Gang aft agley

March 9, 2016 Al Denelsbeck1 Comment

So. A friend contacted me about two weeks ago, wanted to see if I could come down to Atlanta airport to film the wedding proposal of her son to his girlfriend; they had met at a particular gate there, and he planned to propose at the same place. How sweet!

[I’m not a sentimental type, so yes, there’s a certain amount of sarcasm there, not at the idea itself, but at the number of people who would actually respond that way.]

Anyway, my friend was covering the airfare, and I’d only be gone a day, so I agreed. I ended up getting too little sleep the previous night, but I knew I’d catch up within the day, so no biggie. The plan was, the girlfriend (no, not The Girlfriend we all know, this is a descriptor rather than a title) would be coming in on a later flight by herself, so the three of us – my friend, her son [who is also my friend, but again] and I – could plan out how we were going to capture the event. I had never met the girlfriend in question, so I would just be “random airport person” to her and could hang around with a camera as long as I didn’t act too suspicious/creepy – yes, this would require great acting skills on my part, but you don’t doubt I was up to this, do you? Meanwhile, my friend, the future mother-in-law, was of course well known to the future fiancée and would have to remain incognito so no suspicions were aroused, and she accomplished this with a heavy flannel shirt (something she never wore) and a huge wool camo hunting cap, or “beanie” I think is the current vernacular. And sunglasses. It was hideous, and thus hilarious, but I’m not sure “incognito” is exactly the right word.

Anyway, we talked over where everyone would be for the best views, especially to capture the look of surprise and such, not get too many people in the way, and so on. We semi-staged positions, and enlisted the airport staff’s help in a couple of details – including, one of the gate agents would do video on a smutphone, while I was doing video on a DSLR and the friend was doing the still shots. With great luck, the entire gate became deserted between flights, only ten minutes before the future fiancée’s flight was due in at another gate. The son went off to meet the intended and bring her back to our trap under some pretense or another, and the rest of us got into position.

Almost immediately, the area flooded with people; seeing an unused gate, Delta decided to put it to use and switched another flight into it. Word that the couple were returning came very quickly and I raised the camera and tried to get them into frame. Only, the future fiancée paused too far back, not framed against the proposal banner and actually blocked from my view by a column and several people. I could see that her boyfriend was already down on one knee and I maneuvered for an unobstructed view, struggling with autofocus which tried to capture everything that crossed my frame, and when I finally got into the clear, the gate agent with the smutphone repeatedly blocked my view, trying for his own good vantage. Meanwhile my friend, taking the still photos, also had a bad angle initially and had to shift around everyone else, hampered by poor indoor light and her own excitement which didn’t help her steady hands at all.

Having done quite a few weddings in my past, I can say that this was hardly unexpected; the ‘serious’ portraits tend to be elaborately staged and lighted, kept under strict control because that’s the only way to guarantee results, while the reception photos and candids are often dicey, especially those portions which are not part of the routine wedding events. When there are a lot of variables not under anyone’s control, a lot can go wrong, and the best you can do is plan for as many contingencies as you can imagine and adapt to anything else as it occurs. And it sometimes means that the nice situation that you had planned doesn’t come to pass at all.

This is all, naturally, from a photographer’s perspective, which is not the most important one in any such situation; the future fiancée was completely taken by surprise, and overwhelmed by the proposal. The various people around the gate, passengers and staff, were delighted, and applauded happily. Delta Airlines was enormously generous and showered the couple with various gifts before they caught their connecting flight back out, and we wish to extend our heartfelt thanks to those staffmembers at the gate who helped make it all work out. Right at the moment, I am maintaining my usual policy of not naming names or picturing people without express permission, but perhaps later on there will be actual photos.

And of course she said, “yes.” Congratulations, Drew and Allanah – we wish you all the best for your future together! And for my part, it was a lot of fun, despite the issues described here.

The post title, should it be unfamiliar, is better known by a slightly ‘translated’ version – I am not completely without literary knowledge…

First come the spiders

March 5, 2016 Al Denelsbeck

Back on the evening of March 1^st, the weather was remarkably warm, and walking around with a bright flashlight held near my eyes revealed numerous arachnids taking immediate advantage of the conditions. Well, to some extent, anyway – there wasn’t much activity to be seen, just their presence, wallflowers at the spring dance; leave it to me to come up with ridiculously inappropriate phrasing. The easiest to spot with the flashlight technique are the wolf spiders of course, which live in burrows, and nearly all of those that I found were remaining on their ‘front porch,’ ducking inside at the slightest sign of danger like the nosy neighbor in a sixties sitcom.

There are too many species of wolf spider to identify any individual in situ, especially when it might require examining the stripes on the underside, so these will simply be classed in the family Lycosidae. The one seen here was caught too far from its protective burrow, so it simply hunkered down with its legs drawn close for protection when I loomed in for the portrait. As nasty as they might appear, they’re quite shy, but notably I only got these images because these two, both appearing to be males, were less wary than the large female I approached numerous times, one who retreated into her burrow before I could ever get her in the viewfinder. The gender might actually have something to do with this, the males having to weigh discretion against not actually finding a female to mate with. Much as we might like it to be otherwise, there are very few species where the males can just wait for the females to come calling…

This one I spotted initially when I didn’t have the camera in hand, perched on the pole supporting a bird feeder. After chasing the wolf spiders, I came back past to find it still in the same position, reluctant to move even as I positioned myself underneath for the portrait. The reason for this can just barely be made out if you look close, since it had already captured a meal and was lethargically gnawing through it. This is another male – the ‘boxing glove‘ ends of the pedipalps, those little leglike appendages, are a giveaway. I found this slightly curious in that, by far, what I see most are females, but maybe I just haven’t been watching enough early in the season to see the males in their active times. This one I’m going to tentatively identify as a nursery web spider (Pisaurina mira,) but I stand to be corrected on that – there are several species with a similar appearance. Nursery web spiders, unsurprisingly, feed on stray packets of information found on the internet network for arborists and orchard staff; nursery web, get it?

Let’s just pretend I never said that…

The final arachnid for this post (but certainly not for the year, rest assured, or agitated, whatever) is one that I haven’t even come close to identifying, perhaps because it’s a juvenile and thus not in adult coloration. It’s tiny, which is understating the case; it measures no more than a millimeter in body length. The backdrop is lichen, the fuzzy stuff that is found in small patches on tree trunks sometimes.

I tried to shoot it perched on a fingertip for a better scale shot, but it clearly did not approve of this surface and hyperactively scrambled around trying to get off, preventing me from even catching it in the viewfinder, much less in focus; the lichen at least caused it to clamber across the tendrils and slowed it down a little. The best way to start identifying spider species, the eye pattern, is next to indistinguishable against the black carapace. From body shape and what little I can see about the eyes, I’m only going to guess that it’s a juvenile orb weaver. I would also guess that the coloration is aposematic, the bright and contrasted ‘keepaway’ signal indicating that it’s toxic or otherwise unpalatable – being bright red doesn’t seem to be the best of traits when one is that small, but there remains the possibility that whatever is likely to prey on it cannot see the same hues. If it’s not obvious, I’m just spitballing here, so chime in and correct my ignorance if you like; you have the advantage that, if you sound like you know what you’re talking about, you can completely bullshit me and I’ll buy it anyway, unable to correct you from my own ignorance.

Spring is coming, and with it I expect to be posting more and, wonder of wonders, maybe something other than spiders. Bear with me (I know it’s hard.)

February abstract

February 29, 2016 Al Denelsbeck

I realized this morning that I had no worthwhile candidates for this month’s abstract, except for something very similar to images I’ve shot before, so I ventured out to try and correct this shortcoming. I consider this one of my weaker examples, since it’s not terribly abstract, plus it gives an unrealistic impression of what it’s like around here – lining up two trees that were in bud could be accomplished from only one position that I came across, because nearly everything remains bare branches. But it’s Monday, so you can consider this Monday Color if you like. Even though the previous post had more.

