Tower and Tree

Once again, unable to take a picture, so another old one from my trip to France. This particular photo was taken outside the chateau Chaumont-sur-Loire. We arrived there in the misty drizzle of a grey February morning, only to find that our tour guide had gotten hours mixed up or something, and there would be no one at the gate to allow us into the castle for about an hour. We all went our separate ways then, wandering around the vicinity, and for me, that meant a really beautiful long, solitary walk in the first greenery I'd seen since getting to France. So I'm not complaining!

It's Friday, so this picture is the obligatory nature piece, but it's also Friday the 13th (so glad I got my teeth out yesterday and not today, eh? ;) ) and so I wanted to go with something that had kind of a creepy look to it. Beautiful as this castle and estate were, I think the castle tower with a lonely, barren black tree are also pretty Friday the 13th-ish!

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Screaming Gargoyle

Sorry this is so far after the fact, but I had an unexpected emergency extraction of all four of my wisdom teeth, two of which were impacted. Not exactly fun times, and I wasn't quite capable of getting a photo up here. I was also incapable of taking photos, so you're getting another old one for today.

This gargoyle graces the courtyard of one of the chateaux in the Loire Valley, which contains over 300 such castles. We saw several in a matter of days on my trip, so forgive me if I'm not one hundred percent certain which one this was from! I'm pretty sure it's Chambord, as I believe that was the first we went to, but either way, they all have a certain similarity. The expression on this mossy-backed fellow's face is about how I feel now the Vicodin's wearing off...

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Paper Blossoms

I've not got a great deal to say about this photo, just that it's a string of origami flowers made by my sister's friend, strung up on a cabinet in our dining room. The string of flowers was a birthday present to my sister; they were packaged and wrapped in a decorated egg carton, each flower in its own little socket, which was pretty cute.









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Notre-Dame Interior

Exactly one year ago, I was in Paris, beginning the three most adventure-packed, interesting, memorable and life-changing months of my life. To be fair, that would have been true had I been spending three months studying pretty much anywhere outside of my own country, but the fact that it was Paris, this beautiful, incredible, historical city, just made it that much better. I miss the city, the cultural differences that made me feel so out of place at first, the food (ohhh how I miss the food), the fashion, my apartment in the 5th arr., and of course the beautiful, mesmerizing, awe-inspiring pieces of history like the cathedral of Notre-Dame, less than a minute from my apartment. I lived right next to it for three months. Now, all I have is pictures like this... That is, until I get the chance to go back!

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Sunbathing Flowers

I took this picture against the fence behind my backyard swimming pool. It was only a few days ago, but that was the last lovely, warm, sunny day for a while, it seems. The day after, it started raining and getting properly wintry and gloomy again - we had torrential rain and a little thunder & lightning, for a couple of days now. I woke up this morning and thought it was still night, because the sky outside my window was so dark and gloomy.



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Daisy Summer Piper

It's Sunday again! First of all, that means it's been exactly a week since Photolumination started. Second, that means the theme today is a song lyric, although it's actually one of two that I had in mind when I took this picture...

"Daisy summer pipers come to town
Piping people out of doors
To see the magic all around
Listen now you'll hear his sound."
--Daisy Summer Pipers, by Joni Mitchell

It was taken in Central Park, in New York City last June. We were waiting in line to get tickets to Shakespeare in the Park's Hamlet, and this man was one of several entertainers who took it upon themselves to keep everyone in the long, long line happy. It worked with these two - they were dancing around and listening intently.

The other song I had in mind was Joni's "For Free" -- as in, "He was playing real good for free..."

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Le Peintre

It's Saturday, and that means the theme is people. And in this picture, you get a bonus, three (and a half) people in one -- the painter and the Madonna and infant he's painting (plus part of a woman in another painting...well, plus the portraits and bust behind him, and the knee of a goddess in a niche on the wall...needless to say, this fits the theme).

