Wired for Weeks

Postings have been a little sparse lately, for a number of reasons, but primarily because I've been working my way through Series 1 and 2 of The Wire on DVD. The clock is unforgiving, and two or more episodes in an evening means my blogging time has gone (I'm tempted to add: you feel me, man?) I watch very little TV, and since there still seem to be plenty of other things to talk about, don't usually miss it, even as social "filler". However, comparisons to Shakespeare can't be ignored, and I was a big fan of Hill Street Blues in the days when I did watch TV.

So far, my inner jury is still out: I'm aware that David Simon has described Series 1 as "a training exercise," and that it's Series 2 onwards that have attracted all the plaudits and attention. But so far, I'm not as impressed as I'd hoped to be. For all its exaggeration and caricature, I still find the characterisation and drama of Hill Street superior -- that series had a genuinely Shakespearian sense of how to mix and pace drama, violence, and comic relief, which I find (so far) lacking in The Wire. We'll see.

I've still been photographing, though, and here's a few highlights from the week's haul.
















N.B. regarding the fourth image above, has anyone else noticed that digital cameras are somehow confused by a certain kind of strong, artificial blue colour, used on some industrial products? I like the effect, but the colour of that cable and the dangling ties have played havoc with the "realism" of the shot. It seems that every time I photograph something of that particular colour, something weird happens to the focus, or the colour rendition, or (in extreme cases) the smoothness of the curves. Odd.