Lens4anEye

  ClickaSnap Image Views vs Sales and Downloads In every set of uploaded images the photographer has high hopes of “making a sale” whether it is a Print, a Download or merely a Paid-view.    Click for Larger Not all pictures are suitable for all three classifications. The highest number of photos by all subscribers combined are of the “view” quality and character type. The best criterion to apply is whether you think someone would hang the picture on their wall.    The price does not enter that equation. If it will not make an improvement to the buyer’s decor, even a free print will go unclaimed.    Downloads are a bit different in the buyer can print the image on their own media. That media might include their computer screen as a wallpaper or for smaller phone or tablet screen.    Landscape oriented images work well for PC, Mac and laptop screens. They do not fit well on phones and tablets. The opposite for portrait orientations is what will work.   Click for larger im

Viewing Online Imagery  via ClickaSnap and other online platforms  [ Lens4anEye ]   The fast paced level of activity in today's media is a fabrication of the industry.    Whether the behavior of people is driven by the media or the media behavior is driven by the people, the end result is flashes of cognition not a continuity of presentation.    Three-second sound bites is all that politicians can convey. And the most memorable messages are the three magic word phrases: Vote for me; where’s the beef?; Stop the war. There are a million of other such PR utterances.    Pop culture music videos flash images so fast one only gets an impression of what was shown. That is acceptable for the purpose. When everything is the same choosing is an unnecessary activity. The buy is supposed to be instantaneous and reflexive.    Bidding on an NFT of a funky ape generative art figure is an example of the immediacy if the buy. Waiting a second might mean a sold out edition and one not e

Soul Stirring In July 2006 I was making my periodic trip to Braddock, PA to document the changes in this dying community. Braddock was once a powerhouse of the American steel industry. Located along the Monongahela River just upstream from Pittsburgh it commanded entire valley and fed raw steel to other finishing plants on both banks of the river and both upstream and down.    Click for larger image The post-WWII employment was at about 5000 men.    They and their families constituted a large portion of the local population. Braddock was home to many more workers who toiled in the East Pittsburgh Westinghouse factory and the towns of Linhart, Rankin and Swissvale.  The town, officially the Borough of Braddock, contained a bustling retail and professional business district along Braddock Avenue.    When the steel industry failed regional employment plummeted. Urban mobility was once defined by the streetcar tracks and inter urban passenger rail lines. Towns grew up along

Church Architecture A photo album of Lens4aneEye at ClickaSnap.com by Robert Carlson   I am not a particularly religious person. That doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the structures old and new, in use of abandoned, in good shape or dilapidated. Every building once held services and help mold the faith and emotions of its congregation.    Church in Braddock, PA Men have built towering cathedrals to their gods and built humble houses of worship with    whatever resources and labor they could muster.  Men come and men go. The Earth abides. This paraphrase is derived of Ecclesiastes. Church buildings come and go, too,and the faith abides.   My collection of church imagery combines the love of a place with the memories of the people who prayed, sang, laughed and cried. They wed, baptized and said their final goodbyes inside these halls and chapels.    Mountain Top in Costa Rica A building is after all only a structure of wood, glass. Steel and masonry until the people endow it w

State Hospitals Click here to view the entire Album   Throughout history the treatment of vulnerable populations has been a dire experience for most of the people who were consigned to institutions of various kinds.  The ubiquitous Asylum might be specific to physical conditions like Tuberculous or Polio. Others were created to house and allegedly treat feeble mindedness and insanity. The euphemistic "wayward women" encompassed many maladies and alleged maladies specific to the female gender.  Orphanages abounded it times of global plagues and warfare. Any child who might pose an embarrassment to the family name would be spirited away to be raised by nuns and other clerical persons at locations far from the cities of their birth and family residence. A relatively few institutions gained infamy in the annals of literature and cinema. The lion's share were perfunctory places people lived out their ordinary albeit unusual lives.  Before medical science was able to figure out

Getting Visibility on the web is important especially when you have something to say or show. In my case it is my photography.  My collections are hosted on ClickaSnap.com at the user name Lens4anEye . I also have a large selection as NFTs on Opensea.com at Itsalltuna . Every opportunity is important because one never knows which platform an interested buyer might go to and find That One photo they really need to have. This QR code links to my Instagram account where a small selection of my works is presented. Followers will be appreciated.  I also have a Twitter account at the name Itsalltuna . Follow me there too. As I said earlier every avenue of visibility makes for a larger audience. Finding the people who appreciate my photographic style is my ultimate goal with all the work put in to it. One on these days I need to give Youtube a try. I don't know about TikTok since it might get banned from the US. There are so many other platforms to use, but so little time to get around to

The Other Brick Road Dorothy of Oz fame was instructed to "follow the Yellow Brick Road." But if you look at the scene of the beginning of the road, you can see there are actually TWO brick roads. They spiral around each other then diverge in different directions. The other road was a Red Brick one. I don't know where it led. The yellow one headed toward the Emerald city. Maybe the red one went to a Ruby City?   Lens4anEye Albums   I found this Red Brick road cutting through the landscape heading somewhere. Actually, heading to TWO different Somewheres. OZ per chance going one way. Over the rainbow in the other? Visit my Photography Lens4anEye Albums at ClickaSnap.com 

Left Brain - Right Brain [ Lens4anEye ] My left brain writes a story, punctuates the sentences and proofs the content. My right brain sees the the pictures and focuses the camera to capture the images which are also the story. In reality it is usually the image side leading the context side through to the final presentation.  It takes both sides working simultaneously to get the job done. One cannot exist without the other. They say a picture is worth a thousand words but getting the picture takes far longer. I’m my world a picture is worth a thousand miles. <=== Click here for larger image ===   The usual approach is to select a destination, choose the mode of transportation and hit the road or airways, et al. While my right brain is busy getting the photography just right, my left side is recording what I think about it. Then when the images are done the words can follow. Every image tells a story and every story conjures an image.   Both aspects are essential to ge

There are the Scenes Along the Highway and then the Highway Itself by Robert Carlson    [ Lens4anEye ]   Some highways are suited to 70 and 80 mph speeds without much fuss or bother. They are straight and flat with few other travelers nearby. One can floor the gas pedal and nearly fly along watching only the road ahead and for anything which might enter your path of travel. Click here for the full Scenes Along the Highway Album. click for larger image   The miles are both long and short. Long as in many of them and short as in each one passes in 45    to 50 seconds. The landscape is beautiful even if monotonous. Those mountains in the distance don’t change much from one hour to the next. Your peripheral views remain pretty much the same too.  click for larger image   Then suddenly there IS something. A sun bleached abode with missing planks. A horse standing in a wire fenced dirt patch. A rusty pickup truck surrounded by bald tires strewn about. You hit the brakes skidding to a stop

Johnson Farm House, Frostburg, Maryland by Robert Carlson [ Lens4anEye ]   This is one of my earliest encounters with the Johnson Farm House. It had been sitting vacant for a couple of decades when I drove past it in about 1990.  The highway is US 40, also named as The National Road and extends all the way across the country to the west coast.   The location was on my route between Baltimore and Pittsburgh. That was a trip I would make 3 or 4 times a year to visit family and friend. Most of those trips were in conjunction with holidays; July 4, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Mothers and Fathers day. Interstate Highway 68 parallels the US 40 road and the house could be seen if anyone bothered to look to the side as they sped by.     Each time I reached the location just west of Frostburg, I would stop for another set of photographs which recorded the slow-motion slide toward oblivion for this once great house.