Obviously inspired by Nightjar. My first experiments with the “flash at dusk” technique. Cropped for composition in PC, because I did not have macro lens with me and I could not zoom as much as I would like.
©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
Our tree this week comes with my apologies. Lofty sent these photos in at the end of July and I misplaced them. Thankfully, they are now on the found list. I’m very glad because the series is beautiful, starting with closeup shots of new growth and shifting the perspective until we finally see the magnificent adult tree.
…a series of shots of a popular beach side tree in our southern city, the Norfolk Island Pine.
Thanks so much for sharing, Lofty.
©Lofty, all rights reserved
You have no doubt noticed that some of the later pictures were a bit sloppy in their execution. Keep in mind that they were primarily a learning aide for me and they were not meant to be shared publicly. And whilst I did not post them in the exact order they were made, because they are not physically numbered and I of course do not remember it anymore, they were nevertheless posted in an approximate order. And I do remember that this one I have drawn as the last – and it is also the last one to be posted. This is the finale of the series.
©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
After this picture I did not need to work on these sheets anymore, because I have passed the anatomy exam and I had to invest my resources into other things.
I knew that I have only 25 sheets to post and I reckoned that posting one a week will be about the right tempo to keep the blog squeak along with some regular and predictable content whilst giving Caine some much-needed respite. And I thought that at the time I will post my last sheet and bow out, she will be convalescing and getting back into her tempo.
Sadly, as it so often happens, the universe does not care about our presumptions and plans. Fuck cancer.
During my photo stroll last week I encountered this little fellow marching across the street. She was not exactly camouflaged there, bright orange in the evening sun, with white spots.
Pictures bellow the fold.
Raindrops in my asparagus, actually. The light turned just so, and I can’t resist the shiny sparkles.
I don’t think I would have the patience or the dexterity to do this type of art, but Kestrel has it in spades. She’s sent us a gorgeous example of the horsehair braiding that she does and I’m in awe. Thanks so much for sharing, Kestrel.
Years ago a lady had me braid a horsehair bracelet for her from her horse. She told me she was really having trouble with a watch that she truly loved: an Ecclissi watch that was just simply falling apart. She told me she had bought it over 30 years ago but loved to wear it. This is how it started out:
©kestrel, all rights reserved
You can see the chains were falling apart. The lady asked me if I could possibly repair it with braided horsehair. She said she would really like it if it looked like twill. I set to work counting hair and working out how to perform this repair.
©kestrel, all rights reserved
The finished watch had 4 bands of 8-strand braiding on each side of the watch. Because I used two different colors I got the twill effect.
©kestrel, all rights reserved
There are many epic stories out there – it seems people throughout the ages have been entertained by stories of improbable heroism, impossible deeds, romance, tragedy, magic, friendship, betrayal and the binary battle between good and evil. Latvians are no different, except our own epic poem, Lāčplēsis (Bearslayer) dates not from centuries or millennia ago, but from the end of the 19th century. The author, Andrejs Pumpurs, took liberties with folk stories and expanded a typical hero’s tale into a mythical legend of the pagan fight against christianization. Lāčplēsis’ origins are a matter of slight debate, as in some versions, he was born of a bear with the ears of a bear, and his ears were where his strength resided – in other versions, he was merely adopted by a bear and raised in the woods until a local king found him and took him in, or he wore a hat of bears’ ears, where he hid his strength. In any case, he meets his tragic end tumbling over a cliff into the river Daugava while fighting the crusading Black Knight, and, as always, it is said he will come again at a time of greatest need (so far, no sign – I guess that’s a good thing?).
What’s very interesting is that Lāčplēsis is very much a national symbol – the highest military honour one can receive is the Bearslayer medal (Lāčplēša ordenis), and he is trotted out for all kinds of events and by the most nationalistic political parties – who are, the vast majority, very right-leaning christian. How they reconcile a supremely pagan hero with their beliefs, I don’t know – especially one who lived a rather non-traditional life-style during one portion of the epic (the author borrowed ideas, and I find interesting the possible connection between bears and the etymology of Arthur). But there it is.
Anyway. The story was put into musical form (a ‘rock opera’) in the 1980s, to great acclaim. Every now and then, a new performance is prepared, and the next one is due in early November. As it happens, it will be a full choir-and-orchestra version (the best kind!) and my choir will be among those performing. It’s a melodramatic piece of music, the best kind to perform, full of deep texts about freedom and bravery and time running through fingers like sand and other major themes, and lots of opportunity to sing your heart out together with the string and brass sections (and the cymbals!). I expect it will be a wonderful experience.
