Lost in Translation?

This morning as we were louging around on the Bare Mattress of Love and enjoying our Sunday Frozen Waffles we got this missive tied to a rock and thrown through our windows.

Dear Memes,

Take a look at Macroday: Anything but a Bug and Shutterday: It's Not About You and see what you think. Is this mischief or malice? Or just a language issue for theme descriptions that are too wordy? - Agent I

Dear Agent I,

We may have thought so until we went to the Euroblogger Meetup but we found these backstabbing Eurobloggers have JUST PERFECTLY FINE ENGLISH WHEN they are assuring you that they WILL NOT NOTIFY HOTEL SECURITY THAT YOU HAVE A FULL GROWN NUBIAN GOAT IN YOUR ROOM! But then they go and do JUST THE opposite! Up is down! Nein is Oui! In is Out! No Goat is Goat!

So it is with great pleasure we accept your notification of SHAMING UNTO THEE

Let us begin with Macroday: Anything But a Bug. Just don't post a bug. How hard is that?

Just don't glance at the title, see the word Bug and think AHA! I HAVE A BUG! These are the type of people Nigerians pray to find! (Greetings and God Bless and please accept this offer of 10 BILLION DOLLARS)

Those who were a bit buggy at Macroday: Lightsights, Adrian Hancu, and Journal Extime.

We'll do Shutterday after the theme closes. it looks like it's going to be a long week over there.

Macroday Smackroday!

We have been begging Carlo Ferroni, owner of Macroday, to moderate his photomeme a little less ruthlessly. "Why?" you ask. Because it leaves us nothing to SHAME.

For other shamings we have to rely on our interpretation of the thing we call art, which as many of you who have been shamed know, we know very little.

If a given theme is, say, opulent, you can post anything and we don't know. Even if it doesn't fit the theme, maybe it's satire. Or maybe you've been drinking.

But if a theme is "Blue" and you post "Red". WE KNOW! And so you your fellow participants who mock you behind your back. Not us! We do it off to the side from behind a curtain! We are no braver than they!

Which brings us to Macroday. Either something is a macro or it isn't. An angel dancing on the head of a pin? Macro. A sty on the eye of a fly? Macro. A mouse in a bowl of grain? Hmmmm....ok, maybe, maybe not. Some Abstraction? Who knows?

A Bridge? NO, YOU DAFT GIT!

So we will use the criteria that Carlo referred us to at Wikipedia. Basically when a regular sized print is made the image is life size or larger than the subject.

For MACRODAY: CLOCK

In the category of NOT A MACRO
Claus Peterson (Unless he has teeny tiny hands)
*MERDI* (Unless that can go on a chain and into a pocket)

In the category of Maybe We Just Don't Get It?
Uh!Log (Are those those dandelion things?)

*update*
We Googled dandelion clock and sure enough the dandelion 'things' are dandelion clocks. Not only should Uh!Log's photo not be shamed, it should have WON! :)

Xerraire!

In the photomeme community there are 2 types of folks. Your photomeme moderators and your photomeme participants. We understand that some photomeme moderators claim to have photoblogs but for the most part, we've never seen them. But in general, photographers know their lot in life. Xerraire is a rare exception. She's Bi-Photomeme. She dances back and forth participating freely in nearly every meme and then hosts her own very nice particpatory Saturday meme.

She recently came to our attention and took her shaming like a good sport making us like her even more.

We pleaded with her for an interview which she accepted with grace and dignity. So much so that she didn't bother answering our daft questions about what she was wearing, leaving it to our rich imaginations.

We now present: Xerraire.

Who are you and why are you doing this to us?

I am Barbara from Maryland, USA. I am a recently divorced mom who has home schooled all three of her children. I try hard to earn a living from home to support them and still continue to teach them. Sometimes we struggle, but there is a lot of love in our home.

I was asked and have somewhat reluctantly accepted to do this interview. I’ve been interviewed before, but this one seems different somehow.

How is Xerraire pronounced? 'X-rayer'? 'Zee-rayer'? Or the more commonly accepted 'Char-uhlz'? And what does it mean?