While I was out, I naturally chased whatever other types of compositions might appear; this one I liked because it’s slightly subtle, though it could have easily been more so. Taken at the nearby pond, this great blue heron (Ardea herodias) has been a resident all winter, and we’ve played stalking games several different times now. It appears to be a juvenile, and it was rather antsy today – or more so than normal – because there was a gas leak over the weekend and the area is filled with construction vehicles and workers shouting things to one another. When I approached too close for its liking, the heron took flight but only went a handful of meters up into a tree, so I played around with those compositions as it watched me warily. A slight change of position and a different focal length brought out a better portrait, and in both images you can see sparse evidence of more buds, out of focus in the foreground.

Once it had flown off out of sight (perhaps still only a short distance away,) I returned to the back yard to see if any frogs were venturing out of the pond, since the day is bright and warm. When they failed to materialize, I started poking around, and overturned an old landscape timber to reveal two old snail shells. Both were unoccupied, one of which quite old and decrepit, but that one came with an attachment that I couldn’t see from its original position, so I placed it gently onto the fence and waited for an ‘action shot.’ There’s something philosophical about this image, but I’m not exactly sure what it is. Perhaps you can tell me…

The winter of our blogcontent

February 29, 2016 Al Denelsbeck

That was absolutely terrible, I admit it – I really need to stop doing such things if I want any readers at all. The only thing I meant by it was, in the winter when any kind of photographic subject matter is scarce, I fall back onto things like the butterfly house just to actually shoot something.

It’s not the best of moves; the butterfly house at the Museum of Life and Science is maintained as hot and humid as any rainforest, so cold-weather visits mean you have to lug around your heavy jacket the entire time. Still, it produces photos and subject matter for posts, and I haven’t been keeping up with those very well at all. This time around, I got a couple of images illustrating some cool evolutionary traits, which we will get to shortly.

The other bad move was visiting on the weekend, since that’s naturally when the kids descend in frothing hordes maddened by the sight of lepidoptera, while the narrow walkways are dominated by young mothers piloting strollers and repeating the same admonishments to their progeny. But that’s when I had the free time. At left, a bamboo butterfly (Eryphanes polyxena) appears to have been vandalized by some yard ape wielding a permanent marker, but I’m fairly certain this is only its natural pattern.

Now, the eye spots are a curious development. Quite a few species have them, both butterflies and moths, and for at least some of them the center of the spot is actually transparent and reflective, a small porthole to the other side. Not that the insect needs to have any method of seeing past its wings or anything, but the reflectivity mimics the fluid coating of a real eye, increasing the effectiveness of the illusion. The eye, of course, is meant to instill the idea of a nasty predator, often an owl or similar, in the minds of birds that might otherwise prey on the butterflies; the concentric circles of differing colors is a pattern that is easily recognizable. This species even sports a pale “semi-circle” across one side of the center spot, mimicking the reflection of a bright sky from a curved surface, more or less – obviously this works better if the bright spot faces up towards the sky, and this species tends to perch facing upward. The diagonal bands of coloration alongside might even suggest the shape of a beak, as if an owl is peering out from behind the trunk that the butterfly has perched upon (the illusion probably works better if the insect is positioned properly tight against a trunk.) Even the shape of the wings might give an impression of a head with ears or ear-tufts. For any species that has reason to be scared of owls, they’re likely to make themselves scarce before getting close enough to see the flaws in the disguise. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to work better than nothing at all.

So far, I have not confirmed my suspicions on this next one, so what I am about to impart may be completely wrong (unlike, you know, all other content on the blog.) This diminutive butterfly is a zebra mosaic (Colobura dirce,) and the coloration at the trailing edge of the wings drew my attention, forcing me to take note of the rest of the pattern. From a short distance back, those pale orange patches and the dark spots gave the impression of the head and thorax of the butterfly, since this is a pattern that can be seen on many different species, and the stripes on the hindwings mimic the branching veins originating from the joint where the wings spring from the thorax – you can even see the faux legs. When I stopped a staffmember and asked her about this, she wasn’t sure about the nature of this camouflage, but did indicate that this species virtually always perched head downwards, unlike most butterflies and moths. My suspicion is that the position and coloration causes a predator to stab at the end of the hindwings in the belief that they’re the head; wings tear away easily if a bird snags one, not to mention often being discarded anyway as being non-nutritive, so the obvious tactic would be to nail the head or upper thorax when attempting to capture the butterfly. The real abdomen stops well short of the end of the hindwings, however, so any bird that pecks there will only damage the trailing edge of the butterfly’s wings at best, not in the least debilitating. Like I said, I haven’t found any source that confirmed this yet, but that’s my amateur naturalist interpretation.

My discussion with the staffmember prompted her to point me towards the atlas moth (Attacus atlas) that had newly emerged from its chrysalis and was drying its wings in the display case. Here, we look to the wingtips:

Being too close might be enough to hinder the illusion, but believe me, the impression of a snake’s head pops up almost immediately when seen from a short distance away – again, the predators that have reason to fear snakes (which is most of them) won’t stick around to judge the accuracy of the rendition. And it’s visible from both sides, so it can even be seen when the long wingtips extend out from behind a trunk or stem.

There are two things that I’d like to point out. The first is the impressionistic nature of the snake head, mere splotches of color that highlight key features, much like a caricaturist produces. We ourselves can see faces in the simplest of natural patterns, primarily because we’re attuned to faces, and so many animals can see the snake head in the wingtips – it can cost them their lives to miss the real thing, or even to hesitate too long in making the identification. Meanwhile, this ‘false positive’ from a moth’s wings results in a missed meal – damaging, but not immediately fatal. Natural selection is virtually all about such distinctions, circumstances that can be exploited to improve survival by even tiny margins. Did the dark band atop the head of the ‘snake’ spring up first, or the eye spot? Will the moth’s predators get more precise about identifying this false snake, making the illusion less effective before prompting the development of a more accurate appearance over generations of moths? It’s a slow process, so we’re not likely to see too much of it in action, but we already know subtle variations in patterns are possible, typical genetic drift, so even as a species of bird might start tumbling to the illusion, some of the moths already have better versions (while others have worse – and when they get eaten because of it, those genes don’t pass on to offspring.)

The other aspect that I’ll draw attention to is how limited that snake head is, quickly disappearing into… I dunno, something else, quite possibly a pattern that serves a purpose in sexual selection, but certainly more elaborate than the snake head. The vibrant nature of the pattern might actually draw attention to the moth – good when seen by potential mates, but bad when seen by predators. As long as the good outweighs the bad, such traits will continue, perhaps offset by the fright response to the snake head.

The same staffmember that directed me to the atlas moth came over later to guide me towards a species I’ve never seen in there before, despite it appearing on their ID guides for years: a clearwing butterfly (Greta oto.) This species was borne in the opposite direction, developing such a lack of a pattern that it became transparent, little more than a vague outline against the background – and tiny to boot. This one was inclined to stay deep in the foliage and away from decent light, but I managed to get an angle that illustrated the nature of the wings despite its uncooperative attitude (though I can’t say that I blame it – see above about kids.) The white patch at the leading edge of the forewings is easy to mistake for a reflection from the transparent wings, but it’s actual coloration. What purpose this might serve is lost on me; the whole point, I would think, is to disappear against the background, so additional color and contrast works against the idea, and the only reason I can conceive of to appear like a reflection would be to mimic water spots on a leaf – which doesn’t really work when the wings are held upright all the time.

Even the staffmember admitted that the clearwings don’t seem to last long in the butterfly house, which helps explain why I’ve never seen one despite several trips over the years. But a couple of species are overrepresented in the facility, among them the postman and the tiger longwing. It’s easy to produce too many photos of these, but sometimes you can get something that’s interesting even when you’re about tired of seeing them.

