Imagine There's An Image

Happy New Year!

Did I tell you that I'm a member of Procrastinators Anonymous? Yes, I'm a charter PA member, and I'm on the planning committee for our 1998 Annual Convention.

It seems that I've been in a photo slump since mid-December or so, so I'll start my first post of 2005 with (a) someone else's photograph and (b) an excavated image of my own from 1978.

Here's a photo by my son, Ben, posted here with his permission ("... as long as you give me credit, Dad!") While we were visiting Sandy's family in Oakville, Ontario during Christmas, Ben wanted to take into Toronto and maybe shoot some pictures. It takes me a while to be convinced to go out into the cold and the snow, but Ben finally prevailed.

Not really knowing where the heck we were going, we headed in the general direction of Toronto, about 10 miles away. At one point, we got off the expressway to stop at a park along Lake Ontario. It didn't look like much to me, but Ben saw what I didn't, and came away with what I'd call is a pretty nice image!


Here's another image I found from my previous incarnation as a young photographer in the '70s. This is scanned from a Kodachrome slide I took with an Olympus OM-1 on a business trip to Brunei.

I can already here you saying, Brunei? where the heck...?

So check out this map to see where it is. Although it's not obvious by the map, Brunei shares an island with Borneo, so that gives you an idea of how unusual a destination it is.

I was in Brunei for a few days in October 1978 with several of my fellow General Electric co-workers. We were there on the prospect of providing the local electric utility with gas turbine-generators for an expansion they were planning.

I may one day write some more about Brunei, but for now, I just wanted to post this old photo... I really like it. Of course, there's the bold red and the nice repeating pattern of the old-fashioned coke bottles. But what really appeals to me is the one bottle with Chinese characters. The various elements, including the Chinese characters, combine to produce an image that is familiar and yet exotic, all at once.

Motivation ...

My sincere thanks to ITAI reader Avi from Israel, who wrote to tell me that he's added this blog to the "favorites" list on his brower. Avi, your email encouraged me to finally sit down and post after several weeks away from the blog.