note cards, and some snow, part 3 of 4 or 5

post #379
       In parts 1 and 2 I have shown all horizontal views, that may use different colored papers to enhance the colors in a particular photo. It's work to cut the paper, but I really enjoy doing the matching up. Today I am showing six of the vertical images -- which use a standard photo holder card. This allows for greater strength if the card is displayed without a frame. It means that the outside edges of the photo are not visible, which, for me, someone who frames my image in the camera, can be tricky, but most of the time it works well enough. I can no longer locate different colors for these holders, but maybe one day I'll find some.
       Now that I may have provided information some of you might not care about at all, I'm ready to get on with this post's images. Enjoy!

red, white, blue and green -- one of many views I like from this time and place

Sideway Road -- what I saw one day while checking my mail box

Woods Waterfall -- one of my first photos with a new lens

rescue donkey -- belonging now to my friend Peg in McCreary County in southeast Kentucky.  (The tips of his ears are not able to be shown in this card holder format because of the way I shoot by default.)

 

iris -- a good year!

tendril -- originally a slide, and title help from George Ella

rooster pride -- this guy also belonged to Peg. He stayed on that fence until we came back from our walk, and I knew that meant that he really wanted me to take his photo. So I obliged him and thanked him.

             I want to take time to add a few recent snow photos --  this first one was made by Jeremey. I love the contrast between the soft blanket of snow (which melted by the end of the day) and the angles of the hill, sky and clouds. This is a new view for me of the house where I used to live!  As I've said before, you never know.

             Now for two snow photos from where I live now, close by:

the view from the second floor deck, Saturday, covering the driveway mid afternoon

 

the same view this morning, with a different camera, after 5 inches of snow the day before, ending at midnight

        This morning, soon after taking this photo, I was part of a family pickup at the Lexington airport, 2 hours away. By the time we all got back here much of the snow had melted, but some remains. I suspect this might be the last of our winter in this region?  No guarantee....
        
        I would like to give a loud shout-out to the young people and others who marched and rallied yesterday all over the world demanding more sensible interpretation of the second amendment.  They have shown more caring and WAY MORE BACKBONE than our elected officials.  The NRA appears to use fear as a way to make a profit for their supporters -- though I haven't heard a good explanation why I can't drive a car or a boat without a registration but guns don't require much.  I think this heightened distress about guns has little to do with the 2nd amendment and everything to with some realities of modern day America. The Founding Fathers could have had little conception about what lay so far in the future.  It's hard to believe that back then they envisioned the citizens of this democracy needing clear rules so we don't kill each other and especially how we would have to realize how much we want to make a priority of keeping our kids alive and safe.

note card images, with titles, part 2 of at least 4

post #378
          I'm having both fun and frustration doing this little project of choosing ten or so of my cards a week to share on this blog. However, I always enjoy working with my photos -- and they take me back to places -- so this will all make sense in the long run. They feel like my best wishes that then go out into the world on their own. I can only be grateful for finding each one and having it touch me during its journey. And my journey. I do realize I sound somewhat hokey, but these feelings happen to be true.

OK, here we go today, again in random order, looking like cards with an envelope:

still light -- one of my earliest cards, in England, and a keeper

story line -- another very early card, with thanks to Kathy, across the road

 

Jean's jeans -- I love laundry lines. Thank goodness there is more than one to enjoy. I also love Jean whom I have known for over 50 years.

 

deep in the woods -- from a slide I made while working on Counting on the Woods

natural web sight -- thank you, sun, for a short moment of help

duo daffodils -- spring!!

truck shot -- I felt great to come up with this title.....

"my best side" -- It's actually quite hard to get a hen to stay still and pose....

canoe view -- on Grayson Lake, a small miracle to see this bird high on a cliff and then get it sharp so that the open beak can be seen.  Never have been entirely sure, however, if it's a cormorant. It was by itself.

country crossing --  I love morning fog. Great light.

 

forest floor flowers (meehania) -- I have seen this ground covering only once in 40 years, down by the big waterfall. It lasts only a day or two. I long to see it again. I sell very few of these cards, but to me it is just as valuable as each of the others. How privileged I have been all these years.

                  So, best wishes to everyone while on your unique journey. You just never know.
                                               Thanks for sharing in part of mine.    Ann

fun with my note cards and their titles, 1 of 4

post #377
            Over all these 6+ years of weekly posts, I realize I have never shared my images in the way I use them on the note cards I sell. I have too many choices, but I enjoy finding each photo, deciding on which color card stock to match it with, and coming up with a title that is short and maybe unexpected. However, if I am working with a flower, I will use its name, if at all possible. In photographing the ten or so photos I'm presenting today I have tried to show them as cards, with the envelope tucked inside the card, and laid out on the post with some informality  -- they are, on purpose, not obediantly lined up. I may end up giving some of the story behind each photo, but not that much today. I used the back of my silver laptop as the display location for making each photo. These are "homemade" and always evolving. And they look better "in person;" please forgive my not having time today for total excellence.
           I work with these images a lot, so they have become my friends as well as my face to the public. I hope there are some in this sample that you will enjoy as well. 

