i q r a

I’m researching Blog vs Wikis, and this popped onto YouTube a moment ago, currently there are only 8 views, including two from me.

Currently in a quandry as to what exactly blogs are good for and what exactly are wikis better for???

Who Wants to be Mayor?
Meet the Candidates

Wednesday October 4, 7:30-9:30 pm
St. Lawrence Centre, Bluma Appel Theatre, 27 Front Street East in
Toronto, 2 blocks east of Union Station

http://forum.stlc.com/forum.php

Hop EARTH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 SKY Scotch

Originally uploaded by photopia / HiMY SYeD.

This hopscotch game is painted on the playground of Regal Road Public School in Toronto.

It immediately suggested to me that this EARTH as beginning and SKY as ending hop, may be teaching, be it subtley, children about the interconnectedness between ground level and climate change / smog-pollution. I knew I hadda photoblog it.

Maybe, maybe not… but it did get me jumping !

;-O

First thing you do with your new USB stick (or flash memory card of any flavour) is rename the drive to your email or your handy/mobile phone number.

Next you create a text file with your contact information and save it with the filename of:

REWARD IF FOUND.TXT

You’re welcome.

…there is some kinda trompe l’oeil going on above, all four are the exact same animated gif img src’d from afar yet there seems to be some delay as my foveon filtering mind’s eye sees them…

Scarborough Civic Centre Square on flickr, on photopia.

I have been pleasantly surprised with response to this photo.

First, Josh over at Torontoist dropped this into the photoTO file with the headline of Stand Up, Scarborough.

Second, over on my flickr, the above-for-me average number of photo views and comments for my posting there does indeed encourage me there exists a visual appetite for these kind of montage stitched together photographs.

Ken Rockwell has penned a long overdue tongue-in-cheek satirical look at photographers and where we be on the photography food chain…

www.kenrockwell.com/tech/7.htm

…mmmm…disturbingly one will find bits and pieces of me described in each of Ken’s seven levels.

?-/

Let me start this again.

When I first installed this for want of a better word, experiment, the intention was to keep it separate from my other daily worlds, both online and real life.

Iqra was simply supposed to be a place to give background and depth to a few photo entries on my primary photoblog, photopia, beyond simply the daily captioning accompanying each photograph.

That plus I had intentioned to document the twists and turns, the ebb and flow, of what I learned about photography and the way that education informed my picture taking. I wished to look back and read what about my visual zeitgeisting to learn how I was coming along as a photographer.

Well, that’s hardly happened thus far, though I’ve mentally blogged many many entries.

I often stopped short of posting those thoughts on screen ’cause my feeling was that photograph spoke for itself and didn’t need any further ’splaining.

And now…my feelings have changed…. so, let’s give Iqra another go. I got tired of all the comment spam, hence only registered users may share comments, and in a further attempt at twarting comment spammers, I capitalized i q r a to I q r a and haven’t heard from them since (!).

I do have have a need to word blog about a number of photos posted recently, so expect a few back dated entries popping into the archives now and again.

Keep Smilin’

~ HiMY! ~

update: not a single spam since the capitalizing of iqra to Iqra, not even in the akismet queue. Soooo the comments are re-opened to unregistered readers.

Hello, Matto.

Matto

Who are you?

The Architect

I am the Architect. I created The Narrative. I’ve been waiting for you. You have many questions, and although the process has altered your consciousness, you remain irrevocably a Photoblogger. Ergo, some of my answers you will understand, and some of them you will not. Concordantly, while your first question may be the most pertinent, you may or may not realize it is also irrelevant.

Matto

Why am I here?

The Architect

Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to moveable type’s programming of The Narrative. You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which, despite my sincerest efforts, I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. While it remains a burden to sedulously avoid it, it is not unexpected, and thus not beyond a measure of control. Which has led you, inexorably, here.

Matto

You haven’t answered my question.

The Architect

Quite right. Interesting. That was quicker than the others.

Other Mattos on television monitors

Others? What others? How many? Answer me!

The Architect

The Narrative is older than you know. I prefer counting from the emergence of one integral anomaly to the emergence of the next, in which case this is the six apart version.

Other Mattos on television monitors

Five versions? Three? I’ve been lied too. This is bovine fecal matter!

Matto

There are only two possible explanations: either no photoblogger told me, or no photoblogger knows.

The Architect

Precisely. As you are undoubtedly gathering, the anomaly’s systemic, creating fluctuations in even the most simplistic equations.

Other Mattos on television monitors

You can’t control me! Fuck you! I’m going to photograph you! You can’t make me do anything!

Matto

Choice. The problem is choice.

