Beauty is in The Soul Of The Beholder.

 I shot this in Norway, at a central part of the capital Oslo, as I was taking a Sunday noon walk there. 

    It was a so called grab shot or snap shot, with less than one minute preparation time. 

My constant travel companion (my Sony Cybershot) was with me. I used no flash and the photo was never retouched with for example photoshop. 

What I wanted to capture with my digital breast pocket camera was a glimpse of a vision that probably only I saw.

I mention the camera because ultimately it doesn't really depend on the camera. The presumption is that a great shot comes from an expensive,big and complicated camera with a long zoom objective and in the hands of a university graduate who majored in photography. I contend that this is an illusion. 

Any camera that I use does not primarily take pictures of my outer world, as people have been trained to believe. The shots are not reproductions of my surroundings, of the so called physical "reality". I.e. of what I and everybody else "see".

Rather, I take pictures of my inner world. What I reproduce are representations of alternate multiverses, realities of an "idea world"

One could say that my photos are imprints of my eyes, of what the camera sees in them. 

    To be more specific: my eyes serve as mirrors and the camera creates a cosmic window (perhaps the metaphysics would call it wormholes) to that "inner" vision. In essence a camera captures, "takes a picture of", the world in my soul.

That would explain how come so many different people from all parts of the world, and in all walks of life, react especially strongly to pictures  such as this one from Oslo. Their souls recognize the beauty of the alternate dimension, the "other" Oslo. (Not that Oslo isn't nice, per se...).

You could hardly tell it from the picture but it was actually  shot on a sunny summer day; albeit not shiny, and admittedly a little cloudy, but not even close to evening or night, to sunset or sunrise. The beautiful "darkness" revealed itself to me in the moment, and in the angle of the sun. The cosmic window opened and the specific "photo moment" called on me.  

I am glad that my Einstein-Rosen Bridge (my 'camera') worked with me on 'freezing the moment' and capturing that glimpse in my inner vision.

Sounds like Synesthesia to me...

"Målandet är lika viktig som musiken, förklarar Anthony och säger att han inte skiljer de två:
- Färger och musik, jag ser dem, jag hör dem. Jag tror inte på att människan bara skulle ha fem sinnen, de ytterligare sinnena kan jag inte förklara, men jag känner vibben och det är något jag kan föra in i min musik och konst." 

 — DN, Mr Mills soul i exil, http://bit.ly/cMVmvV  —
     

— As a child, Pat Duffy told her Dad: "I realized that to make an R all I had to do was first write a P and draw a line down from its loop. And I was so surprised that I could turn a yellow letter into an orange letter just by adding a line."

 Another grapheme synesthete says: "When I read, about five words around the exact one I'm reading are in color. It's also the only way I can spell. In elementary school I remember knowing how to spell the word 'priority' [with an "i" rather than an "e"] because ... an 'e' was out of place in that word because e's were yellow and didn't fit."  -- Accounts of Synesthetes --
     
     

"Most people experience the sensory world as a place of orderly segregation. Sight, sound, smell, taste and touch are distinct and separate: A Beethoven symphony is not pink and azure; the name Angela does not taste like creamed spinach. Yet there are those for whom these basic rules of the senses do not seem to apply. They have a rare condition called Synesthesia, in which the customary boundaries between the senses appear to break down, sight mingling with sound, or taste with touch." 

— The American Synesthesia Association  —  http://bit.ly/cmi4D9

“Twenty years ago, synesthesia — the automatic joining of two or more senses — was regarded by scientists (if at all) as a rare curiosity. Now it may well be the basis for human imagination and metaphor. 

— Richard E. Cytowic http://bit.ly/4INDOw —

— "Kandinsky is painting music. That is to say, he has broken down the barrier between music and painting, and has isolated the pure emotion which, for want of a better name, we call the artistic emotion. Anyone who has listened to good music with any enjoyment will admit to an unmistakable but quite indefinable thrill. He will not be able, with sincerity, to say that such a passage gave him such visual impressions, or such a harmony roused in him such emotions. The effect of music is too subtle for words. And the same with this painting of Kandinsky's.

