Harlem Glow

Harlem Glow
Originally uploaded by Zanalee

They were standing outside of the Starbucks on the corner of 125th and Lex. I saw them as soon as I emerged from the train station. They were handing out cards to a Queen Afua event at the National Black Theater. For those who don't know, Queen Afua is a renowned Black herbalist, healer, writer, among other things who I have been acquainted with through my mother for many years.

I rarely ever ask people if I can take pictures of them but these three ladies just looked so beautiful I had to! I mean they just glow! The best advertisement for healthy living ever. : )

Happy Easter!

P042411PS-0115
Originally uploaded by The White House

My favorite First Family giving praise.
: )

Arielle's

She was sitting in the far right corner of the restaurant near the exit. I couldn’t really see her because she was too far away. She was sitting with a gentleman and every so often would trade remarks with the large party sitting in the center of the small space to our left just over Fran’s shoulder. When the man she was with got up to use the restroom, she began to put on this bright yellow jacket. She eased it on steadily and it drew my attention to her. She appeared to be looking right at me suddenly and her lips were moving as if she was talking to me. I couldn’t hear a thing but I could see her eyes and I smiled at her.

In a matter of seconds, she had gotten up and walked right over to me. Now pulling her yellow jacket on completely and standing before me, she bent over a bit to look me right in the face. She was an old white woman in her late 60s maybe, tall, slim and with just the best British accent and Anglophile could hope for. She looked at me with an unexpected and non-invasive gentleness and told me that I reminded her of a school mate she knew in London about fifty years ago, a woman from Nigeria who she said was very beautiful and whom she had lost touch with and never seen again. She said that looking at me was like seeing her again fifty years back in time. I was so touched that I could barely do anything but just look at her and that yellow jacket beaming at me. I asked her how the woman’s name was spelled and she told me. I know how it feels to be thinking of someone that you have no way of reaching or of even knowing if they are still around or not. I could tell she really loved this woman. She said she just wanted to tell me that and when I found my voice I said something or other I can’t remember, something in the way of thanking her for the compliment. When the man, who I imagine was her husband, came back, it was like watching this perfectly coupled unit. All of their movements together, her helping him with his coat, them puttering around looking for her umbrella which Fran and I spotted under a table next to theirs had clearly been done countless times.But never before at Arielle’s while Fran and I looked on, as it drizzled lightly out on the street in Rhinebeck.

We are violent

"We are violent. That is a fact. We get angry, we conform, we imitate, we follow, we are aggressive-and aggression takes many forms, the polite, gentle aggresiveness, with a kids glove, persuading you through affection. That is a particular form of violence. Compelling you to think along a patricular line, that is violence. Violence is very, very complex and to understand it, to go into the very depths, one must see the fact first and not just affirm 'We should be non-violent.'

There is only that which is, which is violence. Non-violence is non-fact, not a reality, it is a projection of thought in order to escape from, or to accept violence and pretend that we are becoming non-violent. So can we look at violence free from all that, free from escape, free from ideals, from suppression and actually observe what violence is?"

J. Krishnamurti
"The Flame of Attention"

My Nikon is Gone...

Left to right, Nikon Coolpix, Lumix 12x, Nikon D40. The difference is clear, to me anyway.

 

 

...for two to three weeks. It's in the shop because of some asinine fracking shutter release error that doesn't allow me to take a picture. I had to hold back tears when the guy at Cameraland told me two to three weeks instead of two to three days. That's going to feel like an eternity to me. And while that time goes by and I'm taking sub par photos with my lame (I'm sorry Lumix) point and shoot, I'll be trying hard not to think of all the control over light, shadow and exposure (oh god) that I'll be missing every second of the day. *SIGH*

Sunday Shitty Sunday

ALL THE BLACK PEOPLE!

dance_to_the_music_part_4_by_al_tele
Originally uploaded by al_tele

I think i may have just found all the black people on flickr! And I am beyond happy. Athough, looking through all the amazing photos of black people on flickr sets "blackpeople" and "Negrophile" my next thought goes to wondering what percentage of the photographers themselves are actually black.

What does this matter you ask? Well it matters to me. I like to feel like I'm a part of a group of like minded artists on flickr but I've been missing some darker skinned people in that world. I miss seeing them. And damn they are beautiful!

But it's an interesting thought. How do race politics play a part in the result or product of a picture? Is there a difference if the people behind and/or in front of the camera are of the same race or different races? I have never really thought about it until this very moment and somehow it's taken seed in me as something I will need to explore more extensively in the very near future. Omigosh, I really like this idea.

A LOT!!!

...and now I'm off to get lost in images of Black people.