imagination in Athens

solo post - L, canon

I visited Taylor in Athens today to look at an apartment for next semester. Expecting it to storm all day, I was pleasantly surprised that we had no rain - nice enough in fact to eat brunch outdoors at a colorful cafe. There were buckets of sidewalk chalk placed about for anyone who felt inspired. I have a feeling it was children that left their marks on this wall - creating a pretty nice effect of wildflowers I think... if you squint your eyes and leave your imagination open. / Taylor is wanting a bike now. I think it must be spring fever - Spring has it's way of giving people the urge to get outdoors - to be more active doesn't it? The wall on the side of the bike shop was really striking and I wanted to show you but I did a poor job of getting it all in (must be my old eyes). I cropped off her T's feet, birds beaks and wings... but you can imagine... it was pretty spectacular.

looking up / lifted up

L - Nikon / T - Nikon (taken by friend)

Hope you had a most wonderful Saturday - delightful in every way.

Today I did some work in the yard. I pruned my roses way back- long past due, and planted some bushes - another job past due. It was the first pretty day that I've had the opportunity to work in the yard. I sure was nice to be outdoors most of the day. I'd say spring is here and it's definitely time to set up the hammock. There's not much that I love more than a warm spring day in the hammock with a good book and a soft breeze across my face. I missed my chance today - tomorrow it's supposed to rain - but there will be plenty more opportunities and I look forward to those days. / I hope Taylor explains this photo. All I know is that it was part of recording a scavenger hunt in Athens today. From seeing the other photos she sent I'd say she had a fun day. This one was titled parachuting with an umbrella mary poppins style

creative / expressive

L - Nikon / T - Nikon film camera

I was so excited to come home and find a box from Amazon. I was on Amazon the other day looking for a particular book a blogger mentioned. One book lead me to these type of books which really caught my interest. Feeling like my creativity needed a push I bought some of them. Look at these books - don't they look exciting? I can't wait to dive in - absorb the knowledge within. I'm hoping they will inspire me - to update my etsy site, to get a more active with creating and selling, and to create a blog that has a purpose and stands out. I have so many ideas - paintings, forged silver jewelry, direction for the blog, scannography visions, weavings, sewing projects, - all in my head. They're doing me no good in there. The problem is I seem to get motivated and excited to work on my own stuff when I'm at work doing other peoples projects and by the time I get home my energy for creating has died. Well Spring is a time to grow - to spring forth with new life, new color, and energy. Maybe after reading the books I will feel a new motivation, and not afraid to try some new things. / Taylor sent me this photo tonight. Those are some crazy, colorful men's shirts aren't they? This particular shop makes olds things look fresh and exciting - desirable. I'd say a guy would have to be pretty creative and bold to wear one of these - not afraid to try new things - to stand out and be expressive. The photo was taken as a segment of her photo assignment - "the role color plays in our culture".

"Hail in the Spring, a start of new beginnings.

Creativity awe-inspiring gives a reason to be living.

Plant life showing life anew, a wonder to be found.

New born lambs playing in the fields, birds nesting all around

People enjoying the sun and the warmth, feeling good to be alive.

Spring gives a purpose to our lives, a touch of Paradise."

- Kay M. Sutton, Bring in the Spring

budding / blossoming

solo post - L, Nikon (this year / last year)

It was damp and cool out yesterday when I got home but I was thankful for the extra daylight I could enjoy. I was anxious to see how the red bud trees where coming along so I went outside with my camera and my dog to take photos of "spring" for the lens.us.together group post. The red bud blossoms are one of my favorite first signs of spring. What I found was tiny little buds forming but not yet blossoming. I was thinking they were further along this time last year so I went inside to compare. I opened up iphoto, went to March 25, 2009 and got my answer. Yep - the tree was blossoming last year on March 25th. Does the spring growth seem a little behind in your next of the woods?

tiny green

L - Canon / T - Nikon

As you may know I am playing along with the flickr group sixty-four colors. I asked Taylor to play along too. When I told her the color of the week was asparagus green she asked if it was "new" asparagus or "old". I told her the rgb color coordinate looked more like "canned" asparagus to me. Pretty funny. I took a photo of this little tiny sea urhcin that I have at work for my crayola color match and she sent me her photo today - a tiny little match box car. cute.
Have you decided to play along with this weekly challenge? There are so many fun flickr groups it's hard to resist wanting to be a part of them all but it's also hard to keep up with them. I'm wondering... Which group do you enjoy being a part of? How many of the weekly photo challenges do you participate in and do you post to them each week?

