A Return of Kings Art Exhibition

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

A few weeks ago I had to listen to some trendy hipster drone on about his new digital camera. This went on for what seemed like an eternity to me. After listening to his “worldly” explanations of the value of HDR photography, he displayed some of his work. I was not impressed and felt let down by this gentleman’s excessive sales pitch. I had the thought that I could do better with my cell phone. I went back and selected a few pictures from my device and decided to post them here. They were taken at the Mount Rainier National Park with a Blackberry. The only alteration made was cropping the edges due to the odd 15:9 aspect ratio on my Blackberry.

ragnorakstream

The Stream From “Valhalla”

purple flowers

whiteflower

Ice Age Flowers

stonewaterfall

A Smaller Version Of The Waterfall From “Prometheus”

mountainfog

Piercing The Cloud Canopy

bobbrossline

Like A Bob Ross Painting

waterrushdown

These pictures turned out nice to me. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Read More: Homage To Catalonia

41 thoughts on “A Return of Kings Art Exhibition”

  1. Very cool. I like that ROK is also having posts that focus on cultural aspects, and not just the current state of affairs. Roosh and Quintus have been leading the way far, and this latest installment by Douglas is also excellent.
    I also know what you mean when someone goes on about their camera gear only to see so-so images. HDR is definitely a great advance in photo technology, but in the final analysis all the bells and whistles are still tools of the photographer, and it is the photographer that still needs to know the basics in order to produce the final result.
    These are pretty good shots considering they were made from a blackberry. Keep up the good work.

    1. This comment supplied far more content and insight than the actual OP. Is this a blog or Facebook? Is the OP trying to make a commentary about the pop-culture trend of digital photography being a trope of the social-media age latched onto wholesale by countless casual “artists”? Or is he just sharing cell phone pics?

      1. I think one of the points you are meant to infer is that ‘art’ was / is something that requires the ‘artist’ to actually master their craft… whereas today any schmuck can waltz into bestbuy and pick up a canon EoS and call themselves a photographer…
        same kinda applies to DJ producer… whereas 10 years ago you needed $100k of year just to get started, now anyone with a laptop can do it…
        WHERE IS THE ART ?
        There are more artists in the writers of ROK, because at least they put thought, effort and practice into honing their writing abilities….
        When it comes down to it, some of Douglas’s photos would have had him be a professional 20 years ago, today anyone can call themselves a photographer… musician, DJ, Producer, Film maker, published writer, and so forth… and yet in the tsunami of ‘art’ not only is there none to be found, but what there might have been is lost as well….

        1. I can take a photo with my little toe. As someone who actually makes a significant amount of my income from selling paintings let me say it’s a real skill set, that takes thousands of hours and years of studying to become proficient in. People don’t go around claiming to be doctors or lawyers without the bonafides. At least they shouldn’t be and there are serious consequences if you’re caught faking it. But society seems to think that everyone is an artist or at least has an artist inside them. It may be true that everyone is creative, and certainly I agree that the importance of creativity and expression is severely stifled by this business-centric culture. So perhaps we are all artists, but most of the people claiming to be are not professionals, and that is a major distinction that needs to be asserted. I am a professional artist. I am not a flake, a stoner, broke, or living off my parents which is what society thinks we are. If you’re doing it right, you’re making exactly what you want to make, getting paid for it, and answering to no one.

  2. Just what the world needs – more poorly composed pictures of flowers and waterfalls.
    They look like cellphone pics….is this a joke?

      1. Haha…I know, that’s my point. That’s exactly what they look like. Just some dude’s snapshots from his cellphone and nothing more. Taking pictures of flowers doesn’t make you an artist.

    1. The point is that poorly composed pictures look just as poorly composed, whether you’re using your cell phone or the latest several thousand $K set of acronyms (SLR, DSLR, HDR, WTF, OMG, YOLO).

      1. Both those recommedned sites are good, good imagery. The viral nova site uses digital collage as well as photography, which is a lot more refined than simple snapshotsa done with a phone camera. The author metnions the pics are taken from a blackberry.

  3. Hipsters like to think they’re all “avant garde” and ahead of the curve, when in reality all they do is buy and consume what their hipster magazines tell them to.
    HDR exists since forever, but it’s all the rage now that smartphones can do it. Yeah, wow.

