Noah Grey

@thatnoahgrey

A survivor who's done & been a lot of things. Quick intro pinned below; more @ on my dormant site. All photos & art I post are by me. He/they. Financially desperate. Donations @ very welcome.

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Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Nov 20

Moonrise, Zabriskie Point #photography #photosky #landscapephotography #deathvalley #california #moonrise #oc

"Moonrise, Zabriskie Point" by Noah Grey. Taken at sunset in Death Valley, the jagged silhouette of the desert mountains lies in deep shadow, their ridges tinged with the last fiery light of day. Above them, a single immense golden cloud drifts across a sky of pure cobalt blue. The full moon rises just above the cloud's crest, pale and luminous, like a pearl balancing on a golden wave. (In my photography career decades ago, this became kind of my "signature" image — not what I thought was my best, but the one I sold the most prints of at the time.)

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Nov 17

Birthday Postcards: Corkagh Mornings & Liffey Days #art #painting #impressionism #pointillism #dublin #ireland #digitalart #artsky #blueskyart #oc

Top painting: "Birthday Postcards: Corkagh Mornings" by Noah Grey. An impressionistic/pointillist painting of the lake at Corkagh Park in Dublin, Ireland. The water is a shimmer of deep blues and turquoise, mirroring a sky of swirling clouds in white and purplish-gray. Along the far shore, a line of lush green trees stands reflected in the still surface, their shapes softened by dappled light. The feel in both paintings is intended to be layered and tactile with spangled texture, giving the scenes a sense of quiet energy.

Bottom painting: "Birthday Postcards: Liffey Days" by Noah Grey. A impressionistic/semi-pointillist painting of the O'Connell Bridge spanning Dublin's River Liffey. The scene is rendered in a melange of colors and color splashes, (hopefully) suggestive of the full vibrancy of an afternoon in Dublin's city centre, circa 2006-07. The bridge, carrying a yellow bus along with blurred cars & crowds, is rendered in textured strokes of pale stone, arching over the river lined with ornate lampposts and balustrades. On the opposite bank of the Liffey is a mosaic of painted façades, mostly Georgian in character, and the thin towering Spire in the distance.

Your reward for putting up with my alt-texts today is learning that several Dublin monuments have colorful local nicknames — and the Spire is most popularly known (or at least it was when I lived there) as The Stiffy By The Liffey.

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Nov 15

As a coda, a photo of Barry taking a photo of me in St. Stephen's Green, on our last day out together in January 2007. Lá breithe shona duit, mo chroí.

Pretty much as the description says. Barry's wearing a dark green coat and fingerless gloves, and most of his face is blocked by his hands and camera pointed straight at me (which the focus is on), with a hint of mischief in his smile blurred in the background. By this point I'd taken hundreds of photos of him with my then-expensive Canon 5D digital SLR, and he was just starting to turn the tables with his Panasonic Lumix digital camera. The background is green with hints of orange (not planned!). The sun is bright but not glaring, the weather brisk but not freezing, the mood was high, the day was near to perfect enough as I'll ever ask out of any day in my life.

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Nov 12

Baldongan Castle, Ireland #photography #photosky #landscapephotography #castle #architecture #ireland #b&w #blackandwhite #oc

"Baldongan Castle, Ireland" by Noah Grey. A B&W high-contrast photograph of the titular castle, its weathered stone tower rising against a moody sky streaked with heavy clouds. The ruins stand solemn and alone amid a quiet graveyard, where old headstones lean at gentle angles, their surfaces mottled with age and lichen. Wildflowers and tufts of grass grow among the graves, softening the scene's starkness. The light is dim and dramatic, catching the rough textures of the masonry and the sculpted clouds above.

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Nov 11

Rain Leaves #photography #photosky #autumn #solitude #depression #macrophotography #naturephotography #sepia #oc

"Rain Leaves" by Noah Grey. A macro sepia photograph of a small cluster of skeletal autumn leaves, their delicate veins exposed like lace against a soft, sepia-toned background. Light filters through the thin, decaying surfaces, revealing a network of fine lines and dark specks — the quiet geometry of time and weather.

