Masks

Yesterday was Fat Tuesday. I took out my "collection" of dollar store masks and did a few photography projects. All the talk of bundling up and taking pictures is great until I actually do it. It's making being a "snowbird" look more and more tempting. 

A photographer I follow on Facebook has been showcasing his photos of women in masks in Venice. They are really beautiful and most have this look. Women wear this during carnevale in Venice along with beautiful costumes. 

With these masks, everyone is "beautiful" in exactly the same way. When the woman removes the mask to a stranger, will the stranger be disappointed. Will she see the letdown in the stranger's eyes? Or will the stranger say that she is even more beautiful than her mask? The cliche that we all wear a mask is, of course, one we hear over and over. 

The Venetian masks are also, in their own way, art pieces as well. So it could be just the opportunity to wear something that is a bit of art for a day or two that makes these masks so popular. 

In the USA, masks are normally worn only on Halloween except for places that celebrate Mardi Gras. American masks are generally funny or scary. Political masks are popular during election year. Will there be lots of Trump masks for Halloween this year since it's an election year? Bank robbers like masks. Some like to use Halloween masks to frighten their victims. How many Donald Trump bank robberies will happen this year? 

Masks aren't just face coverings. The faces that we portray to the public portray our emotions: either the ones that are real or the ones that we want the public to know. Some people are better at this than others. 

One of my photo challenges this week was a self portrait. I did two - one of my sitting in a chair reading and one that was just a quick mobile shot of me in a feathered mask I got at a local dollar store. 

I intentionally did a close up that showed only the upper part of my face. It looks kind of spooky and definitely strange. Who is that? Or WHAT is that? I tried to keep all emotion out of my eyes. 

The masks we wear every day are necessary. Having our emotions playing so readily on our faces every day would be uncomfortable for everyone. Once in a while the masks do slip. Then come the consequences. 

What's Developing?

Continuing My Love Affair With Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

This morning I read the chapter called Polaroids. Why Polaroids? Because when you're writing you don't know what's going to develop. She uses an article she was writing about the Special Olympics. As things were winding down, she was hungry and tired and ready to get something to eat. Then she noticed a young woman making her way to the finish line. She said she was making her way painfully and slowly to the finish line. Oh, please, hurry up, she thought. The young woman made it over the finish line. She said the look on her face was amazing. A tall black man showed her a picture of him with some of his friends. He was very proud of his accomplishments. It's a great story. 

It got me thinking about Polaroids. I don't have any wonderful stories such as this one. I DO have one of the new instant cameras (see picture above) that takes tiny pictures. I don't use it often, but it's cute and kind of fun to use. It's fun watching the picture develop. A few years ago we were in Philadelphia's Chinatown. A young couple asked my husband to take their picture with their Fujifilm Instant Camera. I was intrigued and have used it a few times. I think I'm going to use it a bit more often. 

It got me thinking about Polaroids. That was the hot camera back in the day. People loved the idea of an instant picture. If you were visiting friends, you could have an instant momento. They were cheap. It still isn't. But, it's fun. The colors fade in the old ones - aka the "vintage" look that younger people love so much. 

I have some family photos that include Polaroids. I remember taking the pictures and waiting for them to develop in my hand. You had to be careful not to smear them. Now some artists actually try to smear them to get an artistic look.

 So today I took a picture and watched it develop. And I remembered the feeling I got the first time I saw a picture develop in my hand. It's a little bit of magic. Yes, I know it's science, but it's still magic. 

School Lunches

I've been reading Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird. If you're not familiar with it, it's all about writing. It's a collection of things she has shared with her writing classes. I'm reading one chapter at a time. So it's going to take me about a month or so to get through it. The latest one, School Lunches, made me laugh. She talks about picking s short subject when you're stuck. Well, I'm not particularly stuck, but I thought it would be fun. 

The photo above is my elementary school, St. Matthew's. I took that picture several years ago. It's fitting that it was a cold, gray day when I took this picture. When I was in elementary school I walked back and forth four times a day. There were days when it was just so cold and ugly, I really didn't want to go home for lunch, especially since I was going home to an empty house. 