While the light was low enough to prevent really fast shutter speeds, the mating behavior of a pair of tiger longwings (Heliconius hecale) produced a curious abstract, the airborne one blurring almost into indistinction. I think it was mating behavior, anyway, but none of the kids that witnessed the numerous displays of this act while I was within earshot seemed to think the same thing, so perhaps I was wrong. Maybe they really were dancing…

Another was obsessively intent on clusters of small red flowers, and so permitted a different perspective on its feeding behavior. Obviously, depth of field is quite short in this image, so I got lucky in capturing the proboscis extended largely in the same focal plane as the eyes, with the curl remaining visible against the pale background as it dropped out of focus. You can’t plan such things, because the moment is far too brief. You just take enough images to occasionally capture something unique.

I tried not to neglect my fartsy compositions – one does not live by biology alone. Actually, that’s completely not true; biology is the only thing one lives by. Regardless, I still made the attempt to produce ‘pretty’ pictures and not ‘illustrative/educational’ ones, though my skills at the former aren’t necessarily well-developed. When an orange longwing (Dryas iulia) perched against some unknown mottled leaves in bright sunlight, I framed for the art print. Or what I imagine one to be, anyway. Listen, just let me have my naïve misconceptions – I don’t come to your site and snicker like that…

Yet, even as I pretend to possess sophistication and taste, I cannot help noticing little details of interest. In the same frame, we can zoom in on the butterfly and see something curious about the compound eyes.

As much as those eyes might look like glass globes, or perhaps some creation of an animé artist, it’s just a distinctive color pattern. Does it serve any purpose? Well, presumably it does, or at least once did – sometimes traits remain even when their usefulness has vanished – but I’ll be dipped if I can tell you what the purpose might be. And now you can’t help but see that little mouth open in shock and dismay, can you? Yep, sophisticated as all git-out…

And so, I close with the same individual that opened the post, one of my favorite species from the butterfly house solely because of the color and pattern (like there are a lot of other traits of lepidoptera that one can choose among – singing ability, perhaps.) But yeah, even the name is kinda badass, since this is a malachite (Siproeta stelenes,) poised to do great and dramatic things – I’ll let you imagine what those might be.

Audio workout

February 19, 2016 Al Denelsbeck

Adobe Flash "has a security issue" — I created this gif, and you’re free to use it as desired

Prompted, yesterday, by yet another pointless and ridiculous update, not two days after updating The Girlfriend’s computer to be “current,” I finally decided to rid the site of any dependence on Adobe’s horrendous Flash plugin. Their software has been bloated, near-pointless, and risk-prone for years, and their updates consist of plugging every exploitable leak that someone manages to find – it says a lot that this occurs every couple of weeks on average. I cannot come to the conclusion that anyone knows what the hell they’re doing, and Firefox automatically shuts Flash down the moment that Mozilla hears of any issues (that Firefox is so easily controlled by Mozilla is another issue that bears examination.)

Since only one plugin on the site required Flash in the first place, this was no big deal, right? If you think that way, you haven’t done web development, and it’s this kind of thing that prevented me from further pursuing the field, either semi-professionally or just to make the site slicker. HTML, the ‘language’ of web display, has been a hodgepodge born from text-command computers since its inception a few decades ago, and attempts to make it standardized and more intuitive have been going on for almost the same length of time, hampered by the influences of the companies providing browser software; in short, it changes a lot without getting a lot better. The plugin I needed to eradicate only played audio files, and HTML5 now provides for a simple sound player, so all I needed to do was reformat those posts and pages where sound files appeared. On top of that, WordPress recently adopted this and made it even easier. In theory of course, mostly revolving around new content and not retrofitting existing content.

The end result was 38 sound files, spread across multiple posts and pages, that took hours to reformat, once I finally found a method that worked – most of them had to be renamed after all of them were moved. Is anyone still finding that one-year experiment in podcasting? Probably not, and they might be regretting it whenever they do (not the best of equipment to work with on this end,) but I hate having anything up on the site that’s blocked out or obsolete.

Anyway, they should all be fixed now, so you can check out my music recommendations without issue. Unless, of course, you can’t. But as a bonus, I am including my supercut of podcast outtakes solely for amusement.

In no way safe for work, home, daycare, or really any public consumption at all

If bad language bothers you, well, get over it, but if it bothers those around you, you don’t want to play that file out loud. I don’t want you to get the impression that my recording ‘sessions’ were always like this – these are examples of when things were repeatedly going wrong and I was being more fumbletongued than usual. I have a face for radio, but not the speaking habits…

Crossing the great divide

February 17, 2016 Al Denelsbeck

There’s a kind of approach comes up from time to time among skeptics, and it’s often considered a good thing, but I’ve always been of mixed feelings about it. It’s the idea that, in order to get to know those who hold what we consider to be irrational beliefs, we (meaning anyone that wants to promote critical thinking) need to immerse ourselves in the culture. Hemant Mehta spent a lot of time attending a wide variety of religious services as part of his blog Friendly Atheist. Richard Sheaffer routinely attends UFO conventions in support of his blog (and now book) Bad UFOs. And recently, Colin McRoberts crowdfunded his attendance on the Conspira-Sea Cruise, a floating seminar on a variety of fringe beliefs.

Let’s start with the basic idea of fairness: instead of assuming we know what people believe and potentially judging them on this, we should find out, as accurately as possible, what they’re really like. I’m fine with this, and in fact openly supportive of the approach. There is a tremendous amount of “us vs them” mentality around, in every walk of life and among every class, culture, ideology, pursuit, and what-have-you – whatever demarcation you wish to utilize. Which pretty much means that it’s a human trait, and as such, anyone and everyone should take pains to recognize and avoid it from the very simple reason that, once we apply a label to something or someone, we assign traits that may not be an accurate reflection of them. More to the point, I encourage addressing the topics themselves rather than the people because, quite frankly, everyone has some form of irrational belief, especially when the definition of ‘rational’ is up for grabs. I myself, for example, sometimes think I might be capable of making a mistake someday…

But then there’s the idea that partaking of the culture, or however you want to describe it, can tell us something about the culture itself; especially that it can tell us why the target group of people are the way they are, or reveal some facet that is the key to changing them. This is, from my standpoint, a completely erroneous assumption. No amount of attendance in catholic mass will even tell you anything at all about the structure of catholicism itself, much less reveal why anyone might choose to be or remain a catholic. Going to a sporting event will not make the rules of the sport much more comprehensible – certainly no more than simply sitting at home and watching a game with the commentary turned off (probably much less so, in fact.) The function of all such get-togethers, from churches to tailgate parties to alcoholism meetings, is to create a mutually-supportive environment. At a sporting event you can feel the enthusiasm of those around you, and quite often this is convincing in its own manner because we’re a peculiar social species that is easily influenced by this – which is the exact point. Yet there’s even a difference between a gathering of like-minded people and a program aimed at convincing those outside of the circle (sorry – this is a difficult subject to write about while trying to eliminate any demarcations themselves, much less avoiding clichés about them.) The Conspira-Sea Cruise or a UFO convention might present “amazing new evidence,” but it will typically appear just as unconvincing to the skeptic, or even the ‘average joe,’ as all of the previous offerings, while the enthusiastic attendees can find it even more supportive of their standpoint. Is this telling us anything?

