blanco y daisy

this made me laugh.

{oh, in case you are wondering,
you have to click on this
to see what this is all about.
i'd just put the picture here on my blog,
but i made a rule that only my photos
will get posted on my photo blog.
so you'll just have to go
over to my sister's to see
what in the world this "this"
that i am talking about is.}

from the heart

this post at shutter sisters today made me think about why i take pictures—something that has been on my mind a lot lately. i actually have started writing about it in another post {which i have not finished}. but the post at shutter sisters reminded me of one reason i like to get my camera out and start shooting. it's to capture moments like these. moments like when my niece was comforting my recently widowed mother—reminding me what it was like to be a little girl in my mother's or grandmother's lap. reminding me of their touch on my face. my niece won't always be this young. my mother will change with years. but i caught this specific moment in time—in a day, in a summer, in a past year. i love this photo. since my dad died, photos of him have helped so much to keep memories of him vivid. this is why i take pictures. even the photos i take that are not of people are things in my life that i see or encounter and mean something to me—otherwise i would not take the time. that is how i know i photograph from the heart. good or not, i shoot from the heart.

{here are other favorites from that day—some previously posted.}

last snowfall

it snowed here today.
i took pictures.
here is one of them.


i was tempted to be upset.
but i couldn't be,
for it was quite pretty.

almost exactly four months ago i posted this.
this was the picture
from that first snowfall.


here we are at the end of march.
winter is past.
our first and {hopefully} last
snowfalls looked very similar.
heavy and thick.
beautiful.

on pruning {and symbolism found within}

pruned last year

to encourage and make room for

new growth

this year

when love beckons to you, follow him,
though his ways are hard and steep.
and when his wings enfold you, yield to him,
though the sword hidden among his pinions
may wound you.
and when he speaks to you, believe in him,
though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.
for even as love crowns you
so shall he crucify you.
even as he is for your growth
so is he for your pruning.
even as he ascends to your height and caresses
your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
so shall he descend to your roots and
shake them in their clinging to the earth.

~kahlil gibran


{photos taken today of shrubs in my front yard—surrounded by snow—hopefully the last snow they will see this spring. click on the images to see greater detail.}

words from a friend {and} happy weekend

have a lovely weekend, everyone.

drive

last night's drive home from my temp job was incredible. i saw one of the most beautiful sunsets i have ever seen. the pictures i took {while driving} do not do it even the slightest bit of justice. it's hard to capture a sunset while moving. still, i liked them—even the blurry shots.

missing you

i went from two weeks of not working and all the time in the world to blog to my heart's content, to having to work 10 hour days {which will last for the next two weeks} and having no time for blogs or blogging.

i was just getting used to having the time to visit all your blogs again—daily. and now i'm going to have to go without some days. :(

i'm wiped out tonight. but i promise i will be back. it's just a temporary job {much needed}, but i will be back in full swing again after that. unless of course i find a permanent job—but even then, it will hopefully only be eight-hour days.

i promise to visit you as often as i can. i have so many photos i want to post here, too. they are just going to have to wait. don't forget—good things come to those who wait. :)

see you all very soon. my bed is calling my name, or rather, i am calling out for it. must go to sleep now. night night.

g.

{photo caption: my sister's fire place mantel}

i had never heard this song, but i recently read the lyrics and found them sad

he said come wander with me love
come wander with me
away from this sad world
come wander with me

he came from the sunset
he came from the sea
he came from my sorrow
and can love only me

oh where is the wanderer
who wandered this way
he's passed on his wandering
and will never go away

come wander with me love
come wander with me
away from this sad world
come wander with me

he sang of a sweet love
of dreams that would be
but I was sworn to another
and could never be free

come wander with me by jeff alexander

{actually, i just now heard it, because i watched this and this. sad, but pretty, no?}

unaware

i took this picture of a complete stranger at the airport while waiting for some friends to arrive back from vacation. i liked how this reader sat absorbed in the news—hardly looking up to notice everything going on around him, even at one of the busiest airports in the world. so of course, i grabbed my camera and zoomed in to capture a shot. he was oblivious to my watchful eye as well my camera. it's fun to take people pictures when they don't know their photo is being taken. i played a little with the blur filter in Photoshop to get the affect. the result got a thumbs up from me.

