Me and the little prince

Random Thought and Hope

“It is impossible, I hope, for any Catholic to write any book on any subject,
above all this subject, without showing that he is a Catholic”

G.K. Chesterton - The Everlasting Man

And I hope that, somehow, it’s the same even in photography, even for “not so skilled” people like me

It’s not all over :)

I feel a little gloomy

although today I had the luck to spend a few hours trying to find something popping up from darkness

and although I still have the luck to dream and hope I’ll be able to leave a mark, even a thin one, on this world that will be “enlighten” by The Eternal Light.

Despite all, I already decided a life course,

that appears to be the opposite of the one that should be, but, this it the only possible good one at the moment…

therefore I’ve to complete my work, to complete what I’ve started 3 years ago (and I’m already late).

Completing this work might mean to never change direction, but surely it means, now, to drop the camera for a while… to keep it always beside me and ready to sh3oot, because I do need it to “breath” and go ahead… but being ready only for taking pictures if “something comes” and stop looking for that “something” for a little while…

Tonight I probably saw the end of the last day of “freedom to look for”, that’s why I feel a little gloomy but, only a little.

Today sunset said me “Stop playing with the camera and go back to your real work”, but it told me in a kind and comfortable way.

As that little star wanted to tell “it’s not ALL over when sun goes down”…

I know, this happen at every sunset, but that’s the one I’ve been watching to for 1 hour and half peeking out from a narrow window of the small attic of my brother’s house.
Once again I was being stuck by narrow spaces but, today, I was feeling free because I had the freedom to look around, to see sky around me.

Among

Among the pictures I’ve taken this morning:

Among the pictures taken in the afternoon:

31st December 2009, evening

This morning I heard a sad news about a friend that made me thinking about “sunset” and “last sunset” in a figurative sense too… All this thinking gave me the idea to ask to my boyfriend if he was OK with going out to take picture of the sunset.

As always, I was late and probably missed the sun set… but… I guess I cannot complain too much

I cannot complain because the sunset picture didn’t look so bad, I had just to turn back and notice this amazing “pink cloud”

And then I saw the moon

I didn’t know it was the full moon day today! Well it was also a blue moon day that brought a partial eclipse I missed!

Today it was unusually warm too. Despite in the morning the sky was cloud free at sunset time there were some cool clouds.

All these details made the moment being pretty similar to the moment when the webmaster declared his love to me on the 3rd March 2007, a full moon day with a total lunar eclipse, a warm day (close to spring time) and the kind of clouds up on the sky…similar scenarios of today ones. Lovely

Outside it’s a continue of little bomb explosion, a little stupid habit that many people have here… anyway… A little surprise happened… while I was climbing all around the little hill I went to take this pictures, I have taken this picture:

I didn’t think much about it, I’ve just taken it, but it turned out interesting… I want to try to take it again too.

And with this last shot I’m going to leave this computer spend the last 2 hours of the day with my family and with the webmaster via skype

I wish to all of you a wonderful 2010, even if there is still half world is still waiting to reach the new year

P.S. Especially sunset pictures have been taken thinking about a friend who had a sad day.

“Stolen” words

Have a lot to study, no time to finish, despite all my little “problems” I wanted to share something beautiful anyway.

I decided to “steal” part from this amazing letter I’m trying to read.

“Every genuine artistic intuition goes beyond what the senses perceive and, reaching beneath reality’s surface, strives to interpret its hidden mystery. The intuition itself springs from the depths of the human soul, where the desire to give meaning to one’s own life is joined by the fleeting vision of beauty and of the mysterious unity of things. All artists experience the unbridgeable gap which lies between the work of their hands, however successful it may be, and the dazzling perfection of the beauty glimpsed in the ardour of the creative moment: what they manage to express in their painting, their sculpting, their creating is no more than a glimmer of the splendour which flared for a moment before the eyes of their spirit.

Believers find nothing strange in this: they know that they have had a momentary glimpse of the abyss of light which has its original wellspring in God. Is it in any way surprising that this leaves the spirit overwhelmed as it were, so that it can only stammer in reply?”

Pope John Paul II

I’m not an artist, but there words are so true for me…

Extremes

An hour before leaving Catania. Monday 24th August 2009….

Totally random shot, I was not looking into the viewfinder…

Few minutes before leaving Bologna to come back to Catania. Friday 28th August 2009.

