And Then There Are Mannequins

 

"Do we not each dream of dreams? Do we not dance on the notes of lost memories? Then are we not each dreamers of tomorrow and yesterday, since dreams play when time is askew? Are we not all adrift in a constant sea of trial and when all is done, do we not all yearn for ships to carry us home?"

 

~Nathan Reese Maher

 

I love mannequins. I especially love the happy ones. The ones in wedding gowns, and the ones that have smiles on their face, or the ones that have that silly laugh on their faces, as the ones in Berkeley did when I began photographing them all those years ago, but the ones I enjoy photographing the most, are the ones like this. The relatively stoic. The ones that seem to be looking to a far place beyond the window. Where are they looking? Am I supposed to look for the same view they see? Can I? And if I see what she's looking at, how will it change my view of things? Perhaps her view is worse than anything happening to me right now. But maybe her view is the answer to all unanswered questions. Sigh, or maybe she is just a mannequin... a really cool subject that inspires me.

Mannequin

Reno, Nevada

September 5th 2021

Nikon

~Me

Stockton, California

September 8th 2021

 

 

San Francisco... A City. With Windows.

"A photograph can communicate a couple things... sometimes only one thing... very well. The more you try to say with your photograph, the greater the chance that you will say nothing at all."

~David duChemin

Within The Frame: The Journey Of Photographic Vision

It was Black Friday yesterday, so Alan and I took our annual trip into San Francisco! We didn't quite make it to Union Square, but we did spend some time wandering the city, looking at the holiday windows throughout the city all decked out for the season. A couple of the windows really caught my eye because of their style and panache, so I spent some time photographing them.

Sometimes it's not the add on it's own that appeals to me, it's how it looks in a window, framed by the edges of glass, that touches the me in one way or another. Like the one above!

I spotted it in the window of Salon DNA on Sutter street. It was dark, so I did the best I could to capture it in an unusual light. As it turns out it was a  good light for the conveying how it felt to view it. It was very pleasing to the eye, and I might try it again in the daylight sometime, but for now, I am happy with how it came out. San Francisco has some fabulous windows, and they are amazing to photograph by day or by night! 

 Leaf Of The Day

November 26th 2016

Mood: Happy

~Me :)

Peeking Through The Window Of Someone Else's Life

"Telephone. N. An invention of the devil which abrogates some

 of the advantages of making a disagreeable

 person keep his distances."

~Ambrose Bierce

Telephone. Cell phone. Cell phone telephone. Saturday evening my phone rang. It was Private Number. Private number calls me from time to time. I usually screen my calls because it is one of the advantages of the modern age affords us. I like to let the person calling to leave me a message, so I know if the call back will be a fun time had by all, or if it's something I need to prepare for. It's something I learned to do when the invention of answering machines became the must have thing to have. I had a Phone-Mate, in imitation wood grain. I hated recording the prerecorded outgoing message. I never really thought it sounded like me. I sounded strange. Anyway, I learned to love the gadget, despite my off sounding voice, so much so, that I continue to screen calls to this day! Back to last evening. A call came in from Private Number at about 8:30 pm and boy did Private Number have something to say!

Actual Transcript

Private Number: He didn't say he was going to hurt himself.

Private Number's Companion (in the background): What are you doing? Get off the fucking phone!!(Loudly) It's my fucking problem and my family and you are just making it worse!!!!!

Private Number: (Speaking to companion) It's my house. And she is not fucking sending the cops here. FUCK YOU!

Private Number: Lady, you better not send the cops here, he didn't say he was going to hurt himself. I am not fucking around!!

CLICK.

Obviously, Private Number and her companion were not having a good evening! And while I didn't recognize the voices, and have no way to call them back and let them know they got the wrong number, I can't help but worry a tiny bit about the woman they meant to call. If she never got this call, and she did indeed call the police, will she ever be believed that she never got this call? Will anything bad come of it? Did I just hear the prequel to a crime? I have no way of knowing if they were calling my area code or not. They could have been anywhere! It's a spooky feeling, because I don't think Private Number was messing around! And what about companion? Is he okay right now? Have they all calmed down? It's sad. It reminds me of when I was a child and fights would break out between my parents. Holidays, and the time around holidays, really messes with folks. I wanted to call back and check on them, but as you know, you can't call back Private Numbers. They can call you, you can't call them. That's a strange system... don't you think? Anyway, by mistake someone I don't know connected with me, and brought their world into mine. It was a brief encounter, but a profound one.

I wish I knew the rest of the story.

Somehow I can't help but watch the news tonight.

Mood: Curious/Anxious

~Me

7 Ate 9

"I know there's a proverb which that says... 

