Surprise: Fences, Walls and Shadows
I go out for my morning walk without my camera because I just plan to walk; it’s too cold to fiddle with a camera and really, how much has the landscape changed anyway!
However, Friday’s photo memes are peculating in my head.
Walls and shadows. Shadows and walls.
Shadows are easy. It’s an early morning walk; the sun is just coming up and it’s at my back. I just have to remember not to get my shadow in the picture.
The most interesting things about the picture I don’t even notice until I get home and start manipulating the image. My focus as I shoot is on the smiley face. I don’t notice the angel shadow to the left and is that Santa’s sleigh still stuck on the roof?
My Shadow
By Robert Louis Stevenson
This Is How I Blog
I am a meticulous person. I like my life and everything in it ordered and precise. So when I started blogging I developed a tendency to plan out all my posts well ahead of their post dates. I still like to do this.
Below is a link to my blog plan for part of this year (Jan – Aug):
I blog (mostly) a post every Sunday. I always blog about Halloween, Remembrance Day and Dec 6th as close to the day as possible. I sometimes post about National Talk Like A Pirate Day (Sept 19th). I sometimes do book reviews. I sometimes, when my other plans are thwarted, do a photo meme or two.
However, I am happiest when I can follow the plan!
A neat corner of my neat desk at my last job…
This week I couldn’t follow the plan.
I planned to do part three of Places I’ve Lived, a once yearly series I’m doing on a semi-regular basis. But! the post would need too much prep – I’d have to do the floor plans and scan them; I’d have to find a picture. And my scanner/printer is not hooked up to my new computer yet! Even though I’ve had the new computer for over a month!
I had in my head, all week, the thought that my next blog post was planned out and suddenly realized last night that it was not.
So, what to do? What would this post be about?
I couldn’t do a photo meme. I had just done a photo meme last week.
I could peruse my too long list of saved drafts. They’re not full drafts. They are idea drafts: lists, questions, memories, quotes, poems and various other sundry ideas that are percolating in my brain on any given day.
Don’t you just wish, some days, that you could switch off your brain? I do.
Out of my 116 drafts, nothing really jumped up at me. None of them waved their arms around going, “me, me, me – write about me!”
My magnets precisely organized on my fridge (and never used)…
Then, out of the blue, Serendipity struck (seized, smote, smited) me.
I read. I read too much (over 200 books so far this year plus ebooks plus magazines plus newspapers plus).
I’m 69 pages into an amazing celebrity dual memoir.
Are you intrigued?
It’s a father/son book. It’s a book written by a father and a son from a contemporary Hollywood dynasty.
I don’t read many memoirs written by men (and even less written by fathers).
Fathers; now that’s a complicated topic!
A meticulous pile of quality chocolate (nom, nom, nom)…
So, here’s my post about blogging and an intriguing book (that would make a good present for a father or a son but not my father – like I said, “it’s complicated”).
I plan to finish the book tonight (Saturday) and this blog post will go live tomorrow (Sunday).
If you ask me in the comments if the book stayed as good as those first 69 pages I’ll answer.
This is how I blog – meticulously, and occasionally, off the cuff.
How do you blog?
.
.
.
.
. Along The Way: The Journey of a Father and Son
. by Martin Sheen & Emilio Estevez
. with Hope Edelman
. Toronto, Ont: Free Press, 2012
Travel Theme: Mystical
Today you get two for the price of one.
Where’s My Backpack does a weekly photo challenge and today is my first time participating. Her theme for this week is Mystical.
I don’t remember where or when I took this picture. I think it was winter. I know it was night. This is one in a series of four colours – the green seemed most mystical to me.
This globe reminds me of a crystal ball and I want to stare deep in its depths and foretell the future (my future or your future – it doesn’t matter which).
WordPress’ Weekly Photo Challenge this week is green and though they asked for gallery I’m just going to do one picture.
So, there you have it – two for the price (free) of one!
Now go forth and enjoy everyone else’s green and mystical photos.
Creating Words
This week, I am posting two photos for two different challenges.
The first challenge is “words” over at Photo Friday.
