Three Mountains

© LUCIANO A. PIMENTEL

Frankenstorm Fotos

A contest is on right now - who will be the one to snap that most stunning shot of this latest instance when Mother Nature unleashes its devastating force on poor tired East Coast dwellers, unsuspecting denizens who have lived under a rock or batty in a cave and rabble alike... Truth be told, with weather forecasts like this, you do NOT want to go trick-or-treating or go out for anything else for that matter; but you might want to take pictures of it all though - for posterity and short-term celebrity, too!

This contest has prompted many to cheat already - and here you can find some of the best photoshop jobs found to be circulating around in the earliest hours of Hurricane Sandy!

From obvious doctoring of promotional material for films such as The Day After Tomorrow to mere Getty stock photography from several years back already, the trickery factor multiplied exponentially as the media kept on raving about the possibility of this hurricane meeting up with two other systems floating around to become one mega-storm - that it (the media, duh) promptly dubbed ''Frankenstorm'' on this rapidly approaching time of trick-or-treating...

The best coup from all of these bogus pics has to be this one, a ''striking image'' no doubt that is nothing more than a Photoshop job, combining a photo of the New York harbor with a 2004 shot taken by photographer Mike Hollingshead. The treachery was spreading fast throughout social media websites such as Friendface... er... Facebook, of course!

But never mind social media now - and it creating the ideal settings for this sort of tomfoolery in the first place. Traditional media -those who are supposedly there to inform us; the news services originating from television stations, radio or print news- they are the ones responsible for the (near) mass hysteria going on there...  (We say ''near-mass hysteria'' because, to be frank, we are worlds away from another occurrence of ''The War of the Worlds'' infamous broadcast, courtesy of one Orson Welles...!)  Nevertheless - the media set the standards for this sort of thing, for they stopped just short of this sort of tactics in order to attract an audience or sell copy - and, of course, if we are talking about rags of the order of National Enquirer (to name but one) they did go so far first!

The media is at its gloomy best when it uses graphics rather than faked photography - for it accomplishes what appears to be their primary mandate after all: scaring the masses sh!tless.  A well-conceived, sharply introduced computer-generated graphic image of gloom-and-doom, especially one that skillfully presents the humdrum before and most dreaded after there could be...!

Now, I never dreamt of working for a weather channel (nor have I ever had such longings regarding tabloids of questionable integrity, quite obviously!) hence I shall refrain from getting out there, catching pneumonia and being caught up by some whirlwind, all that just to take a good shot I might have to spend an hour doctoring and enhancing, afterwards! A realistic shot of this kind of weather shall be my only contribution this time out: one taken through the window, from the comfort of a vehicle out of harm's way or a solidly anchored vessel! Certainly, I may get more creative again when they get more creative, too - in their name-choosing for those hurricanes, tropical storms and the like...! And in their choice of apocalyptic hoopla whenever ''Mother Nature'' acts up - or simply reacts to what we are putting her through, day in and day out, as good industrialized parasites that we all are!
And so, here is that realistic shot, taken through glass, haze and rain:

It's not going to win anything, eh; 

except for 100% realism!

We'll keep on trying - without holding our breath! 

See you all on that next occasion we get 

to make great shots 

with apocalyptic weather 

wreaking havoc all around us! 

And we know it too: 

we will have many, many more 

golden opportunities 

to do just that! 

Sempre Por O Melhor 

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T.O.

All Pictures Copyright ©  LUCIANO PIMÈNTEL 

2012  and beyond

All Rights Reserved 

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Keeping Up Luminous Appearances

This is not a church.

In the soon-to-be 375 years-old venerable old city of Mont Réal 

formerly known as L'Île-Marie 

and then named after its chain of mountains and hills 

that form one rather flat mount 

(Mount-Royal - duh!) 

the protectorate that some architectural structures can get 

is totally on the surface level 

and nothing beyond that. 

As it is, architectural treasures 

-those constructions considered to be 

a part of ''le patrimoine'' 

and deserving of upkeeping 

and preservation for generations to come-

are kept around only as façades, 

or mere gateways leading to 

other more modern facilities,

such as this venerable old church 

that has become no more 

than a fancy portal for 

an under par so-called university
of ill-repute...

It's a travesty of preservation, if you ask me.

But, for Montrealers, it's better than nothing.

