PAW: Chained

"Character" Contest Entries

Zenfolio is running another photo contest, and I'll be competing again. The theme this time is "Character". The final three images here have made previous appearances on the blog, but the first two have never been published before. Without further ado:

Out of Iraq
MIT Doctoral graduate V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai holds an "Out of Iraq" sign which he created while sitting among graduates at MIT's 2008 commencement. MIT student newspaper The Tech quoted Ayyadurai as saying "[Commencement speaker Muhammad] Yunus was saying powerful things … and we’re supposed to be the next generation of leaders. […] I wanted to wake people up a bit. […] I was upset that no one up there said anything about the fact that we have a war going on."

Judgment
MIT pole vaulter Patrick Barragán (right) makes a face at friend and coach Nathan Ball as the two wait for a flight along with other members of the MIT track and field teams.

Walking on the Thinnest Ice
Driver Jason Sams focuses before stepping into his car to start one of his timed afternoon runs at the Top Driver Shootout, a championship-style autocross event held at the end of each year by the Golden Gate Chapter of the BMW Car Club of America. Sams would place second overall in the event, 0.34 seconds behind the first-place driver and 0.02 seconds ahead of third.

See more in the blog post, "GGCBMWCCA: TDS".

Just like a Page-A-Day
"You see, John Hodgman likes Page-A-Day calendars. He expressed his disappointment that his first book wasn't a Page-A-Day calendar, but noted with relief that this was one of the problems remedied in his new book. He selected a page and boasted that the single page served multiple functions. Yes, it was a page of prose, but furthermore, it was yet a single page in a Page-A-Day calendar contained in the new book. And much like a normal Page-A-Day calendar, he explained, when the day is done, you just [tear it out.]

After ripping the page from the book, Hodgman slipped it back between the adjacent pages, and returned the book to its newly-chagrined owner."

Excerpted from "A Knee-Slappin' Good Time"

Festival of Lights
From the outset, it was clear that Google's Diwali celebration would be a festival of lights, music, dance, and tradition. What became increasingly clear as the afternoon turned to evening though, was that this was also a celebration of family, friendship, and community. In this image, parents teach their daughter how to properly light a candle. The care they took conveyed the importance of that knowledge, and of the Diwali celebration as a whole.

Excerpted from "Festival of Lights: Diwali at the Googleplex".