We need to recognize, naturally, that a lot of such gatherings exist solely because the ‘outside world’ isn’t very supportive of the beliefs involved. A recovering alcoholic exists in a culture that glorifies and worships alcohol – it’s how you have fun, it’s what you do after work, it what makes the games and the weekends special, and all that fucking horseshit, repeated not through any kind of worthwhile evidence, but because ‘everyone else is doing it.’ Alcoholism meetings, therefore, are a method of presenting a environment that’s supportive of dumping an idiotic habit. All week long, the first reformed anarchistic presbyterian must avoid talking about their faith among their coworkers and casual acquaintances, because of the uncomfortable questions that inevitably arise, but on Sunday they can relax among people who truly understand. Within the topics that are targeted most often by skeptics, what this translates to is, ‘people with the same blind spot.’ The adherents did not arrive at their standpoints through careful consideration and weighing the evidence objectively, but because it fulfills some particular desire within, perhaps a lot of them. Those without the same desires, those outside, are unable to grasp these motivations and resort to the label of ‘irrational,’ while the truth is that everything that humans decide upon is intermixed with emotional supplication; too often, this can outweigh the processes we consider objective.

And this is where it gets tricky, bordering on the impossible: while any number of people believe in JFK assassination conspiracies, few of them do so for the same reasons – perhaps none of them do. And determining what those reasons are is not a casual enterprise; we stand the chance of doing a grave disservice to our own standpoints and approaches if we believe we can psychoanalyze a very large group of people in such a manner. Someone who has seen evidence of biased tax laws, and someone raised in a paramilitary commune, may both have distrust of our government, and within that simple distinction may consider each other as kindred spirits – but we cannot regard them the same nor treat them alike. Even at a convention, they might both be fascinated by the topic of voter suppression, which can be seen as reinforcing both of their viewpoints to some extent – even though they hadn’t the faintest interest in the topic beforehand. What could we possibly gain from this?

And though I have never heard of anyone actually attempting this, the idea of going to such gatherings and trying numerous approaches to see what resonates the best, what changes the most minds, is extremely unlikely to garner useful results. First, because of what was pointed out above: such groups are mutually supportive, and a lone skeptic is unlikely to foster any attention at all. Then there’s the idea that people don’t change their minds quickly or easily, especially if they’ve spent years building up their belief system in the first place. To know what worked, you’d have to follow-up with participants years afterward to see how their beliefs have changed. There’s even the probability that, if someone does change their mind quickly, they won’t even admit it – they’re unlikely to ‘admit defeat’ in the competitive realm of discussion, nor reveal themselves as an ‘unbeliever’ in the very environment that they sought because it supported a certain standpoint.

Very often, what is brought back from such endeavors is that, despite the farfetched aspects of some beliefs, such people are ‘still human’ – in other words, few are gibbering lunatics seeing lizard-people in disguise around every bend. And perhaps too many skeptics need to be reminded of this, in which case the action and the resulting message is serving some purpose – a mutually-supportive environment can be created for any standpoint, skepticism included, and the same kind of extremist, unrealistic views may be fostered by it. Yet a message about objectivity and avoiding inappropriate labeling can be expressed easily without days of listening to speakers or meeting with attendees.

Now comes the matter of approach, perhaps the biggest contention among those that promote critical thinking. There’s no way that I can escape my own bias in this regard, though I’ll still make the effort; a lot of it comes down to personality, and what anyone feels comfortable with. Most of the skeptics who adopt the tactic of immersion and ‘understanding’ operate on the idea that mutually-respectful discussion, without rancor and definitely without contempt or derision, is an ideal approach; most will have their own examples of positive results. However, as with any undertaking, there are two specific factors to consider. The first is that no method could possibly be considered optimal for every situation, and it remains to be seen if even a slight majority could be coaxed out of the approach, or any approach – we’d need some pretty damn good studies to feel confident in that, rather than anecdotal evidence, which is exactly what we often argue against. And factor two is confirmation bias, something that we can fall prey to even when we believe we know the perils. While having two people actually come up to us and tell us that we made wonderful arguments (something that rarely happens even in the best of circumstances,) this means nothing unless we know how many people heard the arguments, how many were unmoved, and how many became even firmer in their beliefs.

A very common lament, heard among skeptics as well as from those not identifying as such, is how often skeptics (especially atheists) are “mean,” or confrontational, not to mention derisive, disrespectful, arrogant, and any sixteen of a hundred more adjectives. And this is said, of course, with the assumption that it doesn’t work, or even works in reverse, making people even firmer in their irrational beliefs. Which might be true – or it might not. We actually don’t know – there are no studies that demonstrate how such approaches work, so it’s only an assumption, and pop psychology is not something we should be falling for. Moreover, once again, we cannot lump everybody together; a certain approach might be more effective against any one individual than another approach, but this is likely different for another person. Even if we make someone angry or defensive, this doesn’t mean we’re not reaching them – it might actually mean that we’re hitting home, revealing the uncomfortable aspects that they’ve been shielded from within their supportive environments. While many teachers emphasize the “Aha!” moment, the sudden insight or discovery or revelation among their students that makes learning a positive and memorable experience, we have to recognize that it is often our mistakes, especially the embarrassing ones, that we remember fiercely too. Sometimes people need to see that their supportive culture is not all-encompassing, but instead a tiny enclave, to stir their questioning minds again.

It’s not hard to find an example of an online discussion that has grown too long, and especially seems to take place among only two individuals; such exchanges are often seen as being among two inordinately stubborn individuals, and accomplishing nothing. Sometimes, undoubtedly, this is the case, but there might be a benefit to at least some of these exchanges. Remember that any public forum is open to lots of people simply reading along, or “lurking,” and while either active participant might be completely intractable, this doesn’t mean everyone is. Often, the weakness of the belief can be revealed by the fervent and often bizarre arguments in support of it; provoking someone into voicing these can be enough to make others stop and think a bit harder, or even just recognize that one of the arguers is fanatical and not exactly objective. If someone is concentrating on the tone of our exchanges rather than the substance, should we take this to mean the substance is unassailable? Are we closer to making our point than we think?

And finally, we come back to the idea of the divide, and two sides – which is likely not the best of perspectives. But even if we accept this for the sake of convenience, why would we consider going over to the other side to be of any use? The whole idea is to get more people thinking critically about such topics, indeed about everything – we need to present the value of that, rather than even implying that there’s something to be learned from the lack thereof. While this might seem like it’s nothing but semantics, the change in perspective might assist our approach a lot better. No one believes that they’re irrational – sometimes we have to present our points in such a way that the conclusion is inescapable, without the concept of ‘sides’ or competition.

For my own approach and views, I believe that critical thinking should be instituted early, like in grade school, and emphasized repeatedly from that point on; there are far too many examples of its lack, within countless topics and practices. But since this is not going to happen overnight, and we still have to deal with the generations that never received such schooling, there are a lot of different approaches and techniques at our disposal, with varying and yet unknown degrees of effectiveness, largely because we’re dealing with too many different perspectives in the first place. Anyone may have a preferential approach, and this likely reflects their own perspective rather than an objectively better method. We have plenty of room for all approaches, and until we can find a way to determine what really works, we can embrace the diversity under the big umbrella of critical thinking.

Sunday color

February 14, 2016 Al Denelsbeck

No, wait – I’m not doing the color thing this year. Or at least, not on a weekly basis, but you’ll still see some images put up here almost entirely because of the colors. In this case, it’s an Amaryllis Minerva blossom (Hippeastrum minerva) that The Girlfriend is growing in the window. Or at least it might be; like all decorative plants, there are so many species of amaryllis that it might not be that particular name. If I am drastically misleading someone, I shall take full responsibility and weather the consequences.

Naturally I couldn’t pass up the macro work, in this case showing how the flower is pollinating itself (since the house is woefully short of bees.) This might actually have occurred as the blossom was unfolding, since the house is also fairly thin on stiff breezes, though the nearby heater vent might have assisted – I saw no notable dispersal of pollen any of the times I’ve been nearby while the blower was active, but this is by no means an exhaustive study. It might even have occurred because of curious cats.

