Author: Shelly

Art, Collage, Photography, Poetry

(Re)Photographing Old Work

Shelly

There are several pieces that I’ve been meaning to re-shoot, because the original photos I took were total crap. I did a couple this afternoon. I did both straight-up versions as well as tarting them up in Photoshop. It’s kind of interesting when a piece can have two lives, both as an artwork and as a photograph.

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Remembering Beatrice Stone

I got an e-mail a couple of years ago from a guy who was looking for genealogical information on Beatrice Stone. I hated to break it to him that the name was made up. Using an old college yearbook, I took a first name from column A and a last name from column B.

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Epitaph for Eula Strange

Epitaph for Eula Strange
I dread for me
living one mute day every time
an allusive and subtle communication
an ever present affliction
clutching to me
an old thought to gnaw on.
I am afraid
out of worth
without words
caught and reduced and disorganized
like dreaming of sleep
and the taste of dry bones.

Photography

Vivitar ViviCam 3350 Part Two

Shelly

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Paint Brushes

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Fairy

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Lipton Tea Pot

I think the failure message I keep getting has nothing to do with the camera itself. I tried restarting my computer, with the camera powered on and connected, and it worked just fine. The same thing happens with my scanner (if I turn it on after the computer is powered up, the scanner isn’t recognized). This is a recent-ish issue that coincided with the installation of Zone Alarm. I suspect ZA is interfering with my USB ports, which is annoying as all hell but makes a certain amount of sense.

Photography

Vivitar ViviCam 3350 Resurrected

Shelly

I came across one of my old toy digital cameras the other day. I set it aside, assuming I wouldn’t be able to find the cable, and if I did, I wouldn’t be able to find the drivers disc, and if I did, the camera for sure wouldn’t work. Well, I found the cable, and I found the drivers disc, and I’ll be damned if the camera didn’t work just fine when I put fresh batteries in it.

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December Landscape

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Foo Dog and Duck

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Planter

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Patio Light

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Electrical Box

It’s just as hard to compose close-ups as I remember. There is a ginormous amount of parallax between the lens and the viewfinder. That explains some of the wonkiness. It’s definitely a shoot from the hip sort of camera.

These were just some quick test shots taken on my patio. It was sort of beastly trying to get the drivers set up properly. I kept getting a failure message whenever I’d try to download images from the camera. I thought, at first, that it might have something to do with a bit of rust on one end of the USB cord, but the camera streamed video just fine, so I don’t think that’s the problem. I’ll just have to enjoy it as the toy it is, and keep in mind that it could croak on me at any moment.

Crankypantsing

How Rude!

Shelly

I’m not going to pretend to be brimful of holiday spirit, but neither am I going to pee on anyone’s Festivus parade. So, I check my e-mail, and there’s a message to the alt.books list. An international list with 7276 members, mind you. It says:

A bah humbug to all!
To all who don’t celebrate this season in any way ;-)

Now, doesn’t that strike you as just a bit obnoxious? And please to be noting the passive aggressive use of emoticons. There should be a law against that sort of thing.

What the hell is wrong with people?

Photography

Clouds at Sunset

Shelly

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It got cold last night, and the wind picked up. I woke up at about 5am when the power went out. It was absolutely silent, except for the sound of the wind howling. It’s hard to sleep when it’s that quiet. Thankfully, the power came back on a couple of hours later.

The wind kept blowing all day, and we even had a few snow flurries. It was a good day for sitting on the couch with hot cocoa and toast, keeping warm under a blanket with the dog. (Miss Brown is the world’s very best hot water bottle.)

Letters to Esther, Meta

New Letters to Esther

Shelly

February 6, 1921 from Orlie Penwitt

February 15, 1921 from Luella

February 17, 1921 from Clark

February 21, 1921 from Luella

February 26, 1921 from Luella

February 27, 1921 from Clark

I finally had some time to scan and transcribe a few more letters. This batch is from the period when Esther’s family was still under quarantine for scarlet fever, so there are no letters from her mother or sister, Ruth. Luella, whose family lived near the Munros, sent Esther news about her family.

I also installed a Google search box on the main page for the Letters to Esther website. There are enough letters now that it might be helpful to be able to search for specific events or names. It’s ad supported (oh, how I hate ads), but they’re text only, so they shouldn’t be too intrusive. And, you’ll only see them on the results page, so if you don’t do any searching, yo\’ll never know they’re there.