— Michael Sadler'S introduction to Kandinsky. http://bit.ly/amaLyg —
    

A Dresden doctor relates of one of his patients, whom he designates as an exceptionally sensitive person, and describes that he could not eat a certain sauce without tasting "blue," i.e. without experiencing a feeling of seeing a blue color. The author also discusses the hearing of colour. It would be possible to suggest, by way of explanation of this, that in highly sensitive people, the way to the soul is so direct and the soul itself so impressionable, that any impression of taste communicates itself immediately to the soul, and thence to the other organs of sense (in this case, the eyes). This would imply an echo or reverberation, such as occurs sometimes in musical instruments which, without being touched, sound in harmony with some other instrument struck at the moment. But not only with taste has sight been known to work in harmony. Many colours have been described as rough or sticky, others as smooth and uniform, so that one feels inclined to stroke them. Equally the distinction between warm and cold colours belongs to this connection. Some colours appear soft, others hard, so that even fresh from the tube they seem to be dry. Also unmusical children have been successfully helped to play the piano by quoting a parallel in colour.

— Wassily Kandinsky: "Concerning the Spiritual in Art" (Über das Geistige in der Kunst, 1911)  —

Welcome Emma, the new Superhero on NBC's hit series, "Heroes." Played by Deanne Bray, Emma is a deaf synesthete whose "power" of seeing sound is just beginning to emerge.   

About "Heroes". http://bit.ly/bzJVRZ
     

• Watch a scene from "Heroes": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIzlhcuOqao

• The Synesthesia Battery (a quick test/checklist) http://bit.ly/cwwFib

Tequila Sunrise

This is a spontaneous shot from a bridge in central Stockholm (Sweden) that I cross on a daily basis. It's a lovely area during all seasons thanks to the marvellous view in all directions. I shot this picture around 4 a.m., while taking a summer morning stroll. There was less than one minute preparation time. I didn't use any flash. It hasn't been retouched or manipulated. The situation and scenery just presented a picture "moment", so I grabbed my digital pocket camera. I guess the "motif" qualifies as a "sunrise". Hence, I'd like to call the picture: Tequila Sunrise.

Just simple utility...

I needed to figure out a blog name that wasn't already taken - and spontaneously thought of "Black Bag". It proved to be taken already.
I "googled" references and most of what came up had to do with CIA operations or "Black Ops" or kidnapping and extortion. Sinister associations is not what I had in mind.

My thoughts was on a very specific bag. In a way that bag too had to do with some form of cloak and.. well not "dagger".. but at least cloak.. mentality. Mind you, the color of the bag just happened to be black. It could have been any color. The bag wasn't designed to be especially discreet. Rather perhaps the opposite. The large corporate logo and brand was meant to be conspicious. My friend, who owned the bag, tried to conceal it.

The background was that he had signed a contract with a prestigious modeling agency. The agency gave him several promotional items.

My friend gave almost everything away immediately, mostly shirts. Really cool designer shirts.. but that's another story. The only item he kept was a black bag. However, he removed the name and logo from it. He did that for the same reason as he had given the promo stuff away to friends. He couldn't stand the attention that the prestige surrounding the agency name was rendering.

The bag was useful for my friend in one respect - as something to carry things - namely his gym and sports stuff - in. To be in the center of (mostly) girl's interests had no appeal to him while at the gym.

Most people, gluttonous for attention, couldn't "understand" and accept the difference. They failed to recognize that there's a huge difference between using every possible channel to try to fill a desperate need to be "seen", versus finding various practical uses for things or situations which, as a social side-effect, may catch people's superficial interest.

Working for the agency had one main purpose for him - he got paid. It was of secondary importance that his job was on the catwalk or in front of a camera. Outside those environments he preferred, even needed his privacy. Attention, in my friend's mind, served mainly one purpose: ir was a means to communicate an idea or make a request (for example: "pass the salt"). Hence, the reasons behind the birth of the legend of the black bag.