-
Tightrope walking
“The secret to life is finding the right balance to everything you do…” Last year I visited the castle Kost with my family and at that particular weekend, the castle hosted an event including several performances, one of them tightrope walking. High above the court a rope was tightened and a few performers made their way to the other end of the rope and back. With my camera, I tried to capture the moments I loved best and here are some of them. I love the S shape of the body of the man captured in the photo above, the figure dressed in the trousers resembling a skirt somehow makes…
-
Sadness
Ravens circlingabove the tree topsdeath in her eyes I do not have any photo that would mirror the images my little Haiku-inspired poem conveys so I picked a photo that conveys similar feelings which are the feelings of sadness I felt when writing the poem. You know, the poem made me think. Some days are not happy days. Some days are sombre. For obvious reasons we don’t like them but they are inevitably part of our lives. How to accept them? How to deal with them? There are so many books and websites offering pieces of advice on how to be happier and where to find happiness. You don’t need…
-
Pleasures and pains of editing photographs
The process of editing photographs can be pleasant and fulfilling but it can also be confusing and even intimidating. At least that is my experience and I want to talk about it today. Not to make the reading too dry, I’ll add a few of my before/after images. The before images are unprocessed RAW versions just transferred to JPEGs. Let’s make it clear from the beginning that for the purpose of this post, by editing I don’t mean adding textures, creating composites or making any major changes to the photograph’s contents (except for cropping and minor healing or cloning), just adjustment of light, saturation, contrast, white balance, etc. My first…
-
Rudbeckia counterbalance
On Monday, a new school year started here which meant that last week I spent quite a few hours by shopping. Everything the school asked to get for lessons such as exercise books and pencils, watercolours and brushes, but also clothes and shoes as my 13 year old son is growing almost in front of my eyes these weeks. That clothes part was the most exhausting because although he is of average build, it was not easy to get trousers for him thanks to the current slim and skinny fashion. So much wasted time when looking for something suitable… One day when we came home from such shopping, I went…
-
Supernatural or not
I had quite a weird experience a few days ago which on the one hand one could explain easily and on the other hand one couldn’t explain that easily and I would like to share it with you. On Sunday, my hubby Milan and I went on a trip to castle festivities in Velhartice. When we were almost there, we saw an old church which Milan found familiar having said that he had read something about it but was not sure and was not much specific. We made a quick detour to have a look at it and found out that the church was situated inside a cemetery. We were…
-
Out there
When I created the image above, I thought that it wouldn’t need any accompanying words, that it tells a story of its own. Perhaps a different story for each of us… Can you hear it?
-
The challenge of visualisation
How important do you think visualisation is for one’s artistic work? I read in several articles that visualisation is vital to art and I thought about it many times. In dictionaries, visualisation is defined as “the act of forming a picture of somebody or something in your mind”. Does that mean that to create art you need to be able to imagine the picture of what you want to achieve? The final result? I believe there are painters who look at an empty canvas and see a masterpiece. I believe there are photographers who look at a model and see an artistic portrait. I believe there are sculptors who look…
-
Following and imitating, or rather not
A few days ago I arrived at the parking lot in the premises of the company where I work. I chose a place to park at and directed my car to the place. There was snow in the parking lot and the borders of the parking places were not quite clear but I did my best to fit in there. Yet when I stopped the car, I noticed that I was not aligned to the car in front of me so I shifted into reversed gear, reversed and then aligned my car with the one opposite me. When I got off, I found out that my car stood quite amiss,…
-
White January
Unlike many previous winters, this year we’ve had beautiful white and frosty January. After the muddy and windy Christmas time it was a welcome change. One morning a few days ago I looked out of the window and saw a beautiful scene lit by early sun rays… I grabbed my camera and ran to the garden, the light and fog and colours felt wondrous and magical… We were lucky not to have many problems with the snow at the part of the Czech Republic where my family live, there were other parts that had to deal with serious problems, but the truth is that after several quite mild winters we’ve…
-
My word for the year
It’s been my practice lately to pick a word at the end of the year that will accompany me throughout the following year and will help me to focus on some aspect of my life that needs to be improved, changed or thought over. I can tell you that it’s quite interesting to watch how this practice evolves and how these words come to me. For this year the scheme hasn’t changed. A few days before Christmas I was driving on my way to work and paying attention to the traffic when suddenly a photo appeared in front of my mind’s eye. It was a photo I took last year…