Here’s a small sample, a medley of some of the main songs, from the vocal-symphonic music concert from 2013 (I hope the video starts at the 1.43:08 mark). I’m not going to translate all the words, just the four lines of the final section so you can have a small idea of the drama of the words:
It is not water that flows in the Daugava, it is time
It is not blood that flows in your veins, it is time
It is not a wave that washes over us, it is time
It is not the whirlpool that twists into rings, it is time
25. Vispārējo latviešu dziesmusvētku Vokāli simfoniskās mūzikas koncerts Rīgas arēnā
The short guy on the left has one of my favourite voices ever.
(The video contains the entire vocal-symphonic concert, which I recommend if you like classical music. If you listen to the very end, the very last song is conducted by, in my opinion, one of the most talented conductors out there. Before taking over at the National Opera, he was artistic director of my choir, and his style and interpretation have biased me against many another worthy conductor.)
Friendship is a strange sort of alchemy of character.
In other words, two distinct people can randomly come together and discover an incredible compatibility. Alternatively, they can be as compatible as oil and water.
This short story is about the first situation, about someone I met at the beginning of summer through work. See, in the interests of improving Europe in general and participating globally, we have developed a partnership with Macedonia. The Macedonian team was visiting beginning of June, and I was invited to come along to a few social events due to my superior English (someone’s afraid to practice). Anyway, I met a new friend, quite unexpectedly. Me, the self-proclaimed pinnacle of anti-sociability. She was the interpreter, I was the language specialist, and we found strange but welcome common ground. During conversation, she discovered my art hobby, mostly through the series of small cat pictures I did for the lab going on two years ago (they hang on the walls in the new lab, I’m quite proud!) and was the first person to actually offer money for my art, specifically – for a reproduction of one of the pieces. She said the cat looked like an alchemist, and I like that naming. I had to overcome a few hang-ups about people paying for my art, as I’m used to creating randomly, as gifts, but she has insisted, and in this case I have come to the conclusion that it would be impolite to refuse, plus I’m very flattered. And from the alchemy theme, I altered the background and overall theme of the piece. Anyway, this is finished piece, slightly larger than the original (the wonders of technology!), and in a different colour scheme:
Alchemist cat!
I have titled it “The Alchemist”, and it is still small, about 15cm x 20cm. I rather like it. Next week I travel to Macedonia for the week and will have the opportunity to hand it over in person.
Anyway, as social as I can be (and it turns out I like putting on The Face and shmoozing at conferences, because there’s a lot of interesting people out there – minus a few creeps, but the biological sphere seems pretty balanced where I’ve hung out, so they are rather few), I am prone to bouts of something resembling depression and, as mentioned, being very anti-social. I like my alone time, a lot. I like dark music, I like melodrama, I like unhappy endings, never mind that I’ve managed rather well with my own life and situation. I’m always afraid that, once people discover what I’m really like, they won’t like me. So as contrast, here is Coheed and Cambria’s (we’ll be seeing more of this group) Dark Side of Me, a song that speaks to me on the unrevealed side of me. Oddly enough, it’s music like this that makes me feel better and can get me out of a funk.
(And check out dude’s hair, I went to their concert way back when and one of the distinctive things I remember is that mass of hair emerging out of the fog during the opening song.)
I almost forgot to post a detailed picture of the hand-made bobbin lace doily that my mother made. Mea culpa.
This is entirely my mother’s design, she made the pattern, the template, everything.
©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
Due to drought, there probably will not be any meaningful aftermath this year. The meadows are green, but the grass is not even knee-height. But everything is covered with spider silk this fall, something that I did not notice other years. I tried to take a few shots.
©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
Today I managed to get home before the sun set completely and I was not hungry overmuch, so I managed to grab my camera and go for a walk for a change and I experimented a bit with this and that.
Today I wish to share a few shots of a roadside cluster of rowan trees. I love rowan trees, every part of them. In the fall, they are the first ones starting to change color around here. The fall has truly arrived.
©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
I enjoyed this video immensely. Tord of Thor’s Forge in Sweden shows a process of making a two-handed Dane Axe blade the traditional way – from recycled wrought iron and carbon steel, both refined by bending and forge-welding. As close to a Viking-era technology as possible.
I learned a lot just by watching and I hope that some day I will have a chance to try out some of those things myself.
Video is 40 minutes long and there is about 4 min introduction by Matt Easton. Take that into account if you decide to watch.
Opus has sent us a special treat… a few pictures taken while he was visiting China. The photos are full of energy and bright, bold colour and I can’t help but think that it must have been very special to see this art with people who understand its true value. Thanks so much for sharing, Opus.
Pictures from Lijiang in southern China. I visited with a couple of fabric artists who wanted to see the work done by local women. We were not disappointed! The woman with the elaborately embroidered headwear is Naxi, best I can remember. Lijiang is on an ancient trade route, the Tea-Horse road, which was used to trade tea from southern China for Tibetan horses.
©Opus, all rights reserved
©Opus, all rights reserved
©Opus, all rights reserved