One can dream

One can dream
Originally uploaded by TheWanderingEye

Splitting my photography time up between two flickr accounts is a bit of a strain but it's really helpful for me to be able post pictures there that I want to critiqued for very specific reasons. It's a bit lonely and a little intimidating but still worth it. I took this one on an afternoon neighborhood stroll this weekend. Saturday was just perfect. The afternoon shadows were great. I had a fucking hell of lot going on at the same time though. Uploading a video I made that morning, baking a yam, charging my digital video recorder, Christ! I start classes this week!

But I had to get out and take some pics yesterday if for no other reason than I'm doing a "365" project on my other flickr acount which requires me to take a picture a day of one doll for the rest of the year. Yeah. I'm on picture# 24. It's been really challenging but super stimulating. I'll let you know how I feel when I get to picture# 100.
: )

Empty Audience

Empty Audience
Originally uploaded by TheWanderingEye

I went to the Brooklyn Museum this weekend to re-visit an exhibit I loved years ago as a girl when my mother used to take my brother and me there. It was the subject of piece I read for the a writing group we've formed at work and it was suggested that I go back and see if it was still there.

It is part of exhibit of reconstructed 18th Century Period New England and Southern houses. Though changed a bit, they were all still there, and walking through the narrow aisles through those staged pockets of historical silence, displays of furniture and middle class interior design, I felt like nothing that mattered had really changed in a Museum that is very dear to me.

I hung out for a few minutes in the large arch of this grand atrium (pictured above) and just breathed in the stillness that I love about Museums in general. I've always been kind of romantic about old ancient things, architecture, artifacts, ephemera. So here I was sort of feeling my ancient and modern self merge. It was good.

You Know What Time It Is

You Know What Time It Is
Originally uploaded by TheWanderingEye

Don't you?

Household Bokeh

Household Bokeh
Originally uploaded by TheWanderingEye

Pulled out the old telephoto lens last night after midnight of all times to shoot the holidays lights in my apartment. It's been a while but I still love the idea of making a picture which requires you to "unfocus".

Lost in Bliss

I mean Jill Bliss. Clearly, I'm not at work today.

As well as registering for permit classes online and journeying to the park across the street to take pictures I got on flickr and noticed that Jill Bliss, one of my favorite artists and stationary designers had some new work posted. I bought a journal by her years ago at Urban Outfitters and I was so knocked out by the design that I barely even wrote in it. I was so distracted by all her lovely illustrations of flowers. Later one I discovered that she also designed a series of note card sets, journals, journals sets and prints. Her set of "Native Flowers" is a part of my ridiculously mounting collection of stationary. I used to have such a bad stationary habit. I mean I never write anyone! No one writes anybody! But I just love stationary and I would go broke buying stationary just to have! That was a while ago. I finally cut myself off just so that I could afford lunch. I'm not very practical by nature but I had to reason with myself that stationary is about as useful as fencing these days. Incidentally, I was on the fencing team when I attended Bard College. Touche'

So anyway, Jill has a new line of forest and ocean illustrations that newly posted on her flickr account and they are unbelievable. I followed a link to her online shop and started to browse through more of her flora illustrations again when it dawned on me that much of her appeal for me has to do with the time I spent as a child in the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. I did two or three seasons in the Children's Garden as well and all we did besides garden was create things with natural materials and observe the way things grow and how they look and what their best uses were. There was one one guy who taught us only about insects. Jill Bliss' work really sort of brings that all back for me and it just occurred to me today.

I can tell just by looking at Jill's pictures that she really becomes these things. It's the only way to really see anything.




I love this picture of the black forest bear where the bear is actually composed of forest elements! And the octopus just makes we wanna dance! : )

The Second World

It is kind of a juggling act having two flickr accounts but as a typical Gemini, it is often necessary for me to experiment with duality or rather to have two or more of everything I really like, such as cameras, journals, blogs facebook pages,etc. You get the idea.

It's important to me to get a critical sense of my photography outside of the world of "It's so cute! She's so cute, that's so cute" doll land. Not that I don't take that photography just as seriously but I need more serious feedback in order to challenge myself.

At first my "The Wandering Eye" account felt a little lonely. My Zanalee account is securely established in a gigantic and probably growing community of well established doll collectors, craftswomen, photographers and just really cool people who pay attention to my work, constantly comment, respond to questions in group pools and are very supportive and fun, full of humor and creativity. In turn I love looking at their stuff and commenting on their amazing pictures. I have almost a hundred, if not more contacts, people whose work I look forward to seeing, whose clothes I love to look at and buy and people whose photographic aesthetic always blow me away. But in the world of Blythe, it all really comes down to her, not you. That's cool, but I also really just want to have a space for non- Blythe pictures where I can start to explore and expand my photographic voice again.

Early in my Zanalee flickr career I became a huge fan of a Baltimore photographer named "boyghost". I was incredibly inspired by his stuff. Personally, I'd just never seen anything like it and I was constantly moved by the composition and subtle unforced details of his work. He's one of the main reasons I wanted to get my Nikon D60.

Almost immediately upon opening my T.W.E. account, I discovered a photographer named "setsuna" who takes just some of them most amazing nature photos I have ever seen. It's not that she just takes a picture of something beautiful in nature which is relatively easy enough to do, but she shapes a way of seeing in that is incredibly intuitive and ethereal without being overly reverent or imitative.

View from Belvedere's Castle


This week she left a nice comment on the picture I took shown above which is great. I harassed her a little bit about her technique and printing so I'm glad I haven't scared her off. I also got a few other comments/criticisms from others this week, so I'm really happy about that. I need it and it's really wonderful to be able to do that on flickr, especially given how difficult it is to get people together to do this sort of thing in real time. Although at some point I would love to do that as well. Flickr just allows you to access work and present your work in such a diverse and freeing way. You're really traveling all over the world when you look at pictures, and not just geographic or proximal worlds, but inner, emotional and sensory worlds. Familiarity with strangers. Not so strange really.
: )

The Icemen cometh

The Icemen cometh
Originally uploaded by TheWanderingEye

Had a little low light photography fun this weekend. I went out for a second but the wind was just too strong so I just stayed inside and shot from my window. This was one of my favorites.