Blatherskite

Foolish gibberish

about

I am a Children’s Librarian living in the Portland, Oregon area. When I am not Children’s Librianing I like to play with cameras and film. I also like playing the ukulele, knitting, sketching, and hiking.

Cherryville Cemetery

August 17, 2014
I forgot to share this here! It’s my latest post on Pinhole Obscura. I’ve told the story here before, but this time I have pinhole photos!

Pinhole Obscura

In July of 2009 I applied for a job at a library in a small town 30 miles east of Portland that I had driven through once. When I was interviewed I was delighted with the place and with the people who interviewed me. Lucky for me, the feeling was mutual. When I told my mom that I was moving to Sandy, Oregon she came back with an interesting reply, “Really? Sandy? Your uncle lived there in the 1960s. Did you know that?”

No. I did not know that.

The story is that my uncle lived in the area for awhile and loved it. Then a couple of tragedies struck the family which caused them to move down into Portland. One of those tragedies was the death of his 2 year old daughter. She drowned in a creek near the home. There was a cemetery next to his house where he…

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Respect the light

August 15, 2014
Today’s image was taken this past Monday while out on a fun photo outing with two other women pinhole photographers, Gretchen and Donna (do go check out their photography. It’s stellar.). We went up to Trillium Lake and had a fantastic time. I even swam in the lake. I haven’t gone swimming in a lake for at least 10 years. It was awesome. Lots of pinhole photos were shot, including this one. I took this with my Zero Image 45, a large format pinhole camera. Arista 100 4×5 sheet film was used.

I am still struggling with the wide angle on this camera, but every time I use it I warm up to it. I want to really get to know this camera. I want to become one with it and feel comfortable with it. I have almost talked myself into starting a “sheet a day” project in which I shoot one sheet of 4×5 film a day. I am pretty certain I am going to do this, it is just a matter of deciding when I want to start. I probably won’t post all of the photos I take, though. This will be for myself, so I can learn. Hopefully I will be able to shoot a few things worth posting.
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Midway on life’s journey I found myself in a dark wood

August 8, 2014
This was taken with a Canon EOS Elan ii and Fomapan 100 film (I think. It might have been Fomapan 400).

I am taking a Coursera class on literature and online video games and am really enjoying it. I was a literature major in college and at the time was addicted to video games. It was a fun way to let my brain relax. As I played through the various narratives I realized that video games were a form of literature and thought that this might be an interesting area of study. It never pursued it because I moved on to other things. So when I saw this class I jumped at the chance to take it. I will blog more about it in a few weeks, after I am finished with it.

During last week’s lecture the first line of Dante’s Inferno was quoted and it made me think of this photo. The quote just felt so appropriate for me, being middle aged. This idea of facing one’s demons at this time in your “life’s journey.” This might be the subject for yet another future blog post. 🙂

There are several translations of Dante’s Inferno and in my internet searching I couldn’t find one that used the exact words that I used here. I like it though, and I am keeping it. It works.
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Find the others

August 4, 2014
“Admit it. You aren’t like them. You’re not even close. You may occasionally dress yourself up as one of them, watch the same mindless television shows as they do, maybe even eat the same fast food sometimes. But it seems that the more you try to fit in, the more you feel like an outsider, watching the “normal people” as they go about their automatic existences. For every time you say club passwords like “Have a nice day” and “Weather’s awful today, eh?”, you yearn inside to say forbidden things like “Tell me something that makes you cry” or “What do you think deja vu is for?”. Face it, you even want to talk to that girl in the elevator. But what if that girl in the elevator (and the balding man who walks past your cubicle at work) are thinking the same thing? Who knows what you might learn from taking a chance on conversation with a stranger? Everyone carries a piece of the puzzle. Nobody comes into your life by mere coincidence. Trust your instincts. Do the unexpected. Find the others…”
― Timothy Leary
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August 2, 2014
I’ll do Me. You do you.
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