Suffering Nation

Pain Pays

With over 50 million people in the United States; pain pays. The recent pill mill craze and it's demise has left so many of us in pain without the ability to pay or find relief, many seek out age old remidies such as Heroin. There is such a stranglehold on the availabiliy of legitamate pain relief, used in conjunction of a strick adherence to a doctors supervision. There are still those who do follow doctors directions, who find their insurance companies snuffing out legitmate remedies, due to the obsorbinate cost, desperation of those with chronic pain and the limited number of physicians that now prescribe these medications, most doctors are fearful of the consiquence of handing a loaded prescription to anyone they have not known for several years. This for many makes traveling or relocating impossible. It's also an avenue to being completely broke. To many, the only way out often ends in suicide. We become depressed, feeling hopeless and unable to care for ones self. We suffer from halucinations, often suspicious of others motives, which might come from not being able to care for ones self. There has to be an answer for the 50 millon of us that suffer day and night from pain, which can be treated so we can live more productive and happy lives. Animal lovers purpote to not seeing an animal suffer, yet many of us suffer in silence, behind close doors. 

Happy Thanksgiving !

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, may it be a blessed and wonderful day. If you have nowhere to go, you are welcome in my home anytime.


Peter

Sarah @ The Beach

One of these pictures came out great, which one do you like the best?

Here are a few more, I like the one 94 meets 13, 107 years of experience:

I still say this is a Vampire and his Zombie Accomplice

Oh wait, the first picture in this series, not the production platform. 

A Special Thanksgiving Gift

What a wonderful five days with "¡Qué maravillosa semana con mi hermann en el espíritu, Israel" So busy now that my daughter Sarah is visiting, so blessed to have her home for the Holidays. Guess today I'm just writing something to make sure page get's fresh words and doesn't go stale.

- Pete

It's only been four months and I have my first visitor,  the first as I've not even had local people visit me. It is sad for me, moving here and nobody has ever come to visit. I connected with quite a few people but it required me going and seeking them out. Not one person has come to see me though, except my friend Israel and now my daughter Sarah.

It's a wonderful thing, photographing my grandmother and my daughter together. Evelyn is 94 and Sarah is 12 3/4 yrs old. November 22, 2015

Bad Weather for Airline Travel

Dear Sarah,

I am sorry, it looks like you are in for nasty weather on your way from Houston today. At least it will be night time so you won't miss anything. I can see the storms as of this afternoon are just starting to blow up over Gulf de Mexico. I hope your flight isn't delayed or canceled, I will be very sad indeed. I am glad you are flying out of Houston rather than Bryan though, as it would certainly be canceled from Easterwood.

Have a good flight honey,

Love

Daddy

Raw Photojournalism No Words Needed

You don't need words to explain these photo's, though one sentences does help explain it all.

Whoa, talking about raw journalism in this post this is about a hardcore link found in Time Magazine's website. These are the pictures the media only show in other war torn desperate places as the first world usually doesn't have a high threshold for the shock factor and instead retreats from pictures they label as gore.

In war torn places however the populace has an appetite for destruction as they view carnage of the human race on a daily basis, this is why I have an appreciation for images of this kind. Having been exposed to what some might say, images that leave one with permanent scars, I can tell you, these photo's were not only hard to take, they must have haunted the photographer as well.

Nobody can take a picture like this and spend hour over them, picking out the best, then editing them, without it impacting them emotionally and mentally, even it it leaves them num. This is though the kind of thing that might just wake people up, it's not a sad story it's a damn tragedy.

Wake up people this is what it really looks like, up close and personal, welcome to the real world, the one that 2/3's of the world live in every day. Men women and children, this kind of madness is a daily waking nightmare and doesn't discriminate against anyone.

Time Magazine Downing of Malaysia Air Over Ukraine
Click at your own nightmares

This is real unedited photojournalism, let the pictures talk to you, it might just change your mind, this is a serious world. 