    1. “The article is well written, but I don’t think this topic fits well on ROK.”
      That was Roosh’s reply to me after I submitted an article entitled “Exploring the Relationships Between Masculinity and Breath.” I’m curious how this ‘art exhibition’ “fits well on ROK” while my article didn’t.
      In the light of this submission I’m commenting on, I’d like to give our RoK community a chance to decide for themselves (if my comment is not deleted or I’m not banned):
      ~~~
      Are you lobotomizing yourself? Connecting B.R.E.A.T.H.,
      brilliance and masculinity

      ‘Heart rate variability is key for 3 reasons. Number one, it predicts your death. If I measure your variability for 24 hours I can tell you when you’ll going to die. Now I have your attention! We tell this to organizations and you know what? They don’t care! We can’t sell them on that. The other reason, it predicts how much energy you’ve got – which is sort of interesting to leaders because leaders need lots of energy. But the real reason they buy, they’re interested in this, is HRV alters brain function.
      When I put you under pressure, what basically happens to your HRV is it becomes super chaotic. Your brain receives a signal from your heart up the nerve channels which under pressure becomes super chaos. As a consequence of the super chaos it shuts off your frontal lobes and you have a DIY lobotomy. So under pressure you lobotomize yourself. It’s as though you’ve suddenly taken the stupid pill.” – Dr. Alan Watkins
      If not already familiar with this subject area, I highly recommend you watch the entire TED talk (longer than typical, 45 minutes total) before continuing with this essay. Having experimented with two HRV-measuring devices and the core principles behind them, I discuss my experiences and observations. I believe, without a doubt, it is the single easiest metric as a
      biofeedback device for increasing self-awareness and success in life. Note: I have no financial interest in any of these products, I simply support the
      technology.
      Fundamentally, our moment to moment existence depends upon oxygen circulating through our body, taken in through our lungs. We can survive
      without water or food for extended periods but air is non-negotiable – go
      without for about 4 minutes and you’re a vegetable. Between our first and last breaths on this planet, we have the opportunity to engage the world. The quality of our interactions and contributions is affected by our overall body-mind state, which underscores the importance of maximizing our gifts through training and practice. Having experienced a period of crippling shyness many years, a quest for self-understanding led me to apply many helpful practices, of which cardiac coherence is the cornerstone.
      As Dr. Watkins points out, ‘being brilliant every single day’ requires you get a grip at every level of being from core physiological signals to the emotions they generate, the feelings we may not be aware of arising from those emotions, our thinking and subsequent behaviors which determine the results we achieve. ‘Luck is the residue of design’ makes even more sense now, as a top-performer has conditioned themselves to feel what peak
      states are like. What can cause us to not operate in a peak manner?
      Our animal physiology has programmed us to constantly be aware of environmental threats. For better or for worse, stress in our system causes
      degrees of impairment to higher cognitive functions, in favor of basic ‘fight
      or flight’ reactions. However, FoF isn’t a skillful path for effective interactions
      and leads to poor decision-making. We need to upgrade our software and find ways to cope with modern stressors. This means drawing attention to our physiology – noticing when and how we get anxious – and developing wise methods to govern our responses.
      The most basic way to practice this self-mastery, as Dr. Watkins and similar researchers indicate, is by working with certain aspects of how we breathe. As he says, to (b)reathe (r)hythmically and (e)venly (t)hrough the (h)eart (e)veryday. Breathing like this in turns creates an internal environment where our executive mental abilities are fully switched on. You can feel the difference very easily and having a quantitative value is also a motivator. When coherent, we are not surprised by our environment and more
      easily embody and exhibit qualities of masculinity – strength, wisdom,
      calmness, authority, vision. It is also a state that often arises during
      mindfulness meditation so the two are quite related.
      If you have not yet taken note of how your body is affected by the quality of your breath, you are missing out on some degree of your innate brilliance. I’ve measured the coherence of several people who work for me in my business. The ones who score the lowest (20-50% best coherence rating)
      are most easily distracted, most prone to mistakes and have the least rational thinking process. The ones best able to reach and maintain low HRV / high coherence are extremely adept at focusing, seeing the ‘big picture’ and taking actionable steps to achieve their goals. It may only be a matter of time before these measurements become part of an interview process. At some point, there’s no faking your way around low coherence!
      Much is made of being in a ‘leader frame’, or ‘state control.’ The principle and measurement of heart rate variability, cardiac coherence, and B.R.E.A.T.H.E. (‘breathing rhythmically and evenly through the heart every day’ create direct measurements of how aware, centered, grounded, intelligent and – I argue – masculine we are in any given moment. It is never too late to start and once the practice becomes second nature, you won’t need a device to feel your coherence. It will become innate to your life, supercharging everything you do.