To err is human, but a human error is nothing to what a computer can do if it tries."

~Agatha Christie

Hallowe'en Party

Okay, remember the other day when I told you that I will be getting a new cell phone soon, well that's true and it's only six days away now! I have it nailed down to one of the following three devices...

Samsung Galaxy S5

LG G3

HTC One M8 Featuring (Windows 8.1)

The last phone on the list has me intrigued, but I am going to be honest, overall I am NOT a fan of Windows 8.1. For me, it's an awkward operating system, and when it comes right down to things, the pretty of the build doesn't make up for the the stuff that just plain makes it a strange Internet ride. I have found a lot about it is unnecessary, like the stupid extra screen. What's that about? I mean I am sure folks who take the laptops to the movies, shopping, and the occasional romantic dinner like the extra step, but speaking as someone who can take days off from connecting to the web without imploding, I just find it annoying. I selected the Brooklyn Bridge as the face of that extra screen, in fact it's on all my Windows 7.1 devices, because, well, I know that if I should get frustrated enough to pitch my computer into a body of water one day, the Hudson River seems like it would be a lovely place to do so, especially in autumn. Everything is much lovelier in autumn!

Nah, I would never do that. But don't think the thought hasn't crossed my mind once in a while. I don't like Windows 8.1 the same way I don't like Window's Vista. Remember that gem of computer nonsense? Uh huh... don't feel bad if you don't, it's the operating system no one wants to remember. So we don't. Now when Microsoft came out with Window's 7, all was forgiven. Windows 7 was easy to make go with, it answered all the needs of Windows XP and it was much better thought through than Vista had been. Had Vista been what Microsoft promised it would be, that would have been awesome, instead it was... well... a turd. Well... a turd blossom. It was really pretty, I gotta give it that! Without the little search dog, and wizard, it seemed a little more grown up. That was a good thing, although I have to admit, I missed the doggie a bit. If only it could have been more grown up but keep a little of it's immature side, like the dog and wizard. But you can't pleasing everybody I guess.

Anyway, back to the phones. The HTC phone intrigues me because it is a great phone, above and beyond the Windows program, and I am familiar with the company. My current phone is the HTC Vivid. As I said before, it's the best camera I have ever owned, but as a phone it absolutely SUCKS. But the phone I had before the Vivid was the HTC Aria, which was an amazing little phone. It never gave me any trouble, it simply ran it's course, as all things will eventually. Still, HTC is promising to roll out the next generation of the M 9 later this year and will be getting a release date pretty soon. Just in time, I expect, for the debuts of other things that will be happening later this year, like the release of the Windows 10 operating system upgrade for PCs, and other devices.

You can upgrade to Windows 10 right now, if you sign up for their Beta program. It crossed my mind to do so, and I looked into it, decided to wait until the full version is ready to be rolled out. I did Beta testing for AOL some 15 years ago, and I learned a lot about computers, and how to fix minor things that go wrong, but I was testing on an older computer, and the whole project was really hard on the computer, and caused several crashes of my machine. That's how I leared about the ever important BACK UP thing. Live and Learn. Still, I am glad I did it then, but it's not for me now. So, we will see how things go, and in the autumn, when it's rumored to be released, I will probably give it a try on at least one device, but more than likely, not on my phone.

No, I think my new phone will definitely be an Android device. My Androids have been great. I am hoping whichever Android I choose, it will serve me well for at least 2 years, when my next contract will be up, and I will be ready to go through this all over again! Perhaps by then Windows 10 will be out long enough that all the bugs will be stamped out, and the phone will just behave like it should. At any rate, I will have had Windows 10 on my other devices long enough that I will know how to feel about it for myself, rather than having to go on some stranger's opinion. Do you know what's kinda strange though? Microsoft decided to call it's new operating system Window's 10, rather than Windows 9. I guess it's kind of understandable though, much in the same way Microsoft didn't want us to think about Vista when they rolled out Windows 7, they probably don't want us to think about Windows 8.1 either so they decided to just skip over 9 and go straight to 10 to make us believe that there is nothing attached to Windows 10 that resembles Windows 8.1. . Although from what I have seen, it combines the best of 7 and 8, at least regarding the Start menu. And I can live with that.

I Guess Windows 7 Ate Windows 9. :)

 :)

As for my new phone, I will keep you posted.

Mood: Hopeful
~Me :)

Windows 10 Preview ( Microsoft )

Windows 10 Ambitious But Realistic ( PC Magazine )

It May Just Be Everything Windows 8 Should Have Been ( CNET )

This Might Take A Few Minutes (A Windows 8.1 Preview Review)

"Technology offers us a unique opportunity, though rarely welcome, to practice patience."