I took this photograph in March or April of last year, in the Louvre in Paris. I was quite interested in the people who came to paint their own versions of the masterpieces on display in the museum, and by the chain created when I took a picture of them creating a picture of this other famous picture... At one point I got my friend to sketch this particular artist, and I tried to take a picture of her, him, and the original masterpiece all in one, but it didn't turn out well. So I'll stick with this one.


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Rose's Rose

It's Friday, so that means the theme is nature, in whatever form that happens to take. In this case, that means a picture of my sister Rose's rose, a birthday gift from her boyfriend. I really haven't got a whole lot to say about this picture, except that it was difficult to get a decent closeup...




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Millenium

I took this picture in Chicago's Millenium Park, under the giant...I don't even know what it is, a giant silver jelly bean that curves fantastically. There were all these kids (and plenty of adults) running around and beneath it, mesmerized by the way it warped their reflections. I didn't use any effect on this picture at all - that's what it looked like.

The girl in the corner is my sister Rose.

--The Internet is a wonderful thing. So this giant quicksilver bean is actually called the Cloud Gate, and it was unveiled in 2004, a bit late for the millenium but still pretty cool. It was the winning result of a design competition, and the idea behind it is that it's a gateway between earth and sky.


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Almost Summer...in February

I took this picture two days ago, in my backyard early in the morning before I left for my first class of the day. Even in the morning it felt warm and light-aired, like the first edge of summer, and it was only the first day of February. That's supposed to still be winter, right? We've had really crazy, inconsistent weather this year (at least, the portion of it I spent in California), from a latelatelate Indian summer to a sudden onslaught of wintry cold, which apparently skipped fall altogether, and then all winter we've had one day that's cold and appropriately wintry, followed immediately by a balmy spring-esque day. It makes it really hard to figure out how to get dressed every morning!

So I took this picture of the clear summery morning sky, and the telephone pole in the back corner of my yard, to prove that it's capable of being warm and lovely when, inevitably, the weather changes its mind again and goes back to being, well, Februarian.

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Arizona Winter

This photo comes from a recent trip to New Mexico, back in early January, or rather, from the trip back home to California by way of Arizona. My mother was driving, I was trying to get pictures of the snow in the Arizona desert through the car window on the way back. I love the way the desert looks at any time of the year, but it's especially pretty with snow.



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Pawn

Today's picture was taken during my father's impromptu chess marathon on Friday night, at my sister's 18th birthday party. One by one, each of her friends in turn challenged him...and one by one, all of them seem to have been routed. One boy did bring it to a stalemate, but my dad remains the undefeated chess champion of our house.

I took a few pictures while they were playing, but I think I like the perspective best in this one.





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The Winding Stair :: [full of firsts]

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This is a day full of firsts. It's the first of the month, it's the first day that my little sister is an adult, and it's the first post of this new blog, Photolumination, a daily photo blog... in progress.

I'm still toying with the idea of this, so we'll just have to see how this goes, but for now I like the idea of having some themed days -- say, Friday is pictures of/to do with nature, Saturday is portraits/people, and Sunday is photos inspired by a song lyric, poem, nursery rhyme, book passage, etc., that I feel like using. And firsts of the month may get a theme of their own. Today would have to be the theme of 'first'... And it's a Sunday to boot, so we get a 'first'-themed photo, and one inspired by the poem "The Winding Stair," by W.B. Yeats--

"My Soul. I summon to the winding ancient stair;
Set all your mind upon the steep ascent,
Upon the broken, crumbling battlement,
Upon the breathless starlit air,
'Upon the star that marks the hidden pole;
Fix every wandering thought upon
That quarter where all thought is done:
Who can distinguish darkness from the soul."

The 'first' theme comes because this picture was taken in my first week staying in Paris last spring, at the lovely Musee Cluny, the national museum of the middle ages, a couple of streets away from my apartment in the Latin Quarter.

See you tomorrow!