Photo Essays, Spot News and Stock Photography

Archive for ‘March, 2019’

Does anybody here speak any longer?

TEXTING…TEXTING…TEXTING

I think that the question of the day is how were humans able to survive for thousands of years without their smart phones? Our iPhones and Androids serve many purposes besides being able to communicate via telephone for which they were originally created. For emergency use, for checking news, sports scores or the stock market nothing can beat a smart phone. They have become indispensable. Today it is unusual for someone to step outside of their home without a handy smart phone nearby. I say that it is an important tool, but only a tool. The tool does not run me, I run the tool when necessary.

A new language has even been created, in part to cut down on usage for people without unlimited plans. LOL, IMO and TTYL just to name a few. We have a shared family plan with our carrier which is unlimited, fortunately. I checked our phone and text usage for a recent month. My usage was phone-93 minutes with 29 incoming texts. No outgoing texts. On the other hand my daughter’s phone usage was 287 calls for 1610 minutes and over 1,000 texts. The carrier does not provide information on text usage for over 1,000/month. It seems as if she lives on the phone. How does she have time for anything else?

What I find actually rude is when a stranger that you might meet is so busy texting a friend that you have become part of the wallpaper to them. It’s as if you don’t exist. If you drive your car by always looking in your rear view mirror you will miss very important information right in front of your face. We learn from observing and speaking to people that we meet for the first time. To text to family and friends ad nauseum is always to be looking into the past. It will always been a few seconds in the past. To quote Ferris Bueller, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Our blog photo was taken on a Manhattan subway car in New York City, “Texting…Texting…Texting“; January 31, 2018.

 

 

 

Gangs of L. A.

GANGS OF L. A.

When we first saw this image we were reasonably comfortable in saying that these men were not currently attending classes at USC. Los Angeles, California a/k/a/ the gang capital of the United States. Not only is Los Angeles populated by members of the Latin Kings, Bloods and Crips, in no particular order, but many other gangs as well perhaps not as well known outside of California. In viewing this image we quickly determined that these men were not members of the Latin Kings. Research indicted that the image was taken in Lakewood which is more or less Crip territory, but not exclusively. Street names of the men in the photo were provided, and it seemed that the evidence led to a conclusion that these men were Crips. However, the school colors of USC are crimson and gold so a Crip would not be wearing USC sweatshirts in those colors. The men also display battle scars and what appears to be blood stains on their clothing. We conclude that these men are members of the Bloods unless otherwise corrected.

Unloading paper money.

AMERICAN NATIONAL BANK

We at DPI believe that this is a very special image and worthy of further examination in a blog. This was the scene in front of the “American National Bank“; Atlanta, Georgia c.1916. American was soon to go out of business, but we see the unloading of paper money in these coils of in front of the bank. Workers and security personnel. Direct deposit? If I were a banker I would want to display an image such as this in my office.

GANDY DANCERS

If you are not familiar with the term Gandy Dancer you should be. The term is not used strictly for section crews in the South, but it covers other areas of the United States for workers of many nationalities over many decades. The songs and cadence used have their origin from Southern black workers laying track. What is also similar is the cadence used in the military during training as anyone who has ever served in the military will remember.