Team Wet Dog

photo finish?

First off, it's been amazing to watch the election and results over the last couple of days.

Ironically, before I moved to Washington I was much more interested in politics. I was never the so-called political junkie, but I did find policy interesting, knew what was going on, and enjoyed the process.

These days, mostly, I find it all a mess of ill-intentions and ambitions. But that said, the last couple of days have felt good.

For a long time, I didn't really believe that it mattered who we elected — say what you will about a fractured, split or divided populous, but when the votes come down almost 50-50 for elected positions I have to ask, "does it matter?" If there's an equal number of "us" and "them," how can you say who is right or better? Especially when Us and Them describe the same people.

But the last two days have indeed felt very good. 

Now, about this photo. It's another one of the "cell phone images," like the last few I've posted.

I like the feel that this process created -- basically, I'm taking a cheap camera that I can't really control, using it to make an image with a spontaneous, random feel, and then stripping down the detail to cover up some of the "crap factor."

The original image coming out of the phone has more detail than this. But not enough to really be quality. The eiery, fuzzy, blurred quality here comes from reducing the noise a couple of times via PhotoShop. And while I like the result, I have to wonder if I'm doing too much to these pictures.

 As someone with a photojournalism background, you try and alter the photograph as little as possible. And while this isn't the same, not in execution or purpose, it still puts me on the edge of uncomfortable..

— Robert

(11/9/06) 
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