~Allen Lokos, Patience: The Art Of Peaceful Living

 

Patience you say? Patience. Well, if you are like me, and you had NO real choice but to suffer through that laughable, embarrassing, magnificently stupid operating system that was known as Microsoft Vista, than you know a little something extra about patience. How Vista was ever released as a legitimate OS by Microsoft is beyond me. While visually it was stunning, and was for the most part user friendly, when it was irritating... it was really irritating. It didn't matter that it was attractive, it was still crappy. Choppy performance, in a brand new computer is unacceptable even if the computer is the equivalent of the Playboy Playmate Of The Year. Vista was slow, and it's security unstable despite constantly running the defragment tool.

Shall we talk about the drivers constantly going out? Seriously, a display driver going out after a year? And when you see through different user forums that it's not just you, it's not a huge help. I payed a lot for my H.P. computer that was running Vista. I didn't have the money to have the computer fixed, but unfortunately I had no choice as most of our life is now run from our home computer. Paying bills. Blogging. Storing digital photos, you name it, it exists through our computer. So, in that there was no way to fix the Vista, we gave it a proper burial, and purchased our next computer, a Gateway, that ran the lovely, brand new at the time, Windows 7. Lovely, uncomplicated, still visually attractive, Windows 7.

 

I like Windows 7. It was everything Windows Vista should have been... and more. It is easy to work. It has all the buzz and whistles I want in a PC, although I was disappointed that Microsoft stopped including the full version Microsoft Office free of charge. That's a let down. But after having run Windows Vista, it was nice to be able to turn off my computer at night, with full confidence that when I fired up my computer the next morning, it would not only actually boot, but perform as expected. Sigh. I like Windows 7, so when I was offered a discounted upgrade last autumn to Windows 8, on my newest computer purchased last summer, I passed because literally, if nothing is broke... why fix it?

My thinking changed somewhat last February, when I purchased my darling new little Toshiba laptop. It's a great little laptop, which is probably best described as a "mom laptop." For a budget computer, it is pretty darn nifty, and does everything I need it to.A great computer, at a great price, with a new OS. Okay, so why not? Let's try something new, while I still have Windows 7 to lean back on? I am happy... except for the fact it came loaded with Windows 8. It wasn't that I didn't want to learn the new OS, I embrace learning new things, but from the get go Windows 8 was absolutely perplexing. If you read my blog regularly, you already know my thoughts, but just briefly here I can sum the whole situation up with... WHERE IN THE HELL IS THE START BUTTON?



Okay, perplexing but I didn't give up and I learned my way around the radically new Windows 8, and here I am to tell the tale. But even after I finally worked out all my bugaboos, it was still bugging me that Windows did away with the one thing seemed to hold it all together... the Start Button. But again I made my peace with it. Still, when I heard that my mourning over the beloved button wasn't just me being impatient, a lot of others missed it as well, I felt a little bit better. And I felt better still with the rumor that perhaps Microsoft would be doing a fix which included bringing back that beloved of all buttons everywhere.

The official 8.1 Preview download came out on Wednesday, and I downloaded it Thursday. After 24 hours I am a happy girl. Microsoft did indeed put back a new version of the Start Button and booting straight to the desktop is back once again. One less hoop to jump through will always be a good thing... right? Plus there has been some adjustments to the app tiles that makes customization easier, so again, it's a good thing. I am still playing with the customization of the Lock Screen a bit, and I HATE that it's mandatory that I have a Microsoft account, but those are really little things that I am used to now, but seriously Microsoft... it's irritating to be given no choice. You know? That's a lame approach. Please consider doing away with that. Please.



Over all... so far so good. Time will tell, and so will sales. I think I am already looking forward to Windows 9. If I don't miss my guess here... Windows 9 will be everything Windows 8 wasn't. But all I can do is cross my fingers and hope. If you haven't made the big step to Windows 8 yet... don't... wait a year or so and get the slimmed down, smarter, less neurotic version. Wait for it. Trust me. But if you do make the big leap, don't let the new system throw you, if I can figure it out, anyone can! Of this, I am 100% sure!

Do some research...

Top 10 Reasons People Hate Windows Vista

Criticism Of Windows Vista

4 Major Differences Between Windows Vista And 7

Windows 8

Windows 8 vs Windows 7: 8 Ways It's Different

Microsoft Launches Windows 8.1 Preview

Mood: Hopeful

~Me :)

A Photo A Day For 6 Months: Day 165~ The Windows Of San Francisco

"Art is the window to man's soul. Without it, he would never be able to see beyond his immediate world; nor could the world see the man within."

