fauxtography? oops!

yesterday, whilst i was trying to get my room situated and squared away, i was wasting time on the class computers, trying to differentiate them for the kids. what should i use for computer wallpaper? why, my photos, of course!

rather than have the URL in the address bar for them to see whenever they use the computer, i googled "fauxtography" to see if it would appear. (if you've been hiding under a rock lately, check out my pictures. the link is at right, "my foray into photography".) first result that came back was a definition from the urban slang dictionary. being inquisitive by nature, i checked it out to see what they had to say.

first definition of fauxtography:

Fraudulent photography. News images that have been faked by various means, generally to promote an ideological agenda or to manipulate the emotions of the viewer...The word was first used to describe the doctoring of photographs by Reuters photographer Adnan Hajj during the Lebanon War of 2006, and has since been generalized to mean any dishonest or faked news photo.

Methods for creating “fauxtographs” include: using Photoshop (or similar software) to digitally alter the photo; photographing staged scenes or simulated news events and presenting them as real; interfering with or manipulating photo subjects to creat a “more effective” picture; adding inaccurate and/or misleading captions.

well, that certainly doesn't apply to mine, though the etymology is certainly where i came up with the idea, albeit two years after the word was coined. my photos are all natural, no doctoring necessary. the second definition was more concise, but pretty much the same idea of propaganda. let's see that final one:

the crappy pictures of the sky or dead plants that scene kids take with their digital cameras and call it a hobby. They say photography is their passion, but we all know it's really fauxtography.

ah, we're getting closer to the point. one, i'm not a scene kid, so that doesn't work. two, no pictures of the sky or dead plants. three, i know that my crappy digital camera doesn't produce amazing art. does being self aware of this make this definition fit more or less? too late to change the name of the phlog now. oh well. time to go find some dead plants or rainy skies or crying puppies or something else emo...

escalumps

"welcome to metro. if this is your first time riding metro, you may notice some things. most people stand to the right on the escalators..."

or so goes the occasional announcement at metro stations. not often enough for most weary commuters who have to get along with the tourists in this town. they've got to get to work! it's a big issue in the summer, when the flood of tourists makes some stations impossible to navigate.

escalumps slow everyone down. i know which stations have displays of the next train, and when i see one or two minutes, i'm damn sure running down those escalators so i don't have to wait 10-15 minutes for the next one. for lack of escalumps last weekend, i was able to trim my trip back here from columbia heights by a half hour or more because i just barely caught two transfers, running down the escalators and weaving through the crowds. and i'm just a tourist in my own town now!