blogs are being diluted by other social media

friday, i wrote a little ditty about the way that social media has diluted blogging over on across ø/öresund. i'll admit that i am quite guilty of it myself - i share small, ostensibly pithy thoughts on facebook in a way that i would have once shared them here in a random list. my photos go up instantly on instagram, so what i'm doing at a given moment is documented there. twitter, i use mostly to share links to blog posts and my instagram photos, but i don't hang out there much. i'd like to use google+ more and i use it to save links to things that i want to find again, because i've learned that you can't depend on facebook for that, with all of their "improvements" coming along and preventing you from seeing more than just what they deem the highlights of your own timeline. but it wasn't my intention to recap that post here...

as i visited molly's blog in order to link to her below, i stayed and caught up. because i've gotten horrible myself about properly reading all of the blogs i once loved. this is partially because people are writing less often and partly because i interact with molly regularly on facebook, so i don't have the same need to click in to see what she's said on her blog because i feel like i know what's going on with her (to the extent that facebook reflects what's actually going on in people's lives (that's probably the stuff of a whole 'nother post)). and really, that's silly. because blogs and facebook are not the same thing and there's so much more depth (usually) to a blog post than to a facebook status update. spending some time reading molly's recent posts provoked me to think and feel and reflect in ways that facebook never does (truth be told, facebook doesn't do much of anything other than make me feel passive aggressive). blogging lets us go so much deeper - into our own thoughts, our own psyches, our own patterns and processes - and gives us so much more insight, both into ourselves and others. i guess i needed that reminder. i've got to get more selective with the time i spend with social media.

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this is a bit frightening, but also hilarious:

thank you, molly.

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fascinating little miniature coffins.

i found them through mr. finch. 

who i am not stalking. nuh-uh.

there's a bit more about the little coffins here.

and we're back

new york city burning

after a long summer hiatus, kristina and i are back on across ø/öresund, sharing creativity across the sound separating denmark and sweden. we'll be posting highlights from the first roll from our summer film swap. i exposed a roll of expired slide film (oops, those pretenses again) in south dakota (or should i say sabin took most of the photos one evening when we had a bonfire) and then sent the roll to kristina in new york city. then kristina got it cross processed and here is the first of the results.

while of course the entire roll doesn't turn out as well as you might hope, there are some very cool and unexpected effects. kristina's camera rolled the film differently, so not only are they double exposures, but also half frames on top of my originals. i think it's especially effective on this shot of city streets.

be sure to stop by across ø/öresund in the next few days to see more. and do check out the interviews we did of one another. kristina's interview of me and mine of her.

we've got more fun planned over there, so keep checking it out. we'll definitely be getting up to photo fun at blog camp berlin in 10 days.

she's back on that inspiration thing again

like many out there, i was inspired by the women of 3191, quietly, mindfully depicting their lives on opposite coasts. and again like many, i longed for such a project. one which would push my photography. one which would push me to be more mindful of everyday things myself. one which i would share with someone whose photography and view of the world inspired me. and i am so happy that i have found kristina and that project. we were just discussing last evening that we found each other thru the überfabulous sandra juto's blog. and we all know she's very inspiring too - so thanks sandra, you undoubtedly don't know it, but you brought us together. and i'm so pleased with what's unfolding.  both kristina and i were traveling last week and we're sharing our travel photos all week, but first, a little glimpse of the weekend just gone by. do go check it out here.

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as you all undoubtedly have noticed, i travel quite a lot. i need the excitement. i need the pulse. i need to see new things, to experience new things. going away makes me more grateful for home as well. in short, travel is a sort of life blood to me, keeping my perspectives fresh and my eye honed. it makes me tick. i was thinking about the things that i look for when i travel. i find i'm drawn to the familiar...

starbucks only recently came to denmark and it's only in the airport, so i associate starbucks with travel (sorry bill, i love a good starbucks latte, despite what they did to the sonics). and look how relaxing it is!

but mostly, i'm drawn to the strange, the unexpected, the challenging...

and i'm a sucker for a good ruin--tho' this one--newgrange, a stone age site, was a bit reconstructed (in the 60s, can you tell?) for my taste...

there were some marvelous petroglyphs (my beloved helleristninger) there, which i am certain will be showing up soon in my art.

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i've been vicariously watching the results of rachel's latest art journaling course go up in the flickr group and have been doing a bit of art journaling along with it...as you saw last month. and i've got a couple of pages going, where i have created a lovely background and i'm totally stuck on the words. me, stuck on words, imagine that. i wonder why that happens? i'm trying not to obsess about it and just let them come in their own good time and in the meantime, enjoy making pages that will be great bases for the eventual words.

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hmm, what else inspires of late?

there's a lot of shoe and foot photography out there in the blogosphere these days and i'm finding it has made me a little obsessed with both buying new shoes and photographing them. hmm. i wonder if this particular bit of inspiration is healthy? got these in dublin (which you already know if you've been hanging out on twitter). they're super comfortable and they look pretty in the afternoon sun. 

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i find myself going back again and again to look at jude hill's marvelous spirit cloth creations. both on her blog and on flickr. her small quilted stories are so dense with layered meaning that i am just drawn to them and inspired by them. i've worked a bit farther on the first piece that has arisen from her inspiration and still don't know what it will be. i'm using it as an exercise in patience as well and just enjoying the process of watching it unfold before me and trying to listen to my inner muse when she tells me what comes next.

where are you finding inspiration these days?

rocking out

last week, i got a wonderful little surprise in the mail. an open heart from the lovely blog, recovery from a life not lived, sent me two stones from her parents' ranch and two packets of seeds so that i can grow some of those yummy lemon cucumbers. i've already planted them in the greenhouse and hope we might get to taste them already this year, even tho' it's a bit late in the season. i'm hoping that the greenhouse helps. thank you so much, open heart!!

and photographing these little stones made me realize that i hadn't shared the lovely little flat stones that seaside girl brought to me when she came to blog camp:

i really love them--they're so flat and smooth. and now the little stone treasure bowl on my desk looks like this:

so, as i type and work away at my desk, i'm accompanied by little reminders of my connections from all over the world. i think that's pretty cool.

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i'm off to dublin for a few days, but have scheduled plenty of secrets to keep you satisfied.

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and be sure to check out the new project, across ø/öresund launching this week. it's a new photo collaboration with the lovely kristina. we're nikon girls, you know. skåne was lost to denmark in 1658, but we're working on reuniting them, at least in pictures.