Rozworld’s WebLog

Jean recently found a pseudoscorpion in the house. It’s only the second one I’ve ever come across in my life. This one measured 3 mm from head to abdomen. My Audubon insect guide says that there are over 350 species in North America alone and 2500 known world wide. Many species have poison glands in their pinchers which they use to subdue their prey. I would also guess that they are also mostly nocturnal, since this one was found after the lights went out. I just think it’s so intriguing that something so small could have pinchers like a lobster. We let this one outside after I photographed it.

I noticed some while ago that people tend to take pictures of things that are special to them or of events that do not happen very often; birthday parties, vacations, friend and family get-togethers but mundane daily activities like going to work or washing dinner’s dishes are often left out as worthy compositional subjects. When you think about the total number of possible picture opportunities in your environment, you can see how skewed our choices are. For instance, what about taking a picture of every pebble in the drive way, or every blade of grass in your lawn, or how about every cloud that passes over head? These things are all unique in the world but they’re down right boring. If you showed someone a photo album full of these things they would think you were pretty nutty. Putting an album like this together is also time consuming and not very cost effective. People love to take pictures of other people; this is built into our psychology. We are social beings after all. The focus on other people extends to news, gossip, and blogs for that matter.

And now the down side: When you take a person’s portfolio of photographs taken over a lifetime you tend to get a bias view of what that person did over a lifetime. You can not accurately ask, “What did this person do with his or her life?” This is because you often see them smiling and doing interesting things.

With digital photography I can now take so many more pictures. The cost of taking those mundane scenes has fallen dramatically. I now like to take contextual photographs; Pictures that help tell the story of other primary photos. For every picture I take, I now keep in mind, “How does this picture fit in the larger context of things.”

The Carpet	A cloud
Some Moss	A parking lot

Rosalind joined soccer this year and has weekly practice and games. Rosalind’s team is the “Fruity Pebbles” and they play other Post™ cereals, like the “Frosted Flakes”. Their games consist of 3 on 3 with no goalie. Rosalind has been doing very well and we’re very proud of her. We’re also very happy to join the elite troop of the soccer moms and dads, who tirelessly cart their kids around town for games. Now all we need is a mini-van.