Michelle Cole

In the late Aughts, I bought a set of Cokin glass filters from a now defunct camera store. Even at the time, they seemed nearly obsolete. Why bother buying a physical way of making what Photoshop can do in a fraction of a second? I thought I’d buy the filters anyway. They seemed cool, made in France and deeply inconvenient. I don’t regret the purchase.

Aftermath of House Fire, West High Street, Lima, Ohio

There have been entirely too many house fires in my city in the past year and a half. I suppose that one house fire is a fire too many, but I’ve lost track of all the reports of burnt homes in the local news. When I spotted the property shown in this post over the weekend, I had no memory at all of reading about this particular home burning.

I love train graffiti, especially the type painted in letters so fat that I fail to map each to the right letter of the alphabet until it has rolled away. Watching a train pass is sometimes like listening to the tones of a foreign language I wish I knew but do not, and in my unknowing, the conversation sounds more like music than dialogue.

Some commercial real estate is utterly forgettable to me. I really had to reflect on whether the building above is still standing or if it ever sold. I drive by it several times a year, yet I do not look at it. I had to consult Google Street View to see if it was still standing, but it could have been demolished yesterday for all I know. Its Street View image doesn’t show much change except for a…

This weekend’s weather is not favorable for outdoor photography, so I looked through images I captured last week to glean another one to offer here on Intensity Without Mastery. I gravitated toward a flag photo I took at a local park. The sight of it swirled my mind in moments of the pandemic. Before I dig further into the recent past, I’d like to mention I understand the pandemic is far from…