Just a quick note on lighting angle, too: this particular image won out because the pollen on the pistil (the Y-thing) stands out against the shadows in the background, but other images had the flash unit positioned higher and so the base of the same pistil was brightly illuminated, producing less contrast and definition. Subtle changes like this can help make an image stronger, so experiment with light angles when it’s within your power to do so.

Darwin should have been born later

February 12, 2016 Al Denelsbeck

No, not later in the century or anything – just later in the year, since mid-February is a tough time to illustrate Darwinism and natural selection, especially when it’s too damn cold to be out looking for photo subjects.

But yes, it’s Darwin Day again, and to honor it, I have just a couple of half-hearted images (until I decide to arbitrarily reassign Charles’ birthday to May or something.) In late January, in the sunny aftermath of the big east coast storm that caused only moderate weather in my area, I went out around the pond looking for items of interest. At too great a distance, I spotted what I suspected was a hawk sitting on the ground, and began switching lenses – not that it would have done much good, because the decent telephoto zoom was still sitting back at the house, but the wide-angle lens I had fitted certainly wasn’t going to work. Despite pausing some fifteen or so meters away, the hawk spotted me and decided discretion was better, and took to the trees, closely followed by another. From the size I suspected either red-tailed (Buteo jamaicensis) or red-shouldered (Buteo lineatus) hawks, but I didn’t have a good enough view to distinguish markings. Even as I crept closer, correctly surmising that they had only gone into nearby branches, I found that they had stayed in deep shade and didn’t present any better view, nor did they hang around as I got closer – this time, they took off across the pond while shielded from my view by evergreen trees, though I confirmed that the first one was carrying prey. I backtracked to where I had first spotted it and found the evidence, but not a rabbit or a vole as I had expected; instead, the feathers of what was likely a northern flicker (Colaptes auratus) provided the story. They also provided a probable identification of the raptors, since Cooper’s hawks (Accipiter cooperii) are the bird-hunters around here, only slightly smaller than the red-shouldered. Other hawks may snag birds as the opportunity arises, but more often as nestlings or fledglings, while the accipiters like the Coopers’ and sharpshin hawks can catch birds in flight. I’ve watched them in action, and they are blindingly fast and agile.

A week later the last traces of the snow/sleet had vanished, and I was out with a student. We were both startled to find a local unidentified wildflower blooming vigorously despite the still-chilly temperatures and the constant mottled-shade that the location provided. The reds were so subtle they almost disappeared against the carpet of dead leaves, and it was the only example of that species seen in the area (or, to my personal recollection, at all.) Feel free to enlighten me if you can identify this.

As is typical for NC, the temperatures bounced back into the high teens (or low sixties if you still use Fahrenheit) for a short while before plummeting again, which brought a couple of frogs out of my ornamental pond where I thought they’d be waiting out the winter. It also immediately flushed out the spiders, since I spotted three different species in one ten-minute session at night, including this little crab spider (genus Mecaphesa) alertly awaiting prey on a valiant mint plant – no, that’s not a species name, just the reflection of this particular plant which was still trying to remain green long after all of the spearmint plants had given up for the winter – hardy little cuss. As to how much food spiders can snag this early in the year, I can’t even speculate, but I do know that the compost bin had already started being raided by some minuscule insects, so they all appear to know what they’re doing.

This image, by the way, was shot by flashlight, my bright little Cree jobbie – I already had it out mounted on a mini-tripod for use in silhouetting another spider under a leaf, and simply set it up aimed at the crab for a casual couple of frames before I went back in. Naturally, the crab shot came out much better than the images that I’d planned with the flashlight, but those were admittedly taken in a much more awkward position. Most of the frames from both subjects were tossed due to motion blur and being slightly off focus, the faint breeze and inability to stabilize myself contributing to no small degree. However, this image made it through the selection process, which brings us full circle to Darwin, so there.

On composition, part 25: Critical sharpness

February 10, 2016 Al Denelsbeck

This is a very slight departure from the topic of composition, because it really doesn’t have anything to do with composition itself, instead being a set of techniques. However, they’re important techniques that apply to all forms of photography, and I don’t have a technique category, so…

As a photographer begins to consider making money from their work and/or entering into the competitive realm, the concept of being critically sharp becomes much more important. There are certainly many types of images that do not need perfect sharpness, but many more that do, and our eyes tend to jump to the sharpest and most well-defined portions of an image by nature; given two images with everything else being equal, people will favor the sharpest by a wide margin. For any photographer then, it’s worth knowing what can be done to produce this as much as possible, and there are several facets.

Equipment. The old saw was to spend much more on lenses than on camera bodies, and this still holds true, even though there’s been a surge in chasing megapixels, video capabilities, and all that stuff with the digital bodies now. It’s still the lens that will affect sharpness the most, and it pays to try and get the most worthwhile lenses you can. This usually means more expensive, but there’s a huge caveat within this: it’s not always the most expensive lenses that produce the best results, and shopping carefully might save you a bundle. Manufacturers aim for two brackets anymore: the ‘consumer’ buyer, with lenses that are light and inexpensive, and are often mediocre performers; and the ‘professional’ buyer, with lenses that have wider maximum apertures, lots of esoteric glass additives, and are almost always sharper than equivalent focal lengths in the consumer category. The markup on these professional lenses is ridiculous, however, usually costing many times the consumer equivalent while performing only 10-20% better. How you spend your money is up to you, but I tend to look at the investment and returns, as well as two simple facts: it is never the equipment that produces the stunning photo, but the skill and creativity of the photographer; and there are a lot of simple things that will significantly improve sharpness in any lens. There is one aspect of many more expensive lenses that can help a lot, however, and that’s a wider or larger maximum aperture (often called ‘faster’ lenses because they can allow faster/briefer shutter speeds.)

The wider the maximum aperture, the more light comes in through the lens, regardless of the aperture setting you’ve chosen for a particular image. This is because the aperture stays wide open until the shutter trips, whereupon it snaps closed in a fraction of a second right before the shutter itself opens. This allows for the brightest image in the viewfinder and getting to the autofocus, and in lower light conditions, this can make the difference between nailing focus exactly where you wanted it and missing that crucial point because it couldn’t quite be discerned, either by eye or by the AF mechanism. A lens with a maximum aperture of f2.8 will permit better focus, all other things being equal – which they often aren’t, so this isn’t a firm guideline – but it also means a larger lens with more glass, so more weight and bulk.

But spending a lot of money on lenses won’t always improve the results, while there are a lot of things that can be done which will help regardless. Let’s take a look at what other factors affect the sharpness of the image.

Stopping down. While a large maximum aperture helps with focusing, in many situations you won’t want to keep that maximum for the image, but instead use a setting a few stops smaller than that, for instance shooting at f8 instead of f2.8. There are two reasons for this.

The first is, nearly every lens performs better when stopped down. A smaller aperture reduces edge effects, chromatic aberration (color fringing) and improves focus. It varies from lens to lens, but the wide majority of them perform the best at f8 to f16. A little research or some careful tests will tell you where the ‘sweet spot’ is for each of your lenses.

The second reason is naturally depth of field. With a higher depth of field, the focus drops off less for subjects not quite at the point of sharpest focus. In other words, when aiming at a bird 20 meters away, the lens might actually be focused at 19.6 meters, not quite bang on, and with a higher depth of field the bird will still be in sharp-enough focus. Conditions vary widely of course, but the general rule is, stop down as far as you reasonably can to still get the shot – this also means rendering the focus on the background as desired (perhaps you want it very soft) and of course maintaining the shutter speed that’s necessary. Which leads to the next factor that affects sharpness:

Camera motion. Far and away, this is what produces blurry images, and more so in some situations. If the camera moves at all while the shutter is open, then some kind of motion blur is going to occur. So there are two things that we can do to reduce this as much as possible: keep the camera steady, and have the shutter open as briefly as possible.

