Enigma in Monochrome

When I take the bus home from work, I sometimes take a route that passes this sign on a small outbuilding:

Why “UN 1971”? Why Helvetica? (The University uses a different font for most of its signage.) I can only presume it’s a coded tribute to U Thant, UN Secretary-General in 1971.

Aedes Musicae

Retroblogged from my LiveJournal post for 9 June 2011.

A friend of ours was playing an organ recital on June 6, and we decided that I’d go while my wife got the boys to bed. As those of you with kids know, it didn’t work as smoothly as we had hoped 😉 but our friend played well, we got to cheer him on, and I got a picture in the bargain. My dad bought me a book about architectural photography and I was using a suggestion therefrom while shooting. With my 35mm lens I was not able to cover the whole facade, nor did I have my tripod and level to manage convergence, but I could frame a detail such that the converging vertical lines contributed to the composition.

Photography is the art of finding order in chaos. I say “finding” rather than “creating,” because outside of the studio (I include staged location shots in “studio”), we can’t command things to present themselves the way we like. Instead, we look for the fleeting moments where the camera will freeze shifting forms into order before they disorganize again.