I never understand why they don’t just turn the camera around take a photo of the thing in the front of them. But there are a lot of things I’ll never understand in this life:

Here goes:
So I’ve been thinking lately (I do that sometimes) that photography is really a skill. One time I took a portfolio of my photos to an art gallery and a guy told me that almost everyone can take a good photos these days and that will a high resolution camera, a person could take a really nice quality photograph of a sunset. I nearly threw my portfolio at his head. He hadn’t even bothered to look at my photos.

Well, either way, I guess photographing sunsets is easy. The internet is full of those kinds of photos that have this coldness about them. Who are the people in those places? Where do they come from? Photographing pretty things is easy. Sure, as that guy in the gallery said. But that’s not what I’m try to do.

I wondered when I started taking photos if what I photographed was pretty and that’s why people said I took good photos or if my photos were actually good. Back then I concentrated just on getting a good angle on a beautiful place or seen. Now when I photograph a place that is actually beautiful, it is kind of weird. The place is doing all the work for me. What am I supposed to do there?

But throw some humans into the mix and it gets interesting. Places can’t talk. Places can’t change position. But human, well, they do all of those things and then some. And you gotta get those humans in an interesting situation and so they look good. I guess this is where photographic skill actually comes in.

Case in point the next photos:

This is a figure drawing class they hold at the Museum of Fine Arts on Wednesday night. It was also one of the most amazing things I had ever seen, not like Bill Cunningham or Rufus amazing, but amazing in the way that suddenly that static art was full of life. Those people filled the space with life but they also blended into the background.

And that woman with the posing, oh my god. First, I got in there and she was posing. It looked so interesting. I love movement, interesting shapes and then in that art gallery? WOW. I needed to capture that right away, immediately before it was totally gone!!!! I shot, I moved, I reshot and then she goes “NO PHOTOS.” She was pretty serious so I stopped, but then I went nuts trying to figure out the proper crop for her photo. That took a long time. And the treatment. But I like the result. Either way. Photographic skill. For what its worth.

I nearly committed a wanton act of thievery today.

Ok, ok, let’s go back. This morning I visited the MIT museum, which has a 3D printing lab. The lab is open from 10 to 12 am everyday and since I’m usually in the museum after that, I never actually knew that the lab was there. Today I got to visit.

The 3D printing lab is like Santa’s workshop, if Santa Claus were Sheldon Cooper. There was a Sheldon-like character explaining how the printers work and how long it takes to 3D print something. Actually the “real” Sheldon would be offended by being demoted to being a mere engineer, as he is a theoretical physicist. But anyway, the lab was interesting.

Fun fun fun, blah blah blah UNTIL I SPOTTED THIS:

I know, it looks so small and unassuming right there, but it is in fact a 3D printed model of the Grumpy cat. For all of my reading public unfamiliar with that cultural phenomenon, let me show you a sample of the genius that is that cat:

A dear friend of mine introduced me to this charming cat and even made me this genius birthday card that proudly hangs on my fridge. The card features the cat with the inscription “Its my birthday and I don’t care BECAUSE I HAVE A PAPER TO FINISH.” Grumpy and realistic. My sort of thing.

But as you will notice, the 3D printed cat figurine is so detailed and well painted. It outdoes the actual cat by a mile, so hence the talk of boosting and thievery. I very nearly boosted the thing. I asked the Sheldon on duty how much the cat actually cost and Sheldon told me, in no uncertain terms, that the cat was not for sale.

I will just have to ENGINEER a way to boost it or nick it. Just kidding MIT!!!! But it is a wonderful figure and I wish Makerbot or somebody sold it!!!!

Sure yeah, lately my camera has been lucky enough to be pointed at some real grandees. I mean yeah, the governor of the great state of Massachusetts, my grumps and of course, be-thonged man who drew so much traffic over to this site.

But there are celebrities and then there are celebrities. Two celebrities that I have pointed my camera at over the years, I have considered above all to be my favorite. First was Rufus, the Westminster Kennel Club dog show champion that had all the poise of a celebrity and then some during our meeting and then promptly fell asleep when the meeting was over. Sleep well my beautiful friend.

Second is Bill Cunningham. Yes, I’ve written about this man up here multiple times and I’ve met and photographed him multiple times. I’ve even got a photo of him in my foyer that greet me when I enter my apartment. A photo of people dressed as bowling pins and Bill Cunningham.

I think I worshipped Bill Cunningham even before I knew who he was. My parents always read the New York Times and I always looked at the pages about what people were wearing and I always wanted to see how people dressed and how I could be more like them. Bill always wears the same blue smock and now I guess I always wear the same thing too, so I guess I’ve adopted some of Bill’s dressing habits as well.

