One of Kim and my favorite shows is NBC’s The Office. About a year or so ago I began reading the blog of Dwight Schrute - one of the characters on the show.

In a recent post, Dwight goes on about “the plague of digital cameras” that are “like a mutated virus – attacking humanity without an antidote.”

I know it’s silly and just for fun. But it is related to digital photography after all!

While watching Iconoclasts on the Sundance Channel a couple of weeks ago I saw an ad for an upcoming series of documentaries  featuring photography and photographers that will begin this week.

The series will include Tina  Barney, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Peter Beard, William Eggelston, Helmut Newton, and Tina Modotti, and photo collector Sam Wagstaff.

AmericanPHOTO’s State of the Art blog links us to an article from the New York Times featuring the films as well as a blog listing the air times. It appears that there are at least 2 showings of each of the 11 throughout the week in case you miss one.

Check your local listings and tune in!

Note: The following has nothing to do with Photoshop or photography (but read it anyway).

I was reading an article about actor Rainn Wilson of NBC’s The Office on CNN.com over lunch the other day. I’m a big fan of the show, I just think it’s one of the funniest things on TV. Wilson plays intensely devoted assistant regional manager (really, assistant to the regional manager) Dwight Schrute who is often the object of elaborate pranks devised by his co-workers. He is one of the more unique characters ever written for television comedy and Wilson is amazing in the role.

In the article, Wilson mentions that he writes as Dwight over on the show’s site on NBC.com in his blog “Schrute-Space.” He doesn’t write very frequently but definitely go back in the archives and read it all. Do it now.

Some excerpts from the blog:

• “First of all, “fall” is my favorite of the four seasons (next to summer and spring of course). And here is a little known fact: They call it fall because people fall down a great deal over all the leaves and branches. It also gets icy later on in the season and that ice on the puddles gets covered with leaves and brambles and such. In my humble opinion they should call it “horrifying accident waiting to happen” or “trip” or “lookout for leaves!”"
• ” I have over 87 people in my immediate family however. But most of them don’t have the internet as they are farmers. Mostly beet farmers or Amish. The Amish don’t use the internet. Probably because of how slow dial-up is.”
• “Here in Scranton it is 46 degrees and SLEETY. I love sleet. It’s so bracing. It’s not snow (wimpy) or rain (annoying). It’s sleet. It’s its own thing. Sleet is the most unappreciated type of weather. This winter, let’s all try and have a deeper respect for sleet and what it does and what it is. Also - think about the way the throat and swallowing works. The epiglotis decides what goes where down the trachea and/or esophogus. But it gets no respect. This tiny flap of skin in your neck decides if something is food or air. The food goes to your tummy. The air goes to your lungs. Without it your food would go straight into your lungs and clog them up. You’d have soup in your lungs. Or a sandwich. Or Doritos. Or Fresca. OR you would get air in your tummy and be a big gassy fart bag all the time. All that from the tiny, powerful epiglotis. In many ways, I am like the epiglotis. Small, unappreciated, not well thought of or respected, but POWERFUL. So powerful that without me you’d have food in your lungs.”
• “Why are robots always the villains? Why are robots always portrayed as shifty aggressors with ulterior motives? Why can’t robots be taken for what they are. Artificially intelligent creatures who are PROGRAMMED to serve humanity…. A coffee maker is a robot. Think about it: “I want a cup of coffee. No, make that seven. I want seven cups of coffee. I want those seven cups at 6:55 AM. I want seven cups of coffee, extra-strong. I want the coffee maker to beep me a warning signal when the requisite cups have been brewed. I want those seven cups to be kept warm at a temperature of 103 degrees fareinheit until I have drunk every drop of hot coffee.” Etc… Etc… That is robotics. Plain and simple. Is that so dangerous? Are you afraid of your Mr.Coffee now? Are you switching to tea? No, you are not. You love your little coffee robot.”

Good stuff!

Regular readers and those who know me know that travel is a very important part of my life and that I feel the experiences gained and self-knowledge learned while traveling is unlike anything else.

Earlier this year I came across a show on the Travel Channel called 5Takes. In it, 5 young adults (TJs or “travel journalists”) come together to explore new places all on a budget of $50/person/day. They each have an interest area that they will be focusing on at different points along the way - be it food or night life or culture or religion, etc. When I first saw the show the group was traveling all over the Pacific Rim and actually visited a few places I have been to, like the Po Lin Monastery on Lantau Island outside of Hong Kong. It was exciting to see again a place that now seems so far away. After all, it’s been over 4 years now since I was there.

It’s an interactive show in that they tape, edit, and air each episode all within about a week and a half so you can go to their website to post comments, tips, ideas, and vote on where to go for their final destination.

This time around, the 5 TJs are all from Pacific Rim countries (Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, The Philippians, and Australia) and they are touring around the USA. Their first stop along the way was to spend 5 days in Las Vegas - an interesting first look at the US - and they are off to Alaska for next week’s show.

Having traveled a lot myself, I always find it interesting to see how Americans are perceived by the everyday people in other countries. Their view is so filtered by television and other stereotypes that many are only tangentially aware of what the reality is. And the same is true for the general opinions most Americans hold for people of other countries around the world, even moreso in fact.

In my travels with work these past few weeks, my dad and I were listening to the audiobook of Nicholas Sparks’ memoir Three Weeks with My Brother. In the book Nicholas and his brother Micah recall their lives growing up while they travel around the world over the course of three weeks in late January and early February 2003. There is a scene from their trip where they are talking with a guide about traveling to the US. The guide had been to major cities and felt that Las Vegas was the epitome of what America is: the lights, the energy, the money, extravagance, the food. For me, and I would presume for most Americans, Vegas is certainly not definitive “America.”

But that’s what I like about this show, it gives us a number of different perspectives on what the world has to offer. And, this season anyway, we are given a glimpse of how we are viewed by those from other countries. Definitely worth a watch. Here, it’s on Saturday nights at 10pm (EST) on the Travel Channel. Take a look!