Posted on 10/31/2011 7:39:01 PM PDT by Revolting cat!
I am putting together a photo album. One consisting of my own photographs taken by the DSLR camera I own. I've already created one album, paying ~ $42 for a book of 26 pages (13 sheets) of my color photographs. Expensive, but worth it. (The service, which I selected after thorough online investigation, was Adoramapix. I am not associated with them, and seeing the results I do recommend them, but if you know of a service that is less costly and as good, please do let us know.)
The theme and title of my second photo album is to be The Book of Longing, and it is intended as a gift for my loved one, who resides far, far away, and requires some measures of persuasion. The question I have for you is what the heck is "longing", and how to express it visually? (I fully expect cynical and ugly responses, bad jokes, contempt and feeble attempts at sarcasm. Go fracking ahead!) I've found that the 19th century Romantics considered blue flowers as symbols of longing. Well, good luck finding blue flowers with wide petals in your local flower shops or on front yards of suburban houses. I plan to visit a botanical garden in a day or two to see what I can see, but what else is there? Empty avenues? Lonely palm trees? I think that the photos should not have people in them, though on I've already chosen does show the back of a small boy facing the vast waters of an ocean. By the way, I live on one of the coasts of our glorious 57 states.
I was at the Botanical Garden in Copenhagen Denmark in my youth and they had a pond with swans. There was one swan by itself and another area of the pond had a pair of swans. And old man was sitting there and he said that those swans didn’t mate for life. He said the male swan had left the first female for the other female and he said, “Just like people sometimes do.” It was sad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudade
Saudade has been described as a "vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist ... a turning towards the past or towards the future".
Different things trigger it for me: smells, impressions, sounds, sights like birds, empty fields, sunsets, & open spaces.
Sounds like a cool project.
Yeah, Swans aren’t the romantic creatures of myth and poetry.
You don’t want to see what they do to a baby goose if they catch one.
“The scent of my dad’s cologne is a powerful trigger for me of so many memories of him. “
My dad liked blue hydrangeas...a few days ago I was wandering around the Goodwill and found a pot with (fake) blue hydrangea in it and bought it.
Hi Cat,
Take some pictures of Forget-Me-Nots. They are blue and tiny, but look so beautiful when a bunch of them bloom. That’s if you can find them this time of year.
You are sure welcome. My latent brain just remembered you are one of the clever ones on the AI threads. (I mostly just lurk, well, er, um, for lack of cleverness). Love your posts!
Hope you have success with this.
It’s so nice to have reminders of them, isn’t it?
My dad was an artist and a sculptor, though not well-known except in our little part of the world. My basement is currently overwhelmed with his and my mother’s belongings and artwork. I can’t bring myself to go through it just yet. I try, but it’s too overwhelming right now.
Cyber hugs to you...
I lost my mother suddenly...let’s see ... it will be two years ago Jan. 4. It was bad because she was in an assisted living place near me and they found her. We had to move her belongings out quickly and three of the four of us adult children were there to do it. Of course, it was snowing like crazy. I stepped out for a cigarette and looked down at the crisp white snow and there was a laminated card. I picked it up and read it. It says: “Where there is Faith there is Love. Where there is Love there is Peace. Where there is Peace there is God. Where there is God there is no need.” I turned it over and on the back in her writing it says, “Love Nancy.”
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