I see now that I didn't post very many of my pictures from Japan in April of this year. Soon afterwards we began out hejira to Michigan and then I fell off the turnip truck and into the Michigan end-of-spring. Tonight I am working on a haiku holiday gift and revisited my Japan photos. In photography, there is the snapping of the shutter, then there is the archiving, cropping, improving, and most of all, selecting. I found quite a few pictures I had forgotten all about, like this one. I think it has wabi-sabi. Anyway I like the light cluster of blossom set off by gloom, the diagonals and all the tangle. This coming week I will make our Christmas cards. I wish I could use Cherry Blossom images, but the season is sort of off.
I heard from a descendent of my great-grandfather Lemuel Hardison Redd today. (These people are not rare, because he had plural wives, in the 19th Century plural-wife times.) She had seen a picture of him I put up on Flickr. But when I answered her email, her provider msn.com bounced back my message. Kathy Graf, where are you???
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Thursday, December 06, 2007
A White Rose
It is difficult to get these with the right balance of no-color color, if you get my drift.There seems to be much more leeway with regular color photos. This white rose is near a brick path in the History Park. I think I will go back and take some more--I want to succeed at these because I really love them--I loved them the first time I saw any.
All around me people are getting terrible news about their cancers. Tonight I feel very lucky.
Luck is a white rose hanging over a brick path. Good night.
All around me people are getting terrible news about their cancers. Tonight I feel very lucky.
Luck is a white rose hanging over a brick path. Good night.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
More Infrared
With the pink cast removed. A magical faeryland at the edge of the park where they stack stuff. With a christmas wreath. Santa's comin" fast!
An infrared garden
Wanted to try infrared-type photography. This is from the first attempts with a converted Nikon 995 that I got on eBay. I quite like the results, although there is a pinkish color cast that I may wind up taking off. Spent today with friends setting up the poetry center library at the Markham House. There are some lovely books there; it brought back many memories of poetry readings. It was more fun than I had anticipated.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Cat Monotype
This is the monotype I got Saturday. It is very small and full of the most beautiful subtle textures. Plus the artist, Susanne Smith, is a dear friend. I just love this and am so glad I saw it.
Tonight I put together a swivel chair that we bought at Office Max. It had the base, four leather upholstered parts, a handful of screws, a central iron piece and a lift mechanism. All the screws had to be tightened with an Allen wrench that came with it. I hope it will be a good chair for Scott to sit in since he hurt his back and he is having trouble finding comfortable positions. We'll probably get a glass table to put the laptop on, too. Now we BOTH sit about in the evening and fiddle with laptops, looking up stuff on Wikipedia. It is great fun, and uses up all sorts of time that one might be doing something productive. . .
Tonight I put together a swivel chair that we bought at Office Max. It had the base, four leather upholstered parts, a handful of screws, a central iron piece and a lift mechanism. All the screws had to be tightened with an Allen wrench that came with it. I hope it will be a good chair for Scott to sit in since he hurt his back and he is having trouble finding comfortable positions. We'll probably get a glass table to put the laptop on, too. Now we BOTH sit about in the evening and fiddle with laptops, looking up stuff on Wikipedia. It is great fun, and uses up all sorts of time that one might be doing something productive. . .
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Art reception upstairs
One of those light industrial spaces that has been converted to artist's studios. This is a holiday artist reception where a lot of your friends come to look at beautiful things they cannot afford. (Although I may go back for the columnar woman with a tree inside her gown. (Perhaps you had to be there. I had a lovely time here and wandered from studio to studio. I bought a very small monotype of a cat. I'm getting just a little more excited about the holidays.
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Auntie Lillian and Gran Marjory as girls
This is an example of some of the things I was thinking about yesterday. I scanned this very poor quality photocopy of my father's mother and her sister as girls in a group photo. I think it shows a group at the tail end of the 19th century. I don't have any other photos of her until she was a young woman. I take after that side of the family and look quite a bit like her, as did my father. Squarish face.
So even this low defintion item is very interesting to me. I scanned it on a visit to my mother's place. I like having these things on Flickr, so I can access them anywhere,
Here is an excellent poem by Thomas Hardy which first appeared in print at the tail end of the nineteenth century. It seems like a long time ago to my single life.
The Darkling Thrush
I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
Thomas Hardy
So even this low defintion item is very interesting to me. I scanned it on a visit to my mother's place. I like having these things on Flickr, so I can access them anywhere,
Here is an excellent poem by Thomas Hardy which first appeared in print at the tail end of the nineteenth century. It seems like a long time ago to my single life.
The Darkling Thrush
I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
Thomas Hardy
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