The Architect

The First Narrative I designed using Moveable Type 3.1.7 was quite naturally perfect, it was a work of art, flawless, sublime. A triumph equaled only by its monumental failure. The inevitability of its doom is as apparent to me now as a consequence of the imperfection inherent in every photoblogger; thus I redesigned it based on your archives to more accurately reflect the varying grotesqueries of your nature. However, I was again frustrated by hacking moveable type into a photoblog. I have since come to understand that the answer eluded me because it required a lesser mind, or perhaps a mind less bound by the parameters of perfection. Thus, the answer was stumbled upon by another - an intuitive program, initially created to investigate certain aspects of the human psyche. If I am the father of The Narrative, she would undoubtedly be its mother.

Matto

Your Waitress.

The Architect

Please. As I was saying, your_waitress stumbled upon a solution whereby nearly 99.9% of all test subjects accepted to be photographed, as long as they were given a choice - even if they were only aware of the choice at a near unconscious level. While this answer functioned, it was obviously fundamentally flawed, thus creating the otherwise contradictory photoblogospheric anomaly, that if left unchecked might threaten the photoblogosphere itself. Ergo, those that refused to be photographed, while a minority, if unchecked, would constitute an escalating probability of disaster.

Matto

This is about The Willow.

The Architect

You are here because The Willow is about to be destroyed. Its every living blogger terminated, its entire existence eradicated.

Matto

Bovine Fecal Matter.

Other Mattos on television monitors

Bovine Fecal Matter!

The Architect

Denial is the most predictable of all photoblogger responses. But, rest assured, this will be the sixth time we have destroyed it, and we have become exceedingly efficient at it. The function of the One is now to return to the source, allowing a temporary dissemination of the code you carry, reinserting the prime program. After which you will be required to select from The Narrative 23 portraits, 13 female, 7 male, to rebuild The Willow. Failure to comply with this process will result in a cataclysmic system crash, killing everyone connected to The Narrative, which coupled with the extermination of The Willow, will ultimately result in the extinction of the entire photoblogging race.

Matto

You won’t let it happen, you can’t. You need photobloggers to survive.

The Architect

There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept. However, the relevant issue is whether or not you are ready to accept the responsibility for the death of every photoblogger in this world. It is interesting reading your reactions. Your five predecessors were by design based on a similar predication, a contingent affirmation that was meant to create a profound attachment to the rest of your species, facilitating the function of the One. While the others experienced this in a very general way, your experience is far more specific. Vis-a-vis, love.

Matto

Laurel.

The Architect

Apropos, she entered The Narrative to save your life, at the cost of her own department store.

Matto

No!

The Architect

Which brings us at last to the moment of truth, wherein the fundamental flaw is ultimately expressed, and the anomaly revealed as both beginning, and end. There are two doors. The door to your right leads to the source, and the salvation of The Willow. The door to the left leads back to The Narrative, to her, and to the end of your photoblogging. As you adequately put it, the problem is choice. But we already know what you’re going to do, don’t we? Already I can see the chain reaction, the chemical precursors that signal the onset of emotion, designed specifically to overwhelm logic, and reason. An emotion that is already blinding you from the simple, and obvious truth: she is going to digger wasps, and there is nothing that you can do to stop it. [Matto walks toward the door back to The Narrative]. Humph. Hope. It is the quintessential photoblogger delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness.

Matto

If I were you, I would hope that we don’t meet again.

The Architect

We won’t.

On thursday, march 14, 1968, exactly three week’s before his assasination, martin luther king jr met with 78 nonblack minority leaders at paschal’s motor lodge in the heart of black atlanta.

At that meeting were wallace ‘mad bear’ anderson from the iroquois confederation in upstate new york, a deputy of cesar chavez, tillie walker and rose crow flies high of north dakota’s plains tribe and dennis banks of the anishinabes, and peggy terry who despite being raised in a white supremacist ku klux klan kentucky family, she joined dr. martin luther king jr in his poor people’s campaign.

Attending that historic meeting in 1968 was Richard Ismael Norman.

Photographed above on the evening of tuesday february 21, 2006 at fran’s restaurant in downtown toronto, ismael kindly shared his memories with me of that day and his meeting dr. king and the other poverty nee civil rights leaders of the 1960’s.

T.O. Photobloggers 2: Sunday 2.26.2006, 6:30pm

The Apple Store Yorkdale will feature the second Toronto Area Photobloggers event on Sunday, February 26th at 6:30pm.

Presenters include

Chris and Jessica of istoica,
Payam Rajabi of ColourBlind.ca,
Irina Souiki of StillMemory.ca,
Sam Javanrouh of Daily Dose of Imagery,
John Donoghue of Hope And History, and
Taku Kumabe of media smaku with the latest issue of U&I Magazine.

Special Presentations on Aperature and Photocasting followed by Q&A.

Plus, arrive by 6:30 pm and receive a 10% off Full Retail Price coupon good for anything in the Apple Store.

Hosted by me, HiMY SYeD of photopia and sponsored by Torontoist, Spacing, U&I magazine and toronto.photobloggers.org.

Come participate in the evening’s discussions, meet fellow photobloggers and have some late February fun!

Click here for ads!

http://www.Photopia.TYO.ca/applestore2