together / 3 of us

solo post - L, Nikon

I had my parents for dinner tonight. It's nothing out of the ordinary - it's something we do every Tuesday and they have me for dinner on Monday nights. I feel lucky that my parents are close enough that we can do this and glad that we made it a routine a long time ago. Plus I know I'll get a great meal every Monday night. : ) Living alone I don't do a lot of cooking for myself. Tomorrow night I'll probably just have a bowl of soup. : ( But Dad will call and let me know that they have extra homemade pizza on Friday if I want some. : )

beauty / loveliness

solo post - L, Nikon

My camellia bush has 12 buds on it this year - seems last year there were only a few. It's one of my favorite blossoms of spring. Seems each year it inspires me. Or maybe it's springtime in general that instills a new creative energy in me. So I snipped a branch from the bush and brought it in to paint. I'm very excited about the simplicity of this arrangement - a single blossom, and a bud, in a common glass bottle - it speaks of loveliness.

blue / yellow

L - Nikon / T - Nikon

After we saw these two shots from yesterday, how could we not pair them together. Not deliberately shot together but deliberately placed together tonight.
Two different houses, on different streets, but I think one was inspired by the blue house with yellow forsythia in the side yard and borrowed their blue paint? There were houses of many colors - lime green, plum purple, canary yellow, olive green, slate blue, even bright pink. It makes for a very colorful neighborhood. There is always something new and interesting to see we you visit.
the last time i went to cabbagetown was on a class field trip with my high school photography class. since then, it's had a rough time and 2 years ago was devastated by a tornado. i'm so happy to see people rebuilding - that it still seems to be thriving. unfortunately we were pressed for time so we didn't get time to grab a bite in the cute local restaurant or explore the streets, but i did make some cat friends along the way and successfully snapped some shots for my next photography project!

I didn't see the outdoor dining set that Taylor saw before.

green / tree

L - Nikon / T - Nikon

Happy Spring everyone. Hope your day was filled with new delight.

When I bought this car 13 years ago I immediately fell in love with the color. Many people think it's an awlful color but to me it is the color a Japanese maple leaf in spring time. That's how I describe it anyway - Jeep calls it Citron Green. Taylor drives it now and she loves it too. It's almost a one-of-a-kind. As long as we've had it we could count on one hand the amount of times we've seen another one just like it - anywhere. Taylor wants to drive her Kirby forever. She says it just fits who she is. And I'd say it does - unique.
I feel so lucky - she has been home two weekends in a row. I bought her tickets to see Spoon at the Tabernacle, but she also wanted to shoot some more film for her assignment. It's a project on color so first we drove down to Cabbage Town where the homes are bright and crazy colors, and to Little Five Points were the graffiti walls add color to otherwise rundown buildings. It was a gorgeous sunny 75 and we enjoyed being outside together. We ate at Flip (a unique burger joint) to end the day before she headed to the concert.
Since we were together we decided to look at our photos of the day and pick two to post, together. I chose the Jeep because I had planned to use it on a post at Lensustogether and when we saw the one she took of the tree and the green wall in Cabbage Town they seem meant for each other. When she first saw that wall she said, "hey look they're painting it Kirby green" and took a photo - not knowing that I had shot the photo of her car behind our maple tree earlier in the day.
Two 'spring greens' behind bare trees waiting for their new leaves.

she didn't have time to write her portion

belongings / possessions

L- Nikon / T - Nikon - collaborative

Today we did collaborate on our post. I was inspired by Relyn's post who was inspired by another blogger and thought it sounded like something Taylor would enjoy doing so I asked her. She gave me an enthusiastic yes. So here you have it: The things we carry around.
Right now my bag is a mess with lots of receipts and printed pages from the computer but here is a good representation of the common contents within. iphone, Canon PowerShot 780 (for the quick shot), a little Life is Good purse (carries my phone charger), small holder for license and cards, chapstick, mascara (in case I forget to put it on at home - however, I don't apply it in the car - promise), pack of raisins (quick snack if needed), pill box (with aspirin for repeated headaches), reading glasses (because it's getting harder to see my phone messages), CVS coupon receipt (often with an expired date), hand lotion, Starbucks card (I bought it today for myself because it was pretty), computer printouts (for Taylor - order for film from B&H, order for print paper from Adorama, an application form from Quinlan Art Center for the Bird Nest exhibit she entered, and an etsy order of hers I took care of mailing for her), plus an illustration catalog (I got in the mail today and brought it home for Taylor). There's a receipt there from Borders - usually there is book I'm reading in there (especially now that the weather is turning warm enough to eat outdoors), and of course keys (but they are generally in my hand, in the car, or in the ceramic dish inside my door) / these are things i constantly have to have in my possession: my various rings, which i sometimes change throughout the day, my ipod to keep me company in the darkroom, bobby pins to keep my mane of a hair in check, and a roll of film so i'm always prepared, oh and of course my phone.

