the eye of god

abstract: artistes release albums; compilation of songs that could contain ten to twenty songs depending on the temperaments of their record labels. but in each albums they release, there is usually an album art lacing primarily the front; front cover, and the back; back cover. but in some cases, the artiste/s may go as far as including what they call a digital book. a complete digital book usually found in deluxe albums contains: photographs, musical scores, lyrics, production credits, notes and information of each track in the album or as the case maybe.

now, i will be compiling an album of ten pictures to you, every week for your enjoyment, depending on my availability, and the availability of my material. i'm not an artiste, so don't expect any song in it, but expect a story behind..

ok sisters! i did it again.. the last time i posted my first set of ten pictures of the week, i couldn't sit without thinking about what to post to you guys this new week; for your enjoyment and amazement. the encouragement last week from you guys were beautiful.

by the way, i want to thank you all for making my birthday amazing. the wishes were just so-so, different from the 'same old-same old' happy birthdays that i am used to..

and so this week, i am going by a different caption for this week's album: 'the eye of god!'

now you may wanna ask- 'what is the eye of god?'

well, you know the answer already: these pictures.

enjoy the journey of my frozen moments as you discover yourself the meaning of 'the eye of god.'

and don't forget the concept of this blog site: 'every picture is a story' - neec.

one: two portals_

        amongst the gifts god gave man? choice is the greatest of them all.. forget the hell people tell you about predestination, you have a large role to play in this theatre called life. you have the power to captain your destiny simply by the choices you make, and the decisions you take. that's why a school of people in this ocean called earth will never accept any excuses you make when damnation comes. this people could be: your son- if you fail to become a responsible dad, your wife- if you fail to fulfill her numerouses, or your boss- if you fail to the expectations of his company, or even the earth if you fail to preserve her, or your god- if you fail to accept jesus or muhhamed, budha, moses [depending on the faith you place your fate on] as your personal lord and saviour. and please don't query me on that one, yeah, the last one. lola!

in essence, we have a choice in every situations and circumstances we find ourselves. forgive me to say, you are a slave, or let me be modest: a liar, each time you confess a honest lie that you do not have a choice.

instead become the american poet: robert frost whom after calculating the promises and dangers of the roads open for him to ply, he finally decided to take the virgin route that holds promises of uncertainty. which fortunately paid off for him. but in the beginning he mused:

'two roads diverged in a yellow wood

but sorry i could not travel both..'

                            -'the road not taken'

two _portals

 two: junctions_
         to the calabar/akwa-ibom man, 'junction' could be pronounced as 'yungshun'. haha! don't go ethnical on me cos i am the eye of god; i say what i see, and speak what i hear. in the far south of river state, buguma to be precise pronounce 'waterside' as 'wotashyde'.. good, now let's move on to the transcendental signified of this picture; junctions.
calabar like lagos and port-harcourt has this western way of christening their ways. to preserve the colonial heritage. six months of stay in calabar and i have visited almost all the colonial evidences hanging around. name them: twin island: a place where mary slessor hid the abandoned twins, old calabar: where calabar town started, 'point of no return': a route where slavers channel their slaves to the port where they'll be shipped off to the new world? e.t c. 

i was with chike ifediobi, a documentary video maker and a radio personality from enugu, we were simply doing a lookout for our national heritage, and so we visited the national museum, located at the government hill of calabar. he made me to understand that the art and history of what the museum is preserving is the 90%. i mean, our history even in secondary schools is so structured that we nigerians know nigeria as: precolonial era, colonial era, and post colonial era. thank you, national museum! there is no arts and crafts from benin, science in the far east, or plenty of archaeological evidences that proves that our existence is out of the someplace of somewhere.. no! they're all in foreign museums. even the name nigeria is not from even us, but from lugard's girlfriend. hehe, methinks that whatever they did before the birth of the inspiration behind the name nigeria is affecting the nation today!

