What do you think this wall once said? OWL is all I can read. I wonder what that refers to, what else is buried under the words. They have been lost in time.
I am lacking in words today. I woke up without them. Not in a frantic “Where have the words gone?” kind of way, but in an observational, bucket-is-empty kind of way.
Perhaps it means I’ve been using too many words lately, and it’s time to take in more. Perhaps it means it’s time to listen.
Today I’m spelling it VW! After being a single-car family for the last nine months back in the US, for three years total if you include Italy, yesterday we bought a second vehicle, a used VW Passat. Today I’m feeling is a vast sense of relief.
It’s been harder than I expected to have one car in the US. It seemed so easy in Italy, but our lives were different there. It would be easier here if all I did was go to work and come home on a regular schedule. Or all my husband did was go to work and come home on a regular schedule. Or one of us was a completely stay at home parent. Or if no one in the family had any outside activities. Or if we did everything together. Or if all of our activities were accessible within walking distance. Or we lived in a big city with more frequent and extensive public transportation. Or we lived in a place where it was sunny all the time, where we could bike or scooter without getting wet. Or if we had all the time in the world to be flexible around transportation.
None of those things are true for us.
So lately it came down to either organizing and making tradeoffs based on transportation, or buying a second vehicle. Looking at everything, the answer was clear. It was time to get a car.
I worked so hard to make it work with one vehicle this long, I thought I would be disappointed. But I’m not disappointed in the slightest, only relieved. I’m surprised at how much relief I feel. I didn’t realize how much stress must have been building up inside me around the transportation situation. I’m happy we went this long, because I now know the tradeoffs I am and am not willing to make. I am confident that buying a second vehicle was the right decision for us, whereas nine months ago I was not convinced.
For those of you who live in the US and manage a family with one vehicle, I truly salute you! And you’ll find me happily waving to you with a smile on my face, from the ranks of the two-vehicle families again.
Cultural Reference Note: The question “How do you spell relief?” is from a 1970’s TV commercial for an antacid in the US. The answer was R-O-L-A-I-D-S. I wonder if equating this phrase with “relief” means I watched too much TV as a child…
Preparations for A Sense of Place are moving along quite nicely! I’m so excited to share this class. When I observe from afar and take myself out of the work of it for a moment, it’s fascinating to watch a class go from a seed of an idea scribbled on paper, to an organized outline, to a finished product that will allow me to share these ideas with others. It’s also been an interesting opportunity to discover new things in my own photography, as I revisit old favorites. This dragon from the Dragon Bridge in Ljubljana, Slovenia was one of my recent rediscoveries. I love him! I can’t believe I forgot about this image.
Are you still debating on taking A Sense of Place? Here’s an interview with me on the course, if you would like to know more. I hope you’ll join us! A great group is forming up, and we are going to have a fabulous time exploring places.
We continue to study the balance of shapes in Exploring with a Camera this month. I’m curious what you all think of this exploration, since there haven’t been too many participants as of yet, which is unusual. What is holding you back?
Today’s image is from Portland, captured after I visited the Mark Rothko exhibition at the Portland Art Museum a few weeks ago. While visiting the exhibition I fell in love with this painting, No. 8. I sat and looked at it for a long time, wondering what it was that attracted me so deeply. It was partially the colors, but upon further contemplation I realized it was also the balance. This painting perfectly balances color, shape and line. Of course! I would love that in painting, as much as I love that in photography. Mark Rothko’s paintings distill this balance down to essential elements. With his paintings you are not distracted into thinking it is “of something,” as you would be in a photograph. You can see the balance for what it is. I love that!
So, how are you doing with balance? I would love to see. I would also love to hear what you are struggling with, if this topic doesn’t connect with you. Maybe we can explore that together.
Learning to anticipate the translation of three-dimensional scenes into two-dimensional images begins with recognizing that each element gets flattened and becomes … a series of lines and tones that can be rearranged, balanced and played against each other as we play with optics and angles. We arrange those lines and tones within the constraints of the frame.
— David duChemin in Photographically Speaking
Do you see it? The flattening of the frame, the objects as lines and tones. Can you see the basic shapes, and how they are balanced with each other?
If you don’t see it, try it in black and white. Blur your eyes. Do you see the shapes yet? How they balance?
While I am attracted to the complementary color contrast of the yellow and purple in the original image, the balance of shapes works in black and white as well.
I started reading David duChemin’s latest book this morning, and as always his words resonate with me. The quote at the top of the post was especially striking, with my recent fascination, discussed in Exploring with a Camera: Balancing Shapes. This is an important concept to grasp – that the elements in a photograph are not really the “things” you are photographing, but the are lines and tones and shapes arranged within the frame. And, the most exciting part, we as the photographers get to choose that arrangement. We choose what to include and exclude.
Do you see it yet? Does it excite you as much as it does me?
To color or not to color, that is the question. No, I’m not talking about photography, although it’s easy to get caught up in the color vs. black and white debate there. I’m talking about… hair.
This silly little question has taken up way too much of my brain space since returning from Italy. Not too long after moving from Italy I remember looking around a meeting at my corporate job and realizing that of the women in the room, all my age and older, I was the only one with any grey hair. There was lots of distinguished grey among the men in our similar age range, but not the women. Now, I know that’s not natural. I was the only one not coloring my hair.
So my brain starting working. Debating. Is it time to color? Do I need to color? What does it take to color? Would I feel better about myself if I no longer had grey hair? The arguments “against” are strong to my practical nature: Once I start coloring, I’m going to want to continue. It’s an added expense and activity that will go on and on. If I decide later I don’t want the color anymore, I’ll have to go through that horrible “growing out grey” phase.
But the arguments “for” are enticing. Coloring my hair would be another fashion choice. Something I could change on a whim, even more readily than my clothes. I could experiment. I would look younger.
I haven’t decided the outcome of the debate yet, as this self-portrait will attest. Or maybe I have. I hold out on color because of the commitment, but I also think there is more to it for me than that. I think I’m worried I might lose track of me, somewhere in the color. Lose track of some essence that says, “Hey, Kat, you are ok just as you are, hair and all.” If I’m not willing to accept a few grey hairs, a natural part of life, what other things will I want to change? Most things about me can’t be revised so easily.
So here I stay. In black and white with shades of grey. What’s you take on the color debate?
This month’s {in the picture} theme is “black and white.” All of my self-portraits in this project so far have been black and white, so the theme was not a stretch. The subject matter, however — me — is the stretch. I continue to be delightfully surprised at my growing ability to think of a concept for the self-portrait and then execute on it. This method of photography is different from my usual mode of operation, where I’m exploring my environment and finding compositions with my camera. I’m enjoying myself so far.