        1. Agreed, I didn’t make a point of mentioning meditation because that can be seen as ‘religious’ for some people (causing them to reject it). My goal was be more universal in scope.

      1. Enjoyed the video and idea, TruthTiger. Looks promising. My anecdotal, past self-improvement with yoga to include intuitive breathe mindfulness leads me to believe Dr. Watkins is on to something. (He gives women to much and men too little credit: expression of feelings is socially penalized for men.)
        Could give Game a third dimension:
        (1) Sociophysical Attributes (results/inputs),
        (2) Instinctive Calibration(input),
        (3) Biometric Calibration(input).

  4. Ahh this is amazing.. reminds me of mountaineering days in high school 😀
    Standing Rainier’s summit is one of my fondest memories as a kid. Thanks for the post!

  5. i get your point douglas but Steven Spielberg ain’t shooting his next movie in an iphone…. it’s called technology for a reason…. the color depth and clarity in high end cameras can’t be found in a phone (yet)… a VW Golf will get you from A to B, but you sound a bit airheaded saying you don’t understand why people buy a Ferrari.

    1. I gave this an upvote but let’s look at it another way.
      Imagine a golf shootout between myself and Tiger Woods. Woods has a shit 2nd hand set of clubs. I have the latest most expensive clubs. Who wins the shootout?
      Take another golf shootout. Woods with those shit clubs and another elite golfer with very good clubs. Those good clubs would give him the edge.
      This hipster in the article should have practiced with a cheap shit camera (or cell phone) and then worked his way up so that he was worthy of the very good camera. Most people will spend thousands on a good camera but won’t spend $30 on photography for dummies or something similar.

  6. I may not be sophisticated like some other commenters, but I enjoyed these. Kind of reminds me of the “moment of nature” clip at the end of every CBS Sunday Morning. Thanks.

  7. When you travel abroad, leave the photographic devices at home. You are not going to take an award-winning photo of the Taj Majal or anything else. As you stand there you will hear the sound of thousands of photos being taken per second. You will spend all your time framing shots of everything instead of living in the moment and enjoying what you have spent a lot of money to see. When you return home you will never look at them. Not to mention that US Customs loves to pull you aside and look through all your digital pics. Better instead to have a local snap your photo if you want a momento. You will be helping them out as well.

    1. I quite agree… you want your life to be a photo shoot – become a fashion model, movie director or photographer….
      otherwise engage brain, learn to enjoy the moment, and stop trying to pretend your life is so amazing because your facebook photos look so fantastic… i went to some of those parties and they were duller than the dish water in the local nunnery….

    2. Well, I do take photos that could be award-winning. I have photos taken with an old 3-mpixel camera that can teach algebra to photos seen in travel magazines, but I am not a “professional photographer” with their contacts and hipster dressing. Do look at your travel photos, some of them are good. And take photos of your experiences, of the way you feel, of memories, not of “scenery” (well, take one of those just because, but there are millions of those same spots online).

    3. I have never had US Customs search my digital pics, but I have an older friend who had his camera images inspected. He had his difficulties when he was coming in from the Philipine islands, and has a 20 something girlfriend, and given his senior age they might have suspected him of some criminal act, even though the guy is decent human being. But who knows maybe they will pass legislation forbidding men to date women no more then 5 years younger then him…

      1. They have pulled me aside several times for this treatment. They also have been known to confiscate computers. Twice I have been asked “do you have a computer?”. Of course I want to be a smartass and say “No. Do you have one? I have heard they are pretty cool…”.
        Also customs has taken all my receipts and notes and photocopied them.
        One time my wife brought back a duffel bag full of dried fish, which was wrapped in bundles that looked like contraband. Customs waved her through then pulled me aside to look through my dirty clothes.
        I realize they have to screen people but it gets insulting after several episodes of extra scrutiny.

