Category Archives: photo

On camera with E



Originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

Just returned from the opening ceremony where E’s art is featured front & center. Her official duties for the day included a press conference and a ribbon cutting ceremony. Such a popular girl!

E handled all the attention with aplomb. She’s now a pro at public relations. 🙂

Click on the picture above to see more pics from the day’s events….

memory lane

It’s weird to stumble across a picture of my high school self on the Internet.

In 1988 I attended a journalism summer camp at CalPoly, sponsored by the LA Times. The photo they took of me and my cohort that year is on their website. I remember that camp well, and the little portable manual typewriter that I used in my workshop classes….

[Do you see me in the picture? Hint: I’m on the end of a row]

Thanks to my bro chudacek for sending this link to the pictures of our 2000 trip to England and The Isle of Man.

A church in the heart of the town of Peel, IOM, where only a few of the walls remain. Where some of my ancestors were married: (I’m the blur in the middle of the pic wearing a grey raincoat). They’ve taken the headstones from the church cemetray and paved the park with them. Lovely, but a bit irreverent-feeling to be walking all over the headstones, IMO.

A steam train. The IOM is a haven of antique trains. On this teeny island you can ride this steam train to all the major cities. There is also a quaint electric train running the length of the island. The e-train has open air cars and is reminiscent of the streetcar in Mister Rogers show. There’s also a horse-drawn tram available for those who like their tracks to run slow…

gardenlust


garden rose
Originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

Picked this rose in my garden this afternoon–from an abandoned bush that I rescued and watered all winter. What a lovely fiery red!!
It was perfect gardening weather today. We wore shorts and pulled weeds. The earth was perfectly soft from the recent rains, so it was easy work. Now that I got a little dirt under my nails I am eager to get back in and finish the huge job of weeding (we had unbelievable growth from the recent rains!)…

campin’


rocks
Originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

E&C went camping with Suz&Chris this weekend. They had a great time playing with fire, eating marshmallows, and piling up rocks.

They came home smelling like hot dogs and dirt, with only a few ember holes in their clothes.

Click on the picture above to see more photos of their camping adventures.

profile


me, March 2006
Originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

I think the prettiest part of me is my neck and shoulders. I’m not sure why I feel that way, but it might be that 19th-century girl inside of me that is attracted to the romantic cameo-style cutouts of that era.

It’s funny, though, that I had forgotten I had dark brown scars across the back of my shoulders. Because I never see them [they aren’t showing in this particular pic, but are in some of the others that john took]. It was deja-vu-ish to look at them in a picture after so many years of forgetting. The scars are from a particularly nightmarish bout with morphine–a drug I was given to ease the pain after my amputation. For some reason one day I “wigged out” and started clawing at my own shoulders, leaving deep welts where my fingernails cut the skin. The cuts never healed well because I was on chemo at the time and all the new cells in my body–even those that were ‘good’ cells–were killed. Thus, the scars are still there.

My body tells so many stories–mostly sad ones, I think. Almost every part of me bears a scar from some kind of medical procedure. But, despite that I do love my body. It’s soft and warm. It’s very strong. When I am stressed out, the smell of my own skin calms me.

So John took this pic yesterday. I always feel I can trust him and the camera. He makes me look like I feel.

I tweaked this picture (and a few others)in photoshop–mostly just softening the background. I want to learn how to manipulate images better–to add artistic effects and fix errors. It’s not an intuitive process for me. I get so frustrated when I can’t figure out the ‘layers’ or the tools don’t work the way I want them to.

But John is a patient teacher. 🙂