Tag Archives: black and white

Stronger and Stranger

Posted on by Bill Chance

“I think it is all a matter of love; the more you love a memory the stronger and stranger it becomes”
― Vladimir Nabokov

Deep Ellum Brewing Company, Dallas, Texas

Oblique Strategy – Imagine the piece as a set of disconnected events

I want to take more photos of people… and that is difficult for me. There is a high wooden bench, built into the wall, in the yard at Deep Ellum Brewing company. It is a great place to people-watch or to sit with a longer lens and shoot.

There was a family, with two young sons, out enjoying the beautiful fall Texas early afternoon. The two young boys were not very happy for a while – they looked tired and bored – cranky and on the verge of crying. Kids do that. Kids do that a lot.

I thought about shooting the pouty sad expressions – despite their misery, they were photogenic and the picture would have been funny. But they settled down quickly and this peaceful photo of one with their mother turned out to be the one I liked.

Like a bad memory I deleted the others. I think if we remembered all the tired, grumpy and frustrating times in our lives as clearly as we did the beautiful fall afternoons we wouldn’t be able to get out of bed in the morning.

Escape

Posted on by Bill Chance

“It isn’t running away they’re afraid of. We wouldn’t get far. It’s those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

The best advice… the only advice you really need, is to find the light first.

Your First… Your Worst

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.”
― Henri Cartier-Bresson

Half-Price Books, Dallas, Texas

Half-Price Books, Dallas, Texas

Simplicity, Patience, Compassion

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

New Orleans

The Unfathomable Mystery

Posted on by Bill Chance

“… that a warrior, aware of the unfathomable mystery that surrounds him and aware of his duty to try to unravel it, takes his rightful place among mysteries and regards himself as one. Consequently, for a warrior there is no end to the mystery of being, whether being means being a pebble, or an ant, or oneself. That is a warrior’s humbleness. One is equal to everything.”
― Carlos Castaneda, Eagle’s Gift

Dallas Museum of Art, Sightings:Mau-Thu Perret

An Unfortunate Tendency

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Getting to the top has an unfortunate tendency to persuade people that the system is OK after all.”
― Alain de Botton

PATHS by Steinunn Thórarinsdóttir at HALL Arts, Dallas, Texas

The Opinion of Sheep

Posted on by Bill Chance

“A lion doesn’t concern itself with the opinion of sheep.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

Fort Worth, Texas

Herding Cats

Posted on by Bill Chance

Parents were invented to make children happy by giving them something to ignore
—-Ogden Nash

Walkway on the levee, New Orleans

Walking Along the Levee

Posted on by Bill Chance

“One who knows the Mississippi will promptly aver—not aloud, but to himself—that ten thousand River Commissions, with the mines of the world at their back, cannot tame that lawless stream, cannot curb it or confine it, cannot say to it, Go here, or Go there, and make it obey; cannot save a shore which it has sentenced; cannot bar its path with an obstruction which it will not tear down, dance over, and laugh at.”
― Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi

Walking on the levee
New Orleans

Cyclist With Backpack on Royal

Posted on by Bill Chance

New Orleans – an Alternative

Pre-Katrina I biked around New Orleans many times. The city is pretty flat, which makes it easy on the knees. On one trip I discovered a bike path along the top of some of the earthen lebees. It was delightful; one could see the river on one side and the city spread out on the other.

Here there are few of the usual interstates that divide and wound cities. There’s mostly just I-10, on its massive concrete pilings, which snakes into the center of town, desperately trying to stay above most of the funk and humanity below. New Orleans was, and I suspect still is, one of a few large cities across the U.S.A. with character and personality, with its own food, culture, language, and music. It never fails to inspire, though it has clearly flourished despite much neglect and years of abuse that were revealed to the world when the hurricane struck.

I bike along Magazine Street and then on St. Charles where what at first glance appears to be Spanish moss in the trees turns out to be Mardi Gras beads, hanging from the weird branches, block after block – and it’s not even Mardi Gras season.
—- David Byrne, Bicycle Diaries

Royal Street, French Quarter, New Orleans