through the viewfinder

i woke up feeling irritated. irritated that the bell jar was so quickly over and that the ending was so ambiguous. irritated that americans don't realize the rest of the world uses the metric system and they're the weird ones. irritated with styled, perfectly-presented lives that pretend to be all quiet and serene when they're put up online. irritated at those roosters out there, trying to outdo one another. irritated that no matter how much laundry you do, there will always be more. irritated that i still don't really know what i want to be when i grow up. irritated that i'm beginning to suspect that i actually am grown up and this is just a condition of life. irritated at the gorgeous thomas rode's new paleo cookbook (even tho' i'd like to sleep with it under my pillow), because i really doubt they had that much cabbage in the stone age. irritated that kittens become cats so quickly. irritated at how high the ground water level is with all this rain. irritated that i wrenched my back and nearly fell into the well trying to get the perfect shot of some leaves against the blue sky.

maybe i'll just go back to bed.

keeping promises to myself

when i decided to do a 365 project for the second year in a row, i promised myself that i'd dare to take more shots only on film and that there would be days where i didn't shoot digital at all. i'm now over halfway and i think there have only been 3-4 days where i took just film shots. not good, at least in terms of keeping that film promise to myself.

i can feel the stagnation setting in. on friday, i very nearly forgot to take a photo for the first time in a year and a half. it's so ingrained in me now that it's like breathing, but on friday, i almost forgot. thank goodness for the iPhone and Instagram, or i wouldn't have a shot from that day and i would have missed my first photo of the day in a year and a half. and despite feeling a bit blah (i blame the clouds), i would feel pretty badly about that, because taking a shot every day for a year and a half is something of an accomplishment.

today, despite an utter lack of photo mojo (again with the clouds), i got out the rolleiflex and halfheartedly dusted it off. and still, what you get a through the viewfinder digital shot. do you think i took a picture with the actual film that's languishing in the camera? if you say no, you would be right.

i do hope the sun comes back soon. it's much easier to keep those promises to myself when the sun is shining.

now you see it

saturday was snowy and icy and it was steadily snowing in the evening as we drove home from sabin's best friend's birthday party. then, it warmed up overnight and the snow is nearly gone now 24 hours later. what a difference a day makes!

* * *

and the creativity continued this weekend:

18.  felted soap. yes, you read that correctly. i felted a bar of soap for the upstairs bathroom with beautiful rovings bought last year in this etsy shop:

19.  and i also felted some stones that we collected on our winter beach trips during my sister's recent visit (more about that tomorrow):

i love how they look and even more how they feel, tho' husband and our best friends teased me mercilessly, especially when i took 78 pictures of them in different locations with different cameras and different lenses. there's just something special about the heaviness of the stone under all that wooly brightness.

i also made some fabulous bread, but didn't get to photograph it because it was devoured immediately. bread recipe over at just know where you are.

* * *

and on saturday, a whole lot of TtV photos:

hope you spent your weekend on something worthwhile.

the world looks a little different through the viewfinder

things are a little backwards, blurry and well, hazy on poppelvej today. i set out with cameras and lenses and TtV apparatuses (is that a word?) in hand, to have a think about the contract i received yesterday for my new job, while i enjoyed the sun on the fresh snow and the blue, blue sky. very soon, my feet carried me towards the scary new building in town that says, "skat" on it. and while "skat" is a term of endearment in danish, kind of like "honey," it also has another dreaded meaning. taxes. and the danish government does love its taxes. so i went to check out the tax implications of my new job, which actually aren't as bad as i feared. in fact, they're quite straightforward. the problem may be the work permit. according to the norwegian foreign ministry, it could take months. and i don't want to wait months. i want to start now! and the very nice girl at the embassy couldn't/wouldn't tell me anything either. i'm not from a problem country, am i?

or perhaps i am. let's face it, whether we like it or not, we're in the midst of GEC and it was caused by the mismanagers of the country on my passport. we should probably be blacklisted. i am in serious need of a different passport.

but enough about that. i just had to get it off my chest.

* * *

what i wanted to write about today was how often it happens that when i look through my photos on the computer, i discover things that i didn't notice while i was taking the actual photo. things like these little bitty droplets of water beside this daffodil that i cruelly and intentionally set out in the snow for the sake of macro lens photographs yesterday (click to enlarge and see the droplets on the upper flower).

or this bit of spider web or hair that's holding onto some snowflakes in this close-up of my twisty hazel tree:

or the way these macros i took of a reflection in a little mirror look positively ghostly. through my viewfinder, they were something else entirely.

and they were just reflections in this:

i love the capacity of photography to enable me to see things anew, fresh and differently. it makes the world a bit brighter and twistier. and i like that. even in the face of work permits and taxes. and i didn't even feel too ridiculous walking around with one camera stuffed inside a long tube made of a box from a bottle of calvados that was taped with brown duct tape onto another camera. that didn't look funny at all. or if it did, no one said anything. not that i expected them to. it is denmark, after all.

