Seeking the World’s Soul

I’m work­ing to get a bit more traf­fic com­ing to this site by sub­mit­ting it to var­i­ous blog direc­to­ries. I’ve now got list­ings on Tech­no­rati (http://www NULL.tech­no­rati NULL.com/people/technorati/greenkira)and Blog­Cat­a­log (http://www NULL.blog­cat­a­log NULL.com/directory/art/photography-art).

Pop­u­lar­ity: 1% [? (http://alexking NULL.org/projects/wordpress/popularity-contest)]

Moscow (http://archive NULL.kira­ha­gen NULL.com/c/kirahagen/gallery/Moscow/G00001LFdd NULL.HgyUs) — Images by Kira Hagen (http://archive NULL.kira­ha­gen NULL.com/c/kirahagen)

Just doing some updates on the photo gal­leries. Split my Moscow pho­tos into a cou­ple dif­fer­ent groups — this one is focused on peo­ple, the other on land­scapes and monuments.

Close

Pop­u­lar­ity: 1% [? (http://alexking NULL.org/projects/wordpress/popularity-contest)]

I give you the Beloruss­ian endorse­ments for the US pres­i­den­tial cam­paign (http://3quarksdaily NULL.blogs NULL.com/3quarksdaily/2008/02/selected-minor NULL.html).

On one hand I’m tempted to repost the whole thing for sheer hilar­ity value, but on the other some bits do jump out more than oth­ers. By the way, this is basi­cally writ­ten to snark back at the West for its crit­i­cism of Beloruss­ian pol­i­tics and dic­ta­tor, to put this in con­text. Any­way, here we go! Bold­ing mine. Trans­la­tion appar­ently by the Belarus Infor­ma­tion Agency… I can’t con­firm its authen­tic­ity but it’s def­i­nitely in the style of post-Soviet news­pa­per arti­cles. Sigh… … Read more

Pop­u­lar­ity: 1% [? (http://alexking NULL.org/projects/wordpress/popularity-contest)]

In Novem­ber, I found a request for images of Tsar­itsino Palace, a museum estate in the South of Moscow, on Pho­tog­ra­phers Direct’s web site. That Sat­ur­day the sky was clear and I dragged Tony away from the com­puter for about 5 hours of shoot­ing. The change from before the ren­o­va­tion was amaz­ing — when we vis­ited the park in 2005 there was no roof and crows nest­ing in every cranny. Now it has the ele­gance to rival the palace-museums of France… pretty amaz­ing. Clean air down there, too — very nice to get out of the cen­ter and be able to breathe for a bit!

Any­way, out of about 90 images uploaded for the request, mine was selected for a 1 page “updates” arti­cle in National Geo­graphic His­to­ria (http://www NULL.his­to­ri­ang NULL.com/index NULL.jsp), a Span­ish his­tory mag­a­zine. I’m very pleased (and I think my grand­mother is now telling every­one in her lit­tle town that her grand­daugh­ter is a National Geo­graphic pho­tog­ra­pher). This is my first sale to a major title, so I’m cel­e­brat­ing a bit!

Pop­u­lar­ity: 1% [? (http://alexking NULL.org/projects/wordpress/popularity-contest)]

This guy cracked me up. Charged me two Euros to take the shot. Such a Roman — didn’t even put down the cig­a­rette. Italians!

Any­way, I sort of think it makes the shot.

Pop­u­lar­ity: 1% [? (http://alexking NULL.org/projects/wordpress/popularity-contest)]

I pho­tographed this statue in the Capi­to­line Museum, Rome, and I really, really wish I’d snapped a shot of the tag on it as well. I’d hit the stage where my artis­tic juices were flow­ing smoothly and my com­mon sense had turned off, though, so…

It makes me think of fallen angels, for­bid­den knowl­edge, and mes­sages in the night. Another photo that’d do well as a cover for a Goth CD… I don’t believe the statue even had wings — it’s prob­a­bly Mer­cury — but the shad­ows on the wall behind it make it look as if it does.

Shot in RAW on a Canon 350d, 18 – 55 mm lens, con­verted to monot­one and then toned to night-blues.

Pop­u­lar­ity: 1% [? (http://alexking NULL.org/projects/wordpress/popularity-contest)]