A Vincent Mounier Photography Blog
The Shadow of the Going
February 24, 2005
It was the 3rd of September, 1994. I was standing on a dock in Guam. In the darkness of a cool dawn, a suitcase at my feet, I was watching the largest sailing vessel in the world, which I had called home for a year, depart slowly for Saipan. Without me. A piece of my heart was sailing away, too, and I was so worried that I might have made the wrong decision.
Leaving is easy. Leaving for the right reasons seems a little harder. And now, over ten years later, I'm leaving ...
Farewell to the Rock - Part 2
February 19, 2005
I get up early on my day off and jump in the shower. My air conditioner was broken and I've sweated all night under the miserable whisper of a ceiling fan. But the shower faucet coughs, spits out a few droplets, burps some air and then goes dead. The water has run out. Again.
Yes, we technically have a reverse osmosis unit to turn seawater into very good quality fresh water. But it's been broken for months. We also have six cisterns collecting rainwater. But the gutters...
Of daylight and shadows
February 19, 2005
)arrow Sometimes I feel like Gollum, forever fleeing the burning brightness of the Sun. We endlessly seek its heat only to find our skin aging, our eyes blinded and shadows flattened.There's no worse light for photography then a bright noon sunlight. Over it I'll always choose a late afternoon's warm nuances and lazy shadows.I wish there was a way to record a moonlight's rendition of the world. When all the cats are grey, when men are equal, when corruption sleeps and mu...
The Sex Lives of Cannibals
February 17, 2005
I was recently reading a book when suddenly, hidden in the middle of a chapter, I recognized... Myself.
This would be me, I realized, if I remained in Kiribati any longer, a dissolute man untethered from his own land, a foreigner who has adapted to the queer realities of island life, but a foreigner always, disconnected from the world beyond the reef, and possibly from his own mind.
That's a quote from "The Sex Lives of Cannibals" by J. Marteen Troost, an excellent story...
Farewell to the Rock - Part 1
February 16, 2005
It looks as if the prison gates will open up for me at the end of March or the beginning of April. I have done my time, and so the time has come to move on once more, aiming for mountains and a change of scenery...
I long for fresh high altitude air, for the sound of cowbells, for a smoking cup of coffee on a chilly morning. I miss looking up to find my horizon instead of aiming low. I can't wait to be driving (with both my feet!) along a sinuous narrow road. I deeply, ...
Wind of change
February 11, 2005
I've felt it before. It comes out of nowhere and wants to take you back there. At times it makes you sweat, but then it chills you to the bones. No way to sail along with it for it is unpredictable and gusty.
But it carries many new scents and the perfume of unknown lands fills the air, speaking of faraway places and undiscovered treasures. It makes your feet itch and your eyes sweep the horizon.
It's then a matter of timing, I guess. The one gust will come that has ...
The darkest hour
February 8, 2005
It comes just before dawn, so long after the light once disappeared it seems as if darkness will never end. The air is cold and brisk and hard. My eyes are unseeing and I walk like a blind man, arms extended, probing the night. Tiny obstacles make me stumble and often manage to throw me to the ground. I fumble and hesitate. Sleep is elusive and agitated. Dreams get populated with monsters and my heart weakens.
Where do I seek the light?
What if sunrise never came?
...
New Header for February
February 3, 2005
1:00 am. I've just put the final temporary touch to the new site header. It's still being adjusted here and there but I'm rather pleased with the way it looks so far. The logo will eventually be changed into its final form. The guestbook is also wearing its new skin, check it out!
Le roi est mort, vive le roi!
January 31, 2005
)arrow It took me 10 years! 520 weeks to finally snap out of a glazed stupor that had me convinced Internet Explorer was the ne plus ultra of browsers. Micro$oft does such a great job at controlling the market that they had me controlled too. But no longer.I am now happily - and safely - and freely - surfing at the wheel of my freshly updated Firefox 1.0. The new Mozilla little browser, I mean brother, has managed to conquer my trust in just a few days. Granted, I'd had ...
A view into the thoughts of a machine
January 30, 2005
For chess enthusiasts, here's a totally cool link. I'll let the authors describe it:
Thinking Machine 4 explores the invisible, elusive nature of thought. Play chess against a transparent intelligence, its evolving thought process visible on the board before you.
The artwork is an artificial intelligence program, ready to play chess with the viewer. If the viewer confronts the program, the computer's thought process is sketched on screen as it plays. A map is created f...