Celebrating Spring

I'm not chatty these days but here's a collage I made.



And here's a little Song Sparrow singing his heart out in praise of Spring.

Documentary Photography

I have been making strides in my project for my documentary photography class even though I haven't posted about it to date. I have been documenting a high school biology class at a local school. My inspiration was actually how much my son has been turned on to biology by this particular teacher who seems to love animals and has carried that over into a teaching style that makes learning fun.



The teacher has been most cooperative but I haven't asked if I can use his photo in this blog so I will be sticking to faceless pictures but I will share a few here to see if you feel my enthusiasm as well. Those of you who can't take photos of bugs and snakes will not likely share my enjoyment.



Stay tuned for more in the next few days.

Chicago Bean

I refer to the outdoor sculpture fondly known as the Bean but actually entitled Cloud Gate. I have my issues with large art installations as many times I find them gimmicky but this sculpture has won me over in part because it is so much fun to play with photography-wise.



Of course, the tourists love it and maybe I'm just a local tourist at heart. Yesterday was one of those odd Chicago days when the skies cleared and the temperatures reached the 60's. It was intoxicating after a dreary winter. I think everyone in the city wanted to call in sick. I had a few hours in the morning to ramble around downtown before going, inevitably, to work.

Charmed, I'm Sure

Mortal Muses theme for the week is "charm." I decided to take it seriously and photograph a charm bracelet I own. I never owned such a bracelet when young although my mom did. This one I bought at an antique store and I filed off some of the more appropriate charms (filing the jump rings with a small metal file--what a pain) to give on a more modern necklace to a young friend of mine. The bracelet is so not my style that I've never worn it but may use a few of the other (not too insipid) charms for other purposes.
The backgrounds are two vintage record albums I bought this past weekend at a thrift store. I have begun to enjoy the graphics after seeing a calendar of Alex Steinweiss album covers. As I become more vintage myself, I am appreciating even older items more and more.

Classy

I started a new photography class. It is only a five week class and already I wish it were longer. The theme is documentary photography which fascinates and terrifies me. I think the fascination is obvious but the fear? We have been assigned to do our own documentary project for over the next five weeks and the instructor prefers (strongly) that it involves people. I wracked my brain for a non-boring project that I thought could fly but have run into my essential shyness. To do this project I have to ask strangers to take their picture and follow them around for a month. Feeling literally shaky I sent an e-mail to the founder of the dance studio my son and I dance with but she hasn't responded. I imagine she is too busy or hasn't seen the note. I need to make some headway on this by Saturday so I now need to come up with an alternative plan. I can't tell you how stressed this is making me feel which is silly and pointless. I know this will be good for me in the long run but I want to hurry back to my pictures of empty buildings, trees and birds.



The pictures I've posted are from our first in-class assignment which was to take a series of pictures in the art center. The specifics were to take 6 pictures, of a wider perspective, a detailed perspective and a person. I even succeeded in getting a person to agree to my photographing him but my near shots came out blurred (I'm still getting used to this 50 mm lens). I do like my one intentionally blurred photo however.

Speaking of Postcards

Here's a belated one for Valentine's Day (which is generally ignored in my household).
Postmarked probably in 1902 and addressed to Mr. R.C. Kloss, Kent, ILL. No note is on the card.

For Postcard Friday.

Mail Geek

I feel like such a geek and one problem with being a geek as a kid is that your never get over the trauma of being thought a geek. Wow, did you know you could use the word geek three times in one run on sentence? I have been a letter writer since I was a kid. My grandmother, my favorite person in the whole wide world after my kids, saved my letters because she thought one day I'd be famous and they might be published. What a nice thought. I sure miss her. She used to have my first letter ever, in those giant letters you learned in kindergarten, taped to her closet mirror.
I wrote most regularly to my grandparents in California (at the time I lived in Seattle) and an assortment of letters and cards to other people.
While I lived in Paris in my senior year in college I sent a number of air letters (what ever happened to them?) to friends and family, especially my grandmother who had terminal breast cancer. I couldn't afford many phone calls home and those involved dropping all my loose change into a pay phone until my call ran out and was abruptly terminated. How much life has changed with cell phones, e-mail and Skype. Although I adored being in Paris it was lonely at times and I lived for letters from the States.
I stopped writing, and thereby lost a few friends including the couple of friends I made in France, as graduate/medical school began and I got bogged down in work and later family. Now I have regrets, but what can you do?
I am happy to find like-minded, extremely cool people (unlike me) who are trying to keep the postal service alive and keep the hand written letters moving. Postcrossing, sendsomething.net and some letter-friendly bloggers net some letters and postcards from home and abroad. It sure beats bills and junk mail. It also gives me an excuse to buy odd postcards and the latest US postage stamps.
As to the images I've posted here, they are my thanks to thesnailmailer who enjoys seeing her letters posted and who sent me the above envelope and card which truly deserve being shared. I have to confess, I've never tried Jello-shots--geek that I a--but one good envelope deserves another. Speaking of alcohol, have you ever heard of bubble gum flavored vodka? Now that is really gross. Have a lovely weekend and write lots of letters.