The second challenge is “create” over at WordPress’ Weekly Photo Challenge.
Enjoy and I’ll see you next week!
Photo Friday: Floral
I use a point and shoot camera; usually set on automatic with no flash. The first picture is from my trip to Scotland and the second was taken around my neighbourhood.
I am a very amateur photographer.
My advice to the women’s clubs of [the World] is to raise more hell and fewer dahlias.
~James McNeill Whistler
Remember to work for equal rights always and not just on International Womens’ Day, March 8th.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Hope
“Hope” is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—I’ve heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.Emily Dickinson
Weekly Photo Challenge: Winter
Winter; it’s finally here. The snow was too late for the holidays. There was no skiing or sledding then. Even today, there is less than an inch of snow shadowing the sidewalk that my front window overlooks. However, that hasn’t stopped the neighbourhood children from having fun. There are a chorus line of snow angels, made perhaps by a two or three year old child, cavorting down my sidewalk.
Someone is having fun.
I’m sitting here wishing for snow (a blizzard). As I write this it is New Year’s Eve but I am expected no where tonight or tomorrow and wish to be engulfed by a million snowflakes as I sit inside and read.
Winter: Five Windows on the Season is a Canadian book praising our coldest of seasons. Here are a few reviews. I’m not reading this book now – I’ll save this one to read on a hot summer’s day. Right now, I’m immersed in steamy mysteries.
Happy New Years. Go and enjoy a walk outside where-ever you are.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Possibility
Today’s blog post is brought to you via WordPress’ Daily Post feature; it is this week’s photo challenge.
This week’s photo challenge is guest hosted by Jessica Spiegel of the WhyGo Italy travel guide. Read on for more about this week’s theme!
“As far back as I can remember, I have loved taking and looking at photographs of doorways, paths, windows, and roads – these kinds of images have always invited me in and encouraged my mind to wander. What’s beyond that ornate door? Whose window is that? Where would I end up if I continued on that road?
These are what I call ‘pictures of possibility.’
This is my favourite picture from last year’s trip to Scotland.
How can I explain what this image means to me?
Is there possibility here?
What is beyond that gate?
Who is allowed out or in, as the case may be?
I love the way the light falls in this picture.
I love the contrast between light and dark. The picture would work just as well in black and white as it does in colour.
I see possibility here but I also see barriers.
One can not easily travel through this door as the light can.
The photo speaks to me on an intuitive level.
I can not explain why this is my favourite image of Scotland.
It just is.
As I am.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Textured
The WordPress weekly photo challenge, this week, is texture.
Texture deals with the feel, appearance, or consistency of a surface. Bear is soft, nubby, and roughly sweet.
Texture can also deal with the look of Art, especially to impart desirable surface characteristics to some thing, to change the appearance of it. In the following photos I am experimenting with the settings of my digital camera using my teddy bear as the subject because she knows how to stay still without dying of boredom.
This is Garbo. Yes, she is named after the movie icon. Ms. Garbo’s most famous quote is “I want to be alone” and since bear & I are both solitary creatures we understand this want of Ms. Garbo’s perfectly.
I was restless on my recent very looong train ride so I decided to fiddle with my camera settings. I have a very basic click and shot digital camera. It suits my needs well since all I usually want to do is capture an image in its simplest form.
Here is Garbo in basic black and white. It is a very classic look but tells you little of her personality. In this picture she looks inanimate.
Here is a picture of Garbo using a blue filter which brings out the colour of her tiny, beady eyes and adds a twinkle to them. However, it also makes her look like she has a tummy ache!
Here is a picture of Garbo using a green filter. You can tell she’s definitely becoming motion-sick here. She really should be eating tea and toast not chocolate coated almonds!
Here is a picture of Garbo using a negative filter. This is my favourite. I will be using the negative filter a lot from now on. Doesn’t the picture look a little bit like an x-ray picture. I wonder what an x-ray of Garbo would look like. Too bad I’m not much younger (or ancient) then I could sneak Garbo to my next medical appointment and get an x-ray taken of us both.
