• It’s Hard To Escape This Guy

    Feeling Lost In A Forest Of Symbols If you are like me, you sometimes feel lost in what seems an endless forest — infested and overgrown with imagery and symbolic forms — where no pure light and nothing tangible may penetrate. For instance, it seems every time I turn around I see this fictional character […]

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    October 10, 2022 By Redburnusa
  • Silicon Intelligence — The Latest Outrage

    “This isn’t going to stop. Art is dead, dude. It’s over. A.I. has won. Humans lost.” Jason M. Allen — speaking to a reporter after winning $300 at a State Fair art competition, for a piece he created using text-to-image software, enabled by robots scraping images — and their text alternatives — off the worldwide […]

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    October 7, 2022 By Redburnusa
  • Passing Through Still-Flourishing Small Towns

    Out-of-the-way settlements — found in forests and deserts, mountains and agrarian zones — naturally exist beyond interstate highways. In their locations they lack brisk commerce. An above-average number of residents depend on government for income. Driving through some of these towns creates melancholy — the places are so forlorn and drab. Our two photographs provide […]

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    September 13, 2022 By Redburnusa
  • Concerning Camp Followers

    Our subject’s livelihood — Camp Follower — has taken its place among disappeared categories. It is a job title now as antiquated as the milkman, switch-board operator and video-store clerk. Before the rise of logistics experts and corporate vendors, historical armies on the move in warfare depended on informal support: food needs preparing; gear needs […]

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    September 12, 2022 By Redburnusa
  • An Inhabitant of Cairo Streets

    I took our photograph through the windshield of a taxi on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt. Our subject is well-groomed considering he spends much of his life cleaning streets with primitive equipment. Off the boulevards he no doubt lives in cramped, poorly-maintained housing, lacking private amenities. In spite of this he has trimmed his beard, […]

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    September 9, 2022 By Redburnusa
  • After the Inferno

    In late summer 2020, bolts of lightning struck near Cima Dome, a rocky promontory in the Mojave Desert. The strikes ignited both woodland and ground cover; by noon the next day 16,000 acres had burned; among the casualties: grasses, shrubs, trees and cacti all scorched and left for dead in the fire’s wake. The speedy […]

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    August 30, 2022 By Redburnusa
  • Survivor On A Salt Lake Sidewalk

    I saw our lady approaching a long way off — ambling in fits and starts down an incline toward me. I noticed surrounding pedestrians in the distance snap their heads toward her, as if reacting to a loud noise; just as quickly they turned back to their own business. When our survivor-of-the-modern-world stopped, she stood […]

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    August 19, 2022 By Redburnusa
  • Two From The Vault

    Few of us in our lifetime will achieve the cool aloofness and concentration of this professional musician. And most of us would appear ridiculous (not nearly as hip) wearing a conical, horizontally-striped cap like the one covering our subject’s head. Somehow the keyboardist brings off his unflappable performance with ease and confidence — looking as […]

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    August 4, 2022 By Redburnusa
  • Attempting Urban Symbolism

    One sees fountains (real and simulated) all over Las Vegas, Nevada A constant irony in this arid location where rain falls sporadically. Exhortations to relax and be entertained — to indulge yourself — assail your every conscious moment. Winning is definitely not guaranteed. Here there are probably as many ways to lose your shirt (or […]

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    August 2, 2022 By Redburnusa
  • Unidentified Whatchamacallit Near Bluewater, CA

    I found nothing tall, nothing familiar — no trees or structures, no animal forms in the surrounding terrain — to demonstrate (by visual means alone) the size of our exotic object. The hill I estimate rose sixty feet above marshes connecting to the blue channel of the Colorado River. The smiling humanoid in our photograph […]

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    July 14, 2022 By Redburnusa

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