Lens Hoods - Wow That is a Huge Lens - Are You Showing Off

I get asked quite often, "What are you taking pictures of, are you with the local news?" It turns out often people ask because in this day and age of smart phones, many people are taking pictures and videos but have little concept of what digital DLSR look like or why anyone other then photojournalists would want to lug around a huge camera, after all my iPhone© takes the best pictures. Well it's all in the optics folks, rule of thumb is the larger the lens and internal sensor, the richer and larger pixels a camera can capture. If your sensor is the size of an iPhone, the sensor is limited by both the size of the lease and the sensor is no larger than a pencil eraser. The typical full frame or even the less expensive partial frame sensor is 500x larger. If you think of this from the perspective of how large is your dinner plate, it start to make sense. I can have a really small plate and pile my dinner on the small plate because I don't like washing dishes or I'm on a plane and they fit better on the fold down table in front of me. Regardless, you can only fit so much on that plate before you have to compromise and limit the amounts of each service. If I have a huge plate, that same dinner looks a whole lot smaller and leaves a lot more room for larger portion sizes and opens the options to include more items from the buffet; Pile it on please!

Background Zoomed Primer

Basic Lens Types

While there are many specialized lenses, they break down into two basic type the majority of the time.

The Primary Lens

A Primary Lens is a fixed focal length optical lens, used often for portrait photos or pictures of things that don't require zooming in and out and refocusing. They provide excellent options for this purpose.

The Zoom Lens

The zoom lens is a camera optic that allows the photographer to capture a range of focal points including infinity, where he or she can capture a focused view of everything they can see in the viewfinder also know as field of view. Forget about digital zoom as it really only doubles up the pixels nearest neighbors and ends up limiting the amount a picture enlargements. If you want to digitally zoom in on a portion of your picture, wait until later and do this in the digital editing program of your choice. You will soon understand what I am writing about as you crop the photo. As you edit your photo you will soon see a grainy photo followed by a large boxes which the camera sensor captured the original image. In a future posting I'll discuss what megapixels mean to the professional as well as the daily use of the camera phone, advantages and disadvantages of both. Each of the prior mentioned have qualities both amateur and professionals take advantage. 

The Lens Hood

"Why do you have that big plastic tulip or funnel looking thing on your camera? Do you just subscribe to the bigger is better, I'm from Texas and I'm huge camera dude" a

No, actually the lens hood serves three important functions, I'm not showing off. I subscribe

1. Lens hoods help protect my investment. When we move around it is highly probable

 our often expensive lens will come in contact with various encounters of items that might scratch my lens. While camera bodies wear out, the lens is a long term investment as they are meant to be interchangeable with the other manufactures bodies. Even if you decide to change manufactures, they often sell adapters to where you can continue to use your old lens. 

Tip

A good tip is to protect your optic lens with a inexpensive UV filter. It will keep out the dust and other granular which can scratch fine optics even if we are very careful how we clean our equipment. A good ultra violet filter will not only cut out the purple cast unseen by our eyes but captured by the dynamic range of the sensor, in protecting the lens, should it get damaged, is replaced for a small fraction the cost of replacing a 5,000.00 fine optic telephoto lens. 

Quality Lenses range in price from several hundred dollars to tens of thousands depending upon the proper tool for the job. You wouldn't bring a pen knife to a knife fight would you? The investment in a lens should be considered before the camera body as fine optics retain their value as the bodies have a finite life span and loose value rapidly with each click of he limited life shutter. I have already been through a number of bodies though I continue to use my first lens. In fact I was given an old 33mm camera from which I took a 35mm - 50mm lens that would have cost me over 100.00 had it been purchased. I ditched the camera body even though I have a love for film photography as it is now cost prohibitive to take and develop fine art photographs.*

2.  A hood keeps stray light from entering my lens at an angle. This stray light resulting from direct or elected light at the sides of your lens can cause the lens flare, a bright dot in the middle of your dream picture. It can also result in a washed out look for an end result as the angled reflective light distorts the light focused on the camera sensor. If you don't have a cover or forget to bring one, you can use your hand at the end to cover that light but with all the advantages of a hood, you can see why one might just leave it on all the time, even at night. 

3. A well designed hood flares out to the closest focal point, giving you the widest depth of field for any shot. 

4. Your black points will look sharper and colors rich without a need for much digital embellishment. The resulting image is what a DSLR provides in a natural balance of light and saturation of color. 

