pretty in pink

Happy Leap Day!!!! Enjoy it, you won't see it again for four years.

playtime

I took this picture in Golden Gate Park. It just reminds me of how much fun it was to be a child. A few minutes later, there were also children rolling down the hill...an activity that I remember used to be super fun, though the thought of it now makes me slightly nauseous.

A bit dreary

It's actually feeling a bit wintry here on the central coast of California...not something we've been able to say much this year. Perhaps spring is the new winter?

Eugène Atget

Again, the Getty Museum website is going to give you a bit of a background today as I'm plum tuckered out from work:




"Eugène Atget never called himself a photographer; instead he preferred 'author-producer.' A private, almost reclusive man, Atget first tried his hand at painting and acting, then began to photograph vieux Paris (Old Paris) in 1898. He photographed in part to create 'documents,' as he called his photographs, of architecture and urban views, but he supported himself by selling these photographs to painters as studies. Atget carried a large-format view camera, an outdated, cumbersome outfit, through the streets and gardens of Paris, usually photographing around dawn; many of these areas--storefronts and public spaces in nineteenth-century Paris and Versailles--were demolished soon afterward to make way for rapid urbanization.

Though Atget was not well known during his lifetime, his visual record of a vanishing world has become an inspiration for twentieth-century photographers. American expatriate photographers Man Ray and Berenice Abbott rescued his work from obscurity just before his death. Abbott preserved his prints and negatives, and was the first person to publish and exhibit Atget's work outside of France. Many existing prints of Atget's images were, in fact, made by Abbott in the 1930s from his negatives."

It's Caturday!

I didn't actually take this picture. It was taken by a friend named Destiny (who also has an awesome blog, you should check it out!) at the Exotic Feline Breeding Compound in Rosamond.

orchid day 3

Last day of orchids. Tomorrow's Caturday....definitely don't have any pictures of Loki with an orchid.

orchid day 2

I warned you!

orchid day 1

I have lots of cool orchid pictures from the Conservatory of Flowers. The next three days, you'll just have to deal with it. Enjoy!

wanna go grab a pitcher?

This is a pitcher plant. It's one of those crazy carnivorous plants that actually eat bugs. It has liquid in the bottom of its "pitcher" and the inside walls are very slippery. So, when a bug falls in, it gets trapped in the liquid and drowns. Over time the bug will dissolve in the liquid (sometimes with the help of bacteria or enzymes in the liquid itself) and the plant will absorb the nutrients. Not quite so "Little Shop of Horrors", but if he starts calling me Seymour, I'm out of there!

inspiration

Inspired by Felice Beato, I thought I would post this one today. I took this at the Japanese Tea Gardens in San Francisco. It's amazing what a peaceful place it is when you think that you're in the middle of such a big city. And squirrels everywhere!!!! We stopped to have some delicious hot tea while there as well (San Francisco in February is cold!).

Felice Beato

I am exhausted and feeling rather lazy, so today you actually get to learn from the Getty site. If you enjoy Asian portraits and landscapes, I would thoroughly encourage you to look further into Felice Beato. Very interesting stuff!




"Felice Beato was the first photographer to devote himself entirely to photographing in Asia and the Near East. He photographed in Japan, India, Athens, Constantinople, the Crimea, and Palestine. He settled in Yokohama and from 1863 to 1877 made hundreds of ethnographic portraits and genre scenes in Japan. He eventually opened a furniture and curio business in Burma.



Beato's photographic career was also long affiliated with images of war. He photographed the Opium War in China in 1860 and the Sudanese colonial wars in 1885.

While in partnership with his brother-in-law James Robertson in the 1850s, Beato documented the Indian Mutiny and its aftermath. Their photographs are believed to be the first to show human corpses on a battlefield. Beato and Robertson were also among the earliest photographers to work in the Holy Land."

It's Caturday!

Took this a couple weeks ago with my phone. Loki always seems to find the one sunny spot on the floor and then rolls around in it.

humid

This is what happens when you walk from a cool, not humid room into a warm, humid room...everything fogs up. Luckily, I had a lens cloth in my bag so was eventually able to unfog my camera. Thought I'd share this one with you though as it actually turned out pretty cool.