Picture “wished” about 10 minutes realizing that I could really take it…

No more words, sorry. The more the time passes the more pictures are enough for me.

I don’t know if it’s good….

“I saw an amazing thing…

… and I thought about you!”
No, no, it’s not a typical sentence that my boyfriend tells me. It happens, but he is not the only one.

The more the time passes the more happens that someone (realtive, friends, classmate) comes close to me (or send an email) to tell me: “Hey… I have been thinking about when I saw an amazing show (sunset, a flower field, and so on), I wished I could take a good picture of what I was looking at… that’s how you came up to my mind”.

I know, I am not the best photographer in the world. Sure I am not!
The thing that mainly please me isn’t the fact that people think about me about “someone able to take a good picture”. I know that most of them with the proper camera would be able to take a great picture.

What really please me is the fact that people think about me when they see something of a such wonderful beauty that they wish to “save forever”.

That’s one of the main thing I want to do in my life: “helping” people to focus on that Beauty that can fill us completely… I try to do it by helping them focusing on it with pictures or by making them willing to focus more on it, to save it to preserve its memory.

And today happened again, a classmate of mine told me that yesterday she saw Mt Etna during sunset time, and that it was so wonderful that she thought she could take a nice picture, and she thought about me.

Few hours later I told her:”pick up a picture of mine, the one you like more…”. She chosen me this one:

Wow… looks like she loves sunsets! So do I ;D
She commented the picture too. I am trying to translate what she told me:

It’s amazing, looks like you have been able to cath nature power, unsteadiness and  nostalgia.
It’s scaring but at the same time it’s attractive and you would like to lose yourself there forever.
And, at the same time, the picture doesn’t look like a picture at all!
It rather looks like a painting,
and it’s difficult to understand if it’s water, air or fire
there are the elements!
Wonderful!

She asked to be paid for the comment too! (she was kidding of course ;D)

I loved the comment, somehow she told most of the thing that made me take this picture.

I was being in one of my favorite place in my country house, I looked on the right and saw this show. I started yelling out:”Look up! Look up!”
My relatives all around there stopped looking at it, amazed.

It was 28th August 2005.
3 months after I got my camera, I was still trying to understand how to use it…but somehow, I had the “luck” to take this shot.

Well… actually…I have never tried to take pictures that look like paintings (part of me thinks that it isn’t good that a picture looks like a painting) but as Giulia, another classmate of mine (Elisa) and her sister liked the picture because it looked like a painting… and I have to admit that I like this picture also because it looks like a painting.

But I do love more that people enjoy it.

Sorry for the long post, but I thought it was worth

No way. I don’t like lies.

A lot of time seems like there is no way to go ahead, no way to keep on fighting.
And especially seems like there is no way to keep on “hoping” and “dreaming”, and seems like you can just keep on thinking: “I wish I were somewhere else, I wish I were someone else”.
Yeah, Yeah. Quite annoying, upsetting and kind of “frustrating”.

What can I do?
Close my eyes, start thinking about something pleasant? When and where I felt well, why did I felt so?
Yeah, cool! Many times it works… or, if I am not able to do this with just my mind, I turn on the computer as soon as I can and start jumping all around my pictures…

Today I stopped on this:

There has been no way to stop smiling and thanking.

Yeah, yeah. I am supposed to tell you something about this picture, about what was happening when I was taking it… but, the truth is that I can remember only that I was pleased and glad and “feeling free”. Nothing important for this world but exactly what I was seeking for today!

At the moment I can just say that I had the chance, quite unplanned, to take this shot…  Unplanned because when I took this picture I couldn’t see so many seagulls… but they were, amazingly, there. I just had to way to see there.

Now, seems like I just have to wait, to wait to see what is amazing in this life because I know there is something of amazing, because I have seen its sign before.

Or I can start telling me lies as: “it’s not important if you can like what you do, most of this life is just awful and you just have to keep on going ahead”…

I don’t like lies. Do you?

Pictures as zucchini

What does a 21yrs old girl do on Saturday?
Sleeps and works on her new site… should be studying? Yes, but not now.

I want to complete the site before my birthday (end of may) because I want to turn 22 knowing that I had completed something. Ok, I know the site is supposed to be in continuous evolution, but I hope to reach that day knowing that I have only too add NEWEST pictures (the ones I didn’t taken yet)… Yeah, maybe it’s not important but it’s the only thing I can do.