Steadiness can be simple – a good tripod is a sound investment, many times cheaper than more expensive lenses. It’s best to get in the habit of carrying one and using it for as much as possible, despite how inconvenient this might seem. Most especially, when you have one shot at a particular image and will not be able to duplicate those conditions again, why chance trashing the photo because you didn’t want to fuss with the tripod? Remember that a tripod works by being immobile, so while a light tripod is easier to lug around, it also works less well than a heavier counterpart, especially for long exposures where wind or bumping can be an issue. Also, use the tripod with as little extension as possible, especially the center column, which is the weakest link – it’s most prone to shake and settling. For most nature offerings, I recommend legs that spread independently and have variable spread settings – many can get right down near the ground. You’ll also want a sturdy head that locks tight and doesn’t settle – when you lock it and let go of the camera, there should be no change of view, and it might need to remain exactly that way for minutes.

When you can’t use a tripod, a monopod may still work, and sometimes even a ground-level beanbag to settle the camera within. Failing that, bracing yourself or the camera against an immovable object can be sufficient. But sometimes all it takes is thinking about being steady in the first place. Feet should be planted and body upright. Both hands on camera, elbows tucked to sides. What I often tell my students is to think of ourselves as observers, the fly on the wall, when everything is happening – it’s a mindset that removes us from being ‘involved’ and tends to make us try to be unobtrusive, which means we slow down and keep still more often. Anticipating the action ahead of time and being in place for the best angle means we’re not running around. And even how we press the shutter is important; the camera doesn’t take a photo any faster by slamming the shutter release down, and it only takes a tiny press to trip it.

While there is no rule that can be applied to how low is too low of a shutter speed when the camera is held freehand, especially with stabilized lenses and such, the basic guideline is that your shutter speed should be at least 1/[focal length] – in other words, if you’re shooting with a 100mm lens, your shutter speed should not be below 1/100 second; with a 500mm lens, that goal is 1/500 second, because greater magnification means any camera motion is magnified too. So the idea is to keep the shutter speed as fast as possible. The fast lenses mentioned above can help, but only when they’re used at maximum aperture – setting the controls at f8 won’t help at all with the shutter speed. What helps much more is going with a higher ISO setting, which makes the camera more sensitive to light, so less is needed for a good exposure and the shutter speed can be faster. There’s a limit to this of course, because higher ISOs cause image degradation – you can easily end up trading motion blur for blotchy, noisy images. Get familiar with your camera and know how high an ISO setting is too high, where the quality has dropped so low that the image is unusable. When we’re talking critical sharpness and competing with other photographers, you want the images as nice-looking as possible, so you aim for the lowest ISO that can work in that situation.

Some notes about ISO and its effects. Gradient areas, like the gentle changes in the hue of the sky, will show the bad effects of ISO quickly, while detailed images show it far less. Because we’re so used to older B&W images being grainy due to the film quality many years ago, if you’re going to convert to monochrome, you can often get away with quite high ISO settings. Also, the truly horrendous nature of smutphone images have lowered the bar on what’s acceptable. And finally, if it’s going to be a once-in-a-lifetime image, something rare or really compelling, a lapse in quality is preferred over blurring the shot (or not getting it at all.) So generally, use the lowest ISO setting necessary to get the shot, but get the shot.

More light. A flash or strobe, of course, can help keep the shutter speed up by adding light to the scene, but there are a lot of mitigating factors. The first is how much additional light is needed; flash units can only put out so much light. This ties in with what kind of subject matter is being photographed, since the farther it is from the camera, the less light is reaching it and making it back to the camera – subjects with a significant difference in distances, such as a group of people throughout a room, will be illuminated differently unless some elaborate systems have been worked out to keep the light balanced.

Several of the newer camera/flash systems operate to help this along, such as Canon’s E-TTL and Nikon’s i-TTL; both operate by measuring the ambient light levels, before the flash has gone off, and producing enough light to illuminate the focused subject adequately while allowing the ambient light to expose the entire scene. These can produce a nicely balanced lighting effect in the final image, but if the ambient light is too low, the shutter speed will still have to be slower to allow that light to expose for the scene, and motion blur can still occur.

In some shooting situations, motion blur can be eradicated by using the flash as the sole illumination, disregarding (or even eliminating) ambient light altogether. The duration of the light burst from a flash/strobe can be very short, 1/1,000 second down to 1/10,000 second, so even a rapidly-moving subject such as splashing water can be frozen in midair. With such techniques, it really doesn’t matter what shutter speed is set, because the light only lasts for the fraction of a second, so no exposure is taking place outside of that brief duration. However, achieving this usually requires a ‘tabletop’ subject, something small and close that doesn’t require a lot of light in the first place. In macro work, this is what’s responsible for the appearance of being shot at night, because the background or scene receives almost no illumination from the flash – this is often exacerbated by the fact that macro work may be using shutter speeds of 1/125 second or faster to prevent motion blur, and apertures of f16 or smaller to produce the highest depth of field for the subject. However, such techniques can be sufficient to prevent motion blur even if the subject is moving and the photographer is not in a perfectly steady position (which can easily happen with macro) – the ability to trip the shutter exactly when the subject is in sharpest focus is crucial here.

Knowing the limits of autofocus. While autofocus is a wonderful achievement in cameras, it’s not perfect, and can be fooled. Subjects with a variety of distances within the focus zone, such as a bird within tree branches, can cause the autofocus to lock onto something other than the chosen subject, especially when the subject is small. This is worsened with modes that can track a moving subject, because a slight twitch of the camera away from the subject can cause the AF to refocus onto something else, often just as we trip the shutter.

But much more pertinent is that autofocus needs sharp contrast to lock effectively. Subjects with only subtle variations in contrast or color, or low light, can cause AF to ‘search’ without obtaining a lock, or even lock on without actually being in sharpest focus. In such situations, the photographer should switch off the autofocus and do it manually – you’d be surprised at the number of students of mine that had no clue how to do this: which switch to trip, which ring on the lens to use. A good photographer should be able to do two things as soon as autofocus starts to get balky:

1. Find a spot in the scene, the same distance as the chosen focal point, that has better contrast to lock focus onto before recomposing and tripping the shutter – this might be as simple as re-aiming down to the subject’s shirt for a moment;

2. Immediately switch off autofocus when this fails and manually focus the lens for optimum sharpness – which still might benefit from finding that spot of higher contrast.

Position yourself to use depth of field wisely. When depth of field is going to be short, it can help a lot to position the camera to have as much of the subject at the correct focal distance as possible; this basically means flat to the camera (or parallel with the camera back and thus the sensor.) It can be very easy to make the subject boring in this manner, so a little judgment is in order – as you can see from the images illustrating this post, the entirety of the subject does not have to be in focus for every situation, but for some subjects, it works much better to see everything sharply rather than only a portion. Often all this takes is a trivial shift in position, without needing any other techniques mentioned here, but it can improve on some of them as well.

magenta morning glory flower showing white pollen — Where does your eye go, and why?

Know what needs to be sharp. This is often a matter of preference, but there are a few things to know. The first is that our eyes are automatically drawn to the sharpest portion of an image, so the focal point we select is what we want to highlight to the viewer – this may very often not be the closest part of the subject, or even the most colorful or contrasting. When we do this, however, it should be worth our attention: healthy, unblemished and undamaged, geometrically balanced, aesthetically pleasing. I have often picked through a cluster of flowers to find the one that looked the best, and had the best lighting angle, to select as the focal point. In such cases, others nearby might not have been as easy on the eyes but it really didn’t matter; even though they were not out-of-focus enough to eradicate their imperfections, attention was drawn away from them by the sharper blossom.