slow saturday

i'm a bit slow today. got home a bit late after a nice dinner and chatting all evening with a friend. oh, and a few too many glasses of wine. so i'm decidedly in slow motion. we were supposed to head to istanbul today. i should be on a plane right now. but husband has meetings at work next week that he feels he can't miss. sabin and i could have gone anyway, but it took the fun out of it that husband wasn't going, so we stayed home too. it's the autumn holiday next week, so sabin doesn't doesn't have school. we'll have to find fun things to do...museums, the halloween extravaganza at tivoli, long walks and taking lots of pictures.  because yesterday, i got this:

i'm excited to take more "real" TtV pix with it. it's a rolleicord from the early 50s. i'm really excited about TLR cameras and in addition to the TtV thing, i'm going to load in some of that expired 120 film i got at the flea market.

husband says i should pick one or two of my hobbies and devote time to them and try to get into them properly. he's no doubt right. i think photography is definitely one to devote a bit more time to and i'm going to look for groups of like-minded photography people in my area (rather than hanging out on the 'net all the time). and i do still want to learn to knit. and then there is the pretty paper. how do you decide what hobby to devote your time to? should i really have to choose? so many things appeal--sewing, gocco, art journaling, painting, photography. i just bought a book about embroidery. i feel such a need for creativity, but husband is right, i am spreading it all quite thin and not properly devoting myself to any of it. except perhaps the photos. it was quite fun to lie on the ground, playing with my macro lens and get these pictures of some mushrooms that were poking their little heads up through the bricks in the circle today.

and with my brain on the slow motion setting today, these musings are MUCH better than thinking about that ridiculous campaign going on in the US. that just makes my brain hurt.

we likey the linkies

i have lots of things on my mind this morning. everything from the latest sarah palin-enduced madness (more about that in a minute) to the nobel prize for literature (more about that too) to iceland's collapse (i wonder if that means a big sale at magasin du nord?) to my new mac paint pots in constructivist (love the 1913 russian connotation of that) and blackground to going out for drinks & dinner with a good friend this evening to finding a cafe to settle down in to write this afternoon (i need a change of scenery) to TtV photos and macro lenses (more about that in a minute as well) to twitter (it's such fun--like mini-blogging) to a fabulous sandwich i just invented--tuna salad with roasted garlic pepper on a wholesome wasa cracker that's smeared with creamy danish blue cheese, to sitting down and learning to knit in earnest.  and that's an awful lot to think about on a friday morning.

i read this morning in information (the intellectual danish newspaper) that a former bush campaign guy (castellanos--guy who did his campaign ads and is now a commentator on CNN) says that sarah palin is the future of the republican party. i had heard it on BBC World the other day as well, but had blocked it out (the mind has a wonderful way of doing that with things it can't comprehend).  i don't actually know whether to laugh or cry. in a way, it's excellent, as it undoubtedly spells doom for the republicans. but mostly, it's a totally worrying development. if she is really the future then the world is in big trouble. or perhaps we are simply witnessing the decline of the american empire. i suppose it was similar in the twilight hours of the roman empire as well...watching a great power fade into if not obscurity, at least utter irrelevance at the hands of idiots. our leaders should have the cultural capital to lead and this woman so lacks in every way that it leaves me both breathless and speechless. i can only say that this morning's sorted book stack, which positively leapt off the shelves at me, expresses it better than i can.

so my thoughts moved on to the nobel prize for literature (which has nothing to do with the flower above, i just liked that picture). the swedish academy announced yesterday that they had chosen some obscure french guy, Le Clézio. what's interesting about it isn't that they chose some obscure writer no one had ever heard of or at least who hadn't really been heard of/from in years (they almost always do that), but more the hoopla surrounding comments made by horace engdahl, permanent secretary of the swedish academy, a few weeks ago about how the prize would not be awarded to an american because american literature is too isolated and insular. huh? tho' i have never been a big aficionado of american literature, i think some good stuff has come out of the US that would surely be nobel-worthy--think philip roth, paul auster, joyce carol oates and perhaps someone like jonathan franzen down the road, depending on what else he produces. but to call these writers isolated and insular and to actually say that they have an "ignorance that's restraining" is totally absurd. however, my choice would also be a non-american--murakami, murakami, murakami! strangely, the swedish academy did not consult me.

so, moving on...

my TtV contraption. 

it's a wonderful fall day outside, so i wandered the yard with my camera(s), played a bit with my macro lens and the old camera i got for TtV photography. i'm still experimenting, but got this shot of the fading hydrangea:

i do really, really adore the shape of my viewfinder on the old ideal. i am, however, going to be on the lookout for other options in the antique stores.

on that note, i will make my way into the city, find a café to settle into (without wireless, since the 'net is my whole problem) and try to get some work done.  i wish you all a lovely and relaxing weekend.

through the viewfinder

in light of my fabulous flea market find yesterday, i spent a bit of time today playing with through the viewfinder photography. from what i've read online, this isn't the ideal camera for it, but that didn't really stop me. before i ventured into making any contraptions, i played with my macro on auto to see how close i could get before it would stop doing its auto thing. this was the result:

then, i fashioned a contraption of sorts and shot a whole bunch of pictures, of which i will share but two:

and this one:

i do think this could get a bit addictive, but i can see that i have to try outside on a nice, sunny day (it was rainy all day today, so i only tried indoors). and i can see that i need to be on the lookout for other fun cameras to try this with. i do so adore collecting things. :-)