by Marja-Leena 
As I was going through some image folders, I was delighted to find another “hand with object” yet unpublished, so here it is, joining others like it in the archives under Photoworks: Human. Compare it to hand with stones.
As you may know, some of my favourites became part of a print series called Hands.
by Marja-Leena 
It’s been snowing here, now on its third day. As we live near sea level it is wet snow leaving little on the ground or on the trees. Higher up there is lots of it. A father-daughter hike on the mountainside with photos to share at home – beautiful!
by Marja-Leena 
There is an exciting exhibition in town: Ukiyoe Spectacular – Japanese Woodblock Prints from the 1800s
Over one hundred woodblock prints from a private collection in Japan are on display at the West Vancouver Museum and at the Nikkei National Museum in Burnaby. There are works by such masters as Kuniyoshi, Yosifuji and Hiroshige and more, with images of supernatural and epic myths, samurai, historical and theatrical events and even humour. Read more and view the slide shows at each museum’s site.
Ukiyo-e means “pictures of floating world”, referring to the lifestyles of the period, as well as becoming the name for the method of woodblock printing. This art came to influence European artists in the late 19th century and even today’s popular manga art in Japan.
We visited the West Vancouver Museum’s installation a while ago and found all the work quite fascinating and absorbing to view the amazing workmanship and fine details. Some amusing work even made me think of ‘Where’s Waldo?’, heh. We hope to visit the Nikkei Museum soon to see more.
More reading: about Ukiyo-e in Wikipedia, and about
a demonstration of this technique as adapted to contemporary work.
by Marja-Leena 
Happy Friendship Day! Happy Valentine’s Day!
No, there is no snow here. All is green – green moss on rocks and lawns, evergreen trees, spikes of green spring flowering bulbs poking through the soil, some with white blossoms (snowdrops). No signs of heart’s red in the garden yet.
This image is from the archives, previously posted here.
by Marja-Leena 
Well, the predicted snowstorm turned out to be just a light fall overnight. I was awake in the wee hours after midnight and noticed that a little wet snow started falling. A couple of hours later, I was again awake and found it was raining. Last week’s cold snap is broken. I do rather miss the bright sunny days though.
Today was the second annual Family Day holiday in our province. The mountains had reportedly many happy families enjoying some new snow cover after a shortage of the white stuff this winter. We stayed home enjoying our visiting family. This evening they prepared a lovely dinner to celebrate my birthday a day early – always a delight for me not to have to cook for a change! Tomorrow my husband is taking me out for dinner at a nice restaurant as is usually our tradition in combining birthday and Valentine’s. We might even pop in to see one or two exhibitions…
Have you noticed the days getting longer already? The snowdrops in the garden have been out for weeks. The photo above however is of my supposed-to-be-for-Christmas paperwhites which bloomed late – a touch of spring indoors instead. Life is good.
by Marja-Leena 
Some strange holly trees and their berries and leaves underfoot.
Alternately busy and lazy here with family visiting all week.
Very cold and clear here with night temperatures as low as -15C with windchill.
Possible snow on the weekend.
by Marja-Leena 
Happy 10th Birthday to my dear blog!
You are my artist’s diary, sketchbook, photo album, scrapbook and catch-all of impressions and inspirations.
You have been the medium for making many amazing friends and connections around this globe for which I’m deeply thankful.
Ten years is a short time in a human’s life, but long in this technology. How long will this last, I wonder?
by Marja-Leena 
A picture is a poem without words. – Horace
You don’t take a photograph, you make it. – Ansel Adams
by Marja-Leena 
I enjoyed some further play with the faded and dry hydrangea flower head which I had photographed and posted previously. This time I used the scanner and dealt with two challenges: the shallow depth of field for a very three-dimensional object and the lack of lighting behind it, that is ‘above’ the flower head sitting on the scanner bed. Thus parts of the images are out of focus as well as missing those sharply delineated tracings in the petals that you saw in the previous photographs.
It was like working with different beasts of another dimension. Also for the third image, I shone a desk lamp down very close in the hopes of some backlighting but instead captured a bit of the movement of the scanner bar (or whatever it’s called) moving across, resulting in some interesting distortions in the background. In the end, I grew to like these a lot and now wonder how they would print, for they are a much higher resolution than the digicamera photographs.
by Marja-Leena 
It’s been a gentle January, a few heavy rainstorms, a week of fog, and now sunshine to tempt me into the so green garden to check out new growth of green tips with white buds – those harbingers, the snowdrops. Yet I and the camera are drawn to the dry heads of hydrangea flowers.
I cut one head to bring indoors for some play with both camera and scanner. I wished to capture the light shining through from behind the petals.
I held up the flower in a window with sunshine streaming in. I love those fine lines creating intricate patterns!
Next time I will show the images that came forth from the scanner.