Also know that, as a species, we tend to look to the eyes first – keeping these sharp is automatically more pleasing to the viewer, even if it’s an insect with compound eyes. In situations where there are a variety of eyes to choose from, such as a small group of people, pick the set with the best lighting, expression, and ability to draw the viewer in; definitely the one facing more towards the camera, all other things being equal. Remember that a lot of photography is emotional, so providing a subject that the viewer relates to easiest makes the image stronger.

When in doubt, try again. There’s nothing worse than snapping a once-in-a-lifetime frame and getting home to discover that focus wasn’t perfect. If the conditions give any opportunity at all for focus to be off, get several frames, and if need be, vary the techniques. Twitch the camera away from the subject for a moment, letting it refocus elsewhere, before aiming back and locking focus on the subject again; sometimes this is enough to tweak focus just a tad sharper (some lenses lock on better when focusing out rather than in, i.e. tracking out from being focused much closer than the subject really is… or vice versa.) Close the aperture down a little to allow some leeway with depth of field. Shoot a few frames to try and capture when you’re holding the steadiest. Switch to manual focus and shoot a few frames with tiny adjustments of the ring. As long as you get one image that works…

And of course, combine techniques. There’s no such thing as being too sharp… well, okay, not in the vast majority of photographic situations, anyway. Naturally every technique above cannot be applied in every situation, but most times more than one is easy enough to pull off, and none of them will interfere with another to make things worse. If I had to pick two that would work in the largest number of scenarios, I’d say “stop down” and “use a tripod,” but all of them are tools in the photographer’s repertoire, some able to be applied in certain situations much easier than others (relying on a tripod during a wedding might be more hassle than benefit, for example.) Use what works, but never settle for lower sharpness than you can achieve.

A couple of examples to further illustrate the items in this post. Above, the full-frame shot, while below is a full-resolution inset from the same frame. Shot handheld in natural light at 1/800 second, ISO 250, the aperture was left wide-open at f4 to help prevent both my own movement and the breeze-driven flowers from blurring in the shot; naturally timing had a lot to say in the matter. Autofocus wasn’t an option in such conditions, but also because I wasn’t using an AF lens; this is actually a macro lens made for Mamiya 645 medium-format cameras, adapted to use on a Canon SLR. Fairly inexpensive, and sharp as hell. However, I also shot a lot of frames to get one that nailed focus in this manner.

Meanwhile, go back up and look at the spider photo again. There, you can see the “night shot” effect of using a flash unit with a fast shutter speed and a small aperture, and how it makes the background drop into darkness (even though the image was done in bright daylight.) There, timing was important solely because of my own minor twitching, since magnification was very high and focus, even at f16, noticeably short – the spider measures 6mm across, so effective depth can be considered about 2mm, which is a pretty narrow margin to try and remain within no matter what. Shutter speed 1/250 second, f16, ISO 250, but of special note is the lens, which is a damaged and supposedly worthless Sigma 28-105 used in reverse – not an expensive lens when new, and certainly not a dedicated macro lens. Used in this manner, however, it performs almost as good as lenses costing a thousand dollars. A little experimentation can pay off handsomely.

So did, uh… did jesus really exist?

February 7, 2016 Al Denelsbeck

If you’ve read anything else on this blog, you might think it’s curious (or completely out-of-character) for me to even be asking this question, especially since I’ve been pretty clear about its relative worth. From a strictly historical standpoint, however, it retains a certain mystique, and I’m going to present my own perspective on it. Does it actually make any difference at all? No, because of several factors that will be enumerated below, but… well, let’s go into the details.

We’ll get a couple of things straight right up front. I’m no biblical scholar, not even close; if you’re looking for a detailed and dependable treatment, you’re looking in the wrong place. Second, there are a lot of distinctions to be made, but the foremost among them is that even the proven existence of jesus has no actual bearing on whether he was divine in any way, or any actions or events claimed to be associated; those are all separate factors, and mostly ones that I’m not even going to try to tackle – partially because it would be impossible without huge inferences, but mostly because of the flaws in the entire narrative. And finally, this particular aspect has certainly been approached numerous times by others, but I haven’t bothered to see what they have to say; I’m only vaguely interested in scriptural history, and basically believe that anything derived from it will be trivial and largely worthless. Let’s face it, we’re dealing with a lot of issues these days concerning economy and ethics and cultural interactions, and nothing from any scripture is capable of addressing these in any meaningful way – as demonstrated by the still-significant numbers of religious folk in the world and the very existence of such problems after all these centuries. It’s been the same messages all this time, so something should have worked by now if there was any value whatsoever to be found in them.

But hard as it may be to believe, I think there’s some compelling evidence that the scriptural accounts of jesus were at least based on a real figure, and the evidence that I’ll present for this also argues that he wasn’t terribly divine.

There is little question that, at the time of the events recounted in the gospels, the basic books of the abrahamic religions were at least partially known; the Dead Sea scrolls date from that period and match (with varying degrees of inaccuracy) many of the chapters that would later be adopted into the hebrew bible, the christian bible, and the qur’an. However, at that point they were still scattered and not ‘canonical’ – the decisions as to what books were official scripture for each religion would come later on, and hashed about countless times even after that; there is no rational way to say, “These are official,” if one knows anything at all about scriptural history. What was known at the time, though, would be considered most closely related to judaism, though the emphasis on moses as the key prophet was almost certainly widely varied. Which means that the chroniclers of the gospels could easily have been aware of the various prophesies of the hebrew bible/old testament.

It should also be known that christianity did not arise soon after the gospels appeared. Even as they began to be adopted as a prime influence in religions, there were a lot of splinter factions, including a major schism between a) those that believed that every man had the ‘spark’ or potential pathway to divinity, and b) those that maintained that mortals could not in any way demonstrate divine powers. These would make jesus either a) a true mortal that realized his full potential, or b) an actual resident of the supernatural planes that only appeared on Earth, without any real connections to mortality. You will notice that either can can be supported by the gospels, depending on your interpretation, so no help there (surprise surprise.) It would not be until Constantine I adopted christianity as his state religion that it gained enough momentum to become prominent, and this occurred around 300 CE.

Well known, too, is that none of the gospels were contemporary to the events portrayed therein, the earliest (mark) referring to events several decades afterward and thus preventing it from being written any earlier, while two of the others (matthew and luke) are largely considered to be cribbed from the first, and the fourth (john) has numerous watermarks of being much later, including little resemblance to the earlier books. The evidence indicates that we have no eyewitness accounts of the events, instead being retellings at best; this doesn’t mean the events must be inaccurate, but it greatly increases the probability of such. Many of the details of jesus’ life were presented by later gospels, far removed from when they were supposed to occur, and with this distance comes an even greater probability that they are inaccurate; who was bothering to note the circumstances of his birth, and why did the earlier gospels not have access to these writings? Scholars tend to treat the later gospels as being embellished to a large degree, and I can easily see their point.

So let’s get down to the main narrative. Regardless of being either a chosen mortal, semi-, or completely divine, jesus is presented as the catalyst, the sacrifice for all mankind to ‘save’ us; this aspect is undeniable, and what christianity is based upon, differentiating it from all other religions that emerged from the same initial stories. The death of jesus was prophesized, intended, and completely according to plan – with all of the variations that can be found now (much less throughout history,) this is one aspect upon which there is no disagreement. The value of jesus is almost entirely in the sacrifice, with only an occasional nod towards any bits of wisdom he is said to have voiced.

Curiously, however, most of the narrative fails to reflect this foreknowledge. Instead of reaching a central location in the Roman Empire with a horde of followers and witnesses, he makes his way to an outlying province with a mere handful of disciples. Capable of demonstrating his credentials with supernatural powers regarding healing and wine and fig trees, he somehow remains an insignificant and even secretive figure. Even as his fate is playing out, he is sought after for being abusive to people in the temple, but has to be ‘sold out’ to the Roman soldiers, somehow not even producing enough of a spectacle at the time to warrant his public arrest. For an event that would affect all mankind, it’s remarkably low-key.

