Daily Digest 8 (Tue 5/10)
UHUB...@gmail.com
Welcome back.
It was a very busy day in the Den. All our bloggers submitted images
for the "Sunup Snapshot" challenge today, and some excitement happened
in the comments threads too, so there's a lot to talk about. We figured
that we'd go at it one entry at a time, starting with the earliest
posted.
Here we go.
JAMES
5:13 A.M.
James was the first to submit an image for this challenge, and what an
image it was. His photo of slaughtererd pigs hanging on hooks at the
morning market in Taipei looks amazing and hyper-real. Whenever I look
at this photo I think those splayed ribs look like wings in that light.
Beautiful and grotesque. Peaceful yet reminiscent of violence. It is a
stunning image, and if he won immunity for it nobody would be
surprised.
James made this photo personal by sharing an interesting story about
what it's like to stay up all night and then eat intenstine soup while
watching them set up the morning market.
Comments were all highly complimentary.
Contestant Willow said something that humorously brought attention to
the fact that James' life is different and awesome: "(Thank God I
didn't take a photo of the meat market outside my residential Portland
Oregon home where I eat intestine soup every morning. That would have
been SOO embarassing!)"
And Mimi commented something we didn't quite understand. "Fuckin' 'A'!
The butcher's in my home country of Wales..."
Mimi, are you Welsh?
SONNY
The saddest bike in Paris
Sonny posted right after James, and we think that was brave of him.
Sonny entitled his image "The saddest bike in Paris." It's a perfectly
good picture and it did makes us feel sad for that poor beat-up
bicycle. Commenters generally liked this photo. The UHUBUGGG thinks
that one major weakness of this entry is that it's not clear how it it
applies to the specific challenge. In the video Mike says, "we're
looking for the kind of photo that shows something about your life or
how you view life specifically as it relates to the morning," and while
we think the photo Sonny submitted is fine, it's not apparent to us how
this image is personal or related to the AM.
JOEL
Every Morning I reach For The Sky, And A Lot Of Things Follow Me There.
Joel didn't submit his entry at the last minute this time, and it was
unexpectedly unboring! He showed us a photoshop collage about his
morning ritual of smoking lots of cigarettes, drinking terrible wine,
listening to howard stern on his iPod, and smoking more cigarettes. It
looks like when Joel takes a break from making endless comments about
how the internet is broken (and from being a generally obnoxious
internet bully), he puts together a pretty nice product.
As one commenter stated, "Scattered and trailing off works way better
in pictures than words." In Joel's case that seems to be true.
MEDYA
AM hours in nature
As an answer to this challenge Medya gave us four photos recycled from
his photoblog. The UHUBUGGG is a little disappointed not to have
received an original image from Medya because we like to see what the
challenge videos inspire in our contestants, but we appreciated the
photos.
The photos posted garnered many more remarks than we expected, though,
largely because of the supremely offensive and embarrassing comments
Joel made. We're used to joel being inflammatory, (maybe he's taking
the role of Jonny Fairplay a little too seriously), but this time he
seriously crossed the line with his shamefully ignorant words about
Medya's country, language, and culture. We're sorry, Medya. Please know
that Joel is an anomaly of idiocy in this community.
At this point we'd like to reproduce the comments that Khaela directed
to Joel because we think they are important.
"It seems like you are a guy with a lot of time on his hands, who also
has a strong affection for possibilities of cyberspace.
I get the sense that you come to this electrical web looking for hope.
I think that's why we all come here.
One of the cool things about this internet thing, is that it goes both
directions. You can throw your ideas into it, reaching out for
connection. You can also go looking around to find some of the things
that you might not already have. "
With that in mind, we present the UHUBUGGG's new daily feature.
It's called "Wikipedia articles Joel should read before he ever speaks
again."
Here are today's selections for you, Joel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netiquette
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troglodyte
This is not a joke.
Now on to our next photo.
MIMI
New York Mourning
Mimi presented a somber and elegant photocollage of New York subway at
4:03 AM. We liked that her image gave us a real feel for the desolate
tone and color of NYC at that hour. With this collage Mimi showed us a
respectful portrait of people not lucky enough to have a warm bed to be
be sleep in and a gave us true insight into how she sees the city she
calls home. Well done, Mimi. (Note: We really wanted to see a big
version of this image. We found a slightly bigger one here:
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=13339704&size=o)
WILLOW
sleepy salutations
The UHUBUGGG likes Willow. What's not to like? She's nice, and sweet,
and she writes from her heart. But photography probably is her medium.
We think she might feel the same way becays all day long her ichat
status message was something like, "ultimately not a photoblogger."
Her challenge entry -- a blurry image of a bunch of people waving at
her in a coffee shop -- is related to both herself and the theme of
A.M., but it didn't make much of an impression on us. (Also, the cheers
theme song reference made us want to barf a little.)
Willow did get a few compliments in the comments thread, though,
including one from recently eliminated contestant Karsh. (We're so glad
you haven't disappeared completely, Karsh!) This solicited a
interesting reply from Willow that included an enthusiastic "I did not
vote against you!" This means that Willow was NOT a part of the Power5
and is very vulnerable right now.
LOIS
Early morning dew on spring lilacs
We have already forgotten Lois' photo... Oh yeah. Lilac leaves.
LYOVA
Bangkok, 5.46 am: Ladyboy
The entries we're getting from our contestants this time around show
that their mornings are very different than the cuddly morning we saw
our hosts, Mike and Steve, enjoy on the challenge video, and Lyova's
photo continues that trend.
His decidedly NSFW photo of a transexual thai prostitute standing
before a dingy old staircase is wonderfully intriquing. A great capture
of the personalities on either side of the camera. The longer we look
at this photo, the more it reminds us of James' morning market shot --
beautiful and grotesque, with bold reds.
We do have to say, though, that we weren't sure what the caption added
to the photo. We much prefered the top 5 things about Bangkok list
Lyova posted in the comments.
#5? The food is ultra rough chili, that make me feel like super
manhood.
RITCHEY
Pretty Literal Interpretation
Ritchey was the last contestant to submit a photo for this challenge,
and she submitted it with plenty of time to spare. Her photo of herself
in bed with her teddy bear was cute, but we've come to expect more
inspired and flamboyant entries from her. One commenter said this: " i
really wish you had gone even more anne geddes and dressed up as a baby
in a flower pot." The UHUBUGGG wholeheartedly agrees.
While we understand that Ritchey feels more comfortable with words than
with visual images, we were hoping she'd stretch herself for this
challenge. We'd like to see Ritchey take the same kinds of interesting
and entertaining risks in her photos that she takes with her words.
Submitting "Teddy Emo" would have been a bolder entry, we think.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/uncleboatshoes/13353152/
KILL MILK DOKUCHAN
Now it's all up to the judges, and according to the challenge video,
three UrbanHonking photobloggers will be helping our Blogmasters decide
who wins immunity. We don't know for sure, but we think the guest
judges are probably the people who do these great blogs:
http://www.urbanhonking.com/kill
http://www.urbanhonking.com/milk
http://www.urbanhonking.com/dokuchan
When we wake up we will immediately check to see who is safe from
elimination and we can't wait to find out what the immunity accessory
will be.
Goodnight.