Seeking the World’s Soul

Having some problems with my site at the moment – my apologies! I upgraded wordpress and the template I’ve been using for the last few years broke. So, trying to find a new one that displays both images and text well – so far, a lot harder than I expected. I do know some of the menu items are having difficulties and am trying to figure it out; hopefully I can can that sorted in the next day or so.

Brides of Time - Statues under Restoration

Statues covered in plastic draping at the Louvre

I love watching art restoration work in progress, especially when the technicians are actively working on things. These statues were in a wing of the Louvre that was undergoing repairs and covered in a great deal of dust. The plastic draped over them made me think of bridal veils.

In other news, I’m updating this site with a new theme (my old one broke) and upgrading to Gallery3 from Gallery2 – not exactly a painless process so far; it’s still in beta and I’m jumping the gun a bit…

Viking Battle

Living history Viking combat

This is my favorite shot from the Gorodets living history festival in 2006. It always makes me think I should title it, “No shit, there I was…” The guys fighting are mainly college students who do this as a hobby. It’s live steel, dull weapons but otherwise real. My husband joined the group and got to find out exactly how authentic Viking re-enactment combat can be when he took an axe direct to his shin bone and had to be carried out of the woods on his shield.

The really annoying thing about that… I mean other than the four months following of bringing him beer and coffee while be propped up his cast… was that we’d just watched “300″ before he went out to the event. And I quoted Queen Gorgo to him as he went out the door, “Come back with your shield, or on it!”. Sigh. And now he’ll never, ever let go of the bloodstained thing.

I just stopped using Zenfolio’s photo hosting and now some of my older image links are broken. I’ve switched to self-hosted Gallery2 software and am in the process of uploading photos and updating broken links, but it might take a couple days. Hopefully I’ll be able to get it all cleaned up over the weekend.

Also, I’m considering a major site redesign – maybe working on creating a custom wordpress template for this site. I’m not very happy with Gallery2’s look, either, so may be diving into its css and ripping it apart. Any suggestions?

Spent the weekend in Ely, up by the Canadian border in Northern Minnesota. I was the “prom photographer” for the Mukluk Ball – buy prints from the event at my PhotoWorks Storefront if you were there! The day after I spent half an hour (far too little time, but people were waiting for me…) photographing wolves at the International Wolf Center. The one in this picture is a yearling pup that was enjoying the sun a great deal! It kept rolling over and putting its legs up in the air to sun its belly.

My favorite photo from the day is this next one, of the alpha wolf, Shadow, walking past the den with a big chunk of deer spine in his mouth. However, I’m not sure that my viewers want something that bloody on the front page so I’m including it lower down here… (more…)

Szilvia

Fashion shoot with Szilvia

Small gallery from my fashion/ lingerie shoot with my Hungarian friend Szilvia. She’s studying photography, but I’ve got to say she did awfully well in front of the lens. Unfortunately she doesn’t want me posting the more risque photos but we got some good fashion shots (and some of them were good, but as much as I’d like to show off…). I really like how controlled the colors are – a limited but dramatic palette.

Working on the River

Two boys work on a dredging boat in the Danube Delta, Romania

Some boys working on a dredging boat in the Danube Delta, Romania. Dredging is highly disruptive of the fragile delta environment, but I love the timelessness of this photo – people have always worked on rivers, often starting very young. The boys could as easily have been working on the Mississippi as on the Danube.

Lilly

Lilly, an Estonian model working in Berlin

I’ve been doing some more work with models recently, mainly a lovely Estonian girl named Lilly. Unfortunately, I seemed to have forgotten all my (meagre) Estonian except for “Saku Tume, palun”, which is how one orders a dark Saku brand beer. Delicious stuff. I’m not sure if it’s really that good, actually, or only that good in comparision to Russia’s dark beers – Baltica Six is the only drinkable one, in my opinion, and I was pretty sick of that by the time I left…

Anyway, Lilly’s been lovely to work with, and some of these shots just smolder. I’m thinking they’d work well for book covers on romance or vampire novels (funny how much overlap there is there, isn’t it?). Anyway, the gallery is a mix of quite a few different styles as we were working on a portfolio for her and that requires a model to show off her range. Take a look and enjoy.

Piata Universitatii

Piata Universitatii, Bucharest

I have my first photos from Bucharest up now… honestly didn’t take that many pictures in the capital; it’s the sort of place that walking alone with a DSLR doesn’t seem like the best of ideas. That said, the town has a crumbling elegance that was very graceful. Every corner held promises of strangeness and wonders – they used to call Bucharest the Paris of the East, though it made me think more of photos I’ve seen of Havana. Certainly the heat bore more relation to a tropical island than mainland Europe!

Sighisoara Clock Tower

Medieval Gate and Clock Tower in Sighisoara, Romania

Just got back from a trip to beautiful Romania. I shot over 4,000 pictures on a 10 day trip and have a lot of editing ahead of me now! Managed to see a little of Bucharest, Transylvania, the Danube Delta, and the Machin Munti National Park, and overall had a very satisfying bit of travel.