Saturday, January 23, 2010

Stairs, Arches, Holiday Musing and the Answer


Since this week seems to have turned into "Architecture Week" on my blog, I thought I'd finish with two more of my favorite photographs in this category.  These stairs (leading down from the tower of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris) have shown up in a lot of my artwork, and they always draw a very strong response.  I also really like and have used this set of arches which I found in the courtyard of the glass museum in Murano, Italy.  I think they both work well in my artwork because, like the window photograph posted here, they are both strong photographs.  On the other hand, I have found it very difficult to use this picture of the gate in my art work because, while the gate is very interesting, it's not a really well composed photograph that can stand on its own as a piece of art.  Where is the gate?  Deb's come the closest to guessing.  If you click on the "jump" at the end of this post, I'll give you the answer.  (By the way, isn't the "jump feature" really cool. I may be overusing it, but it's like a new toy that I just discovered!)


In other musings, I just sorted through all my Christmas cards from this year. I take out the pictures which people send along inside them to scrap.  Including a family photo has become quite a common practice in the States, not sure so much abroad. Anyway, I've been scrapping these pictures in their own album since 1990 - some of the kids who were babies then are off to college now!  I also take the nice handmade cards I get and cannibalize them as embellishments in my Christmas Pictures album.  Finally, if there's some card fronts which catch my eye (often religious paintings of the Madonna or angels), I rip those off and put them in my ephemera collection.  What do you do with your holiday cards?

Next up - Valentine's Day.  I've started to see hearts and Valentine projects showing up on blogs.  It's not a favorite holiday of mine, and I'm certainly not in the V.D. spirit yet.  Are you?

Last (but not least), all these photo posts have made me think about how I use my photography in my art (besides scrapbooking).  I'm working on a nice two-part post for this weekend on that topic. So, watch for it. Not sure if Scrapbook Sunday will happen this weekend, but I am keen to show you some nice, new fresh art next week.  Can you tell I'm feeling a bit better?

And now for the Answer . . .




The gate is at The Budapest Castle in Budapest, Hungary.  If you look closely in the family picture, you can see the Chain Bridge in the background.

11 comments:

  1. Love the stairway and Budapest photos! And what a great idea to recycle your Christmas cards, especially creating an album of the photo cards. Usually I don't hang on to the cards but you've made me rethink that decision!

    ReplyDelete
  2. The staircase is an amazing photograph. No wonder you've used it in your scrapping. It's wonderful.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Your photos are beautiful, Rinda!

    Yes, I'm in the Valentine's Day spirit but probably because I'm planning a bridal shower for my niece - to be held the day before V-day - so the theme already has me surrounded in hearts! :o)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh, wow that's somewhere i've never been..it looks amazing. I love your staircase photo and I'm not surprised you use it a lot. You're right, over here we don't do family photo cards. I love them.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Just love the amazing staircase photo.
    I do lots of recycling with xmas cards....using all sorts of bits and pieces from them.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The staircase picture is really lovely. It's so simple but brilliantly captured! xxx

    ReplyDelete
  7. I love that stairway too :-) And the Budapest shot - though I wouldn't have guessed it even from that!! I'd love to visit there one day...

    Valentine's Day isn't quite such a big thing for us here, but I have decided how I want my husband's card to look and I'll be making it over the next week or so. And insisting that he buys me a gift, of course ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Wow the staircase shot is fantastic. We don't really 'do' Valentines Day much.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Love the staircase shot - not surprised you use it again & again! I have just been raiding my Mums old Christmas cards for all the 3D embellishments that I want to use on some layouts. Waste not ant not!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. that should read 'waste not want not'!!

    ReplyDelete
  11. The staircase is a fabulous shot and perfect for using again and again. Do you have it framed somewhere as well?

    I do love Valentine's Day. For some unknown (to me) reason, it was my father's favorite holiday and he made a big deal out of it. It's not a big deal here, but we always celebrate in some way, and I usually purchase small Valentine gifts for the family. I've made a few valentines for the kids in the class where I volunteer, but none for the family yet.

    ReplyDelete