Glasses

My friend left his glasses on the table and my eye fell on the shadows and intricate pattern of the cord.

White circle

We removed several pots from my friend's garden because of the frost. When we lifted a big pot, we found this white circle of roots. Quite fascinating. Life underneath and yet looking so fresh.

Sitting geese

These geese were sitting so quietly beside a pedestrian bridge, minding their own business. One had its head tucked in and the other was grooming its feathers. They just sat there while people were walking by and that didn't disturb them.

Haiku

When I posted this picture in a special Miksang Facebook group, my teacher called this a Haiku. Haiku is the Japanese cousin of Miksang so to speak; it's not photography, it's poetry. The poet would condense his eye, mind and heart in  three lines.

In this picture there are three dimensions: there is the sandness of sand, the blue lines across it and the timely aspect of the footstep. It makes a little story: what happened here?

Costume update

31 December 2012: my blouse is coming underneath the corset. It is finished except for the closing at the back of the neck.

1 January 2013: My outer coat in process. V. drew a coat as she has seen it in one of her splendid books on historical costuming. We thought it quite ingenious. I am in a bit of a panic as this coat still needs lots of work.

3 January: My friend V. gave me these fabulous vintage gloves, they fit perfectly with my golden dress.

Cuff and sleeve of the blouse with part of the vest. I will embellish the seam of the cuff with a ribbon.

6 Januari: the blouse and vest are almost finished. I embellished the vest with pearls and it only needs a fastening at the front. And here I have a problem: the pattern of the vest was drawn too small so it can't close like it is supposed to. I will add a strip of cloth behind the closure and have two rows of buttons, like a double breasted coat.

9 January: I found the sweetest boots to go with my golden dress! The skirt still needs hemming.

12 January: the pleated outer skirt with the bustle underneath are finished.

The bustle goes between the underskirt and outer skirt. I embellished the underskirt with some ruffles, just for fun.

22 January: I added an extra almost transparent top skirt with tuck-ups. The patterns of the all the skirts are from this Burda pattern. I am omitting the front top skirt as it looks a bit too country-style for me and I would like to see more of the beautiful flowered yellow silk.

28 January: front view of the finished corset. I can't get rid of the little tuck in the middle even with ironing, so it has to be as it is. I embellished the corset with little pearls. V. also drew the pattern for this corset.

And the back view with the laces. It is coming quite together!

Sun set

It rained all morning and most of the snow is now gone. The ice on the canals is thawing, very soon the wintery sphere will be disappeared. I caught the last bit on film: a wintery sun set on thin ice.

Scratches

Yesterday, my friend had to go to a special dumping place to throw away his old refrigerator. We entered a local community area with big dumpsters in which you could put your waste. The outside of those dumpsters were full of scratches, rust, paint, etc. Beautiful!

Bird steps

My friend lives out of town, in the country. He has a huge garden, all covered in snow. The lovely thing is that now you can see all the animals that tread on his garden: rabbits, mice, birds and cats. It's fascinating to see how they walked, hopped or trod through the garden: one leg at the time, two legs simultaneously or any other variety. I never knew a rabbit would only leave three paw marks in the snow.

Circles in the snow

I've started to feel a little better today and had some energy to take pictures in and around the house. We live on the fourth floor and have a view on our balcony on the second.

When I looked down, I saw the circles.

Examples of January 2012

As I'm still at home with the flue, I thougt why not post a top 10 of January last year? 

Threads

Since a couple of days I've had the flue. I don't feel like much, I read a bit, sew a bit on my costume (not too complicated, can't handle that yet) and rest a lot. It gives me time to look over my costume (see http://daniellesflow.blogspot.nl/p/other.html) and visualize how to make the final look. While I was getting the right thread for the fabric, my eye fell on all the colours in the whitish plastic box. 

Cars in the snow

Cars are one of my favorite things to photograph. I don't have particularly much with cars themselves (I even don't own one), but they're all around me, they are easy to photograph, they are colourful and I like their curves.

When it has snowed the world changes. There is this blanket of whiteness covering everything, with a few spots that were missed. Those spots make all the difference. 

Snow

Yes, it is definitely winter! Although I'm not particularly fond of riding my bike through the snow, I love the sight of freshly fallen flakes. The world becomes lighter, quieter and everything slows down, simply because hurrying is impossible and risky.

Obviously, my intention was on snow today, my whole world was full of snow. Snow and ice.

Iciness

It has become colder and today it snowed again for the first time in weeks. So I put my intention on the iciness of ice during my short lunch-break walk.

And there it was, ice: fresh, crackling, smooth, cold, breaking up the reflection in segments.

Blue train chair

I took the train today and the sun cast its light on the opposite chair. I like the blueness, texture and shape. I'm not sure which element you perceive first, for me it was the light on the blue.

Colourful bicyles

I went out again today during my lunch break. This time I wanted to put my intention on colour again. So, I made myself available, stopped thinking, focused on color without trying to label things

I just walked around the block of my university and there were loads of bikes parked. There was colour everywhere! Big chunks of colour, smaller stripes, it was all there and it made me very happy. You see, going back to basics sometimes is very good.

Shooting color

For the first time since I'm back from the holidays I went on a lunch break today. I had my camera with me and I decided to shoot colour. Colour is the first assignment within the Miksang practice.

That is because colour is pleasing, colour is not subtle and it has no meaning by itself (apart what we gave it and that's all in the mind).

You try to look out of context, free from associations, memories, reference points, likes or dislikes (source: The Practice of Contemplative Photography, by Andy Karr and Michael Wood).

Buddha in the rain

It rained the majority of the day. And of course the sky was overcast, so it was grey and dull. Because of that I didn't look forward to do my errands. But was I glad I brought my little camera!

This Buddha stood in the rain, I felt a little sorry for him. The rain made beautiful drops in his neck, under his chin and nose. But he still smiled and had his eyes closed. I guess I should let influences from outside of me not have such an impact on me. Well, that's easier said then done.

Behind the geraniums

As I walked to the market today, my eye came upon this (fake) flower in the window. As Miksang is a sort of meditation with your camera, you're not supposed to have thoughts in your mind. When you think, you don't really see. But to have no thoughts can be challenging.

In this case I had a thought just after I saw the flower and the curtains. We have a Dutch saying: sitting behind the geraniums. Of course the flowers in the picture are not geraniums, but this saying sort of means that you are looking at  the world from your sofa. Your world is very small. I smiled when I recognized that I do that myself sometimes, too. It is very safe to judge others from the safety of my own living room, I should be more open.

Drops

Today it felt like Spring. It's crazy because it is only January, but it was warm, there was this Spring scent in the air and I heard the birds sing.

It hadn't rained since yesterday and most cars in the street were dry, except for this car. On this car the drops were visible as if it had just stopped raining.