Landscapes

Posted on July 4, 2018 by JMN

My first reblog. Still learning. I like your approach. Great pictures.

Candid By Liz's avatarCandid By Liz

This is my first blog post.  I try to do simple and honest photography with very little manipulation of the images.  I hope you enjoy them.  I am not criticizing others who use a great deal of manipulation with their images such as photo-shop; for me it is important to try to see and capture the image as true and honestly as possible.  This is why when I take photos of people, I prefer candid shots over posed.  Candid shots capture true feelings and can tell a real story about those people.  Too many memories can be lost by posed shots.

In my landscapes I also hope to capture the reality of the space as I see it.  The most I will ever do to an image is cropping.  I hope the physical nature of the image and its story comes through in my pictures.

DSC_0039

A Bridge On The St…

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Sundry Maundering

Posted on July 2, 2018 by JMN
Convergence1, JMN, photo. Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.

Convergence1, JMN, photo. Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.

THE BOOK OF JOB

The Job is hard.
Do the Job.

Convergence2, JMN, photo. Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.

Convergence2, JMN, photo. Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.

PERMUTATIONS

I don’t pretend to know how you don’t understand me.
I don’t understand how you pretend not to know me.
I don’t know how you pretend not to understand me.
I pretend not to understand how you don’t know me.
I understand how you don’t pretend not to know me.

Convergence3, JMN, photo. Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.

Convergence3, JMN, photo. Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.

PLAINT

Trolls behind stalking horses: personal bêtes noires. It’s hard to get your bearings when you’re awash in fake mendacity — impressions disguised as opinions, innuendo pretending to be rumor.

Convergence4, JMN, photo. Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.

Convergence4, JMN, photo. Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.

DIRECTIONS

Gated Snootery —>
<— Elysian Minefields
Scenic Rout —>
<— Extant Volcano
Beach Retreat —>

Convergence5, JMN, photo. Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.

Convergence5, JMN, photo. Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.

BONS MOTS

“Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it. Repeat.” (Jasper Johns, “Notebook”)

“Paul Klee saw drawing as a way of taking a line for a walk.” (Colm Toibin)

“Find the middle tones, lay in the dark accents, and then, finally, the highlights… What’s not indispensable is useless.” (Carolus-Duran, Sargent’s teacher)

“What you see is what you see… A flat surface with paint on it — nothing more.” (Frank Stella)

“Don’t show me your soul. I want to see your foot.” (Balanchine)

(Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)

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Rumpstone Fallows

Posted on July 2, 2018 by JMN

A sliver of Sir Alistair Chichester’s estate lies choked with brome and cocksfoot between the waste water treatment facility of Chichesterton-Upon-Hogg and the ancient Roman quarry. Known to locals as Rumpstone Fallows, the plot has served as a squat for birders and pikies in the past.

The Reverend Llewelyn Bidley-Spaulding, however, in his role as spiritual and temporal counselor to the great man, has sensitized Sir Alistair to the tax benefits of canny philanthropy on the part of persons encumbered with inherited wealth.

In a fit of charity pursuant thereto, Sir Alistair has donated the Fallows to the village for exclusive use as a polo field. Coal miners, barmaids, shopkeepers, petty tradesmen, redundant laborers, errand boys, indeed, bleeders, blokes and berks of every ilk may get a whiff of the sport of kings on a pauper’s budget.

The cost to punters will be only the day’s rate, generously discounted by Sir Alistair, of a stick and pony let from Chichester Stables: twenty-five pounds on Saturdays, thirty-five on Sundays.

Take as a specimen the average miner. From his month’s wage, the ensuing discretionary income is some one-quarter of a Saturday’s polo gear. How long must a chap scrimp in order to realize his dream of joining a quartet for six chukkas on a Sunday? Use fractions.

(Social Math — UK. Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)

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Signage

Posted on July 2, 2018 by JMN

Not:
Serious —>
<— Kidding
Really —>
<— Ever
Now —>
<— Likely
Hardly –>

Context/Favor/Fashion/Office/Sight:
In —>
<— Out Of

Skinless —>
<— Skinned
Boneless —>
<— Boned
Dead Start —>
<— Small Finish
Smoothies —>
<— Roughies
Rapids —>
<— Calms

-Eyed Coots:
Shifty —>
<— Cock
Cross —>
<— Wall

(Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)

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“With art comes empathy…”

Posted on July 1, 2018 by JMN

“…With art comes empathy. It allows us to look through someone else’s eyes and know their strivings and struggles. It expands the moral imagination and makes it impossible to accept the dehumanization of others. When we are without art, we are a diminished people — myopic, unlearned and cruel.”
(Dave Eggers, NYTimes)

JMN2017 Woman Hugging Boy, oil on canvas, 18 x 24 in.

JMN2017 Woman Hugging Boy, oil on canvas, 18 x 24 in.

