Embarcadero and Ferry Building

[photo] Embarcadero
[photo] Ferry Building Roof
[photo] Ferry Building

Late Bloomers… there is still hope

On the road to great achievement, the late bloomer will resemble a failure: while the late bloomer is revising and despairing and changing course and slashing canvases to ribbons after months or years, what he or she produces will look like the kind of thing produced by the artist who will never bloom at all.

Prodigies are easy. They advertise their genius from the get-go. Late bloomers are hard. They require forbearance and blind faith. Whenever we find a late bloomer, we can’t but wonder how many others like him or her we have thwarted because we prematurely judged their talents. But we also have to accept that there’s nothing we can do about it. How can we ever know which of the failures will end up blooming?

Late Bloomers by Malcom Gladwell
Why do we equate genius with precocity?

San Francisco Federal Building

[photo] San Francisco Federal Building
[photo] San Francisco Federal Building

Memorial Day

I took a Memorial Day photo excursion to the Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno. I wanted to use my new Flip video camera, so my initial idea was recording a video of a flag waving in the wind. I ended up recording the following video which I like better; I was trying to think of a way to capture the size of the cemetery. Music is by John Ames.

Oliver Arnott Olsen Albert Joseph Wulff Virgil D Kelley

A historic document in the annals of Maya’s Mom


Original Message from Ann on LinkedIn

WordPress vs. Tumblr

Tumblr is a new blogging platform which focuses on simple, quick blogging called tumblelogs. A tumblelog is a blog of very short posts, maybe just a photo, link or quote; a slightly richer form of Twitter.

The Tumblr service has an elegant design focusing on simplicity. I was impressed with it and for a few days switched my mkaz.com blog over. However, after just a few posts I found the simplicity a little stifling and I wanted to be able to do a few other things, such as align photos, use categories and an organized archive.

So I switched back to WordPress, I updated to 2.5.1 and using a new theme. It really is the best platform, providing the most flexibility, especially if you know a little PHP.

Nascent Sexuality Polaroid Study


Nascent Sexuality Polaroid Study is a photography project by Igor documenting his early sex life, or lack thereof, growing up in Alexandria.

The project uses Google Maps where each map point has a Polaroid and a description of why that photo location is important. The map points are listed in chronological order and should be read in that order.

Nascent Sexuality Map [Google Map]

You can also view the flickr gallery of photos from the project.

Lens Of Vision and Expression


I came across Sam’s photos on flickr and was real impressed with her project. Sam is an art teacher who spent six weeks in Nicaragua teaching photography to underprivileged kids. She published the children’s work in an online gallery on Flickr, even without the story, it is some great photography. See the Nicaragua photo gallery.

Sam is now working on creating the non-profit Lens Of Vision and Expression (LOVE) to continue working with children and helping their voices be heard through photography. You can help LOVE here.

Photo by Student Photographer: Farah

The Neuroscience of Meditation and Attention

The neuroscience of meditation - focusing on how the contemplative practice alters and sharpens the brain’s attention systems. Meditation is now being quite extensively studied by cognitive science owing to the clear effects it has on the brain, and on the increasing evidence for its benefit in mental health.

From: The Neuroscience of Meditation and Attention [MindHacks.com]

photophlow

photophlow

Photophlow is a pretty cool new way to interact with photos and people. It ties into Flickr and allows you to view photos simultaneously with other users and chat in real-time about them. You can select a photo and everyone in the chat room sees the photo and can comment on it.

If you like talking about photos, check it out. They also have a Live Photo Critique Room.
Here’s an example of the UI, click for video tour:

photophlow interface

What other people are saying about Photophlow:

Let me know if you need an invite, I have a few to give.
Disclosure: I am an angel investor in photophlow