Here’s two more for you. These are off the camera so the quality shuold be somewhat better than the first two shots I posted the other day. You can also view the rest here.

From the Mural Arts Program Light Drift webpage:

Light Drift was a temporary interactive lighting installation along the edge of the Schuylkill River that drew thousands of viewers into a playful engagement with the artwork, the river’s edge, and each other. The project created a field of lighting elements arrayed along the waterfront, with elements on land and in the water.

The lighting elements are shaped like orbs or buoys and are equipped with electronics that allow them to respond to a viewer and to communicate with each other. The orbs on land use sensors to detect the presence of a person and relay a radio signal to the corresponding orbs in the water, allowing visitors to transform the lighting behavior and color of the orbs in the river. As viewers engage and occupy the orbs along the park, the grid of lights in the water becomes an index of the activities on land. Multiple viewers can create intersections of linear patterns, encouraging viewers to “play” with each other. These orbs bring the community together by providing gathering spaces for watching the river turn into a flickering constellation, creating new connections on the river’s edge.

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Please visit the above link for more info and background on this now completed and check back here for more pictures from my camera.

(If they came out ok! :p )

Original Camera Settings: 1/50 sec, f/16, 55mm, ISO 100

Original Camera Settings: 1/40 sec, f/6.3, 18mm, ISO 400

Original Camera Settings: 1/400 sec, f/10, 200mm, ISO 400

Original Camera Settings: 1/60 sec, f/5.6, 18mm eqv, ISO 400

Quite a beast!

Original Camera Settings: 1/200 sec, f/8, 200mm eqv, ISO 400

Original Camera Settings: 1/4 sec, f/3.5, 18mm eqv, ISO 400

And so again, we find ourselves at another anniversary of what some may argue was the worst terrorist attack on American soil. I say ‘what some may argue is’ for a number of reasons. In terms of the actual destruction and emotional wounds inflicted upon this nation and it’s people with regards to the very acts themselves, you will find little to no dissent from me. With regards to how the attack has shaped our nation since, we may find ourselves in disagreement.

Since 9/11/01, we’ve been engaged in war and acts of violence in foreign lands and have experienced a staggering loss of life, both of our own nation’s people but also as members of the human race. Closer to home, we’ve been transformed from a nation very much united against a common threat and to a larger extent, the historic values and ideals that bind us together as a people into a nation comprised largely of unintelligible arguments based much too often on irrational, broad based arguments that provide less understanding between us and instead, serve more to keep us divided, angry and afraid. As a result, we’ve become deluded into a false sense not only of security but that what we are doing is right and just.

Nine years ago, we found ourselves in an environment where the response to a heinous act of violence committed upon us was met with a rallying cry that we would follow those responsible to the ends of the world and that we would capture the mastermind of the attack, Osama bin Laden, dead or alive. And although our efforts have resulted in a weaker al-Qaeda overall, they maintain relevancy and their message is as strong as it ever was.

Roughly seven years ago, after failing to meet that goal despite having Mr. bin Laden within grasp, we decided that, well, whether we capture him or not isn’t all that important since the real threat posed to us at the time was Iraq’s now deceased leader, Saddam Hussein and his stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction that posed an imminent threat of creating mushroom clouds over American cities. As it later turned out, without much surprise to many in the intelligence community, there weren’t any weapons of mass destruction nor were there any that posed any imminent or even remote threat to us as a nation, no matter what Rick Santorum might want you to believe. So the message was changed from protecting our country and it’s citizens from attack by Iraq to spreading freedom and democracy to an oppressed people, the Iraqi people, Muslim people at that, and that this new mission is not only of the utmost importance but that it would somehow make us safer.

Instead, what happened was we unleashed a shit storm of unconventional warfare abroad and archaic, fire & brimstone type political rhetoric at home. Our government became paranoid of its own people and began spying on them. In return, we became paranoid of our government and began questioning it. Phrases never before mentioned by Americans of this generation entered the lexicon – warrant-less wiretapping, detention centers, domestic spying, NSL’s (National Security Letters) & gag orders, enhanced interrogation techniques, stress positions, “fourth-branch“, gulag, extradition, habeas corpus and more recently, birth certificates, Socialism, teabaggers, screamers, deathers, dunkers, teabonics, death panels, FEMA camps…the list goes on.