Happy St. Patrick's day

L - Nikon / T - Nikon

St. Patrick's Day is an enchanted time - a day to begin transforming winter's dreams into summer's magic. ~Adrienne Cook

Did you wear your green today? I'm not Irish but I always wear green on this day. I have a nice spring green raincoat and it just happened to be raining today so I was covered - in more ways than one. Remember the days of young when you might get pinched at school if you didn't wear green?
I see Taylor wore green too. I told her about bench mondays and she sent me this today. She's a little early with it but that's ok because just look. I am smiling again - just saying... greens, yellow, hands, feet, up, down... love.
Hope your day was cheery and bright.

If only it were a four leaf clover and not a daffodil.
If you hold a four-leaf shamrock in your left hand at dawn on St. Patrick's Day you get what you want very much but haven't wished for. ~Patricia Lynch

a little bunny / a little bird

L- Nikon / T - Nikon

Isn't this interesting? I took this photo last night for our post today and Taylor sent me one this afternoon - no conversation about shooting similar content. I had just asked her if she wanted to participate in the sixty-four colors group and for her to send me a photo of the crayon color robin egg blue. But look what happened instead. Both of our images have a mirror reflecting into our bedroom and both images have a tiny little spring symbol - the bunny and the little bird. I love that this happened. I really like her image a lot. I like the reflection and the sunlight hitting her yellow sofa. If she had sent it yesterday instead of the daffodils I would have seen a synchronicity - yet different.

Her teacup with my tea bag, the blue in hers with the blue in the wallpaper, the bird on her cup with the bird in the wallpaper, the creams, the yellows. This one almost excites me more.

Can I just say, I love how this happens, and happens so frequently. I notice it in other diptych groups too. Isn't it interesting how you can almost always find a connection with two images. When I first started blogging it was the girls at 3191 that inspired me. I was always blown away with how their images related in some way even without conversation. I wanted to see if Taylor and I could create a similar blog.

I'm sad that our blog here has been sort of slack but when the synchronicity happens like today it excites me so much - makes me want to keep at it even if we post less often.

Which diptych do you like better?

happy / sunshine

L- scannography / T - phone

"The purpose of this life is to enjoy every moment."

I like the quote that was on my Yogi tea tag last night. I opened the tea bag while I was in the process of making some scannography images with the little bunch of daffodils Taylor and I picked up from Trader Joe's. For a mere $1.29 you can pick up 10 stems of budding daffodils and in a matter of hours they will open up in a vase of water - pure sunshine. And for me they bring a lot of pleasure on this cloudy cool day. It's not quite Spring here but I guess officially we have a few more days. I looked at the forecast for the first day of Spring - it looks perfect - sunny and 66. With a few days of sun I bet the trees will be blossoming by the weekend. / spring break went by way too fast and i was upset that mom had an extra long week at work (she had to work one night til 1 am) but we had a fun weekend together. before heading back to athens she took me to trader joe's (how can i get them to open a store in athens?) and bought me some of my favorites and a bunch of daffodils to brighten my room. but i went off and left it all. makes me sad. i'm coming home again this weekend so it's ok.

in the ground / on the table

L - Canon / T - film

It was such a beautiful spring-like weekend - flowers were on our mind, some to plant and some for the table. Hope your weekend was bright.

reality / fantasy

L - Nikon / T - Nikon film camera

Her room awaits her. Taylor will be home this weekend for spring break. I wonder what wonderful things we'll do? One thing on the list: Alice In Wonderland in 3D./ delaying my project seems to have worked out in my favor as athens received one (probably final) bout of snow for the winter. i'm very happy with the outcome of my project as a whole and will be presenting it to my class tomorrow morning, bright and early. i love how the colors in this photo all seem to go together- the pinks and teals. my teacher wants me to venture outside my realm of what seems to be fantasy, but i i love creating other-worldly scenarios. we'll see how she likes this project!

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said, “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why sometimes I believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!”

bird watching

solo post - L

"My favorite weather is bird-chirping weather." - Loire Hartwould