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“Fungi on the Rind”

Posted on June 30, 2018 by JMN

Fungi on the Rind

A Camembert’s a cheese whose claim to fame
Involves a smelliness that’s hard to name.

Mushroom aromas with a barnyard twist,
Hints of ripe laundry by garlic kissed,

This is how the cheese’s loving hordes
Try to put their passion into words.

Who, after all, could possibly not savor
The scents these connoisseurs insanely favor:

Dirty t-shirts, sweaty pants, and cow pies,
Toadstools blooming next to fragrant pig stys.

But let us let that be just as it may.
About this cheese there’s even more to say.

Camembert, while young, lives in a rind.
A nicer cover would be hard to find.

A living surface, not unlike our “peau,”
(That’s French for “skin” in case you didn’t know),

The rind provides a shelter good and moldy
To help the cheese become a golden oldy.

The cheese in turn feeds fungi on the rind.
Help me, it says, and I’ll repay in kind.

And here’s what seems well nigh incredible:
This rind for you and me is edible.

Atop the gooey goodness that comes out
The rind rewards our tastebuds with tart clout.

Come shed with me some tears of gratitude
For Camembert, a cheese with attitude,

Born in France’s Normandy, it’s said.
You bring the cheese and wine. I’ll bring the bread.

Reference
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/01/05/144734043/what-the-camembert-rind-does-for-the-cheese-inside?ft=1&f=1001

(Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)

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Counterintuitive

Posted on June 29, 2018 by JMN

I’ve had little training as a painter, but one tenet I’ve tried to honor is the one that says, “Choose a brush you think is too large, then start your painting with one size larger.” However, human likenesses are comprised of so many fussy details — a slant, a crease, a ripple, a glint, a bulge — I’ve found myself resorting to smaller brushes.

The tenet is still useful, however, for whatever else may be in the picture. When I’m stuck trying to capture the minutiae of an artifact (today it’s rifles), overcoming reflex and falling back to a bigger brush often gets me into less trouble.

One day, aged nine, I couldn’t draw a satisfactory breath. The more I gasped, the worse it got. I lay on the cool hardwood floor with one of my books, “Mister Revere and I.” It was the tale of Paul Revere as told by his horse — familiar and comforting. For some reason, I decided to go against what my body was screaming to do, and hold my breath for a moment instead. It worked. I was hyperventilating. Trying less hard to breathe returned me to normal breathing.

I spent ten days in my uncle’s hospital room during his last illness. Besides lymphoma he suffered from COPD. A nurse would come in twice a day with a breathing treatment for him. Once he said, “I can’t get enough food in my lungs.” The nurse laughed indulgently. I knew she thought he was addled and talking irrationally, but in his agitation my cowboy uncle had stumbled upon an apt metaphor.

(Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)

 

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I don’t follow “football,” but…

Posted on June 29, 2018 by JMN

“When football club directors are in a bind all they want is someone to lie to them offering a version of events that is optimistic and irrefutable, based on “scientific” evidence. (Speech marks are vitally important every time the word science is used applied to football.)”
(Jorge Valdano, “I love football because it’s the opposite of science: contradictory, primitive, emotional,” The Guardian)

I cite this snippet because it’s my first encounter with the term “speech marks.” I know them as “quotation marks.” Another datum to feed my anglophilia.

As to sport, I like to say I follow jai alai and bocce.

(Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)

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Otiose Maundering

Posted on June 28, 2018 by JMN

Dead cat bounce
Catch a falling knife
Bum luck Egypt
Seven large going spare
Bespoke zoots
Pasta puttanesca
War and Peas
Puckish truculence
Warp speak
Aloe, Vera!
Circular humanism
Caveat empty
Flag elation
Mass turbation
Con stir nation
Absolute shun
“The more you fail the more you succeed.” (Alberto Giacometti)
“For whom (left) am I first?” ( Lucy Brock-Broido)
“This Door Is Alarmed” (British “No Exit” sign)
“Death is not failure.” (Atul Gawande)
“At fifty, everyone has the face he deserves.” (George Orwell)

(Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)

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Spot and Bess

Posted on June 28, 2018 by JMN
1 This is Spot

This is Spot.

2 This is Spot's sister, Bess

This is Spot’s sister, Bess.

3

Spot is fourteen.

4a

Bess is four. Yes, the age gap, you say — large for siblings. So much for family planning.

5

When Bess came…

6

Spot was placed in the position of being not just a big sister but also a quasi-parent.

7

Bess…

8

has emerged…

9

from a tempestuous…

10

adolescence.

11

Bess has a 54-pound advantage over Spot, but the power dynamic between the two sisters favors Spot.

12

I love my girls equally. I see aspects of myself in both of them.

13 Cookie napping

Bess fills the paw prints left by Cookie, shown napping here.

14

Cookie’s ashes. She died suddenly at the vet’s during a routine physical. Chaga’s Disease — a parasite that attacks the heart, introduced by the bite of the kissing bug.

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