Waterford

WORKSPACE BLOG HOP

The Half Eaten Mind and his human Vijay invited me to participate in the Workspace Blog Hop. It means, I have to reveal something about myself and the place I am blogging from. Thank you, Vijay!

I moved to Waterford city just a month ago, so my working space has not yet achieved a stable and respectable look. My books are still packed, and some of my stuff is sitting in my friends’ garage. I haven’ t yet decided either I stay here another couple of years, or keep moving.

I have a one-bedroom apartment and work in the living room. This is the table I work at: I prefer my working place being ergonomic rather than comfy. Two windows – on my left and on my right- provide enough light during the day.

A HP laptop, two external hard drives and a handful of USB memory cards – it is all I use for writing, editing, storing and carrying around my files. Plus a printer and a scanner.

This is a fragment of a surface, random. All the surfaces in this room look similar 🙂 Except my table. The table is bare: I have pushed things off the table with my elbows enough to learn the lesson.

So, this is pretty much everything about my working space.

I don’t have any pets – it is enough to ask my friends to take care of my cacti plants when I am away. I have 17 cacti plants.

I would love to have a pet though. Any critter.

My new contract forbids me to keep “any living creature” in this apartment. Yes, it is a quote.

I live in the medieval center of Waterford city, next to the oldest buildings. One day I will make a separate blog about Waterford, but for now I just want to report that it was a great sunny morning here, and I walked through the city center for my “cardio with a camera” and took this picture.

And this one too: it is a shop across from where I live, and it is reflection of my car in the window.

Sure I am moving around for my photography rather than stay at home. Sometimes I am lucky enough to get an assistant for the test-shoots.

Now you have an idea about my blogging space and the world around it. I might also add that this is mostly a pedestrian zone, clean and quiet. Most of the noise is coming from the Cathedral when they are ringing their bell:)

I have to pick up some of you to join the Workspace Blog Hop. It is not as you are forced to write all these things about yourself, but I give you this opportunity 🙂

http://indahs.com/ Indah

http://believeinadream.com/ Kellyann

http://whenwomeninspire.com/ Christy

http://aquileana.wordpress.com/ Amalia

http://studiocandelabra.com/ Linda Sue

http://oncemorewithforeboding.com/ Tony Single

A wonderful blogger The Crafty Lady in the Combat boots nominated me for a One Lovely Blog Award. I am always humbled to receive awards from people who are so good at what they are doing. Thank you so much, for your kindness!

There is about the nomination:

The One Lovely Blog Award nominations are chosen by fellow bloggers for those newer and up-and-coming bloggers. The goal is to help give recognition and also to help the new blogger to reach more viewers. It also recognizes blogs that are considered to be “lovely” by the fellow blogger who choose them. This award recognizes bloggers who share their story or thoughts in a beautiful manner to connect with their viewers and followers. In order to “accept” the award

Thank the person who nominated you for the award.
Add the One Lovely Blog logo to your post.
Share 7 facts/or things about yourself.
Nominate 7 bloggers you admire and inform nominees by commenting on their blog.

Here are seven facts about me – they are truly the facts 🙂

1. My favorite people are my daughter and two grand daughters and my son in law; 2. I love many other people; 3. I read every night even if it is one page; 3. I love music and play the piano when I have a chance; 4. I love my Micra; 5. I love earthly colors; 6. I love nature and creatures; 7. I despise fake individuals and stay away from them.

Now the nominations:) Thank you for your wonderful blogs!

1. http://postcardpieces.wordpress.com/

2. http://dorisbolliger.wordpress.com/category/blog-posts/

3. http://prolificdaydreamer.wordpress.com/

4. http://littlechomper.com/

5. http://cynthiasreyes.com/

Photography tip of the day: When you store your files the names of your folders matter a lot. Start with a year followed by a month; then write a key word/words so that you know what is there in that particular folder. Don’t make huge folders; divide them in parts: 2014-05-30 Moab – Devils Garden-Part I

Have a great weekend!

Patterns

Living by the river I took pictures of birds and plants. Living in town I walk the streets and find patterns.

While looking for the patterns my mind somehow shifted to the human behavioral patterns we come across every day, and I thought about constructive and destructive patterns in human interactions. Not being a specialist in human ethology I was simply wondering ” why the hell they keep doing that?”

I love the definition of Culture as a range of learned behavior patterns. I am a “nurture” person all the way, and a believer in education. Not because humans can be taught, but rather because they can learn. If they choose so. No one can change a person, as we well know, but every person can shape themselves, re-build, re-configure – call it the way you like. Every person can learn the patterns and beyond. They can break the patterns they have outgrown.