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Nov 10

Stillwater Fall #photography #photosky #autumn #fall #wisconsin #oc #naturephotography #landscapephotography #blueskyart

"Stillwater Fall" by Noah Grey. A photograph of an autumn landscape in Stillwater,* Wisconsin, glowing with the warmth of late-afternoon light. Across the frame, a dense hillside of trees blazes in shades of gold, amber, and russet, their colors mirrored in the calm waters of the river below. The sunlight strikes the foliage at a low angle, setting the leaves aflame with copper and honey tones, while the water ripples in bands of deep blue and reflected orange.

* Yay for nominative determinism.

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Nov 9

Passersby (For K.) #photography #photosky #statuary #crucifix #b&w #carmelmission #california #stfrancis #jesus #oc

"Passersby (For K.)" by Noah Grey. A B&W photograph of a weathered statue of St. Francis entwined in ivy, taken at Carmel Mission in California. The saint's face is gentle and contemplative, his downturned eyes resting on the large crucifix, which seems nearly as tall as he is, that he holds tenderly in both hands. Time and the elements have softened the marble, streaking it with subtle textures that echo the folds of his robe. Lush ivy climbs around him, threading through his shoulders and beard. The contrast between the rough stone and the dark, velvety leaves is intended to give the image a quiet, reverent mood, as though nature itself is embracing the saint and the literal cross that he bears. The title is taken from "Be passersby", a saying of Jesus recorded in the Gospel of Thomas, and is dedicated to someone very dear to me about whom I... hope.

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Nov 8

Typo (lounging in Ceiling Cat's home) concurs and gives Nelson nose nuzzles.

But the cat came back the very next day
The cat came back, they thought she was a goner
But the cat came back, she just couldn't stay away

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Nov 7

Three Dunes, Death Valley #photography #photosky #naturephotography #b&w #blackandwhite #monochrome #california #blueskyart #oc

"Three Dunes, Death Valley" by Noah Grey. A triptych of high-contrast B&W photographs. In the left and right images, the sharp ridges of tall sand dunes curve towards the center, their surfaces etched with delicate ripples from the wind. Taken in the early morning hours when the sunlight was shining at a straight horizontal angle, the sides in shadow are contrasted into full black, as are the mountainous horizons beyond beneath thick wispy clouds. The center image is a straight-down view of a dune ridge, its uneven curve running right down the middle, with nothing but the sand visible, forming an almost purely-abstracted show of stripes. The intended mood is an interplay of light and shadow, representation and abstraction, austerity and sensuality, and the figures of Muad'Dib in the distance riding a giant sandworm against the forces of the Baron, just to see if anyone actually *reads* these alt-text notes.

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Nov 4

Thermonuclear Flower (for @baddaywithacamera.bsky.social) #photography #macrophotography #naturephotography #photomacrography #macro #abstract #photosky #art #oc

"Thermonuclear Flower" by Noah Grey. An extreme close-up macro photograph of a vivid purple flower (I *think* it's a type of thistle blossom, but am not 100% certain) with slender filaments tipped with tiny grains of white pollen rise like glowing spires from the base. The shallow depth-of-field of the macro lens gives the filaments what I Dr.-Strangelove-ishly call a "thermonuclear" look, as if they were missiles of pollen being launched from the "radioactive" purple core.

This photo is dedicated to my friend Sean McCormick at @baddaywithacamera.bsky.social on his birthday today, for his decades of personal and photographic inspiration to me.

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Nov 4

Patience #poetry #blueskypoets #writing #bible #bookofjob #grief

"Patience" by Noah Grey: A poem meditating on the Book of Job, particularly the loss of his children. The poem is in free verse with frequent rhetorical repetition, and draws heavily from phrases and imagery in Job itself. (My deepest apologies, but this is a long poem and the Bluesky alt-text character limit is too short to allow me to post the text here.)

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Nov 3

Sonder / Scene From An Unfinished Film #photography #photosky #cinematography #dublin #ireland #nightphotography #streetphotography #blueskyart #oc

"Sonder" aka "Scene From An Unfinished Film" by Noah Grey. A night crossing at a busy intersection in Dublin, Ireland, bathed in the glow of streetlights and neon, predominately blue with splashes of red.

