It's all about the light... (a memory from 2012)

 

Light.  Photography, is all about the light. 

Unfortunately for me, I don’t usually have time to wait for the light to change,

or the possibility to use artificial light. So, I usually have to take what I get.   

 

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

In the case of this mirrored building in Houston, I got lucky.  Some people would have to wait for the clouds to be just right, I only had a second, literally as I crossed the street.  So, looking up and snapping with my cell phone, I got lucky and got one of my favorite photos.  Lucky.

 
 



Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

I like this one too.  Out of the window of a plane, just after sunrise.  In this case, I wasn’t on the sunny side of the plane, but that's good, because the light just highlights the dirt on the windows. I tilted the camera, and got the darker blue at upper left…

...looks like “space” to me.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Like at the Mutianyu Wall above, sometimes it’s foggy.  So, you just have to make do with the lighting you have.  We were only at this place for a half-hour or so, so there wasn’t time to wait for the fog to lift.  But, got a pretty cool effect.  (Monterrey Bay, California)

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

These two are both in Central Texas, just North of Weimer, taken just as the sun came up, about 15 minutes apart.  Just have to keep looking, and clicking,

and hope the effect turns out.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

This shot in Finland was on a COLD, heavily overcast day.  The same sunless light lasted for several hours.  But in Dubai, just 2 weeks later, it wasn’t cold at all (though not as hot as it looks in this photo).  The lighting lasted only a few minutes,

as the sun rose and cut through the haze.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

 

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Back to the Baltic Sea, really, really cold, with the sea freezing on the surface as we cut through it.  This light lasted a long time because in the high latitudes, the sun doesn’t go down quickly.  It’s not on a path perpendicular to the horizon the way it is down here in the Temperate Zone.  The sun kind of rolls down, almost parallel to the horizon,

so you have quite a long time to get a good sunset.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

I love taking photos.  This was on the California Coast, Highway 1,

near Big Sur, 2006.  The sky was a totally clear blue, with a sea fog slowly rolling in. 

Cool.

So, keep your eyes open, and keep clicking !

-          Mark W. Laughlin


 

Finland...in February (a memory from a few years ago...)

I love Finland. 

It's a great place to visit, winter or summer.

Been going there since 1984 and I always enjoy it.

Nobody sitting in the park today...

 The sun hangs low, and peeks at you through the trees.

 I love the red bark on this tree.

 The sun goes down slowly, providing lots of twilight.

Sun...but not much warmth.

 This just looks COLD to me !!

 ...this too !

A wonderful place to visit...           

                         ...but dress warmly !!

(I got back to Houston to find it 90 degrees F warmer than in Hyvinkaa !!)

- Mark W. Laughlin

Baltic Spring ... (Memory from 2011)




Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Spring, but still chilly out on the Gulf of Finland - 14-Apr-2011





Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Spring may have arrived in Tokyo, and in my backyard in Houston, but not so last week in Finland and Estonia.







Ice on the Gulf of Finland, between Helsinki and Tallinn, 14-Apr-2011






Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

 

The countryside, south of Tallinn.



Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

The Outer Wall surrounding the Old City of Tallinn

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

A chilly view for harbor-area apartments

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Time to head back to Helsinki.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

- Mark W. Laughlin

All photos by MWL.

People / People... (memory from July 2015)

Photos need people in them.
For perspective, for scale,
to show how a place is popular,
and the kind of people who visit there.

(These are all from Toledo, Spain on a very hot 12-July-2015)

But unfortunately for me, I am often taking photos alone.  Or if family are with me, they stay well behind and out of the way of my lens.  So, I have to "borrow" other people.

Occasionally, you luck out and catch a tourist cooling her feet in a fountain (I prefer folks who's faces are not recognizable, so they don't object if I post them...)

What would this street scene look like without the couple walking...
...or this one without the girls ? 
                ...Would just be empty streets.

 

Ok, ok, I admit it...sometimes, it's "just about the girl"...

        (Hey, I'm a guy...whatayagonnado ?)

These are examples of one of my favorite subjects...

..."taking photos of people taking photos"...

This one has a "selfie-stick" to hold her cell phone while she gets a photo of herself and the very high church tower behind her.  She struck the same pose and took several photos, likely trying to get the tower fully in frame.

This young lady had an entirely different approach.  She lay down directly on the cobblestone plaza to get a sharp upward angle on the tower (fortunately, the square wasn't crowded, so nobody tripped over her).

As I look at the two shots I got, in quick succession before she got up off the (very) hot pavement, I see that the first looks better to me.  I was actually trying in the second to catch her without the person on the left being in the frame.  But looking now, this photo of a person looks better to me with the perspective of the (parts) of the other people in the photo.

 

Another try at framing the high tower.  This time, trying to get her little brother in the frame.  Nice set up, but I was certain he'd fall off that ball at any moment. 

So, is it: 
(A) a photo of "people taking photos"...or
(B) "a photo of a girl", or
(C) "an attempt by me to catch a photo of a kid breaking his ankle". 
Answer: All 3 !

And then, as I was taking reflection photos of the same high tower, a young lady decided to go wading in the reflection pool.  The ripples she stirred up disrupted my reflection shot of the tower, but I like the one I got of her.

Here, in a totally different form of "selfie", is me...
... (in my "Indiana Jones" keep-the-sun-off-me hat).
(Entrance to the Jewish Quarter, Toledo)

This is the high church tower we were all trying to shoot.
(Santa Iglesia Catedral Primada de Toledo, Spain)


More Toledo later,
-Mark W. Laughlin

 

My Sister, Karen...

