Patterns in Pale

Just three more days and the first month of the new year will be kaput; amazing to me, simply amazing.

Since the finale of Project 365, I've felt a little adrift, without sense of direction or photographic purpose.

Hey! Good News! I finally sold my first photograph from my Etsy shop! I've been uploading inventory to that shop for over a year, and other than an acrylic painting that sold to a kind fellow in The Netherlands to give to his wife to hang in the kitchen, no photographs have been purchased through the Etsy venue. UNTIL NOW! I'm thrilled. I just shipped it off to Australia. (What? Don't people in the US of A want my photographs? One wonders!)

My photographs continue to be featured in Etsy Treasuries. Here are the latest:

 

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/NjMwOTE1M3wxOTYwMzM5NTk5/i-should-be-sleeping

Treasury: I Should be Sleeping

Curator: Natalie Eberly of TheSilkMoon

Photo: Cannot Sleep a Wink

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/NTM0MzY2OXwxOTYzMTQ3MzM0/getting-sleepy

Treasury: Getting Sleepy

Curator: Macedoine

Photo: Cannot Sleep a Wink ... yup, two different curators included the same photograph to their treasuries on the same day!

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/MTI1NzE4OTh8MTkyMDI5MjgxOQ/year-of-the-dragon?index=0

Photo: Garden of Good Luck

Curator: Kath Burrows from MagpiesHaunt

Treasury: Year of the Dragon

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/NTU3NzY0OHwxODE5Mjg1NTg2/awake

Treasury: Awake

Photograph: Morning Tea ... I love this pleasant photo/good patterns

Curator: Jessica Esther Hoflick at CitrusTea

But for today's upload I'm sharing a few photographs that are pale in hue, but which I found to have interesting textures:



Birch Bark/Detail
I was drawn to the "scribbling" on the outer
layer, with the pristine inner layer
recently exposed.




Unedited iPhoto of a fence of
welded metal wheels.




I love the abstraction of this photograph
of froth left over from my eggnog
Filmgrain effect




I think I may have shared this one
with you before earlier this month. It's a close up of an
abandoned wasp nest. I loved looking into the egg chambers.



Busy or Disorganized?

I was busy all day long. But as I reflect back on yesterday, January 10th, was I really that busy making progress or was I busy trying to dodge and work around clutter and disorganization? Moving this to get at that takes time and effort.

At dinner last night--it makes stuffing our faces with greasy pepperoni pizza sound so civilized--we discussed societies that make a point of cleaning up and repairing their homes and yards and business affairs before the end of the year so as to start the new year with a fresh energy. We Americans generally talk about new year's resolutions and getting organized, but elsewhere it seems to be more of a deliberate setting up of a state of readiness, of openness to new opportunities. It's more than just organizing one's closet. I remember when I lived in Japan how all had to be done before the strike of midnight ushering in the new year.

We're already in 2012 and I didn't make it a point to be ready, open, energized. It's already nigh unto noon, but I'll do a Celtic Cross spread, make a list this afternoon, and get on it posthaste!

On the topic of disorganization, when I was at the thrift shop the other evening, another example of disorganization came to my attention. I had a good chuckle over this bevy of Barbies and hope you'll see it the same way. (I did say I was going to photograph more people this year. Do naked Barbies akimbo count?)



Discombobulation of Barbies
(iphoto)

All those Barbies, so blue-eyed congenial under duress. But the elephant is neat and tidy.

Kitchen Counter Pachyderm


Well, off to do my 2012 tarot and see what potential is ahead for me ... once I get organized, of course.

The path photographed but not taken

While out walking my 4-legged companion, I was drawn again to the river, something about moving water. What can I say? Maybe it speaks to the traveler in me. Moving. Going somewhere else. Restless staying in one place. This is a very nice place, don't get me wrong. But in any case, the river pulls at me. Who am I to struggle against it?

I'm shooting directly into the sun; flawed thinking, eh? Well, so be it. I played with a Poster Edges effect filter and I like the grainy, inky blackness of the image, with just the mere suggestion of shape and the rippling water.

I was up on Summit Drive, I think, and there are numerous paths down the hills toward the river. One was rather indistinct, maybe it hadn't been used in awhile, but I liked it. If I had better shoes on for it, I would have followed it to see where it went. I also liked the shape of the trees in the background, there's a geometric shape to them, a nice background for the feathery grasses.  Maybe it's the strong vertical of the tree right in the middle of the composition continuing the path upward.

Looking in the other direction I saw the path carpeted with newspapers that had blown down and were caught by the tall grasses. There was something fetching about the incongruity of the newspapers in such a natural setting.




The Path Not Taken



The Printed Path

So, these are my uploads for today.

I went to a thrift shop on Maple in North Spokane this evening, wait until you see what I shot there!

Elephant? What elephant?

Still no project in mind; I'll just keep shooting photographs.

However, I was out driving around and parked along the side of the road. When I finished my errand, heading back to the truck, I saw this first photograph. Couldn't pass it up. (click)

The morning was frosty, and there was some frost caught on the woodgrain on the barrier posts. (click)

(click) (click) (click) I'll share those with you later.

But I forgot to mention that as of January 4, 2012 my baby boy, Owen Eugene West, is now 33 years young! What a blessing my sons are to me!