I went to the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park on Sunday. So, look forward to lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of pictures of flowers (mostly orchids) coming up.

feeling sluggish?

Had a great time over the weekend in the city. I stayed with a friend who lives in Brisbane (just south of San Francisco). One morning, Noah pointed out this little guy to me. Considering I was a banana slug (UC Santa Cruz alumnus), I had to grab a few shots. Hope you like it!

Happy Valentine's Day!

So, I know these photographs are nearly identical, but I simply couldn't pick which one I liked more. So, on this lovely Valentine's Day, you get two lovely pictures of cherry blossoms. Hope they brighten your day!

shadows

Don't let shadows of the past haunt you. They can't be changed. Look toward the future and the things you can change! Ok, I'm off my soap box, now get back to your regularly scheduled Monday activities!

Eadweard James Muybridge

Eadweard James Muybridge was born in 1830 in Kingston-on-Thames, England. In 1852, he moved to America during the California gold rush. He was truly a jack-of-all-trades when it came to photography. He took panoramic photographs of San Francisco that were 26 feet long; he was the first to photograph a solar eclipse; and he invented a precursor of the film projector.

Much of his work shows the movement of people or animals. His major achievement was capturing photographic proof that, at full gallop, all four of a horse's hooves briefly lose contact with the ground. Today, that might not sound like quite a feat. I mean, your digital cameras today have shutter speeds that are amazing (my Canon T2i can capture at 1/4000 of a sec). But back when glass plates still had to be exposed in a wet collodion process for at least 10 seconds, how do you capture a moment that lasts less than 1/1000 of a second? It wasn't easy, but with the help of John D. Issacs, working constantly on improving shutters and light-sensitive emulsions, he finally caught the moment on film in 1877.



It was just 5 years later that he wrote a letter to the editor suggesting that photographing the finishes of horse races could exclude judges' errors. Today, photo finishes are completely mainstream...and now you know who to thank.

It's Caturday!!!!!

TGIF!!!

I have the weekend off. Noah and I will be driving up to San Francisco in the morning to visit a friend. Can't remember the last time he and I both had an entire weekend off!

Making it out and about

Had a nice walk today and took lots of pictures. I still can't bend my knees all the way, so the gym is still a no go, but I can take walks! Although, it was frustrating not being able to bend down while taking pictures...just couldn't quite get the right angle all the time.

the eyes have it

Weird fish eyes...

You say it's your birthday?

Happy birthday to the best Mom ever!!!!!!

I'm berry happy to see you!

I know, *groan*.

Julia Margaret Cameron

Julia Margaret Cameron didn't take up photography until the age of 48, after raising six children. She thought that the commercial visiting-card portraits were "vulgar, leveling and literal." In her own photography, she added an air of piety to her portraits. Over a third of her portraits are of women, all with heavy-lidded, soulful eyes. Her friends and neighbors were transformed into angels, the Madonna, the Christ child's birth.




In 1875, she illustrated Idylls of the King and Other Poems by Alfred Lord Tennyson. Here, unlike with her religious portraits, she clothed her subjects in elaborate costumes and used settings to evoke the legend of King Arthur.



"My aspirations are to ennoble Photography and to secure for it the character and uses of High Art by combining the Real and Ideal and sacrificing nothing to the Truth by all possible devotion to Poetry and Beauty."

It's Caturday!

Does your cat freak out as easily as mine? I swear, black cats are so skittish!

almost....almost....almost....

No more bandages, no more limping, my face isn't as colorful, haven't had to take pain killers in 2 days, things are looking up. Won't be needing these things anymore!

I'm back...ish

Ok, so I'm alive. Still not feeling great; still trying to hide my face a bit from people; still sore and walking a bit funny; but alive. Haven't gotten out to take pictures because I'm very sick of hearing people say, "What happened to you?!" "Were you in a car accident?" "Did a dog bite your face?" So, look forward to indoor pictures for a few days until I'm less self-conscious about the way my face looks. At least I got some nice painkillers...like the Vicodin pictured above.