this a first for me. i don't go around taking pictures of people i don't know. there have been many times when i wanted to ask someone if i could take their picture, because the person {or the person in their surroundings} is just so picture perfect. but i have not yet. i only felt comfortable in this case because i used my zoom lens, and i was not right in his face. plus, i feel like it is a subtle enough photo that you can not identify the person, so i felt that it was too intrusive.

what about you? do you ever take pictures of strangers? do you ask first if you do?

did you know today is world water day?

the civil war

over the past few weeks, i've been watching the ken burns film, the civil war. besides the impression left from heartbreaking accounts of battles and lives lost, i have been so impressed by the photographs in this film. it is a very long film, and i have found that it rarely uses the same photographs twice, and even when it does, its uses are spread out so far from each other, you almost do not notice.

i have seen these kinds of photos before—yellowed, mildewed, cracked photos—whether in books or films or even antique stores. but never before this film have i been so taken with the photographs of this era. every photo in this film just captivates me and draws me in. i am so intrigued—with the subject matter, the conditions in which they were taken, the image quality, the fact that these photos have survived over 125 years.

and i noticed how in many of them, the skies are light or almost white—it's one of the things that give them such a recognizably vintage quality. i don't know if it because of the primitive camera of that time—a longer shutter speed? i'm not sure—i'm not a camera techy {although i want to be}.

i'm just guessing it has to do with the shutter speed, because of a comment left on this post, which is where i got the picture for the post you are reading now. the comment stated that the weird effect on my photos was perhaps because the "shutter was hanging a bit." but that is exactly why i loved these photos—the white sky and washed out feel. they seemed vintage to me. so i thought i would take one of them and turn it into a black and white picture and add the sepia filter. sure enough, it had the effect i was looking for—it looks a lot like some of the photos from the film.

i was also struck in this film by the compassion of walt whitman. i learned how much he had gone to these military hospitals where the wounded lay sick and dying. he would recite his poetry to them, giving them a sense of peace in the midst of the hell all around them. i was already somewhat familiar with the life and poetry of walt whitman, but i have come to like him even more since watching this film.

it really is a good film. it is sad—like i said, heartbreaking. it is all new to me again. in high school, it was just history lessons. now it is to me a horrible part of america's history that saddens me and moves me. but i am also very different from having watched it. it puts a lot in perspective. it makes me so glad that that chapter of slavery is over {although it angers me that slavery exists anywhere still today}. but it also puts my job loss in a different light. being unemployed does not seem so devastating after i watch what these men, women, and even children went through during those awful four years—as well as what the slaves endured for years before.

begins with an A

i was invited by lovely and talented jaime of the blog rhayne to play the letter game. i am to list my ten favorite words that begin with the letter "A". to assign me a letter, she just ran her finger along a page of a book with her eyes closed, and the letter that she stopped on when she opened her eyes was the letter she gave me.

i was so happy to get this letter, because one of my favorite words period {not just words that begin with "A"} is a word that happens to begin with this first letter of the alphabet—it is no.1 below. the name of one of my favorite people also begins with the letter "A" {no.2}.

below is my list—each with a definition and an explanation.

ar•dor
xn.

1. fiery intensity of feeling
2. strong enthusiasm or devotion; zeal
3. intense heat or glow, as of fire

as i said above, this is one of my favorite words—of all words, not just A-words. what's not to love about the meaning. but i also love the way it sounds and even looks. something about that combination of letters just makes it a visually pleasing word to me. i like the middle english spelling even better—ardour.

an•gel•a
xpro-n.

1. the identical twin sister and life-long friend of georgia

sure, we have our ups and downs. but we know each other better than almost anyone else on the planet. she was my womb-mate. she'll always be my pal—or at least i hope so. when we are in sync and getting along, it's awesome! we get very creative and work great as a team. ever since we could run, if we were in a three-legged race together, we would win by a long shot because our legs are the exact same length and we know each other's next move.

a•bode
xn.

