The Urban Pantheist

I was so deep into my January funk this week (Everybody, now: "BOO FUCKING HOO") that I missed the 5 year anniversary of my little snapshot project! I wouldn't have been able to tell you when I started that except for the even sillier "five years ago" project. Apparently I started January 25th, 2007 with this snapshot:


That's Mollie, our old cat who died in 2010 I think. The computer is still alive, which is shocking.

I worry sometimes that I will be taken as a dog person who dislikes cats. On the contrary, I like cats a lot, probably as much as I like centipedes. This photo of Mollie and I is by cottonmanifesto, whose talent is available at a ridiculously reasonable price to photograph your portrait, pet's portrait, or event.

...sitting on the kitchen table and staring...

It's all about the sleeping pets.

Cat, clutter, sandwich.

On this day in 365 Urban Species: Burning bush.

Not the best photography here, but stuff that is nice to look at, I think.


( many more )

CAT + DAY OFF + INTERNET = MORE CAT MACROS IN THE WORLD.

( now Mollie belongs to the internets )

In case it wasn't abundantly clear from the large number of posts I've been spamming you with over the past two days, I'm taking a couple days off work. I hope it is more positive than negative to see so much of my output.

I thought I might start posting snapshots--as distinct from other kinds of photography--each day or nearly so. Snapshots, I believe, are under-appreciated. Photography can exist as fine art, as a documentary form, or, as I usually use it, as an illustrative medium. But snapshots--those informal point and shoot moments that capture holidays and vacations, friends and relatives, and mundane scenery--preserve the world as it really is. Vintage and historical photographs are most valuable and fascinating when they inadvertently catch details about the world that the photographer never intended. The camera differs from the paintbrush in that it sees and records every object and view with the same importance. The more snapshots we leave for the future, the more the people of the future will understand our time.

Some time ago I set my watch alarm to go off at 3:00 p.m. I don't have any pressing appointment then, it just seemed like a good time to be aware of what time it is. When I was thinking about a snapshot project today, I thought I should root it in time somehow, then I remembered my watch alarm, which goes off every day at three in the afternoon, for no real reason. So I decided, when it goes off, wherever I happen to be, I will pick up my camera and take a snapshot. Then I'll post it here. I don't have any other restrictions on myself, no duration, no obligations; if I don't have my watch on, if I don't have my camera with me, if my batteries have died, then there's no snapshot that day. I hope these weak parameters allow the project to be interesting anyway. We'll find out!