I could study, actually “I am doing it” (in these days)… but I love this “work” so it doesn’t matter if I have to give up a little of sleep or a little of fun. Well, actually it’s funny to run trough 14,600 files or so (more or less the amount of pictures in my computer) but sometimes it is extremely tiring (for eyes especially) and frustrating too: beside the usual problem with programs that work WHEN and HOW they decide to. One of the biggest “problem” today has been to decide in which gallery should go a specific picture. (E.g. where should I put a picture of a boat on the sea that I’ve taken on Catania port dock at sunset time? In the gallery “sunset”, in the gallery “sea” or in the gallery “Catania”?).

Despite all, these days of work on the site are being amazing because “playing” with pictures  made me discover some  shots that I previously marked as “bad shots”, but that at later look they were nice.

I don’t know the reason, but happens often: I take a set of picture, I pick the ones I like more and leave all the originals shots in  a folder somewhere in the computer (yep, my room, my computer and my life in general is as messy as my mind).

I find it amazing! I mean, it’s amazing to put a picture away, and later discover its “previously hidden” beauty.

I know, it seems crazy but I think it happens to everyone of us in a lot of different situations, we just don’t notice it so often. I mean, when I was a child I didn’t like zucchini and potatoes. It was a torture for me when mom cooked zucchini and potatoes. Now I like them, and a lot too (well, I like chocolate more of course!;D) .

When I (or my brother) start eating fruits or vegetable that we previously disliked, my parents says: “You are getting old!”. And smile.

Yeah, they are probably right. I start thinking that sometimes, we have just to wait to be able to appreciate what is being in front of us (or in our dishes).

__________________________
Other technical notes about the site:

- the site has been modified in its general structure in order to make the visit more pleasant (less clicking). Thanks to a friend suggestion and a special thanks to M1L (my boyfriend) work! ;D

- In the “About” site section have been added the names (and site links when available) of the “comment” authors

- I changed the gallery structure (just put the thumbnails pictures below instead of on the left) because I am crazy and a little lazy at the same time. Crazy because I always change what I do. I am lazy because I never study how a program works before using it, I just open it and start clicking what makes sense in order to learn how it works… so sometimes I learn after WEEKS even the simplest actions ;D.

- I added 2 new pictures in the “Orchids”[Flowers->Orchids] set and another  in the”Sparrows” [ Animals->Sparrows] set.

- I added the new gallery “Sunset” (Panorama->Sunset).

Let’s start a new adventure

This is official my first post on this “new” blog that is related to my new website: photonmessage.com.

There is still a lot of mess, intro to complete, galleries to complete… but I have been able, with the help of my boyfriend (what will we do without people who loves us?), to create the general structure of my new website.

I could bother you trying to tell you about all the other sites I’ve created. I think I created my first website when I was 12. It was of course a simple stupid site about me… now, the new site, it’s a site about my pictures, or better, about those pictures I think are good enough to be shown.

What do I want from this site?
A lot of things, but essentially I still want what I have always want when I show my pictures: I want to show up to this world that there is Beauty out there, and that is a wonderful present for us…
Why am I a beauty-seeker? Because I need it as every human needs air, I need it to live (that is different to “just survive), I need it to appreciate life even if sometimes it’s too hard and difficult.

Do I think my pictures are the best all over the world?
No, not at all… It is clear I still have a lot to do, a lot to learn and a lot to decide.
The only thing I know is that at the moment I want to go ahead because I know to be Loved by that one Who created everything, me and you included.

I wish you will enjoy my pictures “fellowship”, as well as I enjoy them.
I wish you will see the Beauty and Love that I have seen “reflected” on the subjects of my shot…

So… let’s start with this little adventure that will bring me to I don’t know where, but that it must be somewhere… like when I shot this picture less than 48hrs ago. I turned back, saw something that was somehow interesting and I tried to capture it. My boyfriend said:”You see thing that I cannot, I didn’t notice this frame of this place”. It’s probably a too simple picture, but it meant something…

Fortunately not all the picture are such a mistery for me. You’ll see it.

A special thanks to my friends that wrote (or are writing) the “about her” (About the author) lines. I didn’t wrote the name of most of them yet, because I didn’t know if they want to appear on this site.