Dream Time

I had heard many times that dreams do not happen in "real time", but when you experience an activity in a dream and that activity seems to play out for an hour, for example, the real dreaming time may only be a few seconds.  I have anecdotal evidence that disputes that.  I had a dream once in which I was with several people on the parking lot at a place where I used to work.  I had in my hand a small electronic device, probably a radio.  Suddenly there was a loud beeping sound and everyone  looked at my radio.  I told them it was turned off, but they still thought I was the source of the noise.  I opened the back and removed the batteries.  The beeping continued and people across the parking lot were looking at me.  Then I noticed two telephone repairmen on a pole above us.  They had some kind of instrument that was causing the noise.  This whole episode consumed about five minutes.  Then I woke up and shut off the alarm clock which was making that exact sound.  The clock showed it had been alarming for five minutes.   To me that says  the five minutes of clock time exactly corresponded to the five minutes of dream time.   QED!

Andrzej Dragan

I was given a link http://andrzejdragan.com/ to the web site of a photographer I had not known about.  He deals primarily in portraits, but not your normal sweet shot of a person.  I really liked the look of his work which involves a good bit of post processing.   I decided to try to get a similar effect.  I didn't succeed, but here is as close as I have gotten so far.  It is a self portrait with some processing steps that make my 75-yr old skin look even worse than it does.  

Please realize that I am making a face here.  I'm not always that wide awake.  I don't have Dragan's lighting down yet, nor his HDR effects.   I'll keep trying.   Comments welcome.  

Tina in Concert

My friend, Albert, posted on his blog a cool image he took at the recent Red Hot Chili Peppers concert.  That got me thinking about taking photos at concerts where cameras are usually prohibited.  About 10 - 15 years ago, Tina Turner had a concert at the Alamodome.  I wanted to try to take some photos even though we would be sitting pretty far from the stage.  At the time I used a Canon F1 and had a 600mm Sigma mirror lens that was very short for that focal length so I put it on my shoulder under my jacket, hoping I would not be stopped.  I loaded the camera  with Kodacolor 1600 ASA film and hoped for the best.   Here is one shot that came out pretty good considering the conditions.  

Now with digital cameras that can use enormous ISO settings, it might be easier to get a good shot.  Maybe I'll try again some day.