Pursuits : Elizabeth Thomsen

Eight years ago, my daughter Meg and I were in England in early November, and I took this picture of an elderly woman selling poppies in front of Bath Cathedral for Remembrance Day, what we call Veterans Day. We saw people selling these poppies everywhere, and we bought and wore them, too.

On Remembrance Day, November 11, we had just boarded a train in London when we heard the announcement that it was 11 AM, and that the country was now observing two minutes of silence. People on the train stopped what they were doing and remained still for two minutes…it was really quite a beautiful thing.

TinEye isn’t really an image search engine — it’s not particularly useful if you’re looking for pictures of some a subject like puffins or the Brooklyn Bridge, or if you’re looking for pictures of a particular person, like Millard Fillmore. TinEye is designed for a totally different purpose. You show it a picture, it analyzes it and then looks in its index for other copies of the same picture. It’s supposed to be able to find other versions, even if they have been cropped or altered.

Here’s an example of one of my Flickr photographs. TinEye has correctly identified a copy of this posted with permission by Schmap:

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I like old pinball machines. It’s the artwork rather than the games themselves — they bring back memories of hanging out in the arcade at Swift’s Beach when I was young. I was never any good at the games, I don’t even remember trying to play them. It was the atmosphere that both attracted and repelled me — the noise, the smoke, the garish pictures and (of course) the boys. Never talked to anyone there, just stopped in many evenings to observe.
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Photojojo has a great service for Flickr users — you sign up, authorize access to your Flickr account, and twice a month they send an e-mail message with a few of your photographs from a year earlier. The selection apparently uses Flickr’s interestingness formula, so you tend to get photographs that got a lot of views, comments, notes, etc.

Of course, this service doesn’t do anything you couldn’t do yourself — it’s certainly easy enough to search your archives by date or browse through your sets to find pictures from last Halloween, last Thanksgiving, or whatever. I probably spend more time going through my old photographs than most people, all 4,000+ of them. But there’s something quite nice about getting these messages and see a little gallery of favorites from the previous year. Sometimes it makes me happy, and sometimes sad. Sometimes it reminds me to get in touch with a friend or family member and say something like “I was just thinking about the day we went to the orchard and bought that big pumpkin last year, remember how much fun we had?” Often it makes me want to go out and take more pictures.
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I was walking the dog one day and noticed a couple of rusty old cars dumped in a weedy little lot between a local garage and the railroad tracks. I’m not usually interested in cars, new or old, but these caught my eye, and I took a picture of one. I felt awkward about it, partly because I didn’t want to trespass and partly because I have always avoided abandoned cars because I’m afraid there might be mice living in the upholstery.
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I started another new Flickr group, this one celebrating the simple beauty of the Beach Rose, or Rosa Rugosa. I associate these flowers with the North Shore, Cape Cod and Nantucket, but they are actually native to Northeast Asia : Japan, Korea, southeastern Siberia, and northeastern China. They produce beautiful, fragrant blossoms in the summer, followed by shiny red rose hips in the early autumn.

Beach Roses — Visit or join the Flickr group
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I love the new version of the Flickr slideshow — I especially like the fact that it easy to share and embed. Here’s one from my “Favorites” set :

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There’s a proposal to ban transfats in Massachusetts, so reporter Carl Stevens of WBZ Radio paid a visit to the Deluxe Town Diner in Watertown which stopped serving transfats three years ago. The actual story doesn’t have much substance, other than to report that the food still tastes just fine, but this is the second report Stevens has done from a local diner, and it’s just good to see these diner visits recorded and shared.

Capitol Diner Video on YouTube — Carl Stevens visits one of my favorite diners

My mother loved to sing, just for fun, and she sang all the time, singing along with the radio or record player, or just a cappella. I especially remember her singing while doing the housework. She sang all kinds of songs, including hymns, show tunes, jazz, TV jingles, and pop songs from Kate Smith to Herman’s Hermits.

But it’s Hard-Hearted Hannah is the song my sister and I always refer to as “Ma’s big number.” I remember she especially liked to sing this one while vacuuming in rhythm. We found this song slightly thrilling and embarrassing, what with lyrics like An evening spent with Hannah sittin’ on your knees, Is like travelin’ through Alaska in your BVDs.
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David Griffin, Director of Photography of National Geographic magazine, gave this presentation at the 2008 TED conference. His ideas about photojournalism are interesting, but I had to watch this twice to hear what he had to say — first time through, I was much too distracted by the amazing photographs!