To quote the definition of "sonder", from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, which coined it:

"You are the main character. The protagonist. The star at the center of your own unfolding story. You're surrounded by your supporting cast: friends and family hanging in your immediate orbit. Scattered a little further out, a network of acquaintances who drift in and out of contact over the years.

"But there in the background, faint and out of focus, are the extras. The random passersby. Each living a life as vivid and complex as your own. They carry on invisibly around you, bearing the accumulated weight of their own ambitions, friends, routines, mistakes, worries, triumphs, and inherited craziness.

"When your life moves on to the next scene, theirs flickers in place, wrapped in a cloud of backstory and inside jokes and characters strung together with countless other stories you'll never be able to see. That you'll never know exist. In which you might appear only once. As an extra sipping coffee in the background. As a blur of traffic passing on the highway. As a lighted window at dusk."

via https://www.thedictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/concept/sonder

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Nov 1

When Shall We Three Meet Again #art #painting #selfportrait #mortality #grief #impressionism #digitalart #artsky #blueskyart #oc

"When Shall We Three Meet Again" by Noah Grey. An impressionist digital art painting in blue-grey tones of three male figures seen in silhouette: at left, a boy; at right; an adult man; in the middle, an older man in a wheelchair — all three moving away together through an atmosphere resembling heavy rain and thick fog portrayed through densely layered textures, blurring their outlines into ghosts. (No meaning will be spelled out for this one.)

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Oct 31

The Sanven Angel, Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis #photography #photosky #indianapolis #indiana #b&w #statuary #crownhill #cemetery #grave #halloween #oc

"The Sanven Angel, Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis" by Noah Grey. A high-contrast B&W photograph of a weathered angel statue at the titular location. The stone figure bows its head in an ambiguity suggestive of deep feeling suspended in time, wings arched behind it like great, ageworn feathers frozen mid-fold. The angel's face is soft yet eroded, its downcast gaze heavy with grief and grace. Deep shadows cling to the folds of its robe and the curves of its wings, emphasizing the wear of the rain and the years. The intended mood is a play of light and texture to make the marble seem alive with memory — an emblem of mourning and endurance, both haunting and tender, standing sentinel over the silence of the graves. (And no, the statue isn't actually called The Sanven Angel — but *I* call it that partly for the sake of the song "Sanvean (I Am Your Shadow)" by Dead Can Dance, but mostly for the sake of my oldest friend @sanven.com, who first took it to heart, took me to it, and has been an angel in my life for over half of it and counting.)

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Oct 30

I'm up to 5'10", but I'm gigantic if you count the bear on my head.

A careworn brown teddy bear wearing a red bow tie. Unfortunately, most of his tie is blocked by whatever he's sitting on.

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Oct 30

Christ Church Crypt, Dublin, Ireland. #photography #photosky #statuary #christchurch #dublin #ireland #crypt #grave #halloween #b&w #oc

"Christ Church Crypt, Dublin, Ireland" by Noah Grey. A montage of four high-contrast B&W photographs depicting marble effigies from the crypt beneath the titular cathedral. Each frame captures a different expression of grief or repose carved in stone. In the upper left, a veiled figure presses a hand to its face, frozen in eternal weeping. The upper right shows the muscular torso of a reclining body, the marble smooth and cold, draped with folds of fabric that resemble heavy mourning cloth; the bottom left is the head of that same figure, laying with head bowed in something like rest or surrender. The final image, at bottom right, portrays a serene face turned upward, eyes closed beneath a carved veil, caught between anguish and transcendence. The lighting is a ghostly chiaroscuro, the intended mood being one of suspension between light and shadow, life and stillness, yearning and sorrow. (For fellow James Joyce lovers, once again, Christ Church gets a shoutout in Finnegans Wake. Read https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/christ-church-cathedral-dublin for more about that and other curiosities of the crypt for this Halloween eve.)

