This wall mural, found in Old Colorado City, Colorado, cracked me up! You might remember a different view of this wall art in Exploring with a Camera: Opposing Lines.
For “Weekend Away,” I take a little blogging break and share random photos captured in my travels.
I’m giving myself a little blog break on weekends these days. Rather than leaving the blog empty though, I’ll share one of the many images in my queue I haven’t gotten around to sharing yet. When you see the “Weekend Away” title, the image could be from anywhere!
Today’s image is from Marksburg Castle, in the Rhine River Valley in Germany. This is one of the few castles on the Rhine that was never destroyed, so it was the most realistic view of castle life around. Many of the other castles on the Rhine were rebuilt with a more idealized view of castle life, or are in crumbling ruins.
Can’t you see working in this kitchen? I loved the light. I’ve always thought it funny that when we think of living in the past, many people think of living as the lords and ladies. We have this ideal view of what life was like. The reality is that there were very few people who were in that position of wealth. If I were born sometime long ago, I always thought I would probably have been a serving wench, eeking out a life somewhere. I would much rather live in the present day, thank you very much!
(Hmmm… that didn’t end up being much of a blogging break this morning. A different topic than usual though!)
My first Find Your Eye class of the year starts Sunday, and I’m so ready! It’s a full class, and the Flickr group is open and everyone is starting to introduce themselves. It’s so exciting to begin the process of connecting.
I was pondering how connection happens this morning, especially in the online world. It certainly takes effort on both parts, yours and mine, for us to connect. It’s not like in the “real” world, where circumstances could put us together in work or social environments, to help that connection along. We have to choose to be here. That’s the first step, but it’s not enough is it?
There has to be something more, to make a connection. There has to be an human, or emotional, sharing and response. If you visit a website, and get factual or useful information, do you feel a connection? I don’t. If there’s no personality involved, no sharing of self, there is no connection for me. Connection starts to happen when one person shares a little bit of themselves, along with whatever info they are sharing. It could be the sense of humor that comes through in their words, or a little about their lives or personal philosophy. Whatever that special something is, it’s important to start the connection.
Hidden Window in Bologna
That’s important to me, maybe because it’s what I do here every day, share bits and pieces of me through my photos and words. Today I share this window in Bologna: Partially hidden, partially revealed by the vines, but completely blocked off to light. I wonder, why is the window hidden and blocked off? Isn’t the point of a window to let in light, and air? This image makes me feel somewhat sad, and anxious. What windows do I still have inside me, hidden and blocked off like this? I know they are there, I stumble across them from time to time. Perhaps that’s why I’m anxious, worried about what window I will need to open next. It’s always hard to open a blocked window within our soul.
So I share, and I learn something about myself in the process. The next part of connection is up to you. It’s how you respond. Not everyone will feel a response to what I write, the images I share. For some, they will take away only the factual and useful information. Others will have a response, an emotional connection, with what I’ve shared. You may see yourself reflected in my words. You may see things entirely differently. Either way, that’s where the connection begins to happen in online interactions. One shares, the other feels. The recipient feels connected.
Connection is deepened, the cycle of connection is completed, when there is a response. That could be a comment, an email, an interaction that somehow closes the loop. It could even be signing up for a newsletter or a class. Something that tells me, the person who originally shared, the message was received. And valued. It’s weird sometimes in the online world, because there is the potential to connect with so many people by putting information out there, but you don’t always know who and where it’s being received. You only see numbers. I greatly value the connection I have with those of you who respond, even once in a while to say, “Message received.” It turns the numbers into real people, real connections.
Regular interaction over time, sharing a little bit of the “self” from both parties, becomes a real two-way connection. As real as any connections I make face-to-face, maybe even deeper, because with these interactions we’ve connected on something very, very important to me. Likely, to both of us.
That’s what life is all about, isn’t it? The connections. Of ourselves to the moment, and to the world around us. Our connections to other people.
What do you think? What does it take for you to feel a connection in the online world, and make a connection back? Close the connection and let us all know what it takes for you.
Today as I watched the video linked below, this image jumped out to me. A moment, a tiny detail, captured on a Swiss mountain over a year ago. A moment when my eyes were open to see the beauty of the world around me.
I don’t have much time for blogging today, I have some early meetings I need to go get ready for. I want to leave you with this incredible video on gratitude. If you have 10 minutes, your time will be well spent. I guarantee you will see your world, your day and your photographs with a sense of gratitude by the end.
What is it about windows that attracts me? Maybe it’s because I just like to wander around places, outside with my camera, and they are what I see from the street. Maybe it is the perfect frame within a frame opportunity. Maybe it’s the glimpse I see of the lives that go on inside.
Whatever the attraction, I’ve been capturing them a lot lately. This one is from one of the buildings I was scoping at Oregon State University the other day. I think it was one of the shop or maintenance buildings, there was just enough to see in the windows to make me curious as to what was inside. The books only offer a tiny clue.
What’s attracting you these days?
After spending the last week and a half either working hard at the computer to get my new ideas in place, or relaxing utterly by reading novels and watching the first season of Glee, I was ready to get out and photograph yesterday. While the day started with a tiny bit of sunshine, it was the kind that only lasts until the sun gets above the heavy cloud cover, so I needed to get out early. I tagged along with my husband on his morning errands, asking him to drop me off on the Oregon State University campus so that I could wander and take some photos. There is this metal shop building with fabulously textured (read: peeling paint) windows that we drive by often and I wanted to study it with my camera.
I had a great time photographing until the rain started. A little rain doesn’t usually bother me, I keep an umbrella in my camera bag, but this was cold, blowing rain. My fingers were going numb. I gave up and huddled in the bus shelter waiting for my husband to come back and pick me up. The bus route that goes near our house came by first, so I hopped on to get out of the cold. The bus doesn’t go right by our house, so I had several blocks of walking to get home after I got off. I opted to walk through the strip mall, using the protection of the overhang from the rain and wind. And then I saw it… the market/wheels picture! A very cute classic-looking bicycle, along on the bike rack in front of the grocery store. A completely serendipitous find, but making the sequence of photowalk-rain-bus-walk seem like a perfectly logical path to get a new image for my series. I can’t imagine getting here any other way.
A Stop at the Store
Don’t you love it when that happens?
Another synergistic happening yesterday… my photo “Window to the Heart” — the same image I shared on my blog yesterday as an example of a photo-heart connection — was chosen as the Photo of the Weekend by masteringphoto.com. It served to remind me that when I have a strong connection with an image, likely others will too. I would love to have you come by and show some comment love, if you have time. You might also spend a few moments to check out the site, run by Focal Press, publisher of many great photography books.