We were expected to go home for lunch unless you lived more than a mile away. We lived just within that mile. One day I convinced my parents to write a note to ask that I stay for lunch. I don't know why or how it happened. I just remember doing it. So that day, I had a lunchbox and thermos. I thought it would be great. It was a cold, nasty day. 

We didn't have a lunchroom. Nor were we allowed to eat in our classrooms. The "lunchroom" was the basement of the school. It had been designed for a kindergarten, but apparently the school decided to abandon the idea of a kindergarten. They used it as a lunchroom. There were no hot lunches. There were no soda machines. There was just a nun telling everyone to eat and be quiet. What a big disappointment. It was a cold and ugly room with cinderblock walls and high windows that kept out most of the already limited light. Everything was beige. There were no posters, no color. Well, there was a crucifix of course. Ugh! 

I'm sure I sat with some of my classmates. Nobody was allowed to talk. We couldn't go outside either because it was pouring. The worse part? It was a Friday, a day for no meat. I had a tuna salad sandwich. No lettuce. The tuna salad was wet and soaked the bread which was the nasty white bread that my parents favored at the time. (Ah, the miracle of sliced bread. Yuck!) 

Was I disappointed! After that I walked back and forth to school. Thinking back, I realize now that I had some definite ideas about food. They didn't involve soggy bread! So it was back and forth four times a day again. Somehow it was ok. After that going home and letting myself into the house wasn't so bad. At least I could watch television and not have a nun bitching at me - for a little over an hour! 

Heritage and Props

One of my favorite photography sites if Capture Your 365. This site is about everyday photography. Once you sign up, you get a daily email based on the daily prompt. (You can download the list as well.) There was a series of prompts that offered the opportunity to explore your family heritage. We all get busy and don't often take the time to look at the old pictures. My Mom gave me the family pictures when she went into a senior apartment. The cold weather has forced me to learn to play with props. As I progress, I find myself getting better and more imaginative. It's kind of fun to find something at a dollar store or consignment shop and realize you can use it in photography. The top photo is very special to me. My Dad read to me every night when I was growing up. I can remember his frustration when I insisted on the same book every night for quite a while. Later he took me to the library to get signed up for my first library card. When I started reading so much that I had to go to the library every week, he got me a big basket for my bike. I fell in love with the library thanks to him. As I got older we would talk about books. He was the one who told me about Ernest Hemingway. (See my top photo.) When I was growing up and got my first card through the Free Library of Philadelphia, you got a children's card until you were 14. By the time I was 12, I was bored with the kid section. So I lied about my age. Luckily, I was tall for my age. At the age of 12, I started with Hemingway's short stories which gave me some sex education. They really weren't that good, but at the age of 12 I thought they were pretty cool. I can still remember the line from the woman who is having sex with a lumberjack "Jim, oh, Jim!" Heritage means different things to different people. I appreciate the heritage from my parents - especially the love of books.

Fun With Toys: Getting Through Cold, Gray Days

I admit it. I'm not a winter person. This has been a long, cold, gray winter. I photography daily despite that and try to keep up with the daily prompts from three sites on Facebook as well as weekly challenges. This year I found myself checking out the dollar stores and other places as well as checking out the Lego minifigures for sale on Amazon. It's been fun, but I'm ready to get out more. We did manage to get out and about a bit. We joined Longwood Gardens which has been great. We were there for their holidaye exhibit, then went back more than once for the orchids. We may go back one more time for the blue poppies. There will be spring flowers starting at the end of March in the conservatory. However, I DID find that I had to use a lot of creativity to meet the prompts which was kind of fun. When a prompt called for pink or bokeh, I had to think about that because I don't have a lot of pink things in my house. I DO have some battery powered Christmas lights that I've used for a wide variety of table top photography. I enjoy the  challenge of finding something interesting to present when it comes to those daily challenges. I admit to obsessing about them more than I should, but the creativity it affords seems to strike the right chord in me. I have some catch up to do with this blog so there will be more posts. Readers are welcome to comment in a constructive way.

