Sunday, January 23, 2011

Sunday Afternoon Photos

My sister, Dotti, has taken to digital photography in a big way in the past couple of years. It seems to me that this interest really took wings when she became a grandmother. She regularly emails me with links to her online photo galleries, has completed a couple of online photography courses, and has recently begun posting photos on the blog she co-hosts with her daughter and granddaughter. Inspired (or made to feel guilty, take your pick) by her enthusiasm, and stuck indoors on a fairly cold winter day, I spent a bit of time this afternoon taking macro photos of some items that reside on my piano.

Today's photo show opens with a glass rose, which is 1/6th of a set (complete with vase) that Dave and I bought in Corning, NY last fall.


The show continues with a different, spiced up, photo of the same rose. I achieved this impressionistic effect by making two copies of a photo, superimposing them on each other, slightly shifting the positions of the two top layers, and adding a pencil drawing effect to them.


The show concludes with a photo of seashells that I collected at the Outer Banks in the fall of 2009.


Most of these shells are not perfect specimens like those that can be purchased in boardwalk gift shops around the world. Many of them are chipped, fragmented and otherwise imperfect. But, they're mine. I found them. I cleaned them up. And I put them in a crystal dish to show them off. Because, sometimes, I like to remind myself that extraordinary beauty is often found in the mundane.

3 comments:

Barbara said...

I get very inspired, too, by seeing other people's photographs.
You took some beautiful ones ... but then you always do.

Dotti said...

Woohoo! Loved your photo show! Welcome back to the fold.

We also have quite a few shells, including a whole stash of sand dollars, that we've collected at Kiawah over the years and which we showcase on our mantel in sweetgrass baskets along with a canvas photo of the beach at Kiawah. Something about shells and sweetgrass baskets that go together, don't you think? But I think it because of, not in spite of, the imperfections that I love seashells so much. They're just like us: Beautiful in their imperfections.

Catharine said...

Loved your photos, Evie. It's been a while since I have visited and I need to do it more.