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Oct 25

This is my late sister Vallery. Proud trekkie since TOS. The 1st ST movie was the last film she saw before she died. She rocked tons of ST gear like this patch, & was a proud full on trekkie geek decades before this guy was probably born. So allow me to tell him on her behalf: HoS lI' Dalo'Ha'chu'!

A B&W photo of my late sister Vallery, in an old decorative silver frame. She's shown smiling and playing the tambourine sometime in the late 60s or early 70s. At the bottom next to her photo is a vintage Star Trek "USS Enterprise NCC-1701" patch in black and red that she had (one of dozens of such items she wore and put on everything she could). I keep this photo on top of my desk, alongside photos of my late husband, mother, and second sister, all watching over me every day.

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Oct 23

A Show of Hands #photography #photosky #nature #naturephotography #doubleexposure #surreal #abstract #hand #b&w #oc

"A Show of Hands" by Noah Grey: A high-contrast B&W photograph of spindly tree branches and the ghost of a handprint, superimposed on each other in a double exposure. The mood is surreal and abstract, intending to suggest that the branches of the trees are themselves "fingers", a network of entwined "hands" in their own right as well as extending outward from and becoming extensions of the human handprint. (This photo also combines two sides of the world at once, in a way. The branches are from my Texas backyard, while the handprint belongs to my late husband Barry, left on the window of our Dublin home. He never got to visit America, but among many other meanings this photo represents to me, I quietly like to think of it as representing his presence all throughout nature, his ashes long ago having dissolved into the sea to circulate throughout the weather system and spread the trace atoms of him everywhere throughout the world, including back to me here on the other side of it now.)

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Oct 13

Train tracks at Sandymount, Ireland. #photography #photosky #cityphotography #dublin #ireland #train #traintracks #b&w #oc

"Train Tracks, Sandymount, Ireland", by Noah Grey. A high-contrast B&W photograph looking down train tracks in the titular location, a suburb of Dublin, positioned directly on the center of the tracks looking to the horizon from a low central viewpoint. Beyond the wooden crossing in the foreground, there are walls on either side covered in graffiti, with scattered dense foliage among the residential/industrial area, and utility poles supporting electrical wires stretching off into the distance. The tracks themselves seem to be incomplete and in disrepair, appearing to have fallen into ruin, with the ground blanketed by rocks and debris. The mood is intended to invoke isolation, the passage of time, and the sense of a forelorn journey. (For fellow James Joyce fans, two episodes of Ulysses are set in Sandymount.)

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Oct 10

25 years ago today, I finished v1.0 of Greymatter — the software that changed my life in some... mixed ways, changed the web a lil bit, & "came back" to save my home & life in 2022. (I'll share links about that below.) Happy birthday, you silly, scary, life-exploding, bittersweet child o' mine.

A montage of "windows" from version 1.0 of Greymatter from 2000, complete with a glimpse of it running on Windows 98 Internet Explorer in the background. The visible boxes are the login screen, the main menu, the entry selection list, and the editor. The interface is in greyscale (of course), though later versions were a more soothing pastel. (This montage itself is "vintage", a slapdash example I threw together at the time for illustrative purposes, after I was taken by surprise when other people wanted to use this strange shambling beast of code I wrote entirely for myself.)

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Sep 28

Self Less #art #painting #selfportrait #depression #bipolar #grief #impressionism #digitalart #artsky #blueskyart #oc

"Self Less" by Noah Grey: A self-portrait in which I depict myself covering my (bald) head fully with my own hands. The brushstrokes are very rough, raw, and impressionistic, with layers of thick grungy texture work suggestive of fraying, melting, and disintegration. The dominant colors are white-hot reds, oranges, and yellows, intended to convey an intensity of fire and blood. The intended mood is one of deep anguish, depression, grief, and inner torment, so thick and raw that I'm covering my own entire head as if to try to contain it all.

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Aug 20

SR 190, California. #photography #photosky #landscape #highway #road #b&w

"SR 190, California" by Noah Grey. A black & white photo of the titular highway, taken while driving away from Death Valley in the late evening. The image is in high contrast with clouds predominating the frame. In the bottom of the frame, the line of the road cuts an arc through the darkened ground, beneath a solitary low mountain visible on the left in evening haze. In the bottom right corner stand utility poles bearing faintly visible power lines, standing stark against the sky like giant crucifixes.