We’ve also been introduced (in some cases, reintroduced) to a bunch of political voices, some old yet many new – John McCain, Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber, Newt Gingrich, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, FOX News, Joe Scarborough, Pat Buchanan, Rand Paul, Sharron Angle and many others and with this vast new crowd of faces, a new definition of exactly what is and what isn’t, as well as who is and who isn’t, American. Or American enough, for that matter.

And so from an atmosphere of national unity that largely benefited and defined, albeit briefly, George Bush’s 1st term as President, the actions of our nation and it’s leadership quickly eroded both faith in our government as well as our government’s ability to be productive.

Instead, on what ought to be a day of remembrance wrapped in an atmosphere that we are all Americans and to take advantage of this time to rememeber what we have in common and that we share a common thread despite our differences, some choose instead to adorn themselves with platitudes of what constitutes “real patriots who never forget“, for $225 a pop, mind you, to simply remind and reinforce themselves of what our differences are, instead.

We now live in a time when our two major exports for the last 7 years – the ideals of freedom and democracy – have been replaced with actual freedom and democracy, with the difference being that oppressed Muslims in Iraq were worthy of our sacrifice but free Muslims in American wanting to build an interfaith community center are not.

We now live in a time when the idea of burning Koran’s on the anniversary of 9/11 is even considered, let alone met with cheers, applause and agreement by certain segments of society. That those who support this idea are probably the same people who oppose the actions of the current administration’s fiscal efforts to restore the economy and provide health care and jobs to people ought not be surprising. What ought to be surprising is the lack of similar concern or vocal outrage by the same people over the Pentagon’s consideration of a plan to purchase all 10,000 copies of a war memo over national security concerns, only to destroy them. At taxpayers expense, mind you.

See how easy it is to recall all that separates us, all that makes us different, all that makes us angry at what we individually identify as the other side? Now think about what we share in common with those we disagree strongly with. It’s not the easiest thing, is it? It doesn’t just come right to you like the hate and anger, does it? It’s so much easier to focus on what defines us individually, on what exactly we were right (and not on what we were wrong) and how we all differ from each other as opposed to considering what it is that we share, what we have in common, what we both want, need or look forward to.

I know I’m guilty of that. I also know what a real difficult struggle it is to think about that which connects us, let alone just trying to forget and at least push aside that which separates us. I try to but…that’s a personal story and not one I’m going to get into here.

But I digress….and so instead of getting back to and continuing on and on with my one-sided rant of all things bad with regards to the state of the nation today, let me go back to my main premise which was my opinion surrounding the argument of what “some might argue” was the worst terrorist attack ever to hit American soil: is it the actions of 19 fundamentalist terrorists, they themselves possibly hijacked by radical elements within their culture, who flew three airplanes packed with people into the WTC and the Pentagon with a fourth allegedly brought down by the passengers on-board into a Pennsylvania field which cumulatively resulted in an unimaginable loss of innocent life, economic catastrophe and emotional devastation to the United States?

Or is it how we, both as a nation and as a people, have drastically responded to , evolved and changed our way of life in response to it ever since?

(I hope this made at least some sense. This started as just another picture post and then morphed into a political/pseudo-personal post. I haven’t written at length in a long time and as a result, it’s probably pretty convoluted and winded.)

Original Camera Settings: 1/500 sec, f/4.5, 100mm, ISO 200

I’ve been a bad photoblogger as of late, posting nothing since July 7th. That’s far too long to go but I’ve been busy with the running back and forth from Philly to New Jersey and back again every week and although I’ve been taking pictures as I go, I haven’t really had the opportunity to take the pictures I *want* to take, nor have I had the opportunity to work on the photos I’ve wanted to work on. Part of that is the result of having not only my yogner son but my older son here often on occasion as well as having a computer that frankly, isn’t getting any younger.

Just this past Wednesday, I made it out to Atlantic City for the Thunder Over the Boardwalk airshow which was quite enjoyable, at least, as much as I was able to watch of it. I had a great vantage point from the promenade at the very end of The Shops at the Pier where I was one of only 500 people to receive special free access there. However, due to poor communication, I left the pier thinking I had to leave when in fact I didn’t but by that time, as much time I’d wasted and as aggravated as I was at that point and as much of the show as I’d missed by then, I figured I’d just leave at that point.

I did want to share the photos though. There’s quite a few of them and they’re in three sets on Flickr so I’ll just link them and ask that you check them out. It’s basically an huge image dump with minimal processing and mostly some cropping of images.

Thunder Over the Boardwalk
Set I
Set II
Set III

Enjoy!