Photo Albums of Yesteryear ...

This afternoon the collective family in Spokane held its birthday bash for February-born members. It snowed, we were all bundled inside a small abode, photographs were being snapped by proud grannies amid the chaos and conversations. To which, someone quipped that the photographs would simply end up in some dog-eared old photo album.

It brought to my mind an interesting question. With digital photography and social networking as prevalent as they are, how many people still actually print out their family snapshots and stick them in a photo album, or even a shoe box? And generations from now, who and how will our progeny stumble across these old family photographs?

The times they are a-changin'

Today I was tinkering around with some shell photographs I had taken a couple of years ago. I wanted to see how various effects changed the visual impact of the image.



Watercolor Effect




Dry Brush Effect




Watercolor Effect




Contrast, No Effect Filter Used



Love is love and love, and also love ...



Sweetheart Roses
I had my way with this digital photograph of mine,
along with adding watercolor effect to final image

 Here it is Saint Valentine's Day, the day which has come to commemorate love. I was curious to see if this was just another commercial Hallmark moment, conjured up to make beaucoup bux on the sale of Valentine Day cards. But I was grimly mistaken. Google it if you are of a mind, ironic history.

But in the here and now, couples are gazing into each other's eyes, heartbeats a pitter-pat, cards/flowers/chocolates/dinners/movies/trips/jewelry/other presents are offered as tokens of undying love. Such is the way of it.

Not being currently in an intimate relationship, my tokens of love were shared with my sons, grandchildren, siblings and dear friends.

Following my divorce aeons anon, I would chaff at being a single on a spectacularly couples day. I went to dinner with galfriends, or went to a movie, or stayed home and emotionally stewed.

But, no more.

I'm quite content to let my definition of "love" embrace more people, and if not specific people, then acknowledge that we all need to be more accepting, tender, tolerant, compassionate ... loving ... of one another. Is this but a rationalization? Perhaps, but I'll continue the intent and eventually it will comfortably slip right over Saint Valentine's Day and perhaps infiltrate the other 364 days of the year.

Oh my! I was simply going to share the digital photo I played around with! I hadn't even considered all this other stuff coming into the mix. I'm obviously still a work in progress.

Had fun working on the image. Did it rather after the fact, so it wasn't shared with my loved ones. I may print out some cards with the image and continue the lovin'!

AND ... today is also Paul's (my older son) birthday! Congrats, my son, my son! I well remember that rainy, wonderful morning we brought you home!

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 ...