Reflected Love

Me: "Close your eyes, think about a picture of mine and tell me which is".
M1L: "The one with the rose that seems lit from inside"

Me: "Why?"
M1L: "I love the strange light there".

This is a part of a conversation about pictures I had with my boyfriend, few minutes before he left to go to sleep.
I wanted a picture to dedicate to him for a post. Tomorrow he will have the spoken part of a test to start the PhD in Nuclear Physics, that he, hopefully, will get in 3 or 4 years.

I am glad he chosen this picture. I like the light effect too and today I like it more because it made me realize that Beauty in things is like a light, that seems to be coming from inside but instead it is just a reflected light.
For this reason, probably, even such a "common" thing alike a little rose I have seen growing up year by year, can became something of amazing... something that I will probably we'll ever get bored to look at.
I think that by instinct everyone of us look for this "reflected Eternal Beauty"... we have just to look at things and let this Beauty feels our hearts.

Thinking about this picture another idea came up to my mind... an idea that probably "solved" a "problem" I have been thinking about for years: "What makes so special the person we love and we see everyday. Why are we so amazed in seeing their friendly faces that we already know very well? Why don't we get ever bored by them?"
I think that such an amazing love or friendship came when both side open their heart and let that Beauty, that Eternal Love, fill their souls... so everyone we love is a source of "that reflected Love", and we can be such a source for them as well... and, by the nature of that Beauty, we will never get bored even of the people we know through and through.

My dear, it is one of the most important reason that make me look forward to see you again, to hug you again.
And I hope we will be able to celebrate a good result in the spoken test your going to have in few hours.

You are doing a great work for both of us.

Please, pray for us too!

The sun shines less, it's getting cold outside, but...

It’s probably me unable to do it, but I don’t use to take pictures in this period of the year because it’s often cloudy (so no good lights) and it’s wind.

The period I prefer is spring-summer when the sun often shines and this allow me to take colorful pictures alike this one:

I took this picture the 15th April 2008, that day it was warm outside and the and the shining sun helped me a lot taking this picture.
The flower in the picture is a Passiflora (Passion flower), it’s among my favorite ones.

By the way, when I bought this plant (in March) the information I read about this said that it used to bloom only in a period of the year alike “late spring” or “summer” according to the plant… if it works really this way my plant isn’t well informed! It has been blooming from April with almost no rest. ;)

Yep, Thursday had been a great day, full of new events: joining SOL group and finding a lot of wonderful people, my boyfriend did an important test and I had also the chance to see such an unusual but amazing event that made my day looking nicer, a lot nicer.

So… even if I was tired, I was in a hurry and outside it was windy and cloudy I wanted to try try to take a picture to the brave (or reckless?) flower that bloomed on Wednesday (I think) and was going to close… fortunately mom showed me in time!

This isn’t surely alike the picture I took on April, colors aren’t vivid, I couldn’t play with camera settings to get the black background (this was due to the flower position too) but I think that, despite all, I am satisfied by this picture.
I think it’s AMAZING that a flower blooms in the period when the whole nature is going to sleep for some months, don’t you?
I hope that this won’t kill the plant, though! Outside it is getting colder!

Well… that day someone probably didn’t enjoy my presence on the balcony:

Here you are who was observing me, standing on the gate of the balcony of the apartment that is above mine, I guess they were waiting me to go in order reach the little dish where we leave some food for them.

As soon as I noticed them I wondered if they were thinking something such as: “This one has to annoy just at lunch time?”

Overcoming (little) pain

Problems, pains and a lot of things can make life so awful that it seems almost no worth to live... but we have to go ahead and with time we learn that we have to deal with this negative aspects and most of the times we cannot overcome problems without the proper support.
This support can come from friends or relatives or "something else" that everyone reaches walking along his/her own way... one of these ways, in my case, is photography.

Taking pictures, in my case, is not only a way to appreciate that world beauty I wouldn't notice otherwise, it's also trough this "hobby" I can find a way to stand little problems alike pain, that famous "leg pain" that bothers me since I was 15 years old. It isn't a big deal but it can be really annoying because sometimes I am slowed down by pain and it makes me complain a lot (Well... I am also really good at complain).

How can taking picture be a way to accept pain?
JUST... I have noticed that if I have to suffer "leg pain" started with no reasons seems like the biggest problem in my life, whereas, it is much easier to overcome if I decide to try to ignore it in order to take a picture! (Not always, but most of the time it works this way).
In the same way, I usually don't complain if I start feeling pain because I had to adopt weird stances to shot pictures. I behave this way not because I have a "bad conscience" (I usually mock myself to have been clumsy) but because I have learn that this a little price I have to pay to have had the chance to "pin" in a picture a small but amazing part of that Eternal Beauty that created everything that surround us.