Winter Blahs

I've never been a fan of winter. In fact, bitter cold and wind can usually cure me of any desire to go out and take pictures. However, I am a member of three photo sites on Facebook that have a daily photo challenge. So usually my first thought is what to photograph. I like the idea of "every day" photography, but I don't have young children or grandchildren nor do I live in a particularly interesting place. Luckily there are some nice areas not far from my house, but even those areas have limitations. I'm not a fan of suburban scenes. How many pictures can you take of the same place and still make them fresh and new? This year I decided that no matter what, I would take NEW pictures only for my photo challenge sites. That's forced me to think. 

I was at a consignment shop that I like and found these old ballet shoes: 

 They are very worn and apparently once belonged to a little girl - or a young girl with small feet! (When I was a little girl, I took ballet lessons for a very short time. I'm not sure why my parents stopped sending me. Perhaps the ballet teacher told her I was hopeless! 

For years, I drew "stories" on any paper I could find including inside my picture books that were nothing but ballerinas. I grew very tall and on the big boned side. (Although my doctor described me as having "medium bone structure" whatever THAT means.) I was also clumsy, unathletic and not in the least elastic. In sure, I am as far from a ballerina as you would likely see. 

Still, I wish I had continued - at least for a while. Perhaps it would have taught me grace - something I sorely lacked and still do. Years ago I knew a woman who took ballet lessons in her 30's. Watching the way she walked and carried herself was interesting. I don't know if she continued them or not.)

We went to the Paul Strand exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on the 26th of December. It was magnificent and inspiring. It made me feel pretty good about my own photographic eye in many ways because I tend to seek out details & oddities just as he did although I'm nearly as well traveled. However I did like THIS splash of color on this house in Philly that is apparently owned by artists.  

Plus we DID discovered no only where the old Philadelphia water works is, but also that there is parking. Alas! We had planned to go again,yet when we did, it was bitterly cold. So, for now, I have to be satisfied with this view. It's not bad, but I need to get down closer to the water. 

 
Some would say it's picture postcard perfect. Perhaps that's the problem. I'll bet it's pretty there about now with all of this snow, but I"m not going anywhere! 

A day trip to Lancaster County as well as a corner of Chester County, yielded some good backroads stuff including this really awesome tractor: 

But mostly, it's about trying to find photographic expression at home. I think I had some success today. I'll know as soon as I load the photos into Lightroom. Meanwhile, snow has been falling all afternoon. It's supposed to be 1-3 Inches, but it sure looks like more than that already. This is the second snow this month, better than last year when it seemed like it snowed constantly. It's pretty, but I hope it melts. And yes, I'm looking forward to spring! 
 

All That Work...And It's Over

After Christmas Day dinner, I overheard a family member comment "All that work and it's over." This Christmas season I think I took more pictures than I have ever taken. An afternoon in Chesapeake City, an evening on 34th St in Baltimore, plus documenting every decoration in my own home has filled my December picture file. None of my pictures are particularly wonderful. I've seen far many more that I liked. One of the sites on Facebook to which I belong says to post your best picture on the 31st. 

I don't know what my "best picture" would be for others. In my photo club, I chose four pictures as representative of my favorites. One of them was of a colorful carwash in Philadelphia. Nobody liked it. It could be because we live in an area that is still semirural in spots. When I said to one of the members that I much prefer city photography, she was surprised. 

My vision of what I find compelling is changing. I still like rural settings, but every time we go back to the city I feel invigorated and interested in everything around me. My favorite coffee shop is a tiny place in what was an old row house on 9th Street near Christian in south Philadelphia. I met the owner 18 years ago when we spent some time talking as he described his vision of what he wanted to create. He's done a great job. Then there's this food truck. I loved the colors. I would have loved to hop out of the car, but there was no place to stop. We also went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to see the Paul Strand exhibit. He was a photographer who inspired so many photographers after him. It was a fascinating and wonderful look one person's legacy.

This is another photo that most people wouldn't like. I liked the juxtaposition of the old Chinese setting ( a room in the Philadelphia Museum of Art) with the modern kid checking his cell phone. In the book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," the author talks about Chautauqua. Before movies, television, and the internet, traveling groups would go to different towns to present plays, music and lectures. Lectures! How many people go to lectures anymore? The author talks about what we've lost - and the original book was from 1974. I'm only part way through the book, but I decided it was one of the books I had to make my own. It's on my Kindle. I'll finish reading it for my book discussion group, but I'm going to probably talk about this more in other posts.