Bird Watching

Oops - he saw me now! 

And promptly flew away! 

One is much more secure taking pictures of 

this kind of birdy instead:

All Pictures Copyright ©  LUCIANO PIMÈNTEL 

2012  and beyond

All Rights Reserved 

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The Other 100th

In the year that saw the opening of Fenway Park

and the sinking of the Titanic,

another event from 1912

now gives us the opportunity

to remember yet another 100th anniversary,

what was and what could have been:

One of the greatest ''spontaneous style'' photographers of all-time would have been one hundred today - if he had suffered considerably less stress during his professional life, he might have indeed made it to that venerable old age, yes...
Robert Doisneau most probably became such a stylist of photography
due to the fact that he saw, first hand, the worst of times throughout World War II
and that made him seek means to give out and make unforgettable and a vision of the world as it should idealistically be.
Although it claimed to be photojournalism, reporting reality in images, the genre Doisneau created, in many ways, soon became exposed as nothing other a great embellishment and a fantasy indeed...
Dommage, car... Through his great work, Doisneau was making the ordinary and the populistso very extraordinary and iconic...! But it wasn't reality.
He proved that a photographer is truly a master magician who can make anyone see not only what he wants but alsowhat one's innermost desire wants to behold...!
Truly, though, the real world is nothing like what is depicted in these fantastic shots from master magicians of photography such as Doisneau: he would say so himself, as he did, in fact, just before passing away. His most famous picture was the object of litigation that led to this revelation: it had not been a candid spontaneous romantic snapshot - it had been indeed staged, modeled and posed. The litigation ended in 1993. One year later, Doisneau's life ended as well.

Read all about the stress and controversy surrounding his most famous pic
here.

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Luminous Gastronomy

And imagine that: 

this was only for starters! 

We'll get back into the kitchen sometime, 

sometime soon, 

for it will be a fine starting point indeed 

for the hoopla surrounding the impending launch 

of our Luminous Recipes gem of a book! 

:-)

© LUCIANO A. PIMENTEL

New England 2012

Nothing fishy there - just very good food!

I sure didn't expect the Red Heifer to be found in Vermont...!


Nobody knew my name there - what the heck...?!?


At least everything was A-OK at BK...!


Quincy Market - my kind of market!


Sunset at Wakefield Corral...!


In Boston or not, beware of the Bruins!

Horseman In Greece

Once more, the trustworthy Lumix
was used to good proficiency.
This majestuous scenery looks nearly as spectacular
as it did when I was standing there myself!
Wish I was there now...!

© LUCIANO A. PIMENTEL

Luminous Cuba - 1.0

So we went down there to see what's going on
with Fidel, Raul, the double-standard for the peso
and the Revolucion...!

Didn't meet anybody but Don Quixote!
And the ghosts of Ernest & Ernesto!

Blame it on Sunwing?


PHOTO DETAILS:
Date Apr 18, 2006 2:52:16 PM
Width - 2304
Height - 1728
File Size - 1072473
Camera - Panasonic
Model - DMC-FX2
ISO 64
Exposure - 1/250 sec
Aperture - 9.8
Focal Length - 16mm
Flash Used false
Orientation - 1
White Balance - 0
Metering Mode - 5
Exposure Program - 2
Exposure Bias - -1.0
Date and Time (Original) - 2006:04:18 21:52:16
Color Space - 1
X-Resolution - 72.0
Y-Resolution - 72.0
Resolution Unit 2
Date and Time - 2006:04:18 21:52:16
YCbCr Positioning - 2
Date and Time (Digitized) - 2006:04:18 21:52:16
Compressed Bits Per Pixel - 4.0
Max Aperture - 3.0
Light Source - 0
Sensing Method - 2
Custom Rendered - 0
Exposure Mode - 0
Digital Zoom Ratio - 0.0
Focal Length (in 35mm film) - 97
Scene Capture Type - 0
Gain Control - 0
Contrast - 0
Saturation - 0
Sharpness - 0 (why...! I beg to differ!)
Interoperability Index - R98

On Display...

A new perfume is available now. 

Must be why she is trying so hard, once again, 

to shock and make headlines... hmm?

And in other wholesale (if not wholesome) items 

promptly on sale and on display...

Sometimes, ART is on sale, as well...