 

frost fence [I risked stopping the car on the road to take this. There's no pull-over space.]

cardinals' walnut tree station

early dogwood

A Bee / Zinnia

corn stalking time [Sandy in her garden]

for coming and going, from home

side door

talking with sheep  (in a field in England)

black and white in color

ear-winking mule

Big Wheel

Well, these are a start. This last image of the rooster is one of my best known photos. It was originally a slide, and I was using a tripod. Evidently this guy liked to stand around and look important, my neighbor told me, and one day he was totally taken out by a hawk. Already some of his tail feathers were "compromised." OK, everyone, watch your back....

snow storm #2, after being very cold overnight

post #271
       Snow storm #2 is on its way, followed by some rain, snow showers, etc., etc. I didn't get to go where I wanted to today or tomorrow, so, to cheer myself up, I decided to practice using my iPhone to make some photos around the house, over the course of an hour this afternoon. Even I need a reminder sometimes that making art out of disparate moments can indeed be good for the soul. I had a great time. I feel better. Not less "weathered," but better. I am using those photos for this week's post.
        First the setting. Wood cook stove fired up. Green plants happy near the sliding glass door to the deck -- especially the yam I kept dry and sprouting all summer, until plopping it on top of  some soil in December, where it promptly ran off with itself. I think I like the sun in that south-facing location as much as they do.

looking into the opened fire box of the wood cook stove (see three posts ago for more stove photos)

adding the view of the side of the stove, from above, with the lid still raised so that the fire is visible

      

a cactus unfazed by timing or expectations

view out the living room window, looking west

    

the internet radio, for listening to weather reports I forget at my peril are for Colorado or Minnesota instead of local...

 Temps inside, outside, recent high, last low, amazing, next to a French friend's lovely birth announcement.  Salut, VICTOIRE

        Then of course there are the birds to care for, in exchange for their beauty and antics.   

getting low on seeds in the trash can, but at the same time the almost empty can makes it easier to fill up the feeder without spilling seeds everywhere

voila, filled! with Rosemary for company.....

hung up once again

Soon all is back to normal.

      Another photo, this time showing evidence of creative activity: what usually hangs on these hooks is currently in my exhibit in Morehead!  So while the world waits, and the walls wait, maybe some of my beloved beauties are finding happy new homes.

        At the same time, the dining room (this house doesn't really have one) table gets covered again, for paper-for-notecards cutting. I just received an order for more cards, from the Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea, next to Interstate 75.  

      

     Then here's this last photo, the only one from yesterday. It shows what the guest bed looked like last night at 10 p.m.  Surface covering seems to be a favorite pastime here, kind of like what the snow is currently doing to all the outside surfaces!

    
        Slice of life time is over for now. Thanks for sharing the fun I had pulling this post together.

still more note cards, chapter 4: some favorites!

post #265
       It may be a New Year, but I have not yet finished sharing some of my cards. I have been saving a few more favorites for this post, chapter 4, as a way to celebrate bringing good things forward into a new year. I am not necessarily a fan of clean slates and resolutions.
      Many of the images are chosen for their titles.  When I showed the first one to a friend and neighbor -- in the country sense -- he said "Oh, groundhogs boiling coffee." What? Where did that come from?? I loved the expression, and I trusted that he wasn't making it up on the spot, though he could have. Even so, I did ask around to find out if others knew that expession as well. Many did! I felt enriched by learning such an evocative phrase through one of my photos.

        This next image happens every spring. These steps are located halfway between my home and "town" so I never forget them. I even remember the house that used to sit on the top of the hill and watched it be left alone and then taken down a few years later.
       I talked over possible titles with my friend George Ella, and she came up with "legacy," one word that describes so much. Yes!

      The power of the words is somewhat different for the following photo of some other friends and neighbors. The title "stripping tobacco" can't really describe the poignancy of what is happening. This job was something they had been doing together every December for ages; this year (2010) was the last year. The end. No more tobacco. I have always been grateful to them for letting me know their plan -- and grateful the counter didn't collapse when I stood on it to take the photo!

Hard to explain, but this next image is one I imagine I love for personal reasons. It is our creek, it is spring, I got the greens and the water to look like they really do look, and it doesn't look like this every day. But I was there for this day. I call it, simply, our creek in spring, or sometimes just spring creek.  Since I handwrite my titles on each card, I don't always have to say the same thing. I can therefore forget and redo or simply revise as I go along, an advantage of the extra work hand writing the titles takes.  

field, fog, and fence

      These two mourning doves never fail to fascinate, even though I made this photo with a slide early in my career when I was the photo-illustrator for George Ella's Counting on the Woods (DK Ink, 1998).  For the card's title, I use the words from the page they are on in the book: two birds, daybreak's words. I took it out my bedroom window, on a cloudy day (of which there were many during that long, cool spring). Doves, bless their hearts, actually LIKE to hang out together; I needed birds that would do that. Again, thank you, George Ella.

       There is not time to show all my cards, but I can't neglect to show the next two, both requiring the cooperation of animals. In one, showing off helped, and, in the other, take a look at the ears.  The showing off image is one of my most well known. It also sells well as a card.

Big Wheel

ear-winking mule

      For those of you who like the photos from other places, my most popular one is this street scene in Chipping Campden, in the Cotswolds of England. I have used many variations in the title, since I am never sure how much information to give without detracting from the image itself. If anyone wants to give title making a try, please feel free to let me know one for this image. Click on Comment, and sign in as Anonymous. That usually works. Thanks! (Now that I think of it, maybe simply "hanging in England" will work?)

 

        As soon as possible, I will add some samples of my cards with their colored paper choice.  I meant to do it weeks ago, though I have not yet done so. But for now I need to take a break from this fun time I give myself every week and do some actual real-life stuff. "Busy Day."