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Aug 18

Psalm 2025 #poetry #blueskypoets #writing

"Psalm 2025"

And it is said that in those days
a king loved the world with ice.

It is said he loved families into chains,
and loved walls up out of the earth;

that he loved the weak into floods,
and loved the sick out of their flesh;

that he loved faraway children into bones,
while he loved children near to him into scars;

and that he loved history into ash,
and the future into flames.

So deeply did he love, so wholly,
that he loved all love that was not his into silence.

And yet it must not be so:
it cannot be that a king of such great love ever was,

for these things are indeed said,
but so too are other things,

and we who have our hearts still speak.

— Noah Grey

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Aug 5

"Celebrated" my 51st birthday today with my 4th visit to the ER this year. As broken as I am in body and heart, I pray to begin the next year of my life holding onto the audacity of *some* hope.

A panorama of my point of view in a hospital ER room.

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Jun 9

Random memories from my former home in Los Angeles. Sending love to everyone standing up against fascism there and everywhere. 🕯 #photography #photosky #losangeles #california #montage

A collection of nine photographs taken in Los Angeles across the time I lived there from 2002-2005. 1) Rodeo Drive; 2) Seagulls and a palm tree at sunset; 3) A small boy facing the waves on the beach; 4) Wayfarers Chapel; 5) The California Republic flag (at the center); 6) A road on a foggy night; 7) Diva Service Center (this one with love for ‪@metadork.bsky.social); 8) The Manhattan Beach pier at sunset; 9) A protestor wearing a rain jacket scrawled with "PEACE", from the 2003 anti-war demonstrations.

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Jun 7

My sister's hand holding mine in the ER. Reposting this for #WorldCaringDay today in her honor, since she's also my caretaker, and without her I wouldn't still be here. #painting #artsky #art #digitalart #blueskyart #hands

A representational, impressionistic portrait of two embracing hands, rendered largely in loose, deeply textured brushstrokes. The painting is chiefly rendered in deep warm reds, oranges, and yellows. My hand blocks the view of my sister's side-turned head, with the suggestion of her hair and shoulder dissolving in purples and blues suggestive of distance. Our forearms fill the bottom frame from either side, with the hands meeting in the middle predominant, clasped very tightly together.

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· Jun 1

All Is Calm, All Is Bright #painting #artsky #dublin #ireland #night #impressionism

"All Is Calm, All Is Bright" by Noah Grey: An impressionistic painting of a Dublin alleyway at night (based on a real location, but made into a fantasia). A shadowy figure seen from behind stands on the left sidewalk, looking at a cluster of people and bright lights at the end of the alley rendered in a watery haze, symbolic of the author in grief watching life go on at a distance. The brushstrokes and styling are generally of a "watery" kind, with the nearer windows, doors, and architecture given suggestions of detail. The colors are highly saturated throughout and span the gamut, with a deep blue sky (including whimsical five-pointed stars, connecting it to my painting "The Abstractress") reflected in the windows and wet alley below, and lights and buildings a profusion of reds, yellows, and oranges. Anyone who's followed my work may guess from the style and the title that this is a companion piece to my earlier painting, "Silent Night". That painting had hidden tributes to lost loved ones; with one exception, this one is for the living, with marks I leave for them to find.

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· May 29

Variations On An ER #photography #photosky #multipleexposure #streetphotography #abstract #er #hospital

"Variations On An ER" by Noah Grey: A mutiple-exposure photograph of the entrance to a hospital emergency room building. Both wide shots and closeups of the entrance are visible among the exposures, creating a kind of haze of clustered foliage, brickwork, windows, and night lighting in predominately blue and purple tones with the foliage making splashes of vaguely impressionistic green, centered around multiples of the ER entrance itself in reddish-purples, with the lit-up repeated "EMERGENCY" sign prominent in the layers.

Noah Grey@thatnoahgrey· May 24

County Wicklow, Ireland. #photography #photosky #landscape #ireland