I have made it to week two of my photo project!  It was easy this week, because the world was so photogenic.  We had a strange heat front that came into town and made our little nestle of woods rife with fog + moodiness. I absolutely love it when it’s foggy, it makes every image feel dreamy and otherworldly.  This shot was taken at the beginning of my neighbors woods, a word that I only had a vague idea of what it meant prior to living here.  I remember being on the phone with my friend early into our move and telling her that we found a house right next to a ‘little forest’, and she responded, ‘you mean the woods?’.  Yes, that is what I meant, but didn’t know it when the previous descriptive plopped out of my mouth. All the formerly lush trees have lost their leaves and are just skeleton branches now, which makes for a nice winter eeriness. It was nice to have an ‘assignment’ and deadline to shoot, I work well with both and it had me motivated to shoot all week.  It’s not too late to join us on Flickr and upload your photos each week, it’s very casual, just get your photo up each week or edit a photo that you shot previously that is just sitting on your hard drive collecting virtual cobwebs. Are any of you doing a photo project?  Let me know I will come visit!

I have been wanting to write a post about some of my goals for 2013 (I’m not one to make resolutions) and I really want to hear what yours are if you are so inclined to share, but I will need to save that for another day (soon) as I am short on time (per usual).  One silly thing I always do when I create said goals is to make a couple of them ridiculously easy to attain, it makes me feel like I have a) accomplished something and b) have some momentum. In essence I like to trick myself. One of the goals I have set for myself is to read a book a month for the year; this is an easy goal for me as I often read a few books a month (I have terrible insomnia). I am currently off to a stellar start as I have just finished Lost at Sea by Jon Ronson and a little ‘book-ette’ by Mr. Ronson called Phoenix Jones about real life super heroes. I plan on reading all of Jon Ronson’s books this year I love his style and I am a big non-fiction fan so I think it will not be difficult at all to breeze through his work in one fell swoop.  I am pondering what to read next though, I had a few in mind previously (Moonwalking with Einstein & Pigeons) but have decided to put those off for now.  I want a book that I can’t wait to read and am reluctant to put down, is that too much to ask for?  I have considered reading about the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, which is a story that is endlessly heartbreaking but also very intriguing. There’s a new book out called Cemetery John which was written by Robert Zorn, his father supposedly knew the accomplices so new evidence has been unearthed. I am curious. I don’t know if I am curious enough to spend $17 though, you?  I have some how-to books on my list as well and will share those with you when I go over my 2013 goals (I am sure you are on the edge of your seat, I jest), but somehow I don’ think the how-to books are going to be riveting in the way that I want to be riveted, you understand, right?  I have 11 books to go to meet my quota so I am open for suggestions. Here is the short list of books I am currently pondering-

The Earth Moved by Amy Stewart, it’s about earthworms, this subject could be incredibly interesting in a deft wordsmith’s hands, no really.

City of Scoundrels by Gary Kismet, I am usually always up for any story that takes place in the early 1900’s , extra draw for me is the use of the word ‘scoundrel in the title.

Fraud by David Rakoff, the name may already sound familiar to fans of This America Life, he was a frequent contributor.  I read the excerpt and it was laugh out loud funny (especially the bit about hiking boots + hiking ). “Just think, the shoes I wouldn’t be caught dead in might actually turn out to be the shoes I am caught dead in.”

Fooling Houdini by Alex Stone, I may have mentioned this as a book I wanted to read, it has magicians, mentalists and math geeks that seems like a recipe for good times, no?

Have you read any of these or heard anything about them? I would love to know what you are reading right now if anything!

I have to confess that up until a couple days ago, I hadn’t picked up a nib and ink for nearly three weeks!  I have mentioned that you can’t ‘will’ yourself to become better at lettering, you need to put the time + effort in; although I believe that sentiment wholeheartedly I did find myself wishing I could get better without having to pull out my supplies.  The holiday season took a lot out of me with work, visitors and such, so I never had that extra energy after my 12-15 hour days to pull out my nibs and get cracking.  I was also plagued with a bout of extreme insecurity, after practicing some legitimate calligraphy exercises and my letters looking more like a ransom note than calligraphy, I was feeling a bit dejected.  Monday I started playing again and I even gave those ‘ransom’ notes a second look, you know what?  They weren’t as horrible as I remembered!  There may be hope for me yet. Some of the tools that have helped me get back on track are finding some guidelines that are a good size for me, I have a download available for you if you want to use the same ones (they were made for Copperplate practice). I have found a paper that I really like practicing on, it’s smooth, but not too slick (formerly I tried mixed media pads and bristol paper both were a little tricky) the paper is made by Canson and is the Pro-Layout for markers; bonus is that it is semi-transparent so you can slide your guidelines underneath and see them nice and clearly–so helpful!  I have become more and more attached to using the weirdly shaped oblique pen holder with the Zebra G nibs, I didn’t use it for the above lettering (this was the Blue Pumpkin another current favorite), but I am finding the oblique pen helps me with angle and being a little more fluid. It seems I naturally want to letter like Frankenstein would (if he was into calligraphy and all) just choppy and uncoordinated, so the oblique pen holder has given me a little more fluidity in my strokes.  The last thing I will mention is finding exemplars to study and re-create, these are usually alphabets with both upper and lowercase samples, sometimes you may find some with words (I once spent a few hours writing out the word ‘minimum’ to practice connecting). The Paper Bride has a really pretty + simple alphabet/practice guide that you can download here.