She’s definitely motion-sick, don’t you think? Good thing, the train soon stopped so that the smokers could have a smoke break and the rest of us could look for bears.
I hope you liked my whimsical look at texture. Which photo is your favourite?
Easter Eggs
Understandably, it’s a little late in the year to be writing about Easter.
But I’m not talking about these sorts of Easter Eggs (though I will definitely have to try making these eggs next April, especially since Easter next year falls very close to my birthday).
I’m talking about clues, hints, and things implied though not directly expressed. I’m talking about how language evolves and changes as our lives and technologies expand and change.
According to Wikipedia, an Easter Egg is
An intentional hidden message, in-joke or feature in a work such as a computer program, web page, video game, movie, book or crossword. The term draws a parallel with the custom of the Easter egg hunts observed in many Western nations as well as the last Russian imperial family’s tradition of giving elaborately jeweled egg-shaped creations by Carl Fabergé which contained hidden surprises.
The Easter Egg Archive, which lists found Easter Eggs in DVDs, Software, Movies, Music, TV, Books and Art states that
Our general rule is that the reference must be either extremely subtle or extremely well hidden to be considered an Egg. Basically if even a die-hard fan or “expert” is unlikely to find or catch the reference, it can be considered an Egg. Also, it helps if you can identify some personal significance behind the reference.
This post was to be about how I use Easter Eggs in my blogging but after reading these definitions I’d have to say that’s not quite what I’m doing.
This post is about how I like to use links when I blog.
I am at heart an academic. I like to learn. I like to teach. If I could afford it, I would still be taking university courses.
Links are my blog’s footnotes; they expand on and define the concepts I am using.
For me these footnotes:
- are used as an alternative to long explanatory notes that can be distracting,
- are used as a bibliographic tool, ie where did that item originate from,
- are used for additional information or as explanatory notes,
- are used as a signpost to direct the reader to more information,
- are used to point to a quote or expand on a viewpoint,
- are used to acknowledge information gained from another source.
It’s like going for a walk and stumbling onto unexpected graffiti (see above picture). The walk is like blogging, something I normally do, and the graffiti is a link to something different and unexpected.
I like to link in such a way that it leads you, the reader, to somewhere both semi-expected and unexpected.
In last week’s blog, The Case of the Colourful Locks, the mystery link takes you to a website called Stop, You’re Killing Me which is a resource for lovers of mystery, crime, thriller, spy, and suspense books. The Ed McBain link, rather than going to the author’s website which would be an expected link, takes you to CRIME & MYSTERY WRITING a website that contains resources on these two topics.
April’s post Things That Make Me Smile: Book Edition consists of pictures and brief sentences hinting at books, the links take you to the books that these pictures remind me of. Here I was experimenting with illustrating both the concrete (actual books) and the conceptual (how I picture these books). The links are there so that you can get an idea of who I am and what I see.
May’s Poetry Interlude is more abstract. Here you have an original poem with links that tease and tantalize. I’m trying to show you who I am, what I love and believe in which is not an easy task using a question, just words and one picture.
Let’s see if I can expand on this a little more.
In the poem’s fifth stanza, dressed to kill is linked; the link takes you to a website about Lizzie Borden. I like to read about famous unsolved mysteries, Lizzie’s is one I’ve read a lot on – pretty well every book ever written and the original trail transcript as well. Lizzie’s dress is important to the case and thus I thought an interesting link for this elusive phrase in my poem about time travel. Linked in the final stanza of the poem, the term creature applies to how I see myself, as aloof, mythical, non-human, and links to the Wikipedia definition. I ask myself, does my interest in the morbid paint me as inhumane?
My links, like me, are not really dangerous but under the right circumstances could we be? My links are sort of unexpected but not really and not always. My links expand on what I like and perhaps they help you to see who I am.
In the picture above, is an Easter Egg, a creature.
Here are additional links to actual, sanctioned Easter Eggs for other geeks like me:
- Dr. Pepper Thor commercial,
- Dr. Horrible Sing-Along Blog DVD,
- Microsoft Word Easter Egg (I have Word 2003 and it works).