Link

Here is a good explanation by a fellow YouTube photographers take on lens hoods, I thought as a followup you might enjoy a video from another persons point of view and some choices you can make in selecting a hood for your DLSR lens. 

Keep in mind, if you can achieve the results you want and fit your needs, by all means, I still use my iPhone for the one off or shot's I would miss if I had to get my camera. 

Why use a Lens Hood ? What kind to buy

* Interesting Fact

Did you know film cameras do not have pixels? This is because they are analog in nature and the image is very fine, spread out across the strip without interruption. The quality of the film makes a big difference when blowing up a picture of this type. When we zoom in on a traditional photograph what one encounters is grain and noise. This why an old 110 camera and a thin photographic film, while it took nice and inexpensive shots, was inferiors to the larger high end consumer, professional 35mm camera format. The larger the film or sensor, the more light can be stored on the transfer medium and later blown up on the final prints. 

Welcome To My Home

Welcome to everyone, this is the home of The Glass Eye, my life's prisim as captured from the lens of my camera. This is a blog, not a social media site like facebook, in short this is a Benevolent 

Monarchy. In otherwords, as it is a blog, I invite everyone to view, and give you absolutly no say as to what I write or pictures shared. It's a dictatorship that I pay for and rule without regard to what anyone thinks of me, I'ts none of my bussines what you think. Social Media, as I've grown accustom, has become too tricky to navigate. 

The one thing driving me to publish my own page rather than contine on posting on Facebook for example is, people are way too serious. It's aparent the Facebook Nazi's demand that you are held to some sort of accountablity, that's when social media is no longer fun, when you cannot express yourself artistically without someone becoming overly sensitive or angry. Social Media has become a taboo in my opinion, just as talking politics, religion or sports. Add to it, Facebook. Thus I will setout from here on to pubish as I please and no one is under any obligation to view or visit. This way, I wont recieve the often insulting deluge of noise pointing out the errors of my ways. I write, take both photojounalism on a serious note and amature photos for fun. 

I poke fun at life in general, if one cannot laugh at ourselves, then existance becomes a mear druggery. If you see something that looks crazy, then you are visiting with a life's lens that perhaps belongs elsewere. No matter what you see here, keep in mind that I aim to entertain those with a sense of a different slant on the daily grind. Keep it simple smile, skip the reading if you like, look at the pictures and enjoy, like or dont, but dont leave mad, please. This page is all in fun and you will always leave with a smile on your face. 

Five Hostages - A Powerful Article by Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker

What can we expect from the U.S. state department if we are family members are taken hostage by foreign influences. This is a great article by Lawrence Wright, leaving us much to wonder, "What if this was me, worse yet, 'What if this were my family'?" This is an involved piece, well worth the read, in typical New Yorker investigative style. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

FIVE HOSTAGES by Lawerence Wright and The New Yorker

Inspiring Moments of The Day

What Inspired You Today ?

Today I found a videographer named Joey L., from Brooklyn New York, who from the looks of his portfolio has quite a bit of exposure in the National Geographic as well as historical documentaries under his belt. He's freelanced for the best and looks to be quite young and very talented. I was taken aback by his ability to be a one man show, performing the tasks of what Hollywood uses dozens in order to achieve. While some of his work isn't polished to a shine like you were watching PBSs "Frontline ©", I think it's what I like about his work. If you have 30 minutes or so, I found this on Vimeo, a subscriber produced website where amature video photographers as well as some professionals pay to post their private collections. They are often some of the best as they had a lot of love put into them. 

Guerrillas Of Kurdistan - by "Joey L" on Vimeo, uploaded on June 5, 2015.Taken on location in regions of Iraq and Syria. A private undertaking at personal risk to life and limb. 

Guerrilla Fighters of Kurdistan from Joey L on Vimeo.

This video kept me up last night, it was the last thing I heard or thought of as near the end I slipped off into a peaceful sleep, fresh  ideas in mind of what my next project might bring me. 

