Every now and then some research pops into the news cycle that tells us something we know: puppies make us feel good. One of the latest studies, whose rigor I cannot verity, found that gazing into a a dog’s or puppy’s eyes releases the hormone oxytocin, which makes us humans feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I think I already knew that. Hi there, cute girl. Thanks for making me feel that magic only puppies can create.
I have published these photos before on either my blog or web site, or both. Some times, everything comes together nicely when you get family members to pose. You cannot fake a warm smile.
Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.
(Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)
The expression “Janus faced” stems from Roman mythology. The god it represents, Janus, was two-headed. Sculptures show two faces arranged in opposite directions. The contemporary expression “Janus faced” is used to call out “two-faced” or deceitful persons, often politicians. Classic Greek theater has a similar pairing many modern theater goers have seen of the two masks of drama, which show the classical Greek division of comedy and tragedy. They symbolize ancient Greek muses, Thalia and Melpomene. The muse of comedy is represented by the laughing face, and the muse of tragedy is represented by the weeping face.
I thought about the faces we present to the public, sometimes knowingly and sometimes unknowingly. No one is able to fully mask their emotions, and I would say all of us can wear each mask depending on our ambitions and circumstances. Many of us encounter this daily, perhaps in a work environment with someone who projects being a lovable person to impress an audience he or she deems important to his or her personal priorities, and then they wear the other face when they no longer need to put on an act and can display the polar opposite behavior, usually to subordinates.
A conversation I had last night made me think about this, and during my long run today I thought about a pair of pictures I have of someone I once knew. Her faces were wonderfully clear, and powerful. I took these photos more than a dozen years ago, when I was much more involved in black and white portraiture and fascinated by what those portraits would tell me and other viewers. I hope one day to have someone capture me with my masks so I can see how I project my masks to the public.
On days when chaotic people around me seem overwhelming, in that place called life and the real world, I always seek the solace in what I know to be universally true. And that is the goodness in others.
I ignore the emotional tornadoes who suck energy from others, and I bring back memories of people I have met everywhere in the world. Today, on a day when the whirlwind people were a bit too much, I got a jolt of the “rest of humanity” through some friendly old smiles. Here are a few of their faces, taken from my travels in Bali and Java, in Indonesia, in February 2009.
(Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)
One of the truisms of true runners is, a runner runs. And they run no matter what the hell is happening outside, hot, cold, pollution, whatever. I took this shot of a running buddy, Janelle, on a great Anchorage area backcountry run on snow. Yes, you can run on snow that has melted a bit and then froze crust hard. Our adventure traversed the length of Chugach State Park in March 2007. Many a time I had ice on my eyelashes and whiskers when running during an Alaska winter.
When I visited the Indian hill station city of Darjeeling in 1989, I met many Tibetan refugees, who had made their home there, preserving their culture in exile from Chinese-occupied Tibet. You can see more photos I took on my India gallery. (Click on the photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)
Woodstock. Ah, the memories…so many memories here. I used to come up here in the 1980s, when I attended a nearby college in Portland. I always liked it because it was distinctly lower-brow than the more upscale leafy neighborhood nearby called Eastmoreland, which has lovely estates and manicured lawns. No, Woodstock was all about small businesses making a go at it, a Safeway, a Bi-Mart, some specialty shops like Otto’s Sausage, and some other businesses that came and went, like a tea shop where I bought really strong gun powder tea to stay awake while writing research papers.
Today, most of these are all still around, but some new developments are coming in, and I can virtually guarantee in five years this street will not be recognizable. I love that Grand Central Bakery is here, but Portland has more than enough wine bistros and trendy watering holes. In fact, I just read the great tavern up here, the Lutz, is now considered one of top hip bars in Portland. I mean this is where folks used to come to get drunk on pitchers blitz beer on week nights. Change. It truly is unstoppable. (Click on each photograph to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)
I recently moved back to Portland after a long period away. I am taking photographs of buildings I knew years ago and those I had never encountered. Here are a couple. They simply caught my fancy because of their design, color, and sense of place. (Click on each photograph to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)
When I was in Turkey in 2001, I travelled widely in Kurdish regions of eastern Turkey. It was tense then, and remains tense now. The Kurds are one of the victims of the Versailles Peace Treaty that ended World War I, and they were left without a homeland after the colonial powers carved up nation states in the Mideast. Kurds found themselves residents of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria, and to this day, issues associated with these decisions impact current events daily, if not hourly. This week, more than a 130,000 Kurds fled from Islamic extremists in Syria into Turkey, which has nearly 1 million Syrian refugees. The Kurds, who have fought a civil war against Turkey for years, now may find themselves to be Turkey’s best ally in the latest realignment of interests in this volatile region. What is true one day, may not be true the next day. The Kurds’ old saying remains, the Kurds’ only friends are the mountains. (Click on the photograph to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)
Hothouses growing crops for local and international markets were common sights on Turkey’s southern Mediterranean Coast. During my trip in 2001, I travelled the entirety of that coast by bus (loved it!), and had a chance to visit a hothouse by a bus stop. The workers reminded me a lot of the male laborers I saw in my home state of Washington. They were friendly, their clothes revealed the dirt and sweat of their hard labor, and they had pride in who they were. It is a reminder to always stop and just look around the corner and see what you may find. More pictures of my travels in Turkey can be found on my Turkey photo gallery. (Click on the photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)
What Beautiful Light 