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toy n joy
This is one of those delightful, slightly macabre, images you can chance upon occasionally. I snapped it during my last trip to London. I often think dolls are rather grotesque, with their fake smiles and staring eyes. Especially when they are stripped down so their human mockery is made evident. This jumble contains potential winners of a Creepy Doll pageant. Childhood is a funny period in your life. So many things you love can be simultaneously frightening in different circumstances: like when you’re tucked up in bed and the teddy bear eyes glint in the glimmer of the hall light, and the distant unintelligible murmur of your parents’ voices offers…
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beyond the wall
This is a recent photo during our current sunny, frosty weather. It reminds me how photographs are so much better when you get good light… I’ve our holiday decorations packed away since Monday. I try not to let them linger too much after the festivities are over, but I do miss the blinking lights. They’re cheery during our long nights. Although, I’ve already noticed the extra minutes on our evenings, which is a delightful amuse-bouche of longer days to come. I’ve not made any resolutions for the New Year. In general I’m always working to a plan of improvement both personally and creatively, and I try (I don’t always succeed)…
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stillness
Today was my first time back in the woods I frequent the most since the cold and ice dissipated. The sun has disappeared along with the frost, leaving the days overcast, cold and dank. It’s not ideal for photos, but I brought my camera along out of habit. As usual I ended up seeing images I wanted to capture, although the light was indeed problematic. The woods were utterly still and stark this afternoon. It had the feeling of a hall after a party, with streamers hanging limp and the floor sticky with spilled booze. I wandered through the woods, calling to the dog quietly. The trees are in the…
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the kindness of strangers
It’s the last Sunday before December 25th so Galway city was thrumming with people and vendors earlier. The above picture was taken of the Galway market by St. Nicholas’ Collegiate Church with an almost-full moon adding illumination. Smoke from a wood-burning stove lends atmosphere to the shot. The mood in the city was upbeat, if a bit manic in some of the shops. I’ve finished my holiday preparations, and now it depends on the whims of the weather if I can make it to my parents’ house for Christmas. When I’m out and about I tend to attract oddball characters who decide to befriend me. Today, as I was slowly…
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hot ginger
This is a picture of a hot glass of Rochester Ginger. I’m currently addicted to it. You can buy Rochester Ginger in any health food shop in Ireland, and I’m sure it’s widely available in the UK where it is made. It claims to be a ‘Dickensian recipe’, by which I assume it means Victorian, but perhaps Dickens was a fan of this beverage and raved about it constantly. I’ve no memory of Pip extolling its virtues after he set up in new digs in London, or Oliver Twist sipping it with the the Artful Dodger as they handed over the day’s purloined handkerchiefs to Fagin. Perhaps I missed something……
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getting in the spirit
In the past I’ve been more of Bah, humbug! kind of girl when it comes to the holiday season. There are a lot of reasons for that, most of them to do with memories of Christmases past. I haven’t even decorated my house in previous years. This year because of the ice and cold weather, and the economic glum and doom, I reckon a little cheering up is in order. So, last night we broke out the few decorations we own, along with a couple of new purchases, and placed them around the house. I hummed ‘Walking in a Winter Wonderland’ as I did so. The starlights are a set…
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Mise en abyme
This is a set of Matryoshka dolls, or Russian nesting dolls, I bought recently at the craft fair in Galway (they are from Minsk). I’ve always wanted at least one set, because there is something about the self-similarity aspect of the dolls that appeal to me a great deal. I was introduced to the concept of fractals by Martin, quite soon after we met. Martin was an engineering student at the time, and loved the elegance of fractal mathematics and the Mandelbrot set in particular. When I saw the recursive patterns printed as images it immediately reminded me of the artwork by M.C. Escher. When I was a kid a…
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a dash of colour
I took this picture of flowers in a bouquet a couple of weeks back. It warms me just to look at it. A nice antidote to the ice and cold at the moment.
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the joys of frost
This is another image from yesterday, when it was bitterly cold. It’s funny the things you learn because a picture can get you interested in a subject. Yesterday’s image of a small natural frost bridge made me wonder about the exact nature of the frost growing upon the surfaces I photographed yesterday. I love the crystalline structure of the shapes. It appears that it is hoarfrost, which is a deposit of ice crystals caused by the sublimation of water vapor in the ambient air directly to ice. Here’s a close-up of another photo I took: Some of the shapes look like tiny Christmas trees growing on the shrub. My philosophy…
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iced in
Our severe cold snap (by Irish standards) continues. Tonight is supposed to be the coldest night we’ll experience during this period. Here in the West we’ve had two days of gorgeous sunshine, but the temperatures have not risen above freezing. All the snow that fell a few days ago is still on the ground. This means the roads in my area are dangerous to drive on, so we’ve doing as little of that as possible. Today I managed to get to the woods after a slow, careful drive. It was dazzlingly beautiful, although the tips of my fingers went numb as I tried to take photographs (I was using my…