i was with another friend and a friend. we were inside a production bus vying one of the busiest juction in calabar; the watt junction. lagos traffic is worse, but this one before us today was discouraging. there is this big round-about junction receiving five roads, but exonerating the bust of a colonial officer. his name is watt [named after the watt market, and junction], if i am not mistaken..
my friend hinted that if the place were lagos, the government would have devised a fly over bridge means to decongest the traffic. but my second friend obviously a homie boasted about the artwork. he was like: you dudes don't know about the importance of this bust.. i noded. no need trying to debrainwash him, that will not be a good game to play inside a windowless space-bus that is under a hot afternoon traffic..

looking at the picture below, i know that the road leading to court [that could no longer be in existence] is this way, and moore, that way. thanks to the people responsible for the naming ceremonies of this streets. i think the name is sexier than the the street 'orok-orok', a street pronounced by the calabar/akwa-ibom man as 'oron-oron'. sarcasm intended.

three: persquaretives_
          have you ever crossed a mad man before? this is nsukka. welcome to nsukka. the land where the dignity of mad men and women are being restored.
2014 i visited enugu to keep track of business. an abuja firm was installing everything state of the art as pertaining light, sound and multimedia to aid the university community in a better way to teach and learn. i was one of their crew. and so i left lagos for nsukka. while i visited, i decided to patronise all the beautiful sides i used to know. this cross-over bridge was one of them. i was with a canon point-and-shoot, something similar to sony 12 mega pixel cyber-shot camera- ready to go to the top of the bridge and do some aerial shot of the town. i was about to begin the climb when i noticed my first obstacle: a table. it was sitting upside down and blocking the middle of the climb. something told me not to continue, maybe for obvious reasons about the bridge, a concerned citizen, maybe a market woman must have decided to block the bridge. but i waved the deduction and decided to continue.

holding strongly to the baluster, i passed the obstacle. but ascending my last, i met my second obstacle. a mad person. it was seated close to the apex of the bridge. yes, it, cos i can't remember whether she is a woman, or he is a man.. just an unkempt person. my liver left me, but outward i was still, and cool.. well, how can a normal human being not be still at that height, or do you want to pull a backward stunt? tufia kwa! i mustered up new livers and passed it. it didn't look at me. if it had, i would have been in trouble trying to descend. you know, you can never trust the temperament of a mad man.

but hey, there goes the last obstacle.. the way was uncleared. gawd! what are these stones doing here? the mad man brought them here? i never cared to answer.. i simply stoop down and started taking snapshots.. 

it has been over fifteen months now, i don't know whether the bridge is still in usage, but please let's help maintain the small gifts of utility the government gave us.. in hundred years time, the structure might become a celebrated wonder. who knows what might make our childre children admire us..

climbing down was not easy sha but i got my eye of god on that rectangular frame: the prime of the per-square-tives.

four: the calculating clock_
         you might have heard of the mantras: 'be different', 'do  something new today', 'separate yourself from the crowd'. but have you thought of how to become these things? have you tried trying new things just one day out from your entire life? like brushing your teeth with your left hand? like holding your recharge cards upside down and punching in the numbers your brain make up with into your phone? have you ever tried painting something abstract or realistic with your eyes closed, or have you ever tried taking your dinner while shiting in the toilet? oh come on don't go yuck on me! try something new in your life and stop acting as a monitoring spirit checking on the dos and don'ts of your children as the case may be..

well this is what i did with this clock i photographed, just so i break away from convention. i rotated the picture in a cw position. now look at it and tell me what the time is..

life is too short, the eye of god is not always o'clock, try being a freestyle, breakaway, fly, be interesting and stop being a bore. be and stop being a wishing machine or a wannabe!

five: biafra my biafra_
         this picture was my funniest moment. i read a friend's post on facebook which i will share to you in a moment. he proffered some statements i felt was a solution to the menace biafra, and the maniac, buhari. kinseagle my friend posted:

ok.
uuummmm...
let me sound it the way it is in my mind right now.
i never liked the design of that biafran flag right from time.
i hate odd combination of colours.
it makes me feel like congo.
nigerian flag is sexy.
lol!

