.

27. HOW MUCH THOUGHT GOES INTO DESIGNING A BOOK COVER?

Very little.

28. WHAT’S YOUR ULTIMATE DREAM?

Travel the world year round.

29.   WRITING IS ONE THING. WHAT ABOUT MARKETING YOU, YOUR BOOKS AND YOUR BRAND? ANY THOUGHTS?

I don't do marketing. Some people find my books somehow.

30.  ARE YOUR BOOKS SELF-PUBLISHED?

Yes.

31. DESCRIBE YOURSELF IN FIVE WORDS.

Energetic, interested, passionate, dramatic ...

32. WHAT PISSES YOU OFF MOST?

            People who make lots of noise and don't think before they speak.

33. WHAT IS THE TITLE OF THE LAST BOOK YOU READ? GOOD ONE?

The Diary of Anais Nin. Good one.

34.  WHAT WOULD BE THE VERY LAST SENTENCE YOU’D WRITE?

Good bye; have a good life.

35.  WHAT WOULD MAKE YOU HAPPIER THAN YOU ARE NOW? CARE TO SHARE?

More of all the good things in life--love, joy, peace, steak, wine, sex, travel.

SOME OF ROLF'S 
PHOTOGRAPHY & ART

http://www.rolfmcewen.com/

Clancy's comment: Thank you, Rolf. You have some great photographs. Yes, loved the bit about travellng the world. Great idea, especially with a camera dangling around your neck.

I'm ...

Think about this!