  8. I once went to a photography site and uploaded a bunch of cell-phone pics. Got lots of upvotes. I waited until right in the middle of yet another heated discussion on cameras (I think it was about the tradeoffs of cheap vs. expensive polarizing filters or something) to tell them they were cell phone pics. They weren’t happy about it.
    Some people never learn.

    1. An appreciation for aesthetics is neither girly nor gay. It’s only because of our debased culture that people hold such views.

  9. The essence of good photography is good composition and a good sense of light. A poorly-composed image in bad light shot with a Hassy H4D or Nikon D800E will look like a poorly-composed image in bad light. Some people think that a great camera will make them a great photographer. That’s like saying a great set of pans will make you a great chef. As for HDR — it can be done well, or done poorly. Most of the time it is done poorly.
    A well-composed image in great light from an iPhone might well be stunning. I’ve seen some amazing camera phone images. That said, an SLR is going to give you better overall image quality than a cell phone, all other things being equal. Better contrast, sharper, better tonal range and color rendition. A larger file to work with if you make enlargements. I’ve made 40×60 prints from a D800E. You can’t do that with an iPhone without some serious manipulation or very serious image breakdown.
    With all due respect, these images are not stunning. There is no sense of light, and the composition does nothing to add to the visual impact. A couple are pretty, in their way, but solely because the subject matter is pretty.

  10. To all the complaining commenters: get a life. If Roosh wants to post something off-topic once in a while, enjoy it. If you don’t like it, start your own blog.

    1. Your comment reminds me that there’s no absolutely no guarantee a king is actually a worthy leader. Despots care about image, the supplication of their loyal court, being entertained by jesters, throwing those they disagree with in the dungeon and other forms of puerile amusement. A man with power who has not realized himSelf is a dangerous tool. He is impervious to reason, lacking in heart wisdom and guided by whim. Hiding behind ‘he is entitled to turn down blah blah’ is equivalent to the NYTimes proclaiming: “All the news that’s fit to print.” Sounds like the actions of a Castro, Stalin, Bush or Obama.
      I can see why there are haters of this site. I think the real goals are pandering to a) men who would buy into ‘enjoying the decline,’ b) angering as many feminists as possible and deep down c) getting every possible page views to promote the site to potential advertisers to generate revenue.
      Ultimately, ‘for masculine men’ isn’t honestly what RoK is about. If it was, it would be about righteous truth. It’s about self-aggrandizing amusement, self-promotion for many article writers and advertising revenue for Roosh. I can’t say I’m really surprised, just disappointed my suspicions bore out. Yet I’m relieved to no longer delude myself this site wants to be more. I think the majority of the court are wiser than the so-called king but that’s often the case.
      Banned or not, I won’t post here again.

  11. Anyone who doesn’t see the application to game is missing the point. When you bring a girl back to your place, you can get her next to you with your laptop where you show her pictures of all the cool places you have been. It helps you if you can show her you a man of the world who has been to impressive places. It can work really well if it is a foreign girl and you can show her pictures of your trip to her country.
    And you can do this with your Iphone/blackberry, and she isn’t going to bitch about it not being HDR photography unless she is some intolerable hispter bitch. So people who don’t see the relevance of this post need to think more.

  12. Nature Photos…nature…photos?
    Really?
    The composition of these are wretched.
    You’re the hipster due to your pretentious slant.

  13. Photography has become increasingly popular in the last decade with the invention of modern high-tech and often complicated cameras. These inventions have often made it difficult for people who cannot obtain these resources to equally participate in discussions and conventions concerning photography. People who either have an instagram account or happen to own a swanky DLSR camera automatically assume they are a professional photographer where in reality they are just like the rest of us, taking pictures of interesting occurances or landscapes. Photography and art in general is meant to be shared by all; not dominated by people who snub those who are proud of their cell phone pictures.

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