Author - Paul Schatzkin

I still want to know how ONE WHOLE BEAN manages to make it through the grinder EVERY TIME!

#wtf #coffee #itsamiracle #survival
©2014 [email protected] aka @driver49

This Guitar Kills Fashion

August 9, 2014

Hopefully readers recognize the irony. If not, look here.

I went down to Lower Broadway in Nashville last Saturday afternoon to rub shoulders with the tour-eye. I was actually on a particular mission (which was aborted after about an hour of futility) and wasn’t really planning to do any “street photography” but as soon as I saw this guy on a corner, I tossed some dollars in his guitar case (not enough, sorry), and started this shooting. And then this couple came by. Make sure you read her t-shirt for another dose of irony.

@folkslinger @WoodyGuthrie @EllisPaulSongs @FolkAllianceWoody would be proud

@NashvilleTN @InstaNashville @NashvilleABC

#nashville #nashvilleguru #music #broadway #lowerbroad #honkytonk #photooftheday #thebest_capture #ig_masterpiece #nuriss_tag #awe_inspiringshots #pro_ig #global_highlights #igworldclub #ig_select #editoftheday #capture_today #waycoolshots #featuremeinstagood #igcapturesclub #ig_masterpiece #ig_great_pics #tweegram #picoftheday #instadaily #bestoftheday
©2014 [email protected] aka @driver49

These Ruins Are Forever

August 8, 2014

Digest, photography, travel

Yet another attempt to come to grips with my “ruin lust,” this time in the form of a “graphic meme” that I posted to Instagram:

These Ruins…they last forever, yet serve as a testament to what does not endure. – Kinloss Abbey, Scottish Highlands – October 2012@Glasgow @Dumfries @AberdeenAngusUK @KingdomOfFife @historicscotland @welovehistory @visitscotland @GreatBritain @TwitterUK #glasgow #dumfries #aberdeen
I’ll he returning to the UK Oct 8-22, #Glasgow, #Dumfries, #KingdomOfFife #AberdeenAngusUK, then…?? Looking to make new friends and contacts, open to ideas for photo destinations re: historic sites, #castles, #abbeys, and above all #ruins Please DM with ideas/suggestions or #follow @driver49. CYA in October?
@getolympus #rainbow #photooftheday #thebest_capture #ig_masterpiece #nuriss_tag #awe_inspiringshots #pro_ig #global_highlights #igworldclub #ig_select #editoftheday #capture_today #waycoolshots #featuremeinstagood #ig_masterpiece #ig_great_pics
©2014 [email protected] aka @driver49

The Old Dead and The New Dead

August 8, 2014

The Old Dead and the New Dead – Kinloss Abbey, Scottish Highlands – October 2012

I have been posting images from my two recent (2012 with Ann, 2013 by myself) trips to the United Kingdom, experimenting with Instagram/Twitter hashtags to see the posts might lead to some new contacts and or friends when I return later this year. So far…. not so much.

This is the ruin of Kinloss Abbey on the northeast coast of Scotland. Ann and I found it by accident in the fall of 2012. We’d been to the top of Cairngorm Mountain via the “Funicular Railway” (Google it), didn’t find it all that interesting (might have had something to do with the sub-freezing temperatures and the fact that they didn’t let you out of the visitor center…), so we came back down and just started driving around. We made it as far as the village of Lossiemouth, and found Kinloss on our way back to the B&B where we were staying in Aviemore.

@Glasgow @Dumfries @AberdeenAngusUK @KingdomOfFife @historicscotland @welovehistory @visitscotland @GreatBritain @TwitterUK #glasgow #dumfries #aberdeen
I’ll he returning to the UK Oct 8-22, #Glasgow, #Dumfries, #KingdomOfFife #AberdeenAngusUK, then…?? Looking to make new friends and contacts, open to ideas for photo destinations re: historic sites, #castles, #abbeys, and above all #ruins Please DM with ideas/suggestions or #follow @driver49. CYA in October?
@getolympus #rainbow #photooftheday #thebest_capture #ig_masterpiece #nuriss_tag #awe_inspiringshots #pro_ig #global_highlights #igworldclub #ig_select #editoftheday #capture_today #waycoolshots #featuremeinstagood #ig_masterpiece #ig_great_pics
©2014 [email protected] aka @driver49

The Busiest Person In The Bank (You won’t believe who it is!)

August 6, 2014

commentary, Digest, photography, travel

I spent about two hours in a bank this morning.

I can’t remember the last time I spent two hours in a bank. Probably…. never. I mean, who spends two hours in a bank? You go in, your make your deposit / cash your check (which you probably did at the drive-up window or ATM – without ever actually going in the bank) and you leave. 5 minutes, tops, right?

On this occasion, I had good reason to be in the bank – the Planters Bank in Clarksville, TN – for two hours. I was hanging an installation of photos on a wall which the bank has graciously dedicated as an art gallery. One of the officers of the bank saw the very first “Portals of Stone” installation at the Franklin Jazz Fest back in September last year, and invited me to exhibit some of my work when there was an opening, which turned out to be this month.

So this morning I went up to Clarksville with a trunk full of framed and mounted photos, and hung then on the wall. The whole undertaking took about two hours:

“Portals of Stone” and other work at the Planters Bank in Clarsville

That gave me more than enough time to observe – albeit peripherally – what all takes place at a “bricks and mortar” bank during business hours.