igbos the solution to our problems are within us.
mek we get sense small kwanu na!
love one another, be proud of us and come home and make wonderful investments in our own land. e.g onitsha, aba and its likes.
stop being greedy.
realise the power of education.
give scholarship to all igbos who wants to school.
make ariaria international market an international market.
invest in the creativity of aba people lying waste.
the problem with igbos is we do not know we have the abilities of living a wonderful beautiful life without being greedy.
we need to solve the problem within us.
we are like those 3 soldiers that fought through enemy grounds and returned just to fetch drinking water for king david.
we can make little big.
we have it inborn just like an average nnewi man has the ability to make money.
we have natural money in us that brings paper money.
that ‪#‎natural ‪#‎money is the real wealth in us.
everything we need is within us only if we can buy back our senses or borrow some from the isrealites.
this same message goes to all other tribes clamouring for biafra.
i have no problem with people fighting for their freedom once you do it‪#‎right.
but let me remind us.
even if the biafran dream is actualised, we still need to consider working on the above problems i mention here we do have because without it things may be worse.
trust me, i know the igbos of today.

ekwuchaala m.

like i said, i dont like the design of that biafran flag.
it makes me feel like congo and all those countries like 'blood diamond' movie.
you can redesign it please while still depicting same message or better message.
the nigerian flag is damn sexy jare.

meanwhile, the nigerian government should release nnamdi kanu with no sum.
he is only a freedom fighter and moreover their holding him is not constitutional. [sic].

ok that was lengthy from my friend. well after reading his post, i decided to put up an improvisation; a replica of the biafran flag design.

i pulled out three different materials from my work bag, folded them close to each other, fished up my paper tape, and outlined the rising sun of biafra..
maybe sometime, i will draw up my own design for the biafran flag.

i am a biafran-nigerian. i believe in making up, and not breaking up.

now where is the eye of god in this picture? the rising sun of biafra?

six: the marketeer_

       who is a marketer. a mobile market right? now who is a marketeer? to me a marketeer is a flowertarian. an insect that jumps from flower to flower trying to make flowers make babies. there is a place for insects like this; spider's nest, carnivorous plants, e.t.c. some humans are marketeers. we call them humanitarians. the opposite of a humanitarian is an entrepreneur.. yeah, especially the shrewd ones.

so where is my eye of god in this picture? obviously not the proboscis of the insect. so look at this picture of mine, assume yourself a god, a creator, and tell me what you have created.. the eye of god is the force between this insect and the bush flower.someone, not natural science created it?

seven: yello! world_
           who knows coldplay? everyone except hip-hop fanatics. lola! well, there is this song: yellow; track number 10 of the album 'parachutes'. it said:

look at the stars

look how they shine for you

and everything you do

yeah they were all yellow..

the colour yellow used to be my favourite colour until the south african giant communication enterprise, mtn, came into nigeria. with their breakthrough, yellow became the pop; a popular culture of the people.. every street became yellow.. to a point they wanted to make our subconscious forget about red christmases, and make us think about christmases made of yellow.. i don't know whether you're alive with me then when the song 'yellow yellow christmas' was the anthem for the franchise. i used to enjoy the song sha. then i used to enjoy watching television programmes and adverts. if they'd continued in sustaining that colour culture, they'd have succeeded in making us think about xmases as yellow!
but i didn't like the way they're messing with my yellow. they made it popular, and i dislike patronisingpopular things. infact i lost interest in yellow because of them. but once upon a time in nsukka, i stumbled on this small yellow flower growing from a weed. i have to stoop so close to it to make the image seem like a work of macro photography. during post, i numbed the colors behind it so that its yellow hue will pop!

now, where is my eye of god: the yellow stars of the flower, and how they shine for you for all the things you do under the sun. inspired from the song above.

eight: green rain_
          my first least fav colour is green.. i don't know why, maybe because it's just everywhere, or because i'm tired of seeing green on my nation's flag, when down here the price of agricultural products are being dictated by the cost of oil and gas. but a song again by coldplay: 'green eyes'; track number five of the album: 'a rush of blood to the head' starts me thinking:

honey you are a rock

upon which i stand

and i come here to talk

i hope you understand

that green eyes

yeah, the spotlight shines upon you

and how could

anybody deny you?

