Anything Goes

(Source: leahhkaye, via myquotelibrary)

theimpossiblecool:

Baker.

(Source: hazor, via cityyandcolour)

cosascool:

Matchmaker, 2008 by Allard van Hoorn

(Source: galasai)

newsweek:

picturedept:

The Cataracts by Andrew McConnell

Here in The Cataracts, Irish photographer Andrew McConnell braves the rapids of the Congo River to document the amazing Wagenia fishermen going about their daily catch—a livelihood that goes back centuries. Andrew takes the viewer into the midst of this drama: he is literally in the churning water, and in some pictures captures the perspective of the fish being caught.

For some of the shots I used a waterproof housing so that I could get low in the water and get a different perspective. I didn’t use the housing when I was on the tolimos because it made shooting very difficult. And after a while I didn’t use it in the pirogues (wooden canoes) either because, even though we were navigating some heavy white water, I found that the fishermen were so skillful at steering through the rapids that I never felt worried about capsizing—in fact, I barely got wet. Much to my astonishment a fisherman would sometimes dive into a raging torrent and just as I’d be thinking, my God we’ll never see that guy again, he would pop up beside a pirogue 30 yards away.

Andrew has traveled extensively, and his work covers a range of subjects. His enigmatic portraits, called The Last Colony,” document Sahrawi refugees and won the World Press Photo award for Portraits in 2011. Surf’s Up in Gaza ran in Newsweek International and won the Society of Publication Designers award in the category for Feature: News/Reportage.

For Andrew’s full account of shooting “The Cataracts,” read an interview here. And visit our Tumblr’s page to watch a wonderful short film he made about this project.

This is so awesome. Tumblr exclusives, you guys! Do click that short film he made about the project. We love when photographers really take us inside the production process and tip their hand a tad. 

“I want stories of strangers on the bus, of a child who looked lost but turned out not to be, of chance encounters with high school classmates because these seemingly colorless instances are meaningful when filtered through the eyes of someone I care about. A Tuesday kind of love, breathing relevance into otherwise monotonous moments.”

“If one of the disadvantages of an elite education is the temptation it offers to mediocrity, another is the temptation it offers to security. When parents explain why they work so hard to give their children the best possible education, they invariably say it is because of the opportunities it opens up. But what of the opportunities it shuts down? An elite education gives you the chance to be rich—which is, after all, what we’re talking about—but it takes away the chance not to be. Yet the opportunity not to be rich is one of the greatest opportunities with which young Americans have been blessed. We live in a society that is itself so wealthy that it can afford to provide a decent living to whole classes of people who in other countries exist (or in earlier times existed) on the brink of poverty or, at least, of indignity. You can live comfortably in the United States as a schoolteacher, or a community organizer, or a civil rights lawyer, or an artist—that is, by any reasonable definition of comfort. You have to live in an ordinary house instead of an apartment in Manhattan or a mansion in L.A.; you have to drive a Honda instead of a BMW or a Hummer; you have to vacation in Florida instead of Barbados or Paris, but what are such losses when set against the opportunity to do work you believe in, work you’re suited for, work you love, every day of your life?

Yet it is precisely that opportunity that an elite education takes away. How can I be a schoolteacher—wouldn’t that be a waste of my expensive education? Wouldn’t I be squandering the opportunities my parents worked so hard to provide? What will my friends think? How will I face my classmates at our 20th reunion, when they’re all rich lawyers or important people in New York? And the question that lies behind all these: Isn’t it beneath me? So a whole universe of possibility closes, and you miss your true calling.”

I’m still conflicted by what he says in the rest of the piece, though.

“I miss dreaming forwards,” Anna said.

“What?”

“I dream backwards now. You won’t believe how backwards you’ll dream someday.” She cupped one of her breasts in her hand, sliding it up her body and closer to her neck.

“I didn’t think dreams had directions.” His broken eyes managed a smile.

“You’re teasing me.”

“Anna, I would never tease you,” he teased. She liked the way he said her name. It rolled it off his tongue to say I’m talking to you, to say I’m listening to you.

“I dream of the past, of things that could have happened, or should have happened or never happened. You dream of the future. You’re so young Sam. You don’t realize it now, but you’re so young.”

“I dream in sounds and tastes and textures,” he said.

She paused for a moment, studying his half lidded eyes.

“Future sounds.” She reopened the book. “Future tastes and textures.”

Conversations with Children

4-year-old: I’m so glad our other babysitter is a girl too.

me: Oh? Why is that?

4-year-old: Because boys are yucky. Especially old boys. I only like two boys, one of them is my brother and the other is Marcel. I like Marcel because he is funny. He plays the potty game with me.

me: The potty game?

4-year-old: You hang on a bar and lift your legs like you’re using the potty. If Marcel keeps playing the potty game, I’ll like him forever, I think.

I was going to copy/paste my favorite section, but there were so many! So here are a few, instead:

“Now here we are, filling this church, inhabiting the ancient vestments of higher learning and all they represent, partly by pure chance, by the imperceptible updraft of inexplicable luck. 

The truth is, we are not hardwired to recognize this. We tend to assign a meaning, a logic, even to things that are random or fortuitous. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in economics by explaining this phenomenon – why sometimes it is very hard to tell when we are making up a story. We tend to believe these stories. To some degree, the very admirable idea of a meritocracy is such a story: the belief that those at elite institutions and at the top of a free society are there simply because of their own intelligence, work and ambition. Harvard did much to enshrine this ideal in American higher education in the 1930s with its introduction of a test-based scholarship program and broadened recruitment of talented students. It transformed the University; it has transformed the lives of thousands of students whose abilities opened Harvard’s gates of opportunity. It made this glorious class possible.

But the problem is that over time, opportunity can come to seem like an entitlement, ours because we deserve it. We cease to recognize the role of serendipity, and we risk forgetting the sense of obligation that derives from understanding that things might have been otherwise. If, as every Harvard undergraduate knows, love is about never having to say you’re sorry, then luck is about never taking anything for granted.”

“So as you enter the company of educated men and women, and take your Harvard degree into the world, recognize your own good fortune. It is a relief. Once you do, being extraordinary is no longer the point. The point is to be a worthy person in the world. And when you acknowledge luck, you recognize your connection to those who did not have the same opportunities. One of you told me that you want to touch people, as you put it, “just like me but who didn’t have the same chances.” Merit is hierarchical. The spark of learning, the thing that catches us on fire, is more like a gift, more like luck, more like grace. “

“So go, extraordinary and lucky Class of 2012. This is your time. Be mindful of your good fortune. Embrace the responsibilities that come with it. Find something you are not looking for. Use your good stuff and come back to tell us about it. Write. Email. And don’t forget to call me, maybe.”