Creepy Memories

It was late in the year of 2012 when I remember a very large number of Port Aransas police officers gathered together by the former location of Neptune's Restaurant on Texas State 361 also known locally as "Alister Avenue." The moan of ambulance sirens quickly followed the humid night followed yet again by what can be described by the unseeing eye as a dozen cruisers landing in town from multiple government, state and local emergency teams. This turns out was one of the most horrific local events to happen in the recent past, an event that might even stir a larger cities envy.

I wonder, what really happened that night, in the front parking lot that sent a man staggering back into the bar, blood gushing from his neck, in shock, gasping for his life and in front of the crowd, the former handsome young man, crumpled to the floor.

A Convicted Murderer Makes a Last Statement before Trial

It didn't take long before I found the Facebook page of the now convicted murder the state says is responsible for taking this young mans life. Captured according to local newspapers several blocks from the scene of the crime, in his hotel room by local storm troopers. Not one of the last entries into his Facebook page, making reference to what would turn out to be his perhaps final entry before becoming an ass clown in the Texas penal system.

CONVICTED MURDERERS FACEBOOK PAGE

Article, South Jetty Local Paper

Eyeman Sentenced to 20yrs

Seems like a quite little town got a manslaughter conviction for Mr Eyeman, as it turns out, in a future followup this is not the first and certainly not the last story of Murder and Mayhem on Mustang Island.

To Be Continued ...

Corpus Christie Metro Area

Spring Break 2015

Not only do the Police in the Corpus Christie / Mustang Island / Padre Island / Port Aransas Police harass otherwise Law abiding citizens, most looking to have fun, mixed in with a few bad people, they also have their own film crew. If I were a college student and I wanted to spend my hard earned money, it wouldn't be here. I've seen enough blue lights and idiots on this beach to last a lifetime. It's wall to wall debauchery and hundreds of police who can't wait as it's like harassment heaven. Do yourself a favor and go to Disney Land or something, way too many idiots on the beach.

Bizarre actually, they seem like nice police, the drunks are over the top. OMgoodness.

Spring break is better left until you graduate, make a lot of money and take a trip to a Caribbean Island that has locals friendly to drunk Americans. The last spring break I witnessed over 200 police officers and numerous state police cars, county and local enforcement, with too many to count. I'm surprised after all these years, the word doesn't get back home, they are happy to take your money no matter how they can, if it's not selling the booze and drugs, then it's locking you up and supporting the local economy no matter what it takes.

I guess it's better than this

Wow, now this person is really upset with the PAPD, I am so grateful that I don't have to be this angry that I smear the name of people who are just doing their jobs. Folks, it's so not worth being drunk and stupid, let me tell you first hand. 

• "Before I die, I want to be tried for piracy."
• 03:16
• 03:23
• "Before I die, I want to straddle the International Dateline."
• 03:29
• "Before I die, I want to sing for millions."
• 03:33
• "Before I die, I want to plant a tree."
• 03:39
• "Before I die, I want to live off the grid."
• 03:44
• "Before I die, I want to hold her one more time."
• 03:50
• "Before I die, I want to be someone's cavalr."03:56
• "Before I die, I want to be completely myself

Before you change the page

take a moment to view a New Orleans resident and neigborhood revitalist, Cindy Chang and her gripping idea for change on her block. I think it will touch you as it did I as it must for everyone who has written upon her personalized wall of "Fill in the Blanks" of hope.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

Peter

It's hard to belive this picture is over two years old. I have some photo's that are a lot more clear, but I liked this picture because it focus is on the waves, in the far distance is the oil platform JSM on it's way to the Gulf de Mexico for what Chevron hopefully sees as 70 years of service.

The vessle "Jack St. Mall" leaves for active duty in El golfo de México

Vampire and a Zombe Warewolf crossing the street in South Florida

I was pulling out of Walmart, and almost hit five cars when I saw this Vampire. Behind him I can only surmise is who he hit while out, with Zombie Dust. 

Please help me, what you think, is this actually someone from the undead? Who wears a black trench coat in 90 degree heat and doesn't break a sweat. Who has a tone deaf walker obediently follow him as if in a daze, but a newly captured human under the influence of Zombie powder? 

"I saw a werewolf with a chineese menu in his hand, his hair was perfect." - Warren Zevon ~ Werewolves of London