exploring february: so far so good

it really bugs me that i have come to care about the elusive and mysterious "explore" feature on flickr. it's the top 500 photos of the day on flickr, according to some unknown and possibly ever-changing criteria. just a short month ago, i kinda knew about it kinda peripherally. a few of my pictures of the house and my famous robot shot had "gone explore," but i didn't really think about how or why. it was just a happy mystery to me.



but along came our blog camp 365 flickr group and suddenly, explore was everywhere! there are lots of good pictures in the group and with lots of constructive criticism in the form of comments and favorites, suddenly explore became that much more real. for me and for the group as a whole. and so i've started to care about whether my pictures "go explore." and in some ways, i wish i didn't. because it seems a bit insidious, like the whole messianic follower thing on blogs and twitter, and perhaps a tad unhealthy to obsess about it. but still, i can't help but be happy that both of my photos for february thus far have gone to explore - the rainbow monocule© above and this martini glass of yellow randomness. it does for some strange reason reassure me that my photo mojo has returned and i'm improving. tho' it probably doesn't actually mean anything in the big scheme of things.

flickr has done a good job of creating a mystique around it. so rumors abound as to what the algorithms contain. if you want to read some of those rumors, check here, and here. and here's some advice on how to get your pictures there. and now i'm off to stage my next potential explore shot...i wonder if the cat will hold still....

january photo-a-day

hmm, january has 31 days, but still, i managed to have 36 pictures in my photo-a-day folder. here they are as a mosaic. i am loving this project so far! tho' thanks to a stomach virus my photo from the 31st was actually taken by husband. he's pretty good when he's turned loose with the camera.

still going on about flickr

i found the coolest greasemonkey flickr script the other day. it's a little widget thingie that reminds me of that linkwithin widget i used to have on my blog (but removed because it was making the loading time really, really slow for some people). when you're looking at a flickr picture, it gives you a visual list of "people who faved this also faved..." and i'm finding the coolest stuff that way! stuff i wouldn't have otherwise found. and expanding my flickr horizons. it's just another of those things that makes me love the big, giant interweb. endless connections, i tell you. and endless goodness.

and around here...endless red velvet cupcakes.

hope your weekend is a good one.

photo a day

on january 1, i decided to formalize my photo-a-day pledge that i pretty much embarked upon since buying my D60 in may 2008, and started the blog camp 365 project on flickr. here we are, not even a month in and i really love what the project is doing for me. in addition to learning a whole lot from the other group members and delighting in their pictures and their feedback, it's given me back a good measure of my photo mojo.

it's gotten me to take a harder look at processing my photos and helped me solidify what i like to do and what i don't. cropping and minor adjustments (like the antique feel i gave these photos) are ok with me, but i still much prefer straight out of the camera (SOOC). i'd rather try to compose the shot as i'm taking it, tho' sometimes, there are things you don't notice until you download the picture onto your computer, so sometimes you just have to crop. i'm finding myself thinking a whole lot more about photography in general. i'm rereading susan sontag's wonderful on photography with new eyes (and perhaps a new brain) that i didn't have when i read it in grad school. in fact, i'm going to build my photo-a-day in february around notions from the book. imagine that, me, planning ahead!

i think it's also significantly eased the pain of this dark time of year. because in looking for that daily photo opportunity, i've found out that the light isn't really as bad as i thought. i've been much more mindful of the qualities the light has and i'm much more aware of how rapidly it's changing at the moment. i've come to appreciate that the winter light can really be great for those SOOC shots i love if i use it at the right time of day. and if i want that yellow tone to my photos, i just use the artificial light in my yellow-walled kitchen after the daylight is gone. it's forced me to do a whole lot more experimenting with the settings on my camera and i've learned a great deal about how to get the shots i want, using the light at hand (since i continue to loathe flash).

but probably the best side effect is the one i'd hoped for the most. and that's noticing the world around me. on a snowy day, i wander through the house, camera in hand, thinking about what i can take a picture of today. yesterday, it was these brass ottoman "pencil cases." they're on a shelf in the dining room and i'd pretty much stopped seeing them. but yesterday, i looked at them. really looked at them. and thought about them and the experience of buying them. how husband and i played good cop-bad cop with the antiques dealer and husband played his bad cop part so well i began to believe myself that he was against my buying them (he wasn't, it was just an oscar-worthy performance). just snapping a few photos, i was transported back to that hot day in bergama, and the ruins we wandered before wandering the street of antique shops, our dinner at a sidewalk restaurant where a man actually tied his goat to a tree before going in to eat. i also appreciated for a moment the little tableau i'd set up with them, arranging them near some beautiful old books with art deco jackets from the teens of the last century and an old tin for turkish-macedonian tobacco that i found in a flea market. there must be value in taking a moment to notice and appreciate your own surroundings.

it's not too late to join the group, you can start your photo-a-day project anytime you want, so do come and join us. when you request the invite, please let us know you arrived there via one of the group member's blogs, as we are trying to keep it to the circle of those we know via our blogs, so it remains a manageable number of photos to keep up with and comment on.

updates on a world gone mad or wherein she changes her mind

because a pretty flower can set the tone for a good day

so that stupid governor asshole guy who i defended yesterday--at least in his right to go analog--turned out to be just another slimeball politician without morals. what is it about these people that makes them think no one will ever find out these things? i still say, however, that people (which loosely includes elected officials) should be able to go offline for a few days without the whole world crumbling down. of course, i myself would never do that, but i'm just saying, people should be allowed if they want to.

and speaking of technology and always being on, how did we ever meet someone somewhere before the ubiquity of mobile phones? did we just make an agreement to be at a certain place at a certain time and then meet? what a novel concept. and why can i seriously not remember how i ever managed to meet someone somewhere before i could text?

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ok, i know i said yesterday that i had gone off flickr, but then i found out that The White House has an flickr photostream and there are some seriously good candid shots there. so i'll stay on flickr and just stop joining those crap-ass flickr groups with all the stupid rules. and yes, i just added the white house as a contact. i mean where else can you see obama hanging out with pirates?

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and speaking of flickr, i'm getting a little obsessed with spudballoo's challenge to me to reveal 30 secrets in 30 days, which, you guessed it, turns out to be a flickr group (thankfully quite free of restrictive rules and clauses). i find i'm constantly jotting down another secret in my little blog notebook and i think that most of them i haven't even revealed previously or if i have, i'll reveal a new aspect of the secret. starting july 1, right here on MPC. does anyone else want to play along?

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i think i'll make one of these in cheery colors for the next time i'm feeling down

we saw this bright, cheery quilt in my little town when we were walking around the other day and i think i'll see what i've got in my stash and make one for the next time i'm feeling all down. i really shouldn't be bothered by the fact that we've passed the summer solstice, as the darkness won't start to show appreciably for another month or so--best to enjoy the light while it's here and stop fretting about when it's not! i am feeling the desire to make a quilt, after running across this beautiful quilt block on the spirit cloth blog. it makes me think of elizabeth's beautiful soul food project, as well as the notion of art journaling in textiles. there's so much inspiration in the world, it's kind of silly to spend a whole day moping around. but maybe it's just something we need once in awhile. i'm glad the gloom lifted.

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i leave you with a little story from my nephew, finn (the US finn, we also have one in sweden), age 6. he came home yesterday from a trip to target and informed his brother that he had looked at the analog legos while he was there. maybe it's a message that we all need to spend less time online...go get out your analog legos and build something!