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Frustrating lilacs
Frankly, my photo project for this year hasn’t been progressing much, I haven’t been feeling inspired at all lately. Yet I admit, I know that good results are much more often achieved based on persistency and regular showing-up than on the famed inspiring sparks, and more often than not there is an opportunity to do something about it. My last photo post featured some lilacs from our garden and though they are long gone, more of their photos inhabit my computer. I chose two more this time and after endlessly struggling through their processing, here they are… You know that frustrating feeling when you see what result you want to…
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Easter hope
Easter always brings a message to me conveying hope that nothing is so bad it could not turn into something good. The concept of suffering and how it could lead to something great is difficult to grasp but if one opens themselves to the hope, the life can feel and become very different. Sacrificing oneself may be utterly wrong or utterly heroic or utterly compassionate, it all depends so much on circumstances. From the point of Christianity it is a gesture of love giving a man a chance to make their lives better. I know, if one is not a Christian, the gesture seems non-existent, yet it is there in…
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In black and white
It’s spring, right? Birds are singing, first flowers are showing their beauty, some trees and bushes are coming into buds. And yet my photos for this week are black and white and I love their colourless but thoughtful stories. I took both of them on Sunday during our photo walk in Chudenice, it’s my hubby and me, or more precisely my hubby and my shadow. I’ve experienced quite a few changes since the beginning of this year. I’ve bought a new camera (moved from Canon to Nikon and to a bit higher level of the camera so I have a lot to learn), started to exercise regularly on our stationary…
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Christmas wishes
Christmas will be here in just a few days so before you become absorbed in final preparations and Christmas festivities, I’d like to wish you Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. When I was looking for some wise words to share with you on this special occasion, I came across the following quote by the comedian Demetri Martin. It made me laugh and feel the mirth and I thought, why not something funny for a change? Here it goes: “I set a personal record on Christmas. I got my shopping done three weeks ahead of time. I had all the presents back at my apartment. I was halfway through wrapping them,…
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Inspiring woman
Have you ever heard about the writer Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach? I hadn’t until I visited the Archbishop chateau in Kroměříž last summer and saw a little unusual exhibition presented in the chateau’s tower on the 100th anniversary of her death. Her words flying in the air captured my attention… Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach was a writer of Moravian origin writing in German language. She is considered to be one of the most important women writers of the 19th century who wrote in German. She was born in September 13, 1830 in Zdislavice, not far from Kroměříž, to the noble family of Count Dubský and his wife. When she married, she and…
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Evaluation of my be-still experience
At the end of 2014 I announced my intended participation in Kim Klassen’s year-long course “Be still 52”, a course that was focused on creating still life images. As I told you at that time, after experiencing my 52-week photo project in 2014 I wanted to improve in planning, arranging, working with light, working with the depth of field, working with textures, I wanted to open my imagination more. Have I met those expectations? Have I improved those skills? Here is my evaluation. I haven’t fulfilled all of the assignments that we got in the course but for a change, I don’t feel guilty about it. I started the course…
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PF 2016
Here we are again, at the end of another year. Nobody knows what the next year holds for them and how they’ll be able to embrace that. It’s time to wish one another strength, health and happiness and it’s high time to send New Year cards to our friends, families and business partners. Someone celebrates the last day of the year as a milestone, others refuse to see anything special in it, but the truth is that the date changes and we need to get used to that new number… I’ve posted New Year cards in this blog since 2011 and just a few weeks ago I was made aware…
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Thoughts on learning strategies
When you are learning something new, what’s your strategy? Do you mainly gather pieces of information, go through them quickly and then keep them in your laptop or (note)books for future reference or do you try and use them until you master them? Long time ago I realised that I belong to that first group of learners, I’m definitely a gatherer. Not of things but pieces of information. I have always been, since childhood. In this digital era I have plenty of files in my laptop containing articles on things like English grammar and vocabulary, photography techniques, Lightroom tips and manuals, Photoshop Elements tutorials… I enlarge my collection day by…
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Feel of winter
One day when fresh snow arrived I decided to take a stroll around our village with my camera though I didn’t expect capturing much. Seemingly, there isn’t much to capture in the village after having lived there for a few years. Yet I was proven wrong once again because I “found” a few captures I really liked. For example this gate leading… where exactly? Into your childhood? That’s a Mirabelle bush where local children like to hide and play. A part of the village is a bit remote and the road leading to that part represents a path where the locals – including my family – go for a stroll…
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Moving on
On Sunday I finished successfully the Art of Photography course with all of its videos, quizzes and assessments and could download my Certificate of Achievement. It feels great to accomplish something I had decided to accomplish. The course enriched me very much and I don’t regret the time and energy I invested into following it. I’m happy I took all those notes as I’d like to get back to them later to refresh some of the ideas. I’d recommend the course to anyone who would like to acquire or brush up on their photographic perception. It contains some technical stuff but also points at various principles and ideas that may…
