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Along the path of blogging
UPDATE: I wrote this post on my Blogger blog before coming to this WordPress website a year later so its contents are not relevant to what I have now. Yet I decided to keep the post here as it shows the history of my blogging and where it took me. I started my first blog about fifteen years ago on the Yahoo platform for the sole purpose of learning English and keeping in touch with my online teacher. Slowly but continuously the blog was getting a new face and finally I was sharing photos I took and thoughts I was pondering over. Then Yahoo came with the announcement that it would…
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Out of place
Let me tell you right at the beginning that this post was inspired by a comment my friend Linda made on the previous post. She mentioned that the flowers in the photo seemed out of place in that setting and that they provided such a bright spot of colour in an otherwise dreary setting. When I was reading that comment, the words “out of place” stood out from the text in my mind and I had to think about them. I saw them in capitals. I answered Linda that the flowers do seem out of place but at the same time, they belong there. They are placed at the side…
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Reflections
Once I was standing on a bank of a pond, watching a duck resting just opposite and admiring its reflection in the water. It was such a tranquil scene… I zoomed in my camera in an effort to capture the impression but when I opened the photo on my laptop, I felt taken aback. Is this what I saw at the place? There is something wrong with the picture… And then it dawned on me. The reflection did not look as I supposed it should. The duck was there but there were also trees mirroring themselves in the water which could not be seen in the upper part of the…
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Costume
Last summer we visited a Milotice castle, a baroque castle situated in South Moravia. When we entered the castle’s court yard, we noticed a poster inviting everybody to “Change into a period costume!”. After a while we noticed a group of three women dressed in enchanting period gowns. Obviously they were having fun while promenading in the castle’s park, posing for photographs and chatting, and it felt as if we found ourselves in that period as well. The way we dress ourselves definitely influences or even decides on how we feel. To put on clothes of a different style than we are used to wearing may evoke a surprising experience…
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Bionics And Cyborgs
A few years ago handicapped runners started to use new prostheses which looked like a curved thick metal sheet in a shape of a bird’s leg. The prostheses were flexible, enabled better spring and easier movement while running and the runners were achieving better times in races. Even discussions started whether these athletes could or should contest against the not handicapped ones. Surprisingly (or not), the not handicapped runners found such competition unfair, explaining that the prostheses have qualities human legs will never have and thus the handicapped runners would have great advantage over them. A few weeks ago I was reminded of that dilemma when I was listening to…
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Creativity
“Creativity is not just for artists.It’s for businesspeople looking for a new way to close a sale;it’s for engineers trying to solve a problem;it’s for parents who want their children to see the world in more than one way.”― Twyla Tharp, a dancer and choreographer Many times it seems to me that I lack creativity absolutely but when I look at my ordinary day through the glasses of this quote, I realise how much wisdom they reveal. We are creative in solving our family and personal problemsimpressing those we want to impresslooking for new opportunitiesclimbing career laddersfulfilling our needs trying to keep ourselves comfortablearranging clothes in our wardrobessetting tables and…
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Added value
In the first January week I started my 52-week photography project which should help me to use my camera on a regular basis and become more practised and experienced photographer. Thanks to this project I visited the town Švihov a week ago where my husband wanted to show me a nice cottage on a river bank. We were strolling along the river for a while, went to the near cemetery and eventually arrived at the local castle. The castle is moated and before we left, I asked my husband to go to the water with me so that I could try and capture ducks swimming there. It was getting dark…
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Starting a 52-week photo project
During the first days of this year I was reading several interesting articles on photography that made me ponder over my photography aspirations and expectations. Are there any? Am I satisfied with my achievements? Is there anything I should change or do better? Those questions didn’t appear out of the blue. From time to time I heard their whispering and was aware of their existence and I knew they were just waiting for the right moment to speak up. I started taking photographs with an old Russian easy-to-use camera as a teenager. I was documenting our holidays but I lacked interest in photography. Then many many years later I met…
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Black and white
Before Christmas I was making an appointment and on that occasion I was speaking with an assistant over the phone, with a woman I had not known. Her voice was pleasant and friendly and when I was to meet her finally, I was looking forward to that meeting. But expectations are deceiving troublemakers so when I actually saw her, I could not believe it was the same person. I did not like her appearance and felt disappointed. After exchanging the words we needed to say I got back to my car and went home. While driving, it began to dawn on me that my what-I-felt-at-first-sight perception was quite silly. She…
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Unplanned
Before I got married, my favourite styles of music had been contemporary folk and classical music. Then my husband-to-be entered my life and brought his favourite rock music into our household. I discovered quite a new musical world but did not find it overwhelmingly appealing. I did like some rock ballads and from time to time a rock song but did not enjoy and often could not stand those lengthy instrumental interludes my husband was speaking about passionately. A few weeks ago he bought a CD. He did not tell me a word about it but I noticed it playing one day and as its music aroused my curiosity I…