Imagine my surprise when I was walking to South Station on Friday and in front of South Station stood my idol, Bill Cunningham. I must have been tired so I struck up a conversation with him. We even talked about how he had grown up in Boston and I nearly started chattering on and on about how the Big Dig had transformed the area around South Station into the Greenway and how wonderful it all was, but I didn’t. He was exceedingly friendly. In our other meetings, he seemed very focused on his work, but this time he was very pleasant. Just a man on a mission, I guess. Either way, nice to see you again, Mr. Cunningham, journeying from my hometown to your hometown:

Summer is quickly drawing to a close, so I must be farewell to my beloved grumps. Every year for the past couple of years, I’ve been able to visit the penguins at the New England Aquarium in the summer. This is really something I look forward to. The penguins have their own kind of goofy appeal and they are usually grumpy, which adds to their appeal.

The summer is swiftly drawing to a close, so I must bid you farewell, dear grumps. Till we meet again!!!

A one eyed weird looking green monster is named Mike Wazowski. For the record, Polish people have two eyes, are not green, are over three feet tall and don’t scare children in the night. Well, that last part might not be true.

I grew up going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I guess it was kind of like my second home growing up. Now that sounds painfully pretentious, but what I mean is that my parents took me there a lot because we lived in New York and it was nearly free to go there. As a kid, I’d be the first to admit that I really disliked going to museums. I didn’t understand why we had to go. I do however remember feeling like I wanted to make the art I had seen on the walls when I got home. I have no aptitude for drawing or painting and I frequently think that the reason I picked up a camera was because of that. When I discovered that you could take photos in museums and that a lot of them could turn out well, I started to like museums.

The Museum of Fine Arts is a great place to look at art but also to photograph the rooms. I’ve lost count of how many times I have visited. It has to be over a hundred times by now, but somehow I never get bored there. I always have another group of people to take and of course, more photos to take. I got a super wide angle lens, 10 to 18mm recently and that has to be one of the best pieces of photographic machinery I have ever owned. It distorts the picture in this weird way that I love and it allows you to throw curves into the photos as well. Let’s see how I did today with my trusty wide angle, shall we?

I was in the aquarium today when I turned around and it looked as though the entire sky was going to cave in on the building, the people and the state of Massachusetts itself. People around me were screaming, but I knew that this vast electrical rain display with its accompanying hail was going to be over in about 20 minutes. I did tell one of my young charges to stay put because there was a chance she might be struck by lightening.

Well, anyway, no, I did not write the words at the beginning. They are from one of my favorite movies, A Room With A View. In case you haven’t read the classic novel by E.M. Forrester or watched the beautiful 1986 adaptation by Merchant Ivory, it is the story of young Lucy Honeychurch and her trip to Florence with the Dowager Countess Grantham, I mean Mrs. McGonagall, I mean Aunt Charlotte. Oh but wouldn’t a trip with a Dowager Countess of Grantham, going through Florence and Venice and Rome be the most excellent thing EVER??? Well, alas, Aunt Charlotte chaperones young Lucy through Florence, where she meets the blond and brooding George Emerson, played by the dangerously handsome Julian Sands. Lucy is from an aristocratic background, whilst George is not.

In one wonderful scene, Lucy goes to the Italian countryside to visit and sit and be really British. George kisses Lucy, but the Dowager Countess interrupts them. Then, they get into carriages and there is this terrific rainstorm and the reverend who is with them (there is always a reverend in these stories) says “do you think that this vast electrical display is on account of us?” to calm everyone’s nerves that God or whatever deity that might control the weather did not in fact plan it so they would all get zapped on their way back to Florence.

I stayed inside during the vast electrical display and luckily did not get zapped on the way back to Park Street. But I got some good photos….

The vast electrical display lasted all of one hour and after, after you get these amazing sky shots:

I keep almost writing “naked man” but he was only mostly naked. Kind of like Wesley at the end of Princess Bride when Miracle Max brings him back to life. Just mostly dead… But somewhat alive. Anyway, so this will be the last work on the mostly naked guy who was classing up the joint up here for a couple of days. I learned from my good friends over at Universal Hub that the man on this blog with his dancing and the high heels was violating the law and was about to be hauled off by the police because his thong was smaller than the allowable size for a publicly worn thong. The law in Massachusetts, I learned, dictates that a thong be one inch in size and my mostly naked man, as you all saw from the entry, was way below a half an inch.

Well, anyway, that’s all I’m going to say about for a while. Until I photograph another mostly unclothed fruit loop. Until then, let’s busy ourselves with some sand related matters. Awkward transition!!!!

In all the naked man related madness, I forgot to post my photos from the Revere Sand Sculpting Festival that happened last weekend. The sand sculptures get bigger and greater every year and that makes the festival that much more enjoyable. Its one of the things that make the already great Boston summer yet better.

(Everyone in this entry is clothed)
Sand sculptures!!!!