In my limited experience with lettering I can tell you that the tools make a big difference, if your paper is too slick or has too much texture you may run into problems with how your nib reacts to the substrate (paper). Calligraphy can be a relatively inexpensive hobby (as compared to my photography one), I am not including classes in this but quality nibs, holders, ink and paper can be procured for under $20, so don’t skimp on your tools. Let me know if you have any questions!

P.S. I had The Directory nice and loaded with resources for you for this post, but I must have accidentally deleted it (still learning how to use this here blog) so I will work on getting that updated again this weekend.

I don’t know about you, but I get very uncomfortable when receiving a compliment.  I love them, don’t get me wrong, but I am not the best at accepting them. I was taught to say ‘thank you’ immediately upon receipt of a compliment, but even though I feel my manners are usually in check my first response to a compliment is more along the lines of ‘shut up!’  That’s what I say every time my husband tells me I am beautiful–‘shut up’. I got very lucky to have my little heart of gold stationery set featured in Martha Stewart’s Whole Living this December; I knew that there was a small/remote possibility it may be as it was requested months prior, but it wasn’t confirmed so I just thought they passed on it.  When December rolled around and I got a text from my dear friend Connie that I was in, my immediate thought was ‘shut up!’ Obviously, I need to work on this behavioral dilemma.

It is Monday, the first ‘bestowal’ of the year, meaning I am giving away a set of the hand-printed lovelies above to one lucky individual, in order to enter to win I would like to know what your favorite compliment you have ever received was, just leave it in the comments below and I will choose a winner to be announced next Monday, January 14, 2013.  Good luck!

P.S. This was Whole Living’s last issue they announced they were folding.

It is 2013, a new year and for many photo enthusiasts (like myself) an opportunity to take on the Herculean task of a photo project.  I have for two years running tried to edit a photo a day as my photo project.  If any of you were witness to this experiment you can attest that a lot (okay, all) of my original images were mediocre at best, but after hours in front of my computer they had an almost alchemic transformation.  I was able to turn rubbish into pure gold, it was delightful and embarrassing. Who wants to show off their worse photographs? I lasted longer the second try/year then the first, but it monopolized too much of my precious time and I had to cry ‘uncle’ at around month three.  This year I actually spent a month or two prior to the end of the year debating what I would do for this year’s photo project and how I would be able to achieve a modicum of success, perhaps even finish what I started. None of my grand ideas resonated with me, it all seemed so contrived and I shirk from anything that seems inauthentic. I wondered if I should even attempt it again, would I just be sentencing myself to a sort of Sisyphusism, rolling the metaphorical boulder of creative responsibility on weary shoulders up hill, only to see it descend down hill again– ad naseum?  Then I decided to stop talking to myself, because when I do that it just seems to lead me into an anxious abyss, because really who cares?  It’s a self-imposed photo challenge gosh darn it! It’s created to help me improve my photographs, if I shoot even one photograph for the whole project it is one photo more than I took previously thus by nature making me a better photographer by just practicing.  I  always make everything so much more complicated than it ever needs to be; I am good like that.  On New Year’s morning my light bulb moment happened and I decided on my ‘theme’ for my Project MMXIII.  Firstly, I decided on a 52 week instead of a 365.  I know myself too well to know that I wouldn’t be happy just shooting an image each day, I would want to edit it as well (to the nth degree) and doing this every.single.day would not be realistic. The theme I am choosing is nature, because it’s what I have an affinity for (good idea when choosing your personal theme), but I wanted it to be more creative and not too literal.  I am going to focus on abstract images in nature, think Mother Nature’s modern art if you will. I am going to be looking for shapes, colors, light & shadow. I want to find the unusual in the usual.  These first photos above had a Katazome (Japanese kimono stencil) feel, which although that technique is centuries old it feels very relevant for the 21st century, both modern + clean . I am a minimalist, but Mother Nature is not, so I am not only going to be a photographer but a curator and a sleuth. I may not always go with the linear, I may delve into the soft and dreamy, I want to have a malleable ‘map’, that allows me to explore other avenues, but still gets me to my ultimate destination (in this case the 52 finish line).  What I am hoping to accomplish is to become a better photographer, to challenge myself to see past the need to take the “perfect” photo (I am always lamenting that I don’t have the ‘right’ people, places or things to photograph) and just get into the moment (gosh, that sounds so new age-y).  I am not an ‘in the moment’ sort of person, I spend a considerable amount of time thinking (read stressing) about the future and begrudging my past decisions. This is going to be quite the challenge for me.   If you would like to join me on this adventure I am going to have a group on Flickr, you can do the same project as I am or choose a theme that you feel resonates with you.  I will be uploading my results once a week both here and in the group and if applicable sharing my process (I love to share what I have learned). I hope you join me and I can last longer than 3 months!  Join me here!

P.S. I know a lot of you have accomplished 365’s any advice to someone has failed multiple times?

P.P.S. These are not black & white photographs, I shot them on an overcast day which made it easy to ‘blow out the sky’ and create these deep dark colors on my subject.