Shutters Open

A camera phone is a useful tool for me as a writer. Mostly because I tend to have it bouncing around in my pocket, whereas a regular camera is usually at home, its shutter carefully closed, on my dresser. I use mine

. . . to take pictures of books that I might want to read/buy/investigate further

This one, of course, goes in the
Operation Yes/fun improv ideas pile

. . . to save bits of interesting language

Old-timey advertisement at Cracker Barrel.
I zoomed in because . . .

. . . the "Tally-ho horn" made me laugh.
One of my characters might need a tally-ho horn one day.

. . . to provide writing inspiration

Come on, isn't "bring 'em back alive" a pertinent reminder
not to overwork your revision? Or to go out there and nab
a great story in the first place?

. . . to marvel at how things in my books are essential to people's daily lives

That's right. Banana pudding (featured in Operation Yes)
is so popular and valued that there is a whole DAY devoted to it.

 . . . to record critical details, such as who I am.

Okay, I cheated. This photo was actually taken by Sonya Sones.
She was doing dozens of author photos at the SCBWI LA conference
and wanted to make sure the right photo got sent to the right name and face later.
But the principle stands. More on my new author photo tomorrow.

What writerly things do you use your camera for?

On ignorance

"Whoever said "ignorance is bliss" was, perhaps, correct, but he or she was not a photographer." ---Jacquelynn Buck, blogging at The Journey

Jackie is asking the Big Question here: when is it okay to document the world's misery? Read her post and comment if you have a mind to.

This brings to mind the photographs from Sept. 11th that I saw as part of an exhibit at the Newseum. One was of a person jumping from the World Trade Center. I can't ever forget it.

In happier news, my book club has decided to read both the adult and one or more of the kid/YA versions of Three Cups of Tea. Which is a good thing in itself, but then my friend Quinn Byrnes wrote to say that her school read one of those kid editions, "Listen to the Wind," and planned a 100 Pennies for Peace project for the 100th day of school.

As Quinn said, "The best part is that the kids got it.  They knew why we were doing it.  It was for other kids to learn.  They were really moved by the thought that there are kids somewhere doing their math problems in the dirt with sticks." 


Here's to combatting ignorance, one penny, word, or photograph at a time. 

Shining Brightly

Wheeeeeee! My daughter, Rebecca, was chosen as one of NASA's Student Ambassadors for the 2009 International Year of Astronomy!

From the website:

In 2009 we celebrate the 400th anniversary of Galileo's first observations of the universe through a telescope. In honor of this early event, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and the United Nations have proclaimed 2009 as the International Year of Astronomy to spread awareness of astronomy’s contributions to society and culture, stimulate young people’s interest in science, portray astronomy as a global peaceful endeavor, and nourish a scientific outlook in society.

As an ambassador, Rebecca received a grant (her first!) to "generate excitement about NASA scientific discoveries in astrophysics, planetary science and solar physics within her local community and beyond."

I've already tagged her to blog for me at least once a quarter in 2009 about her ambassadorial adventures. Here's a link to the U.S. International Year of Astronomy site, which will be updated with events and information and ways you can celebrate everything in the universe.

P.S. That's one of her pictures, above. She says: This open cluster, NGC4755, is also known as the "jewel box." Even 50 s exposures saturated the camera around those bright stars (the brightest are close to 6th magnitude.)

Poetry Friday: Photo Meme and Comic Strips

Meme Rules:

Take a picture of yourself right now.
Don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair -- just take a picture.
Post that picture with NO editing.
Post these instructions with your picture.




DONE.

Then I went all Top Model and tried to do "Tyra Eyes."









It's harder than it looks, I swear.

I gave up and went for Comic Book Me.



I like this one. A lot.
What's the big deal about being two-dimensional?


In case you've missed them, the Poetry Foundation is doing a series called "The Poem as Comic Strip." Here's the beginning of the poem they've chosen for #6:


Recitative

by A.E. Stallings

Every night, we couldn’t sleep.

Our upstairs neighbors had to keep

Dropping something down the hall—

A barbell or a bowling ball,

And from the window by the bed,

Echoing inside my head,

Alley cats expended breath

In arias of love and death.

Read the rest (as a comic strip) here. Look for the link at the bottom of the introduction.

Graphics by Maui-born artist, R. Kikuo Johnson.
Or for the straight text by poet A.E. Stallings, here.

And if you have PhotoBooth on a Mac, I'd like to see a ComicBook version of YOU. Please.

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Author Amok.

Poetry Friday: Found Poem

It's a spiral galaxy
(seen edge-on, so it looks skinny)
colliding and merging
with an elliptical galaxy.
That's what astronomers think it is, anyway.
All the stars in the image
are in our own galaxy;
they just got in the way.

----found poem, from an email sent to me by my daughter. She took this picture remotely, via an array of telescopes in Chile.

(She says thank you so much for everyone's help on Monday.)

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Cuentecitos.