[A sideline here to touch on one of the more confusing aspects of the story. Nearly every account, for centuries, has judas betraying jesus by delivering him to the guards for his trial and execution, despite this being the intention all along and, in fact, the event that creates salvation. Jews were persecuted for fucking centuries over the condemnation of jesus by the sanhedrin trial, despite this supposedly fulfilling scriptural prophecy – there isn’t a lot of sense to be found within this. However, the recently rediscovered gospel of judas presents the story in a different light: judas was not a betrayer, but selected by jesus to be the one to deliver him to the guards and fulfill his destiny, making judas the most-favored disciple. This, at least, fits the events and even the dialogue within the gospels a lot closer, though not without other contradictions.]

Even as he is fulfilling his entire purpose and dying on the cross, jesus wails about being forsaken by his father. Witnesses? Barely a handful. His followers prepare him for burial without any recognition that this is not a lasting state, and are openly shocked when he reappears, even requiring proof that it was really him that died. And the gospels vary widely on what he did during his brief return to the mortal sphere before ascending to heaven, but again, eyewitnesses to this singularly most important event in the history of mankind somehow did not make a single mark in the records, even though we have pages of stuff from the empire itself. The gospels, in fact, are the only writings that indicate that this figure even existed, much less performed miracles, and again, they were written decades later and remained obscure long after that. It’s hard to reconcile this with the literally Earth-shaking nature of the event. It is much easier to see their stories as completely fabricated.

However, this has its own issues. A fabricated narrative shouldn’t have as many inconsistencies, but most importantly, it’s a lame story for being an epic, the epic. If it was written long after the time period it portrays, long after anyone ‘who was there’ could still be alive, then the author could play freely with the events without fear of contradiction or reprisal, and the events could be truly astounding, the miracles magnificent in scope instead of just making wedding guests merrier. A contemporary fabrication, however, is open to the damning possibility that no one alive remembers anything of the sort occurring, nor even heard it passed down by relatives – accounts of astounding miracles that supposedly occurred only a few decades back are pretty easy to dismiss. And the story itself is peculiar, and quite disturbing when it comes down to it. We are constantly told that god sent his son to Earth to sacrifice himself, thus saving all of mankind, but from what, exactly? There is no consensus on what this accomplished or changed, and the idea that a being that could create the entire physical world wouldn’t have any reason whatsoever to play games seems to be openly ignored. This god created the planets and mankind, not to mention all of the rules regarding the afterlife, but has to put on a torture-porn martyr play to change them? We can’t ignore the omniscience angle, where knowledge of how and when this would have to take place (as well as the disobedience in eden, as well as the flood, and on and on,) was there right from the beginning, before creation even began. In what way can this even remotely be considered ‘salvation?’ And as a curious side note, abraham was tested by being asked to sacrifice his son, but god went through with it – there are some really odd messages being put forth in here, and more than a little sadistic.

Or, are there? Let’s imagine someone rolling into town and claiming to be divine, charismatically gaining a bunch of followers convinced of this state; this is hardly a stretch even today in the age of reason and science. Eventually he runs afoul of the authorities, who have rather specific rules about religion: believe what you want, but don’t mess with what other people believe, and don’t defy the empire. Given the chance to recant, he defers, and joins the other common criminals in execution. Abruptly, his followers find that he’s just an insignificant mortal after all. They shrug, realize they were wrong and had been played, and move on, wiser for the experience.

Yes, I’m being snide now – we’re all familiar with how denial works. No no, jesus was supposed to die, yeah, that’s the ticket, and by dying, he proved his value and divinity! In fact, one could only be truly devout by believing in him, rather than the large collection of books that preceded him. It is next to impossible to find a religious person who is not absolutely sure that their particular version of religion is correct, regardless of how many splinters there might be – being wrong is simply out of the realm of possibility. The son of god could not die, unless he was supposed to! And if he was supposed to, then it must have accomplished something important.

Bear in mind that this was a tumultuous time for judaism; emperors would occasionally declare themselves a god, which didn’t play well with moses’ decrees and the commandments, and several jewish uprisings took place around that time. The message of jesus could easily be taken to mean that jews did not have to die for their faith, because jesus already had. Historically, judaism had grown to possess much power and authority in the region – until it ran up against the expanding Roman Empire. Over time, it became clear that being the ‘chosen people’ wasn’t enough to win out over Roman rule. And abruptly, we have the sudden change in message from the new testament, which emphasizes peacefulness and judgment in the afterlife, as well as faith being the only thing that was necessary – all qualities that work a lot better against a strong government than the idea of being backed by god. Or evenly openly assisted by god, as many portions of the old testament portray at length.

The later gospels made it a point to tie jesus in with the previous scriptural stories, providing him with a direct-only-not-exactly lineage with david and fitting in with various prophesies; it’s hard not to see these as opportunistic attempts to woo the jews that viewed moses as the last of the prophets because, you know, that’s what was written. Without this legitimacy, jesus was just another street preacher that could not compete against the established religion of the time.

Seen from the standpoint of a created mythology, the tales of jesus are unimpressive, vague on details, and don’t make any sense – even as a moral fable the messages are not just hard to fathom, but remarkably weak in nature. Seen from the standpoint of being accurate accounts of true events – well, they can’t be, because they’re contradictory on far too many details, so something is wrong therein, and there is no way to determine what; it could be all of it. [Note that even if all accounts agreed, this wouldn’t bring them any closer to being true – they could all simply originate from the same source of fabrication.] Moreover, none of them have any outside corroboration or demonstrable evidence, the only things that could assist in authentication. They had remarkably little impact at the time – even the gospels themselves harp constantly about those who do not believe this figure is divine in any way – and the still-present problem that they just make no sense. But seen in the light that someone was trying to capitalize on existing folklore – that fits the evidence rather well, as I see it. There are several other known gospels that never got accepted into the christian canon, and more that were only hinted at, all differing on details; the only consistency seems to be the emphasis on jesus himself. Yet still in a very narrow way, since no outside historical accounts make any mention of him whatsoever. It has all the earmarks of legends built up around a cult following – one with little to show for itself, as well, since it wouldn’t have been hard for someone truly divine to have a hell of a lot more impact. Given, you know, that his dad stopped the entire planet from rotating and moses parted the waters and all that jazz. If we are to believe that the gospels still recount the legends of a divine miracle-worker, then why can’t they agree on the miracles, and why aren’t those miracles carrying their own weight in the legends outside of christianity? However, mythology is easily built around a single common figure – witness all of the emphasis on Christopher Columbus that made it into common knowledge without being true at all, or all of the quotes misattributed to Mark Twain, despite both of these being well within the era of meticulous recordkeeping.

Christians will tirelessly argue that the gospels are distinctive evidence of both existence and divinity, while completely dismissing very similar accounts regarding mohammed and buddha – double-standards are de rigueur among religious folk. There are entire books that try to excuse the countless issues in one way or another – often by claiming metaphorical meaning or by asserting that the message (whatever it is supposed to be) is true even if the gospels have problems. Yet even from an unbiased, objective standpoint, there are numerous other possibilities for how these stories arose, including a cult following of an entirely fabricated legend, including the shaping by unknown events and cultural influences of the time – there is likely no way that any theory regarding the gospels could be raised above a 2% probability. But to me, the explanation that seems to fit the best is the desperate attempt to glorify a rather mundane figure and event, and to do this, you first have to have a figure to build upon. The gospels are curious in that they each pretty distinctly describe their own versions of the myth, but rely on the same figure.

Some more fun reading:

Shredding the Gospels: Contradictions, Errors, Mistakes, Fictions

How accurate are the gospels? (This one recounts the extremely common christian response to debate, which is why there is little reason to even engage in such.)

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