Weigh this, pleaseLondon, ON
September 2008
[Click to enlarge]
About this photo: All week long, Thematic Photographic has been focusing on angles. If you'd like to share a photo that has something to do with angles, click here. As ever, I'll be posting a new Thematic Phographic theme Wednesday evening, and invite you to participate in that one, too. What's the theme? Well, here's where I happily break with tradition: I'm announcing it now! Read through to the Your Turn below...I like things that remind me what life was like before digital electronics revolutionized our lives. For all the wonder these inventions bring, they often suck the romance out of the experience. To wit, looking up a word in an online vs. conventional dictionary:
Online - type word into box, click the "Look Up" button, then wait the nanosecond it takes for the definition to appear onscreen.
Book - Fetch the massive, dusty, leatherbound book that your parents bought you for some long-ago forgotten birthday from its shadowy living space beneath the little table in the front hall that also houses the Yellow Pages and the dog's leash. Plop it on the kitchen table and slowly leaf through the pages, stopping here and there to skim whatever words catch your eye. Eventually, you find the word you're looking for and return to the task at hand. You leave the book on the table because you may want to explore some more before bedtime.
So the new way is clearly more efficient, infinitely faster, less dust-prone and kinder to trees than the old way. But I don't think I'll ever give up my old dusty dictionary. And I know the owner of this scale won't let it slip into history, either.
Your turn: The NEXT Thematic Photographic theme is (drum roll, please)....KIDS! I'll be posting it on Wednesday night at precisely 6:30 p.m. Please get your minds churning over any kid-themed pics that you'd like to share this week. It's infinitely more fun to pop up a new one every day, and I invite you to spend the next week doing just that with us. Can't wait to see what you come up with! (If you're new to Thematic Photographic, please click here for the most recent entry. Rules/guidelines are included there.)
I find that I get just as distracted skimming the internet for a term as I did looking it up in a massive tome. I don't really think I have lost anything in the digital age. Maybe. I will admit that I've become less patient.
ReplyDeleteFor example, I was reading a rather lengthy list of artificial ingredients on a highly-processed food last month, looking for a specific chemical, and I became frustrated with my brain's inability to ctrl+f to immediately find the word I was looking for.
Anyway, Happy WW! Thanks for giving us a head start on the new Thematic Photographic theme! Great idea!
-smarmoofus
It's pretty much a kid-free zone in my photo collection as none of my five adult children seem at all interested in reproducing themselves! I might have one or two of strangers, I will have to check and see.
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother had one of these when I was a kid. It was one of the only things we were actually allowed to play with in her house.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the memory.
My WW photo is up here:
http://love2bhomeschoolersweeklymuse.blogspot.com/
Check it out.
Great angle Carmi! And I will get over here to do your thematic photography one of these days. As soon as my chaos settles.
ReplyDeleteVery nice black and white!
ReplyDeleteHappy WW!
That's a great photo, in terms of lines and light and composition.
ReplyDeleteIt's also an interesting story, how new technology sometimes replaces the old, sometimes complements it.
interesting photo -- almost commercial quality, really. I could see this illustrating an article about the justice system or the Supreme Court.
ReplyDeleteThe first thing I think of when I see old-fashioned scales like that is Justice, who seeks balance and fairness. She is usually depicted blindfolded, with a sword in one hand and the old-fashioned scales in the other.
ReplyDeleteTink *~*~*
My Mobile Adventures *~*~*
Nice picture. I love those kinds of scales. I have a giant, heavy printed dictionary my grandparents gave us as a wedding gift 25 years ago. Interesting gift huh? It is worn and collects dust, but I will keep it forever even though my kids probably don't even remember how to use one.
ReplyDeleteI happen to love scales because I am a libra. But this is also a nice shot.
ReplyDeletehehehe that's a lot of words for Wordless Wednesday, Carmi!
ReplyDeleteCool shot!
I just added an angle #2 shot.
Great shot, Carmi. I love the angles on this one. I do still use the old hardbound dictionary. It's wonderfully musty smelling. And truly, the words one can find on the way to the intended word...
ReplyDeleteI've missed all my internet friends and twitter and memes and blogging these past few days of moving. Yet it's given me much more margin in my day. I sat down and watched Willy Wonka with hubs and the boys and did nothing at all. What a concept.
Totally missed the angles meme. But moving happens. My camera misses me. Maybe I can get something in this week.
*flashback*
ReplyDelete"So if she weighs as much as a duck..."
"Then she must be made of wood!"
"And therefore...?"
I love the angle of this shot. And once again you show us that the art is in looking at old -- or sometimes just ordinary -- things in new ways.
i agree with every single word that you wrote there and I have lived only for a little more than a quarter of a century on this planet of ours....so i can't even begin to understand how the older folks feel...(No Carmi, I'm not calling you old ;D)
ReplyDeleteFor instance, no matter how much I love the fact that digital cards can be sent and received in less than a minute across the world and since I am a transplant, I totally approve of all sorta "instant connections", I still would love it more if at least a few of my friends sent me a handwritten note/card on my b;day .....they can't even begin to guess how much that would be cherished......