My Latest Photography

    Hi guys!  I know this blog isn't updated a ton, but I've been kind of into a "blogging" mood lately, and thought I'd make a post here as well. It's not a lot, just a few of my photos with a little bit of the story behind them.  Enjoy! :)

  This first picture above I call "When the clock stops does time come to life."  It is a picture of Nina's pocket watch on Sylvia Plath's autobiography.  This is actually a digital photo that I edited to make look a little more interesting.

"The trees keep the tempo" is one of my favorites!  It's a picture of my neighbor's house.  It looks very English garden-y to me, and is an actual photo taken on film with my Holga (film is getting kinda rare these days, you know?).

  And finally we have "We forge the chains we wear in life".  The title,  by the way, comes from a quote by Charles Dickens.  It's a picture of my necklace against my sweater.  This is another digital photo, and I tried to mix textures and made it look more vintage by taking it in black and white.

  That's it folks!!  Take care! :)

Beautiful Book Covers

We have all heard the saying "Don't Judge a Book By Its Cover," and although we may try to follow this wise advice, at times it can become difficult. I will admit there have been books that I have come across because of their book cover. Something about the cover caught my eye, and I picked up the book. There are some amazing book covers everywhere you look. These are a few of the covers that have caught my eye.

The first three have silhouettes in common, something I have always found elegant and beautiful.

 The next four caught my eye for various reasons. The first two are annotated versions of classics, and have very nice details. The third had a big impact due to the bent fork and its title, and the fourth has a really nice use of the color yellow.

 Which book covers are your favorites? Are there any that have made you stop to take a second look at the book they cover?

The Possibility of Time Travel

Years ago my sister received a subscription to Time Magazine, and one of the last issues of 1999 dealt with the many discoveries that had been made in the previous century, as well as what might come in the near to far future. One of the topics discussed was time travel. Was it possible? Would it ever be? And if so, would it be similar to the time travel described in science fiction? Would any problems arise because of it?


One of the major theories is the possibility of time travel through worm holes in space or, even, in the oceans. The problem would then lie in becoming microscopic enough to fit into these tiny worm holes. And then other problems might arise. One of the most common issues brought up on the topic of time travel is the "grandfather paradox." What if a person went back in time and accidentally eliminated their own grandfather. Would they still be born? If not, then could they ever have even gone back to have eliminated their grandfather? If not, then the grandfather is still alive, and then the person did live after all, so did they go back in time? One of the major issues is: what if a person travels back in time and changes events drastically? What if they eliminate someone important in history, and history changes?

Ray Bradbury explores the idea of drastic changes made in the past by a future time traveler in The Sound of Thunder, where a man travels back in time to the era of dinosaurs, only to cause drastic changes because of something seemingly trivial.

What do you think? Do you believe time travel will ever be possible? If yes, do you think people could alter events in the past, or are events meant to be, no matter how they happen?

Wordless Sunday

I came across this stunning photograph this morning and I knew I had to share it. It is part of Yahoo!'s Snapshots photos feature which they have every week. If you view the slideshow you will not be disappointed; the fifth photo, for example, is of an elephant with a prosthetic leg.



From the description:
“I quickly grabbed my camera and put it on a tripod by the window,” said the 31-year-old photographer who caught the moment the Eiffel Tower appeared to be struck by lightning. The photo, taken from his apartment window last year, surfaced this week and won the Office du Tourisme de Paris competition. It will be part of an upcoming show in France. (Photo: Caters News)

Wordless Wednesday: Humpback Whale

I've always loved the Wordless Wednesday posts and wanted to give one a try. This is a beautiful Humpback Whale photographed by a man named Marc Fowler. National Geographic features photographs that people take on their website on their "Your Shot Weekly Wrapper" and I really like this one from this week.

Lafayette, we are here!

Oh, what's that now?  You didn't know I was eccentric?  Oh, well then you probably also didn't know I had a crush on the Marquis de Lafayette when I was 14.

I'm just saying, they don't *make* heroes like that anymore.  I first learned about Marie Joseph Yves Paul Roch Gilber du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, on the PBS show Liberty's Kids.  Lafayette played an integral role in earning America's independence, and he was also a key player in the French Revolution a decade later.  But he is often overlooked in studying America's history.

Historical Heroes

Heroes come in many forms. Some are tall, some are young while others are older, and some are not even alive anymore. Some are heroes because they have inspired someone to chase after a certain dream, some may be heroes to a single person and may not be known by anyone else. For this topic, I wanted to focus on heroes from history.


Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze, 1851

Who are some of your heroes from history? Has someone (or many someones) inspired you to chase after a certain goal? Is there someone from the past that has done something that you think is unmatched? Who are some of your favorites, and why?

Collecting

Collecting has been something that I have done all my life. When I was a little girl it was usually coins or buttons, usually my mom's buttons that I wasn't really allowed to keep after separating them into categories. As I've grown older my interest in collecting items has grown.

While I don't really have a large collection of any particular item, I love the idea of collecting things that are special to me, or that fascinate me in some way. For example, I love antique keys and certain dolls. One of my oddest collections was actually inspired by a book. In The Pigman by Paul Zindel, the two main characters stumble upon a man who has a Pig collection that previously belonged to his wife. There are piggy banks and all sorts of ceramic piglets. I slowly began to collect tiny pigs and now have a little less than 10 decorative pigs in my collection.

What are some items that you love to collect? What are your strangest/most unique collections made of? And finally, please post a picture if you have one! I'll try to add a picture of my own pig collection.

Wordless Wednesday: Puff Clouds.

We've been having some great storms around North Texas in the last few weeks. The after storm clouds are amazing!

Collin M :)

Favorite Works of Art

There are some works of art that will just simply take one's breath away, and I've been lucky enough to meet some very talented artists both offline and on, artists who I am sure will go on to create more great works of art.

What are some of your favorite works of art? Do you prefer a specific time period's art, or do you have favorite works that are from many different periods? What is it about a work that catches your attention?

I wanted to share some of my favorite works and I hope to be able to see many of yours as well.