Month: July 2008

I have updated the current trip photos to include several that I took yesterday. I think they are an accurate commentary on Me?ugorje, from the banal to the sublime. One is picture of the ceiling in my flat, as seen when lying on my bed. I thought is was an interesting play of light, shadow, and architecture.

I will be at home, in my house, in Somewheresville, Anywhere County, on August 6th. So I leave here in about 2 1/2 weeks and then 4 days in Budapest. I am hoping to get some good pictures there, especially in the Statue Park Museum outside the city. It is a big open space where the government has sent all the old Stalinist and other communist monoliths that used to pervade the area. It is open to the public. I am hoping for partly cloudy conditions to add to the dynamic.

This weekend is the second, and probably last, AA meeting in Mostar. Since I covered this pretty well in a previous post, I won’t belabor you all with the political details. I will post an update on the outcome.

Next weekend I have reservations in a small hotel in the town of Jajce (Yai-yeets-say), which was one of Tito’s favorite haunts. It is situated at the meeting of two rivers, and there is a real, honest-to-god waterfall in the town square.

During the war Jajce was the site of heavy fighting, changing hands several times between the three armies. The Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats blew it up, including the Turkish style home. Eventually the Bosnian Croats captured it and kept it. Now it is mostly Bosnian Serb, with a large Bosnian Croat minority and a smaller Bosniak population. It used to be almost all Bosniak. I have heard UNESCO is preparing to step in and take charge, which would mean a re-building of all the old structures, like they did in Po?itelj. So I will stay there for two nights and come back. I leave Me?ugorje the following Saturday morning at 7:30 for Split, Croatia, and then Budapest the day after. All my hotels are booked, as are the flights. All I have to do is show up.

It’s interesting to note that the closer I am to leaving the faster the time goes, like water down the drain…

Johnnyboy

“Photography is 50% photographer, 40% light, and 10% equipment.”

The above quote is from a ubiquitous photography website. I do not know who said it, but I like it. It reminds me of the ”90% perspiration and 10% inspiration” quote.

I am looking forward to going home. I miss my friends, family, and honestly, despite the current economic situation, and all things being relative, I am missing the abundance and ease of the United States. As the numbers show, we are still the biggest with the most. I do not mean to offend anyone with this statement, but it is true. We are also the most tolerant, most devoted to personal freedom, and most likely to continue on that path. Other countries may be equally forward thinking on some fronts, but they tend to suffer on others. In the US we can be easily led as well. But I think the people of the US is still on a committed path of change and growth.

Many countries assume freedom and liberty will be granted to them once the right person is in power, handed out like a bus pass. This rarely happens. In the US our tendency is to fight against the current paradigm in some fashion, whatever it is. Disagreeing is not a crime even though some government people would like to make it so. A couple hundred million people will fight that idea–and they vote (when they feel like it).

So my pledge has nothing to do with the above anthro-political statement. It has to do with my decision to take fewer but better pictures; to try to capture the human moment on film.

That’s it.