• Reflections

    Showing through

    What can you see behind window panes of your life reflecting everything around? Trees covered in lush green leaves or dry bare branches waiting for new life? Fresh blue sky inhabited by flying birds or overcast nothingness letting you down? Sometimes it takes much effort not to see just the negatively obvious but let the supporting and the encouraging show through Yet when it happens, it feels like nothing else in the world…

  • Reflections

    Dedicated, my word for 2023

    Just imagine that you are on a walk, enjoying beautifully frosted trees and grass around you when all of a sudden a hen appears from nowhere obvious and photobombs the scenery you’ve just been trying to capture in your photo. Well, you may try to be quick enough to recompose the image and create something unexpected, even though perhaps not that perfect as you are more surprised than ready, right? It might definitely be worth the try… But what I am here today for is another matter. The new year will arrive in a few days so I started to think about what word will accompany me through it and…

  • Focused on photography

    Playful water lilies

    Yesterday I was asked what definition I would assign to a “photograph” and after some pondering, I came up with this: A photograph is a rendering of reality that may be documentary but also emotional, abstract or even somewhat imaginary, yet still preserving the core of that reality. Well, but what is that core, you may ask, it sounds sort of vague. And I would say that it is the hard-to-grasp distinction between a photo and an image… and we would be at the beginning again. You know, some people say that photography excludes digital art. But digital art has many faces, right, and some of it may preserve the aspect of…

  • Reflections

    Thoughtful

    I wish my blogging was more regular and more frequent but sometimes I’m lazy, many times I feel like having nothing interesting to share, other times life itself gets into way. And then when I have an idea I would like to write about I sometimes catch myself in time not to share something angry, complaining, negative. It’s somehow easier to let our anger or dissatisfaction speak aloud on our behalf but well, I prefer looking for balance and positive mindful thinking in this place. I want me to grow when writing the posts and you to be enriched and inspired when reading them, I do not opt for sinking…

  • Reflections

    About changes and beginnings

    Sometimes, when I make a change or begin something new, I wish I could go back in time and apply the change to the past as well so that all the previous occurrences were tinted with it. Yeah, I know, it’s nonsense. How could that ever be a change or something new, if it was there all the time? But sometimes I find it really difficult to resist and make a bold line between what was and what is going to be…. even in the smallest unimportant things. For example, I’d like to go back through all of my posts here to improve their photos based on my current skills…

  • Reflections

    Fulfil, my word for 2022

    Another New Year has arrived and made me think about the previous year. Is there anything I’d like to change this year? Is there anything I could have done better? There is, of course, and I could start writing quite a long list with many items on it, but the one that speaks to me most has made it to be my word for this year, please give a big round of applause to the word FULFIL! You can plan, you can promise (to you or someone else) to make changes, you can muster whatever visions you’re able to come up with, but without completing the intended, you’ll never fulfil…

  • Reflections

    Inspiring food for thought #1

    The other day I was listening to an audio English lesson on business English and I felt intrigued by its topic, which was dealing with difficult people. I had to think a lot about what was said because it felt genuinely true and applicable to our lives generally, not just to those professional ones. In a nutshell, the thing is that there are quite a few people in our jobs, in our neighbourhood and generally everywhere we find ourselves, which we find hard or almost impossible to put up with. We usually blame them and although in many cases we may be right, sometimes – and probably more often than…

  • Places in Czech Republic

    By contrast

    We encounter many contrasting places, objects, thoughts and people in our lives, some of them more prominent than others… In Giant Mountains, there are many nice old houses typical for the long-gone era of our ancestors. The houses look lovely and cosy, such as this one in Rokytnice nad Jizerou. In my opinion, there used to be different roofing material, this one looks too modern to me, but the house itself radiates the history. And it definitely shows a stark contrast to the contemporary houses in its surroundings. The new may not suit the old yet one day the new will become old as well and another level of contemporary…

  • Miscellaneous

    Learning to work with WordPress Block Editor

    When WordPress team first introduced the new block editor, I panicked. I was quite happy with my WordPress blog and the way the original editor worked and switching to the block system seemed unnecessary and intimidating. Why the change? Fortunately for all of those unwilling, a plugin was offered featuring the older (classic) editor, so I had it activated and calmed down. After some time I thought I should give the new editor a try and created a post using it. Well, how to say that… The experience felt not quite awful but definitely unconvincing so I happily reactivated the classic editor… What was spoiling my happiness though was the…

  • Around home and village

    Do you like lupins?

    Lupins are in full bloom in our garden now and that is a joy to behold, I love them. But the truth is that if you didn’t restrict them, they would force out and displace other less expansive flowers. I’ve learnt that in gardening as well as in life one needs to remove even what is beautiful when it’s out of place and doesn’t add to achieving balance…