52 Weeks Photography Challenge

January 2024

Michael Agrios

All Photographs and Images By The Author

1-Everything Old is New Again

Change is an unavoidable fact of life. Everything that was old is now new, to a smaller or excessive degree.

I was with my son-in-law, Niall, driving through rural Connecticut in search of an automotive shop with the capability to repair a damaged tire rim from his pickup truck. He knew the place. It had been there for a while. It was old. While Niall was discussing the problem with the mechanic I took a stroll around the property.
When I reached the back of the shop I was met with a scene that immediately brought back memories from almost 60 years ago. It was my first job at a local Shell station in Lethbridge, Alberta. I was 15. The station was shiny and new. The gas pumps stood like senties, they were new, analogue and mechanical. With the turn of a handle on the side of the pump the previous customers’ sale would disappear with a loud clanking and rattling of cogs, gears and bells sending the numbers on the front of the pump spinning back to zero, ready for a new customer. With everything back to zeo a new sale would begin with the same rattling, clanking and spinning of the analogue numbers, like a big flip book.

Of interest is the fact that there were only 3 windows for the dollar amount. You could not spend more that $9.99 per purchase! Consider though that at the time a gallon of gas was $0.249 per gallon. Checking the engine oil. windshield wiper fluid, tire pressure and washing the windshield were all part of the sale.

2-The Circle Game

Lessons in Understanding Circles

The circle itself is quite incredible and comes in very handy at those times when a polygon just will not do. It has unique properties that sets it apart from other shapes.

Circles try to be better than any other shape in the geometric tool box.

Circles are difficult to draw.

If I try to draw a circle freehand they always come out looking like an egg. If yours are the same, check that your diameter is of constant length all the way around the circle and voila… you have a perfect circle. If you are trying to count the numer of axis of symmetry passing through the centre of a circle, good luck. You’ll be at it for a long time and not even get close the infinite number of axis. Circles also have a constant curvature. Imagine looking up into the night sky at the full moon and seeing little pointy bits radiating from the edges. Probably not the moon. And, if you want to enclose the maximum area of a given perimeter, always go with the circle. More bang for your buck. And finally, the circle has uniformity not found in any other shape.

And so, compared to other shapes, the circle rocks. So when you need it done right who are you going to call?

Class dismissed.

3- Soft

As dawn breaks

We embrace.

Our lips meet.

Flirting with a tender trace

As soft as a petal

In it’s blooms first kiss

A moment of pure bliss.

Sighs of love

Softly spoken

A gentle touch

A bond unbroken

In the softness of our lips.

4- Film Noir

It echos back to the 1930’s and 40's-stylish, and stylized Hollywood crime dramas and adventure movies. The Mob boss and his Moll, the cynical attitudes and her as a sexual motivator, the Tommy gun-wielding gangsters, and speakeasies. The stark, dark, black and white film treatments exposing the power, crime, and corruption, as well as the inevitable doomed love affair. Bogart and Bacall, “Of all the gin joints in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.” Desparate people in desparate times.

5_ Lie To Me

I do not want to be decieved,

Or misled.

But the truth is too painful

And undesireable to accept.

And yet, here we are,

Accepting illusion and fantasy

Over reality.

In a sense of desperation

I prefer a comforting lie

Over the harsh truth.

Is there a loyalty to this love we share?

Do we decieve as proof of our affection,

our commitment?

Please, Lie To Me.