In the paradox of Achilles and the tortoise, Achilles is in a footrace with the tortoise. Achilles allows the tortoise a head start of 100 meters, for example. Suppose that each racer starts running at some constant speed, one faster than the other. After some finite time, Achilles will have run 100 meters, bringing him to the tortoise’s starting point. During this time, the tortoise has run a much shorter distance, say 2 meters. It will then take Achilles some further time to run that distance, by which time the tortoise will have advanced farther; and then more time still to reach this third point, while the tortoise moves ahead. Thus, whenever Achilles arrives somewhere the tortoise has been, he still has some distance to go before he can even reach the tortoise.
Pont de Normandie is a beautiful bridge over the river Seine between Le Havre and Honfleur. It towers over you as you approach it. The first time I passed it I was in admiration and also in awe. This week’s Lens Artists Photo Challenge #181 is double dipping: send in a photo that is related to another creative challenge on WordPress. This photo is a response to the monthly Thursday special of Lost in Translation. A beautiful blog with great creative photography. Each month one can enter photo’s portraying words: in December 2021 Introspective, Anticipating, Befriending, Choices, Wish. This photo describes anticipation and choices. If you choose to cross a bridge like this, what will it be like?
Mona Lisa is one of the most famous and genius works of art in the world. I was lucky to view it for the first time when the Louvre was not modernized. On a Monday morning in February 1984 me and a friend were the only persons in the room to admire her mysterious smile. In 2008 I saw her again from a distance, in a sea of pressing people, holding up phones and camera’s to get a glimpse of her. I have not been there since, but I can imagine what it must look like on a normal day before the pandemic. A wave of smartphones will be raised towards her, in a never ending stream of people on visiting times of the Louvre. Apparently 80% of the visitors of the Louvre come to see her.
I read in an article that at present people seek personal attention in combination with important objects and/or moments. A selfie is the instrument to gain that attention on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook or Tiktok. Mona Lisa/Lisa Gherardini never wanted that attention, a brilliant artist painted her portrait. And the rest is history. She must feel lonely now, no one is coming to see her. Or is she finally getting her well deserved rest.
January 2008 I joined WordPress. This is the first photo I published on WordPress. A taverna in a hamlet in Greece. Quite obvious what struck me in this picture: all men, all apparently in thoughts. What is going on?
Le Mont Saint Michel is an old village on a rock in a bay on the west of France in Brittany. It is positioned in between Normandy and Brittany, and is famous for its abbey.
Wishing you all a wonderful, happy, healthy and inspirational new year. I hope we are able to travel more, be near to loved ones and friends and enjoy the world and our communities in more harmony together.
The theme for this week’s Lens-artists Photo Challenge #178 is You Choose. The palace of Westminster, long seen as the mother of parliaments and an example of a well functioning parliament, but in recent years showing a decline of parliamentary sovereignty to a more and more authoritarian executive. Shot from the London Eye as a view from an observer from a distance.
The theme for this week’s Lens Artists Photo Challenge #172 is a day of my week. The photo above was one of a series I took during a morning when I visited a little village in Norfolk, Wells next the Sea. From the dock the view on the low tide coastline was amazing: boats, gulls, water, sun and clouds. It felt like a photographer heaven where there is too much to shoot in a short time. So this week I publish some of the photo’s from that morning in September.