Which is to say, not much.

In the two hours that I was in the bank, I’d say fewer than a dozen patrons came in to conduct any business. The rest of the time, the several tellers and a manager passed the time kibbitzing with each other. There was considerable discussion about who would leave when during the day tomorrow to vote in the state and local primary elections.

There was one person who was at her desk and on the phone almost the entire time I was there. I overheard most of her conversation while I was hanging pictures.

The side of the conversation that I overheard consisted entirely of snippets like “click there” and “open that” and “close that.”

In otherwords, as near as I could tell, the busiest person at the bank was the one who was telling whoever was on the phone how to work the bank’s website.

I guess the good news is: at least it’s not a phone bank in Bangalore…

Humans of Eilean Donan

August 6, 2014

Eilean Donan Castle is easily the single most-photographed edifice in Scotland, if not all of the UK.

The castle itself was a pile of rubble until the man who owned it saw it restored in a dream, and then spent like 20-million pounds to put it back together in the 1920s. Now the restored castle stands on a small island at the edge of a picturesque loch (lake) in the western edge of the Scottish Highlands, on the road to the Isle of Skye. The castle stands at the end of a short stone-arch bridge amid a dramatic backdrop of highlands mountains. It’s really quite picaresque.

There are surely tens of thousands – hundreds of thousands? millions? – of photos of Eielan Donan. If you’re not familiar, here’s one of mine from our visit in 2012 that I posted to Instagram a couple of months ago.

But here’s an angle you don’t often see:

Everybody takes pictures of @1EileanDonan Castle. I got the bloke in the ticket booth. Oct. 2012

And if you’re interested and have a few minutes to kill, here’s a video account of the day we drove from Inverness to the Isle of Skye, passing Eilean Donan along the way.

– – – – – – – – – – –

@Glasgow @Dumfries @AberdeenAngusUK @KingdomOfFife @visitscotland @GreatBritain @TwitterUK #glasgow #dumfries #aberdeen
I’ll beeturning to the UK Oct 8-22, #Glasgow, #Dumfries, #KingdomOfFife #AberdeenAngusUK, then…?? Looking to make new friends and contacts, open to ideas for photo destinations re: historic sites, #castles, #abbeys, and above all #ruins Please DM with ideas/suggestions or #follow @driver49. CYA in October?
@getolympus #rainbow #photooftheday #thebest_capture #ig_masterpiece #nuriss_tag #awe_inspiringshots #pro_ig #global_highlights #igworldclub #ig_select #editoftheday #capture_today #waycoolshots #featuremeinstagood #ig_masterpiece #ig_great_pics
©2014 [email protected] aka @driver49

Rainbow Over Edinburgh

August 5, 2014

I have been making a fairly concerted effort of late to post more photos to Instagram from my travels through the UK in 2012 and 2013.

I’ve got this crazy idea that I might actually be able to use a service like Instagram to make some new contacts before I go back over there in the fall of this year.

Yesterday I posted this shot of the rainbow that greeted us near the end of our first day in Scotland in 2012, arching over the central stature in St Andrews Square in heart of Edinburgh’s 18th century “New Town.”

Plenty of “Like”s on Instagram, one wonders how to convert “Like”s into “Follows.” I mean, several people have seen this one, and then clicked “Like” on several others. But not the “Follow” button. What’s up with that??

– – – – – – –

@Glasgow @Dumfries @AberdeenAngusUK @KingdomOfFife @visitscotland @GreatBritain @TwitterUK #glasgow #dumfries #aberdeen
St. Andrews Square, @Edinburgh – Oct. 2012I am returning to the UK Oct 8-22, #Glasgow, #Dumfries, #KingdomOfFife #AberdeenAngusUK, then…?? Looking to make new friends and contacts, open to ideas for photo destinations re: historic sites, #castles, #abbeys, and above all #ruins Please DM with ideas/suggestions or #follow @driver49. CYA in October?
#rainbow #photooftheday #thebest_capture #ig_masterpiece #nuriss_tag #awe_inspiringshots #pro_ig #global_highlights #igworldclub #ig_select #editoftheday #capture_today #waycoolshots #featuremeinstagood #ig_masterpiece #ig_great_pics
©2014 [email protected] aka @driver49

“The Epicenter of The New Music Business”

July 30, 2014

#SaveMusicRow I found it! The #Epicenter of the #NewMusicBusiness. It’s right there in my backyard. It’s probably in your backyard, too. Or your front yard. Or your basement or garage. Though it may not be as prominently marked…

My friend Mark Montgomery likes to boost Nashville as “The Epicenter of The New Music Business.” I appreciate the sentiment in that designation and don’t disagree at all with its intent. From the standpoint of pure creative energy, I think it’s entirely arguable that there is not another city on the planet that has the concentration of pure musical talent that Nashville has.

But I think that on some fundamental level the whole idea of a “New Music Business” is one that has no actual “center.”

What digital technology has done is diffuse the “center” of all cultural creation. In music in popular and/or “roots” music in particular, there are “centers” all over the country and the world.

To try to find the “epicenter” of the new music business is to see it through a rear-view mirror. The business used to be centered in a few places. In the US, in particular, it was New York, Los Angeles, and Nashville. And in Nashville it was “centered” around Music Row.

But digital technology has obviated the need for there to be any one “center.’ Now the center is everywhere, and music belongs to all of us again.

Nashville Starry Night

July 20, 2014