I know, I know! You want photographs not all this family schmaltzy-waltzy.

Photographs du jour:



This photograph and the next one
are of the wood posts to which metal roadside guards
are bolted.
These two posts were butted up one against the other.
In the next photograph the posts were corner to corner.
The frost doesn't show as strongly as I had hoped for.
c'est la vie

 

 and pachyderm ...

(edited with poster edge effect filter)

A walk in the park

It wasn't exactly a park, but it was outside and there were trees; close enough. Suki and I don't go for walks frequently enough. Ah-HA! A New Year's resolution, if I ever saw one!

During our walk, I saw all sorts of cool things that caught my eye. Here are just a few of them.



I liked all of the intertwining mossy pine branches,
like a monkey puzzle



Bugs or woodpeckers
made a feast of this tree!



Spokane River in early morning fog

Oh, and an elephant ...


A very productive day ...

I finally sewed on all of the buttons on my sweater. What? Not very productive. Well, let me tell you. I finished a task I had started! I finished it! For me that is very productive. Oh, and I took the Christmas decoration boxes that Mel had neatly packed, and I put them in my storage unit; another something finished! I made my bed this morning; done! I fixed breakfast and coffee; done! I took a shipment to the post office; done! I returned a bottle of real vanilla extract--not just any phony faux vanilla, but real vanilla extract, and got my money back; done! I returned it because I had overlooked another bottle of the same in the pantry. Oh well. I could go on and on; it was a productive day.

However, I'm still vacillating on another creative photograph challenge. Like Noah Scanlin and his project back in 2008 to make a skull out of anything he could find, every day for a year, I could do the same with elephants. I don't collect elephants, so please don't send me any elephant gifts! But, I have snapped a shot or two of elephant objects.  Do I really want to do elephants?

Back in Birch Bay I could easily have taken a daily sunset photograph each and every day; beautiful, amazing sunsets.

I've shot literally hundreds of photographs of cabochons, beads, jewelry, and shells for inventory shots for my two other Etsy stores: West As the Crow Flies and Birch Bay Kay. So, that's not really a creative challenge.

I don't normally take photographs of people. I'm too slow, I usually get a shot with their eyes closed or some screwy expression on their face. But it would be a challenge. Speaking of people, I did take a photograph of this tie dye damsel I met at a recent arts and crafts show. With all those vibrant colors, how could I resist? Even her folding chair repair was colorful.

I'll come up with something.

In the meantime, let the productivity continue unabated!

Today is Tomorrow ...

I got all set up to write my blog entry, thinking it was still today. But I wasn't paying attention and it is already tomorrow.

My sister has been busily and productively going through her house, organizing things and throwing away stuff she and Steve no longer need. I'm quite impressed. As I look around my room, it would definitely benefit from such industry and organization. Period. Good goin', Mel!

The main purpose of writing tonight is to right an egregious oversight. I went on and on about the Etsy treasury in which my violin photograph was featured, but I neglected to credit the curator, Laura Conowitch of Fabric Thread. http://www.fabricthread.etsy.com/  Thank you, once again, Laura!

I'm uploading three photographs today. The only thing they have in common is that they were all photographed at the same place.

My eye first went to the yellow on black in the residential driveway, then I noticed the stacks of firewood, and then walking back to my car I saw the cold foliage. Oh, I modify my statement, the other thing they have in common is that all are iPhotos.

Day 2 of 2012 ...

I was just catching up with my Etsy shop http://www.kweststudio8.etsy.com/, which had fallen in arrears what with keeping up with two other Etsy shops.

While going through convos (Etsy email), I found my photograph of violins had been featured in a very special Etsy Treasury:

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/NjQ4MzU5OXwxNjY0ODQ4NzI0/an-eclectic-scrapbook

As it mentions, the title of the treasury is An Eclectic Scrapbook. The special part come into play in that it is a scrapbook of sorts of about 12 items about Spokane, WA ... AND MY PHOTO WAS INCLUDED!

I think this is probably one of the first times in the six months I've lived here that I felt a denizen of Spokane. It had a much greater emotional impact than I would have ever guessed.

The photograph featured was of the violins I shot at Violin Works on Garland Avenue, Spokane, WA. Garland is one of my favorite streets. There was another item that showed Mary Lou's Milk Bottle, also on Garland, just down from Violin Works. The Milk Bottle was damaged in a fire, but with community support the little restaurant is being rebuilt and should be open for business in April!

Me! A Spokanite! I belong! If I knew how, I'd play m'fiddle and dance a jig!

Day One, 2012



Water's Edge/Loon Lake




First day of a new year. There are two words in that sentence that are human assigned constructs: day and year. They are what we humans spin our little lives around. It's a new year, so I should start something new or do something differently. It's the first day, so it's already gone--poof. Did I waste my first day of the new year? Did I miss some opportunity?

Right now is right now, and right now I don't have a sparkling fresh new plan or project. Right now I'm typing my blog entry, thinking about the rootbeer float I'm going to treat myself with as soon as I finish this task.

No new plan or strategy. The Grand Plan for 2012 will have to wait until tomorrow, the second day of 2012.

Hope your first day was a dilly!