Update:  Tomorrow, 04-August-2025 is Karen's Birthday, 
she would have turned 65 !  Ready to join Medicare !! 

Karen Lynn Laughlin, 1960-1983

I usually don't mention that I had a sister. 

It invariably leads to questions... "what happened ?", "when did she die ?", just polite questions, people showing interest, but I quickly get to where I can't complete a sentence. 

(in this photo, she'd already been diagnosed, but they pumped her full of red cells and plasma so she could dance with her college classmates in a competition at Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C., late April '83.  A Washington Post reporter came to interview her, because news of her dancing with her newly diagnosed illness reached the papers.  Hair already cut short, in preparation for the chemo therapy she'd begin when she got back to Houston.  Photo by WAPO photographer)

Next year will make 40 years.  December 23, 1983.  Leukemia.  Diagnosed in early April of that year, and just a few months later, gone.

(She danced the ballet from the age of 4.  She had a grace, a strength, smoothness of motion the other dancers just didn't have.  With several dancers on stage, you could spot her immediately, just by the way she moved.)

So, my apologies to those I've known for 20-30 years, but who have never heard me mention her.  But all it takes is a mention, or a scene in a movie that brings it all back.  It hits me rather quickly.  It was nearly 40 years ago, but could all have been just this morning.

(in this case, writing is cheating...

when typing, nobody can tell how many times 

I had to stop and dry my eyes...)

Y'all take care,
- Mark

My Girlfriend...

My Girlfriend…

Today, 23-May-2025 marks 50 years to the day, from the time I met my present girlfriend.

The family of a mutual friend, Cathy, had plans to move away to California just as soon as our Junior year in high school was finished.  So, as finals-week wrapped up, Cathy invited us, separately of course, and a few other friends, to her house:

            Friday

            23-May-1975

            7:00 pm

As I entered the house, there in the family room, at the pool table, was a cute young lady (pretending to know something about) playing pool.  I summoned up my courage and walked across the room * … 

* Sometimes, you just gotta’ be brave !

The rest, is history.  So, tonight we celebrate our “anniversary”… 50 years, two fine sons and one fine granddaughter later.

-Mark

 

Google and play the Beatles song “She was just 17”. 

That song is exactly how it was.

Brenda Sue Dunegan Laughlin

"Mountain Wo-Man !"

September 11

I added a couple of thoughts below:

Brenda and I visited New York City back in 2008.

We walked down to Wall Street...

...and to Ground Zero.

They were still cleaning up rubble,

A Globe sculpture that had stood in the plaza and had been crushed by falling debris

was set up off to the side.

Children of "First Responders", Firemen, Police and others, 

had painted tiles honoring their parents who died in the attack,

and hung them on this fence.

A view of Lower Manhattan, shrouded on fog,

is missing two tall landmarks.

Occasionally, as I have heard interviews of New Yorkers who were present on September 11, 2001, I hear remarks about the attacks on "their city", attacks on "them".  If I had the chance, I would argue with them, gently, and with great respect, that the attacks happened to all Americans.  New York was unlucky enough to be one of the central targets for jihadi aggression, but the attackers were targeting "America".  They were targeting all Americans.  The attacks happened to all of us.  That takes nothing away from the way we feel about New Yorkers.  Much to the contrary, we stand beside every one of them in the way we feel about the attacks, in the way we remember them.

This was kicking around my mind last night, but I couldn't figure out how to craft it, given the late hour.  But there is another thought that should be expressed:

In as much as the attacks were not on New Yorkers alone as much as they were on all Americans, there is another group that should be considered, and that is "everybody else".  By that, I mean that we should separate the world into "the (actual) bad guys" and "everybody else".  As time wore on, we saw horrible attacks in London, Madrid, Mumbai and more recently Copenhagen.  But even before 9-11-2001, we saw huge attacks in East Africa, and so many other places around the world.  The September 11 attacks were attacks on everyone who ins't themselves a "bad guy".  That's everyone around the world who travels, or who waits at home while their loved ones do...everyone who participates in the War on Terror, and all of their families and loved ones...it's everyone who has friends in other parts of the world, and who watch the news nervously anytime something blows up...if you are one of the good guys, then the attacks on New York were attacks on you.

The whole world came together in the days after September 11, in a way that only seems to happen after an event that effects literally everyone.  The whole world felt a connection with those who had suffered, and the whole world could envision something just as horrible happening in their home town.  We have drifted away from that feeling of solidarity in recent years.  Of course, that has to be expected I suppose, but I would like to see us achieve that feeling again, that is, if it doesn't take a huge, awful event to catalyze it.

As September 11, 2011 approaches, I recall the time I had been in the World Trade Center in 1999.  We had a customer located on the 95th Floor of Tower Two.  I still have vivid memories of looking out the window and down onto the Brooklyn Bridge, on an absolutely beautiful day.  Our customer, Bob, didn't make it out of the building in 2001.  I think I share New Yorker's tendency to take the attacks very personally.

Some say we in America cannot get over the attacks of September 11, cannot get passed it, cannot move on.  I do not agree.  I think the point is, we will not forget.  Period.  My feelings about that day are stirred every time I see images of the attacks, hear accounts of the victims, or hear news about losses of our young men and women in the Military, as they pursue the bad guys.  More than that, it's whenever I see our flag flying, hear patriotic music, or see one of our fighter jets screaming overhead.  I can guarantee that I will not forget.

Robert (Bob) DeAngelis

(photo added after 2016 visit)

- Mark W. Laughlin

11-September-2011


All photos by MWL.