-
Icy imagination
Do you enjoy watching clouds moving across the sky, wondering what their shapes resemble? If I’m sharing what I can see with someone else watching the clouds with me, I’m always surprised how diverse pictures we get, highlighting different features of the clouds. The other day I went across our yard, which has been in the process of reconstruction lately, and I was watching my step not to stumble over a piece of hard earth or some stone. As I was looking down under my feet, I noticed a piece of solid ice giving me artistic impression. I was thinking about the clouds and their shapes triggering my fantasy… I…
-
Curious attraction
It is a curious feeling to be taking a photograph you expect no one else would like. It is a feeling, as though you were entering a universe that holds no attraction for potential visitors but for you. Yet you hear the calling and you can decide whether to follow it and perhaps seem foolish or ignore it and throw away expressing something deep inside you what might take you further. I love this great adventure of photography teaching me to be myself, to look at the world around me through my own eyes, and to go deeper than to the longing to create something everyone would admire.
-
Task substitution
Planning is a great thing, don’t you think so? But what if you plan a task and then instead of doing it, you choose another one to fulfil. What if… … instead of doing laundry you cook a cake?… instead of dusting you organize your stuff?… instead of proofreading an important contract you call your mum? Just because you don’t feel like doing the planned task? Not motivated enough or trying to postpone something you know you need to do but are not especially eager to fulfil? So not to waste time entirely by just being lazy and trying to calm your conscious you choose to do something useful in…
-
End-of-year reflection
I won’t let the cat out of the bag when remarking that the end of this year is on its way to arrive pretty soon. I’m sure many of us have been pondering over this ending year, how unusual and challenging it has been, and wondering what the next year will be like. Who knows… But I’m sure, even if some days are messy, there are also opportunities to smile, notwithstanding occasional bleak outlooks. I believe in hope… I’ve already discarded this year’s diary of mine and while doing that, I noticed the remarks I started that diary with. I reminded myself that I needed * to use our treadmill…
-
Thoughts on maintaining order
When we got stuck at home during the corona crisis, I decided it would be a good time to remake our rock garden. We created it long time ago and throughout the years its weaknesses became evident and it got somewhat neglected. With my husband helping me doing the most challenging work, the reconstruction was finished in about four months and three weeks ago I planted fresh cuttings from some of the old plants. The cuttings settled well, faster than I expected, and even started to grow. But with them, new weed appeared, spread quite quickly and needed to be removed to keep the earth clear. So I’ve done the…
-
Cold and rainy
Last night it was raining heavily here, the rain woke us several times when beating against our roof lights. And not only brought the night the rain but also a change in temperature when it dropped a few degrees lower in comparison with previous warm days resulting so in a wet and cold Sunday. Well, despite the noise, we were happy about the rain as the weather has been very dry lately and the level of ground water is very low here. Abundance of water is one of my dreams now, who would have thought! No more taken for granted. And as everything outside was soggy, I decided to discontinue…
-
Abstract vision
My son attended an exhibition with his class today and that led to our subsequent discussion about the styles of paintings we like and dislike. We’ve found out that we especially do not see eye to eye with one another on abstract art, which I like and my son does not. That made me rummage through my photo archive to find if I have any abstract photos at all. And I have, look at one of them… As much as I love sharpness and contrast, abstract vision opens to me a door to different perception. What do you feel when looking at an abstract? I always feel curiosity and need…
-
Shades of simplicity
Simple may be ugly. Simple may be dull. But simple may also be beautiful… Ingenious… And even sophisticated. I love simple ideas and inventions that make a great difference. I love simple photos that are talking loudly. And when creating my still life images, I strive for simplicity that may be extremely simple and yet expresses calmness, illusion, thoughts not yet spoken aloud. Simple may open a door to imagination… Which means… simple may not be simple at all…
-
We see what we want to see
A brain is such a smart thing and helps us a lot but sometimes it makes a fool of us. Once I read an interesting article about how brain processes signals it gets from our eyes. The brain is capable of adding missing parts, e.g. of what is at our sides when we look ahead, based on what we saw earlier and thus helps us quickly orientate ourselves. It is definitely useful but sometimes it may also be somewhat confusing because the calculated vision may not correspond entirely with reality. In July my family and I spent a few days in Italy and one of the places we visited was…
-
Good photo or bad
Sometimes opinions about a photo can differ quite a lot. Let’s take the following photograph. When I asked my husband to give me his opinion on the photo, he told me that it’s just yellow, no more added value. He didn’t find anything interesting in it worthy of looking twice at it. On the other hand, I keep returning to the photo. Well, I took it, so I may not be unbiased at all, but it doesn’t change the fact that I feel attracted to it. Is it because it was I who made those decisions on choosing the scene, selecting the crop, highlighting the yellow? At the site, I…
