Serendipity: an accidental photo

This photo about sums up my week. First I've felt like a big oppressive hand was getting ready to grab me by the scruff. (And it was I had a day-long migraine the day after I wrote this.) Second I feel like the puzzle of my life is ahhh still well, a puzzle.

The photo to the right didn't start out as a a trick pic. It  was taken accidentally on Enders Island as I was walking around snapping pictures. I turned and swung around and must have taken a picture while not aiming.... The frame captured the horizon and my hand, all out of scale...  Serendipity!

It was subsequently finessed in the online photo editor "Picnik" using a Puzzle effect and a frame effect - two of the effects Google, (which owns Picnik) hasn't seen fit to port over to the Google Plus "Creative Kit" Unfortunately Picnik will close in April and we will be stuck with a much more limited array of possibilities than previously. Lately I've begun wondering if Picasa Web Gallerys are going away eventually as well, tucked into G+.  I wouldn't mind but they always leave out some little functionality or other that I had admired and that worked well for me.

Oh well.

Unexpected sights: wild mix & match

The other day, a drab day, I saw a wonderful eccentric sight in the grocery store, that cheered me immeasurably. It was like I had moved to some  Caribbean island nation on perpetual vacation. Or as if the sun had suddenly emerged from deep fog. What I saw, was a pre-occupied grey haired gentleman (or perhaps rascal) with a beard and sandals who was sporting a wild wild shirt. I loved the sight so much I had to take a picture, though I took pains to not show his face to preserve his privacy. Thank you so much dear sir, you made my day so much better.  I left the store humming.

My improving mood

A little sunshine can improve your mood. This afternoon featured streaming rays with attendant blue sky. This pic looks like someone just beamed aboard the mothership. And only a moment ago I was sitting right there... haha

Strange reflections - optical oddities

Occasionally in some unexpected spot, some skewed individual like myself is right smack in the way because they have stopped to take a photo. Usually the camera is pointed a some unsuitable subject like a car fender, a puddle or a hubcap or the edge of a window.

Quite often it is nothing, nothing as in something that is reflected in something else. The odd squiggles in the photo to the left are  not a contortionist zebra. They are Venetian blinds reflected in the plastic cover of library book which is propped open on a flat surface. From most angles you can't see anything. I guess there are wrinkles in the plastic that are bending the reflection.

Or take the photo on the right, which was taken at the Freight Street Gallery. There appears to be an angry woman hovering in the frame.  Nope it's NOT a ghost. (No proof for ghosts, just a lot of  human imaginings....)  It's a reflection of a painting that is on another wall, quite far away from this nice sunset painting. It's not directly across from it, but on wall that forms an L with the wall where this paining hangs. I really don't understand the optical mechanism by which it is reflected here but -  like I said, optical oddities.

Color or a reflection of confusion

This is a JPEG made in Corel Painter from a photo of an oil pastel of mine using various distortion techniques.

I am looking forward to getting back to the poetry series on Wednesdays. My choir job is seasonal and we have had our last Wednesday rehearsal until Sept. (If they ask me back...) Although I will miss the music, the people and the income, I have missed the poetry and the poets too. I have a lot of catching up to do....

head in hand watching the world roll

I have always liked this impossible photo of a head I made in Sculpty. No, I didn't use a mold.

I've made a series of heads, some mounted, some painted. To the right is the sculpture in its original flesh-toned material. Some how though, I prefer the black and white photo.

Optical Phantasma

Moved from the Metaphoratorium Gallery:

The optical confusion obscuring this 2005 winter view of my front door, easily lends itself to metaphor. I took this shot from the living room window, through double-pain glass. I like the little light ghosts that resulted. Like everyone else, my view of the world can be distorted by phantasms: of imagination, personal history, assumption and unfortunate but transitory conditions inside the cranium.

---- Mar Walker