Looks like that passion for photography and the conscience that trough it I can appreciate at least part of that Beauty, can work as a perfect painkiller! ;)

To take pictures I squatted down in front of this dragonfly for several minutes, my legs didn't enjoy it, but I guess it was worth.

No words

I don't know what to say, but these words might be the proper ones.

Half a second

Even half a sec can be a really long time for a lot of reasons, not necessarily for bad reasons. This time lapse can seem too long if you have to "take a picture"...

Suppose you must stay, in an uncomfortable position for *only* 0.5 second and you must be "steady" if you don't want a blurred picture.
Suppose that the place where you want to be steady is a rock, and that your shoes are slippery.
Now suppose your crazy enough to be leaning over what is below the rock you are on, because what you want to be the subject of your picture is down there!

I can assure you, even half of a second in this situation is long enough to be an obstacle for your intentions!

I don't know if it was love for taking pictures, if it was the tendency to always try to surpass yourself or the typical teenager craziness but I didn't give up in that "dangerous" situation.

The rock and my shoes were slippery, my classmate wanted to go away but I felt I had to lean over that little water fall and to try the "just discovered" new technique with that subject!
I looked around me and tried to find a position that allowed me to take that picture but saved me from falling off the rock.

A tree branch above me was exactly what I was looking for, indeed it, as an arm of a giant, allowed me to stay enough steady and partially suspended over that little waterfall and this is how I had the chance to shot this picture!

This picture probably will never win a first prize in an international photography contest but to take it I won my fear, I improved my photographic skills and I came back home really happy that day!.

Well, taking picture in the oddest positions has it's cost:pain.

But, believe me, this kind of pain is never annoying for me!

I will talk about it tomorrow.

Not in the mood, sorry.

[...]
"Never fool myself that my dreams will come true
being use to trouble I anticipate it
but all the same I hate it, wouldn't you?"
[...]

The last 2 lines are perfect to describe my status today, the first one might be perfect to describe my status in a month or so... once again.

Hope I am wrong.

I wanted to write a post about a picture I shot in May 2006, but I am not in the mood today.

Sorry.

Nostalgia is... missing the chance to take pictures.

In these days I have been sick, so I didn't go out, I missed almost a week of lectures and I didn't go to the Mass too. I did nothing of what I usually do.
Despite this "bad" situation, something nice happened: I had the chance to talk more with my friends, and to discover new-old ones and this made me turn back into a positive mood.

This positive mood makes me willing again to do thing alike going out to take pictures!
Alas! In the next months I have to study a lot so I won't be going out for a very long while and this makes me feeling a big sweet nostalgia for shooting.... but I am happy!
Why happy? It's a long story, just know that for a while I did want to do NOTHING, absolutely nothing, and I reached the pretty annoying (or worrying for friend) point that I didn't want to care about my passions too...

Everything is fine now, so... I am going to show you one my last work... hum, these words make the picture seeming an important one and it isn't... but I cannot think of other ways to express the concept that "this the last picture I shot".

I took this picture at my country house on 19th October 2008. It was a really cloudy day so light wasn't the best one and everything looked monochromatic, all the same... but I knew it must have been something of interesting so I forced my eyes to find something that was nice, and after few minutes I found this grapes.
I took some pictures at the standing grapes, later my mother asked me if she could picked the and I said to her smiling: "Only if you allow me taking the pictures to you while you are picking them!"... she agreed of course and here your are the result!

Yeah, those are my mother's hands, aren't them amazing too?! :)

Later I have been able to fin a couple of interesting things... I may post these pictures in the next days.

Today I just wanted to show you one of the reasons that make me love (and miss) "photography" so much: the fact that this is a way to force yourself to "look for beauty" and "to not just stop at a the first impression of the reality you have".

Wouldn't you miss such a joy too?

Nostalgia is... missing a friend

"I don't want him for other four years!" or something similar said Randy when Bush won for the second time the election to be USA president.
I remember I tired to make Randy smile and show him that 4 years are not the eternity, that they will pass and he won't Bush won't be the president any longer.. I think that as always happened with him that frustrated conversation changed into a fun one and every sad thought disappeared, from our minds, for a little while.

I guess it's normal I have been thinking about him a lot in these days.
I found me thinking things like: "somehow those 4 years really meant the eternity for Randy"; or yesterday I was thinking: "I am sure he knows who is going to win and he is probably laughing at the idea we don't know"; and today I am thinking "I would like to know what he would have said about these election. I would like to know who he would have voted for... probably Obama?!".

Yeah, I am missing a lot our fun chats!

About a dream, about an hope.

The dream

Who knows me knows also that I dream a lot and one of my biggest dream is to go, at least for a travel, in the USA.
I have had this (not that) secret wish surely since I was 9... probably even since I was 6, indeed, few months ago I discovered that, on a side of a table that was in my room, there is a label where I wrote my name and my surname and "New York". This label reminded me that I liked the idea to be visiting at least that city since I was 6 or so.

