Friday, April 15, 2005 Today's cover photo is the latest in the "digital photography saved my mind" series. Saved it from what, we will never know, and for what, we shall soon see. However, what photography has done has let me out of the box of always having to make sense. Does everyone realize that writing has to make at least some sense, at least the kind of writing you expect at Planet Waves? And that's what I do sitting here, from moment to moment, weaving thoughts into a kind of consistency that relates not just an idea but a feeling. With photography, I can say, LOOK! Here's how I see the world. Nobody can say if it's right or wrong, accurate or not, and of course it's biased, a photograph is a totally subjective statement. As well, I have long dreamed of a way of expressing myself that allowed me to go out and DO something, like play the bass or build a cabinet (neither of which I do). Photography has provided just such a thing to go out and do -- usually a couple of times a day. Paris is pretty photogenic, and so is Amsterdam. The photo above is a totally subjective statement of the carnival that seems to show up in Dam Square, Amsterdam, right before I come to town. This was taken from the back of a moving taxi. That is the closest I came to going on a ride, though I spent a lot of time around the rides taking pictures both day and night. I have quite a few shots in my collection (begun in January) which create a blur effect that is unique to digital photography (it looks different on film). However, I've been aiming for a kind of purity in the first few of my photos I've published. I'm not using Photoshop except to scale and crop (I do a lot of cropping, or trimming the edges -- but this one is full frame) and I will occasionally, use the 'sharpen' feature. Also, the photo of the pope on a billboard last week was run through the fresco filter for a washy-color 'memoir' effect. With this picture, the light-smear effect was so beautiful, combined with the way the composition seemed to randomly happen like that, that it was an obvious choice for the cover. I get a few emails asking what kind of camera I'm using. It's a modest one, actually. I had no idea what I was doing when I went to FNAC, the big digital store in Paris, and picked one out; and I resolved that if I didn't like it, I would just learn what I needed from this one. It turned out to be a good choice. It's a Fujifilm 5500, plus an extra media card, a lot (a lot) of rechargeable batteries, and a heavy little tripod that is very, very helpful. I went for medium resolution (this camera is 4 megapixels) and has a good lens (10X optical) because I figured the more you can get with the glass, the less you need to stretch your resolution. What I like most about this camera, besides the fact that it's big enough to grab and hold onto, is that it gives you a choice of film type (I set it to slide film for saturated colors). One way I get good results is to take hundreds and hundreds of photos. I've taken about 5,000 pictures this year and you've seen about 40 of them. I kind of think of this as cheating a bit, but I'm sure nobody will mind so much. Here's a gallery of some of the images you've seen on the cover, with more coming soon. http://planetwaves.net/gallery/ We'll soon be setting up a store; I've had enough requests to purchase prints. If someone knows of a good service that drop-ships prints, please let me know.     e PS - ah the title. The title of the cover photo comes from the Adrienne Rich poem "The Origins and History of Consciousness," from The Dream of a Common Language. Here is the segment: It's simple now to wake from sleep with a stranger,  dress, go out, drink coffee,  enter a life again. It isn't simple  to wake from sleep into the neighborhood  of one neither strange nor familiar  whom we have chosen to trust. Trusting, untrusting,  we lowered ourselves into this, let ourselves  downward hand over hand as on a rope that quivered  over the unsearched....We did this. Conceived  of each other, conceived each other in a darkness  which I remember as drenched in light.  I want to call this, life. But I can't call it life until we start to move  beyond this secret circle of fire  where our bodies are giant shadows flung on a wall  where the night becomes our inner darkness, and sleeps  like a dumb beast, head on her paws, in the corner. And the link: http://www.supportalk.com/detail-8282532.html