photography Archives : dispatches from the loony bin

Moon Moon

So last night was supposed to be this big blood moon eclipse thing, right? We didn’t see it. We tried, but by the time it was supposed to be happening we got a nice big fog cover, so. No luck.

We even went so far as to drive around looking for a better vantage point (there are a lot of trees on our street) just in case the moon was poking through the fog…of course, we didn’t realize until after we’d driven for a few klicks that we’d left the front door unlocked and our gate open.

We are not smart people.

(Everything is okay. I came back into the house waving my cane wildly in the air so I could hit any intruder before they struck. There was no intruder, and I didn’t break anything. Win win.)

What we did see, however, was the pre-eclipse show: a huge (I mean HUGE) halo around the moon at about 12:30am. We took out the garbage together and looked at the moon for a while, and I even got a picture. When we looked at it on my phone screen after, it turned out really well — I managed to capture not only the moon but the halo and the trees below. Ok, so the halo wasn’t that clear, but it showed up. That was way better than what I expected.

So I immediately uploaded it to Flickr and got…this:

What the fuck?

I double checked on my phone, thinking maybe Flickr had screwed it up somehow and that I had to re upload. No such luck. Apparently the really great picture I took somehow changed itself to, well, what you see above. Which is a picture of the moon taken with a phone and looks about how you’d expect from that description. No halo, no trees, itty-bitty moon.

(And no, I’m not crazy, because Mr. Katje saw the original picture too. It was better. I have no idea why or how it magically changed.)

(Well, okay, I’m not crazy about this.)

My phone works really well for most pictures but things like this make me really wish I had a proper camera. Like an SLR or something. (I am so not hip to the lingo but I believe an SLR is the thingamabob I’m thinking of. *waves hands vaguely*)

Anyway. There you go. A photo of the moon, sans all the cool stuff happening with it that I actually wanted to capture in said photo.

-Katje

Hey look, it’s Ragnarok

While the sun is devoured by Fenrir I will launch my book about wolves that don’t eat celestial bodies.

Seriously was not expecting snow today. Not very happy with this turn of events. Wish the snow had waited till tomorrow, when I could just stay inside with a blanket and a book.

But Ragnarok never comes at a convenient time, so while the sun and moon are devoured by wolves I will spend my afternoon launching my book about wolves that don’t eat giant celestial bodies.

Here’s hoping other people decide to brave the end of the world, too, and we can have a good party at the café.

Friday’s Sunrise

A photo of yesterday’s sunrise.

I could have posted this yesterday, but then what would I do for a scheduled post today while I’m away from the house (and unlikely to be able to sit down to write a blog post)?

I was able to resist adding a filter. I’m so proud of me. #filteraddict

(Yes, I did just type a hashtag as part of a blog post. Don’t judge me.)

BYOB(ookworm)

I am always in a rush in a hurry / to fill up my notebooks with blather –

Today’s daily prompt from the Daily Post:

Write the blurb for the book jacket of the book you’d write, if only you had the time and inclination.

I think responding to this would be cheating. I’m a published author; currently I have out two novels, a book of poetry, a self-published short story and a self-published collection of short fiction.

Time and inclination? Lots of the second; little of the first, but I still get the books done. So it’s not so much an imaginary blurb I’d have to come up with…as just copy and pasting the blurb from Bellica or Stranger Skies. (You can read Bellica online here, by the way, and the advance reading copy of Stranger Skies is being posted here.)

So today, I’m answering the second part of the prompt:

Photographers, artists, poets: show us BOOKS.

Here is a photo I took yesterday, of, yes, my own book — it just arrived in the mail a little while ago and I unpacked the box and put the books on the shelf.

And a poem, Water Cycle, which you can find in glasstown.

I am always in a rush in a hurry
to fill up my notebooks with blather –
and maybe
it is because so many empty ones sit
continually staring me in the face
that I feel guilty
for not feeding them –
we’re starving! they cry out
but so is the streambed of my thought
dry for so many years – I sit to write
to enjoy what flows but it’s only a trickle
and so when I can I write

BIG

or

l e n g t h y

so that I take up as much
of the page as possible
and I write on both sides
and sometimes I gush
but my hand can’t keep up with my thoughts
and I’ll get distracted and
—oh, fuck, I did it again,
the stream is dry once more;
I’ve thrown this poem on the floor
and resorted to crappy rhyme
to buy some more time
so that my words can spurt forth—
and shine.

But it’s grabbing me, this undercurrent
and I fear I can’t turn it to my will
and soon I’ll be dragged
underneath the weight of my creativity
spitting out the saltiness of tears unshed
choking on the wet juicy areas of my mind:
dark, locked up, till I find
explosives and blow the dam
and I write till my hand might fall off
with the pain
but I can’t stop until I do.

And begin again.

I was supposed to be travelling today

Whoops. Here’s a picture of a dog!

But I slept until 3pm, so that did not happen. (Too late to catch a ferry and actually make it home today.)

I don’t have much to write about today, and I’m very tired with packing up the car. So here’s another picture of my dog, being cute. (He’s upset, because he knows I’m leaving, so he’s curling up on my bed and looking cute in an effort to make me stay.)

Big bed wolf! — Behold, the big bed wolf!

I love where I live

This is the view of the sunrise from my balcony. With some creative help from Instagram. Let’s face it; the only way I can take really nice photos is with the help of Instahipster. I’m not ashamed of this. (Cue boyfriend saying “Damn hipsters, infecting my girlfriend!” in 3, 2, 1….)