More Hwimzee

Another image post, and word of the day. 

NB: Now actually a rant and image post because the word of the day did not go as smoothly as one would have hoped. 

whim⋅sy

  [hwim-zee, wim-] 

–noun, plural -sies.

1.	capricious humor or disposition; extravagant, fanciful, or excessively playful expression: a play with lots of whimsy.

2.	an odd or fanciful notion.

3.	anything odd or fanciful; a product of playful or capricious fancy: a whimsy from an otherwise thoughtful writer.

Let's talk about this definition for one second. 

Putting aside for the moment that the 'h' is in fact silent and so if you go around pronouncing it 'hwimzee' you are going to sound Victor Krum inarticulately lusting after Hermione, I have some serious problems with this definition.

Firstly, and indeed lastly, it is flat out wrong. That is not what whimsy means. Odd or fanciful? Excessively playful? Extravagant? I suspect capricious is meant badly as well, as the dictionary says it means 'erratic'. Why this attack on whimsy at a time when we need more whimsy?

This place in history is whimsy starved. In the evening, just after the sun sets, strange thoughts come into our heads, and, afraid, we think of other things like schedules and lists. Sometimes in the witching hour we awake - not often, perhaps just a handful of times in a lifetime - and think of a different world and believe, in that dark hour before dawn, that we could make it so. This is whimsy. 

I also have to take issue with whimsy being diametrically opposed to thoughtfulness in the not-very-helpful example sentence. Maybe to dictionary writers who wear bow ties and whose skin is the same grey colour as their hair, whimsy cannot co-exist with thoughtfulness, but for the rest of us, it can and it should. 

This, my friends, is whimsy - Nightingale.

So fuck off, dictionary, Keats and I think you are a loser.

A secret you and me house

A tree house, a free house,

A secret you and me house,

A high up in the leafy branches

Cozy as can be house.

A street house,

Be sure and wipe your feet house

Is not my kind of house at all -

Let's go live in a tree house.

- Shel Silverstein

In winter I went on a holiday to a treehouse. I've always been a tree lover, so it was a dream come true. Everywhere is lovely wood, with driftwood art installations and sketches from the artist who used to live there. The house is built on stilts on the top of the highest cliff in the area. The balcony is in the treetops, and the backyard is a national park. I'm hoping to go back this summer, because apparently you can sleep out on the balcony then, and look at the stars. 

Courts of the Sun

Got distracted by the rooftops in these photos by Meisel taken in 2000. Very distracted. My taste in interior design fluctuates between natural minimalism (modernist decor, natural accents like stone and wood) and balls out crazy antique-gatherer-sparkles-collector-intricacy. Obviously the former would be more livable but then a see a house like the one in this shoot and think that that is so much more of a home than most homes I've been in. Though form the other photos in the shoot, I suspect it is a temple or a spiritual retreat in Asia somewhere. 

Just imagine what the sparkled/mirrored room would be like at night, with candles. 

Weekender

It was the Aphelion on the weekend, when the earth is farthest from the sun. That isn't supposed to affect the temperature, but I would happily argue with that. Traipsed around lovely Sydney trying to get warm, failed. Bought 2m of blue velvet ribbon because I felt like it. Took photos of birds and planes and the sun, which is 3% smaller than it will be at the Perihelion, in 6 months time, when it is closest to the earth.

Poladroid

Definitely skip this post if you already know all about Poladroid. 

If you don't, let me explain...

It is an application that lets you develop your own polaroids. You can't do them in bulk - each photo must be put into the camera individually. After a moment, the camera spits out the polaroid and you can watch it slowly develop on your desktop. You can also shake it around to make it dry faster. If you put the same photo in 3 times it may come out 3 very different ways. Just like a real polaroid...only not costing you a fortune. 

It's a wonderful time waster because as you waste time, you are actually creating something beautiful. 

Poladroid can be downloaded from here and installed in a matter of seconds. 

It is sort of sad that the iconic Polaroid camera has been reduced to a computer application. You could argue that because you don't end up with a lovely instant photo in your hands, the Poladroid camera is just contributing to the death of film. But if anything, this application has made me more appreciative of the Polaroid camera and if I see one for sale I will certainly try and buy one.

I was on a shoot last week where the photographer told me that these days when she tells clients that they will receive the proofs in a week or so, the clients don't understand why they have to wait a week, and sometimes don't know what proofs are. To clarify, proofs are sheets with test prints of the photos in small sizes. The client will usually go through and select which ones to use, and these are printed out in a high resolution and large size, or, these days, scanned to file.