Sorry. I have a new camera.

Dog in "macro mode"
It's all about the nose (and whiskers)

For some much lovelier photographs, you've got to see the sunset over snow pictures that Jackie Buck has posted. Go ahead. Go look, be inspired, and come back. I'll be here...or fiddling with my camera close by.

I appreciate evocative photographs because they show so clearly that what we see is what we choose to see. Photographs combine real information with a deliberately selected, creative presentation, and it's hard to avoid thinking about how we frame our world. What do we leave out? Do we focus on the same subjects, over and over? What merits a close-up? Can we consciously pull back and look at a problem panoramically? How does the camera in our heads document or distort our path from sunrise to sunset each day?

They're taking about a similar topic over at I.N.K. today, only it's real subjects creatively presented as poetry. Laura Salas had a recent post about this, too, when she reviewed Diane Siebert's poetry nonfiction book, Cave. She likes the book, praising its "gorgeous language and lovely rhythm," but wonders if "poetic nonfiction would be difficult to categorize/sell because it's not the most efficient way to relate facts."

That made me consider what information I want my poems and my fiction to convey. I've often said that I would make the world's worst robbery witness. I wouldn't be able to tell the police what color shirt the thief was wearing. I wouldn't notice his shoes. I doubt I could draw his distinctive tattoo. (What tattoo???) Unless...

... it was critical to the story I was telling about him. Then, those facts would be useful! The tattoo? Oh, he had that done the day he decided that everyone had lied to him, and that he might as well be a SNAKE too. His shirt? An old gas station uniform shirt that belonged to his beloved grandfather. His shoes? Brand-spanking new. Because today was the day he was going to change his life. For the better.

So I don't know how I'd do at penning nonfiction poetry. Or making a documentary film. Or reporting a news story. I love a pertinent fact. But I love story more. I think creative nonfiction is a difficult, beautiful art form. One that I should leave to the professionals.

Besides, I have to figure out what all those buttons on my camera do. Do you think one of them might read the subject's mind? Now wouldn't that make a cool (and completely made-up) story?

Poetry Friday: Flower in Tibet

Thanks to Tricia for her Monday Poetry Stretch (Write a poem inspired by this image)

The mountain bears it.
The rocks guard it.
The earth holds it.
The flower knows nothing of it.

Its task is to raise
its head one inch,
one inch higher
than the dirt.

I saw a flower
in Tibet.
It saw me.
I'm sure of it.

Poetry Friday is hosted by The Book Mine Set.

Focus: A Poem in Photographs

A novel

A short story

A poem

All photographs by Jacquelynn Buck
(who is blogging her way across North Carolina
for seven weeks)

Poetry Friday is hosted this week by Two Writing Teachers

"A new way of looking at themselves"

These may be the most beautiful portraits I've ever seen: joyful photographs of young cancer patients, taken by the volunteer group, Flashes of Hope. Read the article, Changing the Face of Cancer, then click on the links to the side to see the portraits. The mission of Flashes of Hope is to "to change the image of childhood cancer, to give young people battling the disease a new way of looking at themselves." I think they've succeeded.

This is my sister-in-law and my niece. My niece is ten, and just completed a year of cancer treatments. She's so beautiful, isn't she?

Artist of the Week: Jacquelynn Buck

Artists need images of their finished works in order to promote them, and they often need at least one decent picture of themselves, to put with a bio or on a website. But most artists (and writers) I know would sooner drink paint than go to GlamourShots.

That's why I think Jacquelynn Buck has a huge career ahead of her. She's the photographer who took my picture, there to the right. She also took this black and white one at my website, and this one for my book jacket. Sorry for all the linkage to me, me, me, because I don't really want to talk about that. I want to tell you that the afternoon she came to my house was pure play. It helped that she was my friend, of course, but it was more than that. She thinks like an artist; she is an artist. We laughed as she worked, and I felt comfortable revealing who I was, which is no easy feat. And so, to those of you who think I'm "genic" as Robin put it, not so. I have many, many pictures of me that I hate. (Ninth grade yearbook photo being prime among them.) The reason the pictures turned out well is because of Jackie.

So, it's no wonder that other artists have hired her to do their visuals too. Here's the "Artists and Musicians" section of her website. There's a sculptor at work, a painter, a guitar player, a duo of singers, and a flutist. (I also love her creative portraits in "Outside the Box." And look at these wedding photos!)

And now I see that she has done coffee table books documenting several artists' work, and that she does all the scheduling for a community art space called Art in Motion, with the coolest sounding workshops. (Painting Poetry, anyone?) And that's not all. She sent me an email saying that she and painter Mike Elsass are opening a gallery in Dayton, Ohio, with the plan for it to "adjoin a very trendy restaurant in the downtown district and maybe really start the arts district here."

Jackie, I had so much fun getting my picture taken by you that day. You told me while you worked that you wanted to explore what you could do with your new digital camera. Girl, you've taken it way, way outside the frame.