A couple of days ago a lady I know said that we can change the others with our love. I disagreed. There are loving parents who love all their children equally, but somehow one of them ends up in jail. What is it? Following bad patterns?

Love does change people, though. If you love unconditionally, YOU are the one who changes.

A few more shots and I am walking home. Most of us follow this pattern 🙂

And now a fantastic guitar solo for you. Lines in the Sand! Another pattern, the last for today 🙂

Photography tip of the day: How to make a pin hole camera

Have a great week!

A Cry For The Last Child

In autumn 2008 I was feeling unwell and didn’t do any photography. That particular day I was limping across the bridge from the Plunkett train station in Waterford to catch a bus to the hospital, all soaked in drizzle and focused on my own misery. When I turned to The Quay I met the eyes of a giant girl looking at me from the Old Flour Mills over the river. I didn’t have any camera on me, neither was I planning to return to Waterford soon. I looked at the girl with regret and she looked at me with sorrow.

“I now see that sorrow, being a supreme emotion of which man is capable, is at once the type and test of all great art.”

De Profundis by Oscar WIlde

Image courtesy of www.helnwein.com

Controversial, as some people say, artist Gottfried Helnwein was born in 1948 in war-torn Vienna, Austria. You can read his biography on his website ( all the links open in separate windows), and not only the biography. I have read his interviews and quotes, and also translated some from German, for good measure, and I advise you to do so to know all by yourself who he is, what he is trying to tell, and why.

Image courtesy of www.helnwein.com

Many people get confused when they encounter unfamiliar aspects of art; they tend to interpret the meaning based on their own culture, and get confused even more. They might even call this confusion “shock”. My daughter and I went to The Body World 3 exhibition in Salt Lake City a few years ago. The generosity of the donors’ last gift was humbling. Was this exhibition shocking? No. It was educational. Shock is something that locks, not opens. When one says that something is shocking, they stop thinking and learning right there.

Image courtesy of www.helnwein.com

My Father was a POW from 1941 to 1945. I only know from my Mother that he escaped, jumped in the sea and swam, but was reported by a local farmer and imprisoned again in a different camp. He would sit on the sofa with me to watch a cheesy war-related love story on TV, but start crying after a few minutes; he just wasn’t able to bear the mention of the war. What terror had he gone through? You think it will never come back? You think that Fascism is a ghost of the past? Think again.

Image courtesy of www.helnwein.com

“There are times when sorrow seems to me to be the only truth. Other things may be illusions of the eye or the appetite, made to blind the one and cloy the other, but out of sorrow have the worlds been built, and at the birth of a child or a star there is pain.”

De Profundis by Oscar Wilde

Why children?

There are some blood-chilling statistics for you to think about. In the wars during the 80s-90s more children were killed than soldiers.

School shootings. Did you hear about gun control in the 19th century? Yet from 1800 till 1900 there were only about 50 school shootings registered in the USA, mostly as revenge against the teachers, or accidental ; about 190 cases in 20th century and 145 cases from 2000-2013. Statistics include also dormitory and drive-by shootings near the school buildings, and this information is only for the United States. You can also check http://www.ijvs.org/ which goes for International Journal on Violence in Schools.

How about home violence, genocide, starvation, children sex tourism? How about the gruesome discovery in Tuam, Ireland? I can go on and on about all the children who came into this world to be betrayed. Do you still consider the paintings of Gottfried Helnwein “shocking”?

“I feel there is a strong bond between artists and children and all other sacred fools”

Gottfried Helnwein in an interview with Yuchi Konno for Yaso, Japan

When I think about Gottfried Helnwein’s personality, the only thing that truly matters to me is Family. He is a family man who raised his family well. Over fifteen years ago he bought a castle near where I live. Gurteen de la Poer castle. He resides there with his family, his children and grandkids. I wanted to know what their safe haven looks like; to see what the artist sees when he is with his own, away from the media and curious eyes. I contacted his son Cyril and asked if I could take some photos around the castle grounds.

Isn’t it beautiful? They even have some ducks there, one named Donald. If you read the biography you will know that it is symbolic.

I was invited inside. It is so delightful and homely there, with the afternoon sun beaming through the green vines covering the gothic windows. And you know what? I actually got to see all the images from that Waterford 2008 installation because Cyril kindly gave me a copy of the book The Last Child!

Having this peaceful home why would one bother crying warnings?

Any of us can make our home a castle: we can barricade ourselves from the world, protect our children from bad influences, home-teach, train in marital arts, life-coach them to be always on the safe side, you name it. And say you succeed when the rest of the world is falling apart. But let’s see it this way: do you want your child to be the last child on the planet?

Have a great weekend!