Xerraire is a Catalán word meaning talkative. I lived in the Barcelona, Spain area for about a year and I learned a little of the Catalán language. While back in the U.S., I looked for a chat nickname that might attract people from that area as I grew to love it so much. This one worked like a charm. The “X” takes on an SH sound. Phonetically I suppose you could pronounce it Shuh-RYE-Ruh. I returned to Barcelona with dozens of new friends made on the net, chronicled here: http://www.xerraire.com/spain

Where else can we see your photos? Do you have any side projects? How did you happen to start Unique Exposures? What the hell else is going on over there?

On the net I have several side projects. I do web & graphic design from my home for various clients.

I have a personal site at http://www.xerraire.com that also contains my portfolio. In 1999 I joined with partners to start MXskinz.com which was meant to be a wallpaper and skins application site. That propelled me into the skins community, who are amazing people to know. However while working on that, I met a few who were photographers disenchanted with the places on the net to upload their photos. They wanted a smaller more intimate site that was exclusively for photography and a place that they wouldn’t get lost in the crowd. So, I created www.UniqueExposures.com

It started out only as a photo-sharing gallery, then by request, I added a forum. I love my members there, however, it’s a little too intimate, and so I am always looking for new members to feel free to join. I can’t say when I started it that I knew what I was doing. I dove in feet first and am learning as I go. Later, when a few photo-memes died out, I thought to add The Weekend Photo Challenge to UniqueExposures. As I am learning as I go, there are a few features my meme doesn’t have, but I would at least like to think it’s a friendly meme where others feel comfortable joining in, if nothing else.

About the same time, I began http://www.SkinsGallery.com . It was to make my life easier as MXskinz was totally html, and I needed something more modern, where people could upload their own skins and wallpapers. Now it has expanded to include MySpace Layouts.

I have many, many interests, so I began a blog to help me keep my thoughts straight, and it has become almost like therapy. I enjoy it, and the topics range from very personal to things I am curious about. http://www.xerraireart.com/blog

The blog is on a fairly new site that continues to grow, my art site, where I post my watercolors, my personal photography gallery, my photo blog, and newly added, a lyrics site: http://www.xerraireart.com Another item of interest on my art site is the Terragens I create. Terragen is a fascinating landscape rendering program that I am crazy about, but don’t get enough time to learn more. I have sold a few Terragens, and that was rewarding that others like them as well.

What other hobbies do you enjoy or enjoy inflicting upon others?

I like to go hiking/sight-seeing and I love all kinds of music. Both my children would say are ‘an infliction on them.” My music/mp3 collection » http://www.xerraire.com/music/mp3z.htm

What gives with gumnut?

I don’t know what gives. He is more a mystery to me each day. We do have a blog we do together when the spirit moves him or me: http://johndolphin.net/bozandoz

If you weren't doing what you do now, what else WOULD you be doing? Photographer doesn't count.

I majored in school to teach Spanish, hence the living in Spain, but somehow that didn’t materialize. I suppose I would be teaching, and since I have an interest in languages, I perhaps would be learning more.

Anything else?

Thanks very much for noticing me out of a huge crowd of talented photographers.

Obvious By Any Other Name Is Just as Obvious

Once when our friend Media Mogul Ted Turner was asked what name he thought should be given to his movie about dinosaurs he replied 'Dinosaurs'. An assistant suggested that maybe another name would be better since that was so plain and obvious. Ted said to the assistant "I once started a cable news network, wanna guess what I called it?"

Well today, tied to a rock and tossed through the window we got this note from Agent N

I don't know if you've ever pointed this out, it's not a specific entry, but there are way too many people who title their photomeme submissions the same word as the meme. For instance, on Photo Friday when the theme is "Silence" there are people who title their link"silence" or when the theme is "strength" they title their link"strength." Could they possibly get less creative?

Why yes, Agent N, they can. In fact, when we named our photo meme hall of shame? Can you guess what we named it?

But for those of you who name your babies, Baby and your dogs, Dog, we present our favorite example of a title working in tandem with an image to create the art we name: Art.