wednesdays: first flowers

dear mother

i give you

my love with each flower

--I Often Go Walking

The first flowers W brought me... aided by his father, I'm sure. But he held them so carefully.

the five minute portrait

this is a less-than-5-minute portrait of my dad. while they were in town this weekend i had thought getting into the studio would be a piece of cake... well, previous to having a 6 week old baby, it might have been, but when exhaustion sets in, there is nothing to be done.

so begins a musing on photographs. this wasn't taken with my nicest camera, or even in the greatest location. its my parking garage. however, it is still *not* a snapshot-- and here is why:

no on-camera flash in use, design elements (rule of thirds, leading lines, etc) are in use, even the color scheme is pleasing, the balance of light and dark is not extreme.

The REASON i bring any of this up is that sometimes you need to just TAKE the picture, right? Even though I'm happily studio-based with large format, that just WASN'T going to happen this weekend. But having something other than a *snapshot* of my father DID need to happen for me.

I fully admit some of the pleasure of this image is because of the sentiment for me.

imbalance

visited the spicy lady. talk about an interesting proprietor. he was great, and we had a wonderful time exploring his fantastic saloon. i like that one of these lights was out.

jamstress

i decided to try making freezer jam this year... basically because it was on this website

and they always explain things like it is the easiest thing in the world. Well, jam IS the easiest thing in the world, and it is WORTH IT to do it at home. For real.

my sophmore year in college my roommate, callie, always had homemade jam. And I begged her for it ALL the time because it was the first time I'd ever HAD homemade jam and it was unbelievable.

Fastforward to last christmas, when my best friend, Megan, gave me homemade jam because she saw that we were actually buying jam over at my house and she was APPALLED. :)

Well, I'm appalled too, because now that I've made it, and we only have 1.5 containers left (eeek!) and its time to make more already. Seriously. Make yourself some today. It is TOO easy to put off. Especially when you can get strawberries for very very little right now!

homemade little books

been making some little books lately as thank-yous for people who helped out during E's birth. they each have a fun, coordinating color on the inside page. i love these because they are perfect for a personal treatise on something the writer feels passionately about.

a new portrait

i have a tradition. every birthday, i take a REAL portrait. T's from this year is on the sidebar on the right. Above is my new picture. i can't look at the camera for these things, I inevitably stick out my tongue or make a punk rock face. so, sideways it is from here to eternity.

bay leaf

Was feeling a little inspired. I'd never cooked with bay leaves before, and something about this leaf, serving its purpose then being discarded, no worse for the wear... having done a bit of work without looking worse for the wear. I don't know, someplace in here is an analogy fit for the last lecture.... guffaw. All the same, it was good to get out my camera, irregardless of the fact that this image will never be used for anything.