I guess that now I don't know exactly which is the FIRST thing that made me having this wish but I can say that the reasons to go there changed with the passing of years.
For example, in the last 4 years the reason that makes me keep on with this dream is the desire to go for a visit and an hug, at least once in my life, those American friends I talk with almost every day.

The hope

Now ...Americans are voting. And I am curious to know what is going on... but at the moment the only thing I understood is that journalist, politicians and writers are fully expressing their endless ability to keep talking for HOURS about something they don't know! It will take a lot of hours till will be clear who is the 44th USA president. It's a little irritating, so I decided to turn off television, and going to sleep but...

But, before closing this day I wanted to express my hope about what is going on.
I cannot express my opinion because I know pretty few about politics, I let you figure out what I know about USA one... but I think you don't have to be an expert to understand that this an important day for USA and world future.
So, even if I don't know who is the best one between Obama and McCain, I HOPE that will win the "less dangerous" one! :) I hope this because USA is too powerful and its government behavior can influence world history a lot.

Really, may God bless American and suggests to American citizen and politicians the best behavior.

May the whole world moves, with the help of God, toward the proper direction.

Against Darkness

It was a Monday in late November. You had come to the university even if you hadn’t to. You wanted to spend lunch time with me because you knew I would have been alone, you knew I needed you.

In those days, too, I used to go to the university with my digital SLR camera because I wanted to catch something for a university photographic contest.

That Monday, after lunch, we had a free hour or so before I had to go to the laboratory for a couple of hours and you offered to be the subject for a picture.
I have spent one of the most amazing hours in my life, I was spending time with you, I was taking picture and you were a perfect model! You did everything I said you to do… “Go there”, “look on the right, not that much”, “now look toward me”, “no, no, no, turn on the page too, don’t be so steady!”.

Here the best picture I shot that Monday…

It’s among the best pictures I ever shot. This picture means a lot for me.
There is you, the person I love since March 2007 [well...that's the "official" date but... :)].
This is the final result of a series of tests I did to learn a new photography technique.
This is also a post-it of a great lesson I should never forget: “Love taking picture, love what you are taking picture at”. I realized this rule only after few months when I understood that one of the common elements of each picture I am “proud” of is the mood I was when I shot that picture: being glad. Yeah, usually I take pictures I like only when I really love the reality that is surrounding me at that moment, when I am glad to have had the chance to see that beautiful aspect of this world.
And in that Monday it was you, holding the “Bible” for physicist that study matter and listening to my “orders” and doing something you had never done but seemed so “natural” for you.

You know that this picture is also shown in an article written on another blog about photography, and thanks to this article I had found at least 3 new friends.

I didn’t win that contest but you are beside me, I have learnt a new technique and probably one of the “golden rules” to take pictures and I had met new friends.

I think I have received from that hour of “work” not what I wanted but much more than I expected! :)

P.S. My flu and some annoying people tried to ruin this 3rd November, but we won't let them down us ;)

Cold and cool!

What have I been doing in these last days?
A lot of tiring things, the main one is lying on my bed. Don't you think it's tiring?!
It is when you have high temperature, you have to blow your nose, and later when temperature goes down and you think "I am going to get well" you start coughing every 4 seconds...and you feel like you have to do your best to keep your lungs inside your chest... but, it's getting a little too macabre!

Maybe it's better if I talk about another (pleasantly) tiring aspect of my life: Friends! ;)
Why tiring? Because when I just want to be LAZY they call me back to "active" life!.
Yep, I have really amazing friends that are extremely bothering: they made me keep doing "something" even in these days!
This mean that in these days, when I hadn't a too high temperature, I have been trying to do thing using my iMac.
I have to admit that this attempt has been productive (or harmful?) because I STARTED to work on the Italian version of this blog, just to make happy Italian web surfer. (But the Italian blog is NOT opened yet, I have to complete some works!)

I had also discovered new realities and even a new aspect in my behavior: the ability to keep calm.
It has been strange but in these last days I have been able to keep calm in front of problems that few days ago would have made me really furious or sad. Problems alike illness, annoying people, bad events in general (like the last chaotic days at the university) seemed less difficult to be solved.
I wish this "coolness" it is not due to my cold only!
I hope I can keep improving the ability to not get angry too easily and to do my best to avoid any arguments and so on...

I am glad I can say or, at least I HOPE I can say that in these days I had the luck to see another good, but apparently, hidden aspect of my life... despite all the bad events where surrounding me.

Thanks to my friends and to my Love for being so supportive (and patient of course) :).

P.S. Well... looks like I am still really good at being delirious even if I have a normal temperature!
Sorry! :D