1. a dwelling place; a home

perhaps it is the desire to be an interior designer in me that makes this a favorite word. i just like how it sounds and what it means. i also like the verb form—abide.

aes•thet•ic
xn.

1. a guiding principle in matters of artistic beauty and taste; artistic sensibility
2. an underlying principle, a set of principles, or a view often manifested by outward appearances or style of behavior

i learned this word in college when i began to take classes in design. i could not quite get the grasp of the meaning right off the bat, and it took me a while to pronounce it correctly. but now it is one of my favorite words, both in meaning and enjoyment saying it out loud. {i remember when i first began to use it in sentences, it made me feel so artsy and smart—it's just one of those words. :-)}

arm•pit
xn.

1. the hollow under the upper part of the arm at the shoulder
2. slang the most miserable or undesirable place in a particular area

oh, my gosh! I'M JUST KIDDING! i just threw that in there to see if you were paying attention and actually reading this—and so i would only have to come up with 9 words instead of 10. this is more difficult than it sounds!

an•ise
xn.

1. a plant of the parsley family
2. its fragrant seed used for flavoring
3. an annual, aromatic Mediterranean herb (Pimpinella anisum) in the parsley family, cultivated for its seedlike fruits and the oil obtained from them and used to flavor foods, liqueurs, and candies

there's so much i could say about anise, but i will just let you read it here or here. sadly, i do not like licorice flavor, and anise has a licorice-like flavor. but i like the sound of this word and i love anything having to do with spices and herbs. i also like the fact that anise can be used to relieve menstrual cramps naturally.

ar•chi•tec•ture
xn.

1. the art and science of designing and erecting buildings.
2. buildings and other large structures
3. a style and method of design and construction
4. orderly arrangement of parts; structure

i love architecture—i get this from my father. he was a lover of the work of frank lloyd wright, and now, i am as well. i like wright of my own accord {my next favorite "A" word}, but i am sure i was influenced by my father, since i so admired my father. {oh, and admire is another favorite "A" word, but will not be in the list.} as a student and enthusiast of interior design, you can not help but learn and be enthused about architecture as well. i could talk a lot more about it, but i will leave it at that.

ac•cord
xn.

1. agreement; harmony
2. a settlement or compromise of conflicting opinions
3. a settlement of points at issue between nations
4. spontaneous or voluntary desire to take a certain action

i used to drive a honda accord—i think my dad had some joke about it. when we would all be in the car, he would say we are "all in one accord"—a common phrase we would hear in church all the time, about the church body being in agreement or harmony. but i really do like this word—not just the definition, but also the way it sounds. i especially like the first definition, because i like the word harmony, too. but that will have to be saved for the "H" post.

ar•bo•re•tum
xn.

1. a botanical garden where rare trees or shrubs are cultivated for scientific, educational, and/or ornamental purposes

now this is just a nice word to say, is it not? it rolls off the tongue very nicely. i have been to an arboretum in south carolina that i enjoyed very much. there is one close to where i live that i intend to go to this spring or summer—or maybe both. it is called morton arboretum, and i have heard many good things about it. again—this word has a great meaning and a great sound.

a•vant-garde
xadj.

1. of, relating to, or being part of an innovative group, especially one in the arts

this is another word that i was not familiar with until college art classes. i believe it comes from a french word, which is probably why it sounds so nice to say. here too, i like the meaning as much as how it sounds.

•  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •

that's it! i tried to stay mostly basic here—i did not use too fancy of words. simply because i don't know many fancy words. but i do like these.

thanks for the "A" jaime! this was fun to do!

would you like to do it too? {if you do, you don't have to put a picture for every word, and your picture or pictures don't have to be of your letter. you can just post a picture of something that begins with your letter, like jaime did.} if you want me to send you a letter, leave me a comment, and i will send you one that i randomly pick.

{here are all my A's together.}