~Claudia Lady Bird Johnson

The windows of San Francisco never disappoint me. There is something interesting to see in every neighborhood. The windows bring about all kinds of emotion and they make me think about things on a different level than conversation does. It's a quiet conversation between myself and the person behind the window. Opinions, wishes, observations, political statements and dreams shared, and all I am required to do as the observer is to allow myself to consider how I feel about it. I hate it when I ask someone who has just spoken with passion about an issue why they feel the way they do, and I get a lazy "I don't know"or "Just because" as an response. Path of least resistance? Indifference? Fear of sharing one's decision making process? Whatever! You can't make someone have the courage of their own convictions sometimes, but with window statements, you know what the statement is, and the reasoning behind it.

Here is what I am seeing in the windows in the last several months. I have shared some of these before, some are very recent, all challenged my opinions in some way.

The Windows Of San Francisco...

Don't you hate it when Christmas decorations begin being displayed before Halloween? And yet seeing the "Major Award" won by the father in A Christmas Story warmed my heart. Christmas in October is sometimes a good thing methinks.



LOL. Now I have seen everything... a Count Dracula blow up doll! Kinky! And cute!



I stopped by a little honey shop on 20th Street that I spotted when Woody Allen was filming up the street in August. While walking to the shop I spotted this lady in a window. Isn't she stylish? She faces the building that the movie was being filmed in, I think she's awesome. Maybe she can star in Woody's next film. LOL.



This window is one of my all time favorites. A classic thoughtful question. Rarely answered. Too bad because it's a legitimate question.




:) I am going to keep looking at windows, and thinking about their messages. It's good to challenge my own opinions from time to time. It's called growth. :)

~Me

I have this friend named JR, he is an awesome photographer. Go see for yourself. :)

JR
http://jrclinephotography.blogspot.com/2012/10/apadf6-163.html

A Photo A Day For 6 Months: Day 112~ The Watcher On 16th

"The strangest experiences in life are apt to lose effect if dwelt upon long enough."

~A. M. Burrage

Don't you just love looking into the eyes of big cities? If eyes are the windows to the soul, then wouldn't windows be the eyes of a city... right?

I love looking at eyes, and windows. You see the most wonderful, unusual things. One day, someone looks at an object and that object resonates with them in some way. Soon, that someone decides to place the object in a window, facing out into the world, and those who see it may feel the exact same emotion or think the exact same thought, and suddenly it is shared with the world. Good, bad or otherwise... there it is.

So, what do you think the owner of that handsome head was thinking?

:)

~Me :)

Today's Link...

JR
http://jrclinephotography.blogspot.com/2012/08/apadf6-110.html

Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot #11: Windows

"Our senses are indeed our doors and windows on this world, in a very real sense the key to unlocking of meaning and the wellspring of creativity."

-Jean Houston NOW CLOSED!

EMPS #11: WINDOWS.
Windows. We look out of windows hoping to see something interesting. We look into windows hoping to see something interesting, although we have to be careful how interesting that something might be! LOL. We decorate windows inside and out with lights, and drapes, and shutters, and mannequins and flower boxes and political signs. We call the eyes "the windows of our soul." Some of us use the Windows operating system on our computers. Windows almost always need washing. Sometimes we get food from a drive-thru window. We roll down the windows in our cars to let the wind blow through our hair. Sometimes, it is a good thing to have a, "window of opportunity" to act on. We all have windows in our lives, so, for this week's photo shoot assignment, let's photograph them. :)

Extra Credit: Show me your world through your car window!

As always, you have until next Sunday evening at 9:00 PM Eastern time to submit your EMPS entry. All you have to do is post it to your blog or journal, and comeback here with the direct link to your EMPS entry. Please do not leave a general link to your blog, the link you leave must be specific to your entry.

Linking List for EMPS #10: Feet. 11/03/08

NOW CLOSED!

Judi shows us some beautiful feet, in some beautiful brown shoes. LOVELY!

Jama photographed the feet of her favorite niece, in her favorite shoes. :)

Karen shares the paws of her dog, the feet of her barbies and her feet next to her favorite shoes. A nice group of pictures to fit the theme! :)

Laura shows off some FABULOUS purple pumps, and her feet in them! GORGEOUS!

Connie, and her pal Chance, show us paws that don't need shoes, and feet that do, in boots! Brrrr... it's getting cold out there! :)

Martha photographed her feet, and the feet of others, in black & white! Very Arsty!

I really enjoyed seeing all those feet & paws! Good job everyone! :)

Ok, Go Be Photographers. Go Get The Photo. I will see you in one week, with a new assignment, and the links to all your WINDOWS!

-Carly