oh yeah! how could i resist the ugliness of this colour green, and even though i risk being bitten by a blind snake, i still ventured into the wet bush to get this. but, the bush, the leaves and the drops of rain that they're retaining, and how they reflect the skylight, and the different shades of green in the thicket, the contrast, etc and etc were irresistible..

my eye of god: the crystal rain on the leaves.

nine: smile is the new cool_
         portrait photography, the snapping of people is not my favourite genre of photography. except they my subjects have to learn how not to be aware of the camera. or i have to be strict enough not to be mechanical with the way i  capture them.
i'd rather prefer that my eye of god becomes the large mass of the blue sky towering over his head. but the natural smile of this beautiful old man stole the show. his red cap too is a killer, beardless, big jesus christ hanging on his neck, the position of the pen on his breast pocket, makes me wanna get old quick!
by that age, i will be carrying a dreadlock of fifty years! oh god, please don't give me a delilah kind of wife; a woman who will cut off my plantation of hairs when i will be sleeping peacefully and be dreaming about our grand children! oh god, i promise to sacrifice her to you like abraham tried to do without success to your sacrificial lamb, isaac, if she tries cutting my locs without my permission. amen.

ten: orange is th new bride

       i know that my wife will become the bride to my son.. but who will become my own partner in crime? my daughter. my god. we will so set the house on fire when darling wife and her pride, our stallone son will be away!

okay, this is not my daughter, but my photograph. but by the grace of destiny, my daughter will be black, if she's not, i have a solution for that kind of sickness, i will take her on a tour around north africa so that the sun will have mercy on my orange darling and make her skin a burning furnace of black beauty! alliteration intended. hehe!

so where is my transcendental signified; my eye of god in this picture?

meet you next week lovers!

love is heart, loving is art..

this will be the first set of pictures that i will be putting up here to start documenting my photography.. and so i captioned this issue: 'love is  heart, loving is art'. i don't know why, but i think it's self explanatory. i mean, if google can sugar name their android o.ss: froyo, gingerbread, ice cream, jelly bean, kit kat and lollipop, who am i not to name my art? mbok!
but don't be depressed on a psycho like me, it wont improve my madness nor affect the frog-flating price of garri in the market. but every picture is a story. meaning by the time you string all the pictures here in your brain, you'll see my heart, my art and my love in them.. git it?

so here is the first set of my photography, for you! they are my ten best for the week.. cos every week by the strength from my almighty allah the benevolence, and mercy from my satan in in, i will be logging up ten pics for you on this blog until i get married, get pregnant for my wife and die the death of a dead man.. okay.. that was grim. enough!

i photographed them with my phone, huawei ascend p7, post processed them with photoshop c6, so keep the criticism soft, that is if you'll even or ever comment! blogging is boring sha, and disheartening how people will enjoy your read without saying goodbye or goodluck! well until i get my first comment, and then the tenth, and then the hundredth, and then the dollars..

enjoy!


one: two headless mannequins
        i was inside a cab praying to stop soon and meet my writer friend ebuka okparauzoma at uwanse street of calabar south local government, when i saw this separated queens; the two headless mannequins.. you can see the pic is slanted. well the driver wasn't ready to hold up with the hold up holding him.. my amazement was that the location of this two plastic women is not a boutique or a clothe market, but a music/video shop! calabar is amazing!

two: jesus wasn't nailed_
        haha! don't doubt it? jesus wasn't the person that was hammered on the head.

hearts..

the butterfly sings:

Bird birdie my friend

out of this misery hole of cocoon my home i call my own

the illusory of this mysterious whole i call contained confinement..

i call to see you, the eyes of magic

flutter by again and again

long, before the amber of my ember graduates into the blue hue of a deep deep darkness..

My heart wants to talk to you,

will you give me your ears to feel my words??

will you give me your heart to see my meanings??

will you give me your hips to take my lips??

will you give me your voice to take my thrust??

will you give me your life to take my love??

will you? won't ye??

the bird replies: