Thursday, May 20, 2010

the best nest, or wherein i come out in favor of the interwebs

little bitty nest in a tree in our back yard. much smaller than it appears.
how does this bird know how to decorate it so well - acorn and all - without the interwebs?
it's a well-known fact that i love the internet - blogs, flickr, twitter, facebook, even linked-in. social media butterfly, that's me. well, sorta. within a small-ish circle.  when i began this bloggy adventure in earnest, i explored a lot of different blogs on a lot of different topics. i've pretty much weeded out all of the scrapbooking ones now, but those were kind of where i started. along the way, i found some people who seemed to have a really cool aesthetic that they were sharing - opening their homes and giving glimpses of their lives through their blogs. some, like me, just to share and reach out and make contact and some to sell their wares. i still read quite a few of those. but i think the blogs i am attracted to most these days share their process. they're pretty heavy on handmade (food, quilts, art) thematically, but i love the insight people are sharing into their creative processes.  but, i still love the blogs where people just show us glimpses of their beautifully-lived, well-lit everyday lives.

and i shudder think back to the time before blogs, where we had to figure out what we thought was cool home decor for ourselves. i guess we got our ideas from magazines then or, if we were me, by visiting the golden nugget in downtown las vegas and thinking that brass, glass and a lot of plants were really the way to go. (it was the late 80s, so sue me.)  now, i know better, because i can latch onto trends (mid-century modern, vintage in general, crocheted blankets) a whole lot faster, just by trolling the flickr groups i'm part of.

but in a way, i really envy people like anne, who despite being an ostensibly poor graduate student is a brilliant photographer and all around brainiac, and she cooks gorgeous food in a very deliberate and thoughtful way. i can tell you that i seldom did that as a grad student. i can recall a truly ugly broccoli cheese soup i once made, but which we ate anyway because it tasted great. but i wonder if i'd have done better if i'd had the internet then. i'd like to think i would have. i know i would have appreciated my hand-me-down furniture - i had a gorgeous danish modern desk and dining table & chairs that had belonged to my mom's aunt (where are they now, i wonder?) - a whole lot more.

even more, i envy inna karenina. at 18, she's already a completely stunning photographer and has that ability i've been working so hard on acquiring, that ability to really SEE and capture the world around her and to live in what seems to be a very deliberate way. i was so clueless at 18. if only we'd had the interwebs back then in the dark ages!

and digital photography, it's perhaps that that's done it more than anything else - i download pictures 3-4 times a day on a good day. in the old days, i would take a few pictures, leave the camera, which was some crap old canon snappy, lying in a corner for months, take a few more, leave it again, then finish the roll and eventually take it to be developed. if only i'd known then how cool expired film and light leaks are. but even now, i only know that because of, you guessed it, the internet.

so, moral of the story? if you want the best nest, you've gotta get online....

9 comments:

Char said...

i have learned so much more about photography on the internet, more about a sense of my "style" - if i had stuck to classes only i don't know if i would have developed like i have into a sense of myself. maybe - it would be an interesting think.

Trina Y. said...

I agree with everything you mentioned! It is awesome being on the internet.

and photography and life and blogs and everything!

Trina
www.mommeville.com

Magpie said...

a robin made a nest in our gutter. alas, there is no way to peer into it, save a ladder...

Joanna Jenkins said...

Those are two stunning blogs to go with your gorgeous bird's nest. Thanks for the tips.

And I hope we get to see the birds when they hatch???

Cheers,
jj

Sammi said...

It's amazing isn't it? In blogosphere its such a surreal thing, we all know each other so well. To a point. I know there is blog camp and stuff where a lot of people have managed to meet, but when like me you haven't met certain people its still a bit of a mystery. I love glimpses into people's lives. I am addicted to Jane's blog, Spain Daily, because it reminds me of living in Spain! So many reasons to look at glimpses of other people's lives.

mrs mediocrity said...

We do have to wonder what we would have been like if we had grown up with all of this...and I still wonder how it has, and will, affect my children's lives...a whole new world we live in, these days, a completely different sort of tree in which to build our nest.

Anne said...

Oh! *blushes* Thank you! Such kind words. It's true: without the interwebs, I don't know what direction my cooking would have taken. And without said interwebs, and without the blog, I probably wouldn't have taken up photography--at least not this early. Funny how things work out. Most of all, though, I'm thrilled with the people I've "met" through all this blogging and photo-taking and such. Here's to distant-but-not-distant friends!

inna karenina said...

oh my, I'm flattered.
I agree about internet - I have learnt so much on internet, found so many friends and that's how even I became interested on photography.. without internet, I don't know if that'd have happened. But of course, having lived almost half of my life with accessibility to internet, I don't really remember much about the time before it.. but sometimes I do think what my life would be without internet, and am thankful it has enabled me so much. oh, and I am clueless too. most of time. more clueless than I would like to admit, I suppose.

http://howtobecomeacatladywithoutthecats.blogspot.com said...

Your blog never fails to inspire me, Julochka! Love the bird nest. Whenever I feel the need for some serenity and beauty, this is where I come!