The Apocalyptic Four

I’ve been a fan of abstract and surreal art and architecture for many years and I was fortunate to visit Barcelona a while ago and to spend a couple of days admiring several of the works of the great Antoni Gaudi. Some of his buildings are architectural derring do are just truly breathtaking in their audacity.

Recently I have started looking through the photographs that I had taken and started to upload a few to my art website reevephotos.com. Some of the photos I have left in their “natural state” while with others I have felt the urge to create new imagery.

One such image is that of the 4 ventilation chimneys atop the Casa Milà building, constructed between 1906 and 1912. These structures look out over Barcelona from an area of the rooftop known as the Garden of the Warriors.

Given the name and their obvious symbolism, I thought it only fit to also give them a short story too, only 3 sentences long:

They had dismounted and now stood together. Staring intently at the citadel. Was it with menace or indifference?

Let me know what you think of the imagery and/or the accompanying prose.

~Richard

February 15, 2024 0

Vertigo Glitch

Glitch art typically refers to visual glitches, either in a still or moving image, made by either “capturing” an image of a glitch as it randomly happens, or more often by artists manipulating their digital files to produce these “pseudo-errors.”

In my case, this image was a totally natural phenomenon whilst walking along a street in Valencia in the summer of ’22. I hadn’t known I had taken this image until I uploaded the contents of my memory card to my laptop as part of my daily ritual. I was pleasantly surprised with this serendipitous imagery and accompanied it was a short, study-like caption, as is my wont…

As the world spun, all the color drained from it too. What on earth was happening to him?

So, what do you think of the image? Have you any glitch art (either real, or perhaps contrived through image manipulation?) Let me know.

~Richard

February 8, 2024 0

6 sentence story – Discombobulated

I had a little fun in GIMP today, loading up an image I had taken of an apartment block in the Old City in Montevideo, Uruguay last year and merging it with a desaturated copy slightly out of alignment to give a glitchy effect. I think this was a little inspired from last night’s viewing of the disconcerting TV series, Severance.

Anyhow. I also put together a micro story (six-sentence) to accompany the image, so please let me know what you think!

Despite shaking his head he still couldn’t focus. And the pill hadn’t helped. Where on earth was he? This trip had been particularly bad and now both his realities were out of alignment. He felt in his pocket. That’s odd, he thought, this isn’t my phone.

~Richard

February 4, 2024 0

Groundhog Day Redux

Wow, it’s already February 2nd! Where on earth did January go? After the year end festivities, I always find the first month of the year to seeming only be two weeks long, but here we are again.

I have written about quaint tradition of Punxatawney Phil a few times before and it seems fitting to make reference to those posts here now: Groundhog Day and Memories, Haiku: Groundhog Day, and Haiku ~ Groundhog Day. Heck, even the last two had the same title, which is kind of ironic.

Anyhow, today’s Badger-based festivities, the 138th, resulted in Phil not seeing his shadow, so I guess we’re in for an early Spring (unless, that is, you look at his predictive record of 39%). That being said, our snowdrops aren’t out yet so we’ll have to make do with an image I took a few years ago.

Happy Groundhog Day!

Richard

February 2, 2024 0

Escheresque

On our recent trip to Montevideo, Uruguay we stumbled across the weird and wonderful Castillo Pittamiglio, a brick building with a ships prow pointing rather conspicuously between two nondescript apartment buildings on La Rambla Mahatma Gandhi.

There’s plenty to see in this oddly constructed edifice, built by the eccentric (and wealthy) architect and alchemist Humberto Pittamiglio. The self-paced guided audio tour makes for an interesting hours or so wandering through the “universe of the alchemist” with its overt and often hidden symbology.

I hope to post a few more images as I process my photos form the trip but one that I particularly liked was taken form the outside balcony looking through to the courtyard. I was inspired to develop this as a monochrome image, based on the style of Man Ray’s solarization process. The resultant image reminded me even more of an M C Escher composition.

Image of stairways at Castillo Pittamiglio, Montevideo, Uruguay reminiscent of an M C Escher drawing

~ Richard

January 31, 2024 0

Flourishing Fungi

We have had a lot of rain over the last few weeks, which is not unusual for our part of Eastern Pennsylvania, where summer downpours and storms and the normal climate. As we live in a wooded area we have a lot of leaf litter and decaying branches and twigs on the ground which, coupled with the high humidity, makes an excellent environment for fungi to flourish.

One thing about these mycological wonders though is that you have to be quick to catch them as some species seem to pop up, mature and die down again in a day or two! I went out to mow the lawn in the morning and noticed a few different types and then went out in the early evening (almost too late as the light was failing) but I did manage to get quite a few serviceable shots of the variety that inhabit our property with my trusty Panasonic GX8. needless to say, a lot of these have gone already, a mere 24 hours later!

As I mentioned on my previous post, if anyone can help me to identify any of these I would be most grateful!

180729_Fungi1 180729_Fungi2 180729_Fungi3 180729_Fungi4 180729_Fungi5 180729_Fungi6 180729_Fungi7 180729_Fungi8

~Richard

July 29, 2018 0

Haiku ~ connections

I decided to write this haiku as I sat in the departure area of San Diego Airport following an unexpected flight delay, presumably due to the bad weather in the mid-west. My flight was initially delayed for 2 hours, then 3, making my connection at Phoenix impossible, so I tried to reschedule the flight.

Like many airports San Diego offers “free WiFi” but, again like many airports, it very rarely works, based on my experience on a half dozen trips over the last 3 months. I fail to understand why, but it seems a common problem, as Phoenix also has a signal that routinely drops. Perhaps they are in cahoots with the phone service providers so we have to use our data plans when stuck in a place we just want to get through.

Anyhow, I used my waiting time to write this as homage to the poor service…

Broken connections,

Communication delays.

“Free” Airport WiFi…

180211_AirportWifi — Note: I don’t take photos in airports these days, due to security concerns, but as they are much the same all over the US I include one I took a few years back at Philadelphia Airport while waiting for another flight…

~Richard

February 11, 2018 1

Haiku ~ January 31st

A frozen morning

Birds call for the struggling sun

One twelfth completed

~Richard

January 31, 2018 2

#r2bcheerful39 – Taking Mum to Paris

Last year we were fortunate enough to travel to travel to Europe for a few weeks. Although we mainly spent time in the UK we did get a chance to travel to Paris for a few days and enjoy the sites. As it was a family affair, I can strictly say that I was taking mum to Paris (albeit the mother of my children!)

And what better way to celebrate this then an image of Gustav Eiffel’s famous iron tower?

Built as a temporary structure for the 1889 World’s Fair this remains the tallest building in Paris and is the most visited paid monument in the world, over 125 years later. Looking up at this icon how can one fail to have a reason to be cheerful?