Above/featured: Ruta 5 (highway 5), a ribbon-like cut through the desert in Región de Atacama, Chile – 24 Nov 2009 (450D).
It’s an interesting question: how does one consider, view, or photograph what’s under the sun? There’s a lot of room for interpretation. Modifying the theme for the desert sun, I examine the “quality of sunlight” within the Atacama Desert in northern and north-central Chile, and within the Sonoran Desert in southwest United States.
It’s not really low humour, and besides, I’m not one to reject humour.
As an encouragement for everyone to keep the environment clean (aside from personal and collective responsibility), the ubiquitous red garbage or waste bins throughout the city of Innsbruck are all tagged with a succinct sentence that’s amusing and punny. I don’t abide by the stereotype that the German language can’t be funny; instead, the stereotype persists because of lazy ignorant thinking.
Many small red waste-bins or garbage cans are located throughout the Tirolean capital. With a real chance to causing double takes, the different sayings on the bins is a mix of Austrian German and English, encouraging residents and visitors to use them as intended. The bins are emptied when city staff open them from underneath. This “attraction to waste” is not a unique phenomenon, as various other cities employ a similar trick; for example, in Hamburg and Berlin. But when a waste-bin urges people to feed it, I find it hard to look away.
From over 1200 submissions for a public city-wide competition for the best slogans, 20 were selected and unveiled in autumn 2010 (Innsbruck informiert, 2010: 15 Sept and 6 Oct). Theses mottos are on hundreds of bins in the city. Below are 17 out of 20 for a 85% completion rate, which is pretty good for a few days in and out of town.
Above/featured: Exhibition “Edible City: A Delicious Journey” at MOHAI – Seattle, 8 Jan 2017 (6D1).
What: 1st Starbucks, in the Rhode Island building at the corner of Virginia & Western.
Where: A restaurant now, but no historical plaque or sign.
Why: 1st location between 1971 to 1976, as historical exercise.
Many write about and refer to the “original Starbucks” location in downtown Seattle. If they’re referring to the present location in Pike Place, that Starbucks outlet while the world’s oldest is not the first or original location.
So, what happened to Starbucks’ very first shop from 1971 to 1976?
Oh Seattle: how is your black history defined?
With the city’s proximity to Vancouver, my time in or any understanding of Seattle was incomplete without an examination of the city’s non-white communities. I had questions about the black community and in particular why the city remains racially segregated. People of color, including black people, were once forbidden from buying houses in specific neighbourhoods because of their skin colour. The Central District (CD) thrived as a black community in the 2nd-half of the 20th-century, but now, citizens struggle with gentrification, displacement, and economic racism. There’s much more I need to ask and learn, but for now, I describe below a selection of landmarks highlighting contributions by and the historical impact of the black community to city and nation.
Above/featured: Harbour Air seaplane landing in Burrard Inlet: Vancouver, BC – 6 Dec 2016.
In winter, low-lying areas in the Canadian southwest don’t get snow, but when there’s a dump of at least an inch or two, that’s enough to paralyze the cities’ streets. Drivers are spoiled by the lack of snow, unaccustomed to dealing with the slip and slide. But after a snow event, the day after brings out the sun, almost like clockwork. To that end, I’ve always been fascinated by winter views on snow-capped summits; it’s about the view after all.
In the languages with which I’m familiar, the word “winter” appears as:
Fotoeins Fotografie 