Author: Rebecca

Give Me the Wine and No One Gets Hurt

I went to the grocery store yesterday to pick up a few things for lunch. I was running low on bread and cashew butter and I’d been eating PB&J (well, CB&J) sandwiches all week. I’d also been having CB&J toast in the mornings. It’s one of my comfort foods and frankly, I think we all need some comfort food right now.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that there was no bread. I headed to the pasta aisle thinking if I couldn’t have my CB&J, I’d settle for my other favorite – mac & cheese. I wasn’t too excited because I was at Whole Foods and Whole Foods would NEVER carry my beloved Kraft Mac & Cheese. I’d have to get their organic, non-GMO, quinoa super special mac and cheese (blah, but beggars can’t be choosers). But there wasn’t any of that either. In fact, there was no pasta at all. The shelves were completely bare.

I started going up and down each aisle, curious to see what else the store was out of. It would have been easier to make a list of what was left.

I left the store a little annoyed, but not worried or panicked. I figured that I’d just make my own bread. Thank God I learned how to make it years ago when I went through that phase of not eating food with preservatives (I know, I kinda want to punch old me t00).

Tonight I went to the Jewel after work to pick up whole wheat flour and brown sugar so I could make bread this weekend. This time I was dismayed to find that there was no flour or sugar of any kind. NONE. Again, I went up and down the aisles out of morbid curiosity. The store didn’t have ANY basics – no eggs, milk, flour, yeast (YEAST! When was the last time a grocery store sold out of yeast?!), sugar, bread, dried beans, rice, pasta, pasta sauce, canned goods like veggies and beans, (although they did have a few cans of stewed tomatoes, which validates my opinion that stewed tomatoes are disgusting), butter, etc. There were no frozen pizzas, frozen vegetables, or TV dinners.

Since I couldn’t buy basic food, I bought ALLLLL the wine and the weird snacks that no one else wants. So really, I think I’m the winner here.

These aren’t half bad. They were the only thing left in the snack aisle.

Tell me how you’re handling the pandemic. Are there food shortages? Are you drinking wine for breakfast? Do you have toilet paper or have you resorted to using paper towels?

Cheers,
Bec

P.S. Randy bought a bidet because there’s no toilet paper in Chicago. I don’t know why, but this makes me laugh. I have a feeling he’s going to have the last laugh on this one though…..

WFH

I’ve started and abandoned several posts about what’s going on in the world right now, but I’m struggling with making sense of everything. Sometimes things seem normal and at other times things seem so completely surreal.

Right now the biggest change for me is that I have to work from home so I have a new coworker. She’s super chatty and doesn’t take the hint that I don’t have time to socialize.

I apologize to my coworkers and clients for my delayed response. As you can see, I was indisposed.

I can’t really reach my computer, but as long as she’s comfortable…..
She doesn’t get cuter than this.
She wants to be held, but I need to work.
If my hand isn’t being used to pet her, its being used as pillow.
Did you need something?

Tell me about your most annoying co-worker.

Atget and Walker and Me. Oh My!

Have you ever considered who or what influences you? I hadn’t really considered who influenced by photography until I watched a lecture given by John Szarkowski (the former director of photography at MoMA) on Eugene Atget (available on Amazon Prime!). Szarkowski started comparing putting photos by Atget and Evans side by side to demonstrate the influence Atget had on Evans’ work.

There was one pair that struck me – they seemed familiar to me, but I hadn’t seen either of them before. But then I realized I had taken a similar picture!

The first two pictures below are pictures that Szarkowsi had paired together. The third is one I took (obviously) when I first moved into my condo. I don’t recall what caused me take the picture at the time but I have a series of photographs of my bed that I took that day.

Image result for atget bed
Jean Atget
Image result for Walker Evans Bed
Walker Evans
Yours Truly

I’m definitely no Eugene Atget or Walker Evans, but it’s exciting to know that I’m apparently learning something from them.

P.S. I promise I make my bed on the mornings that cats aren’t in it.

A-Side/B-Side

A few weeks ago, on bitterly cold Sunday, Randy and I met for brunch and then ventured downtown to view the Andy Warhol exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago. I have a teeny tiny confession to make. I’m not a fan of Andy Warhol. I agreed to go because there was a Dorothea Lange exhibit that I wanted to see.

After several hours roaming the museum and one alarm later (we’re not sure which one of us set it off – I say it was him, he says it was me), we were winding our way through the maze of exhibit halls looking for the exit when I happened to look out a window and see some train tracks. It was arresting to be walking through halls filled with beautiful art and then looking out to see an ugly, dirty snarl of train tracks and cables. I took a picture.

After roaming the museum for several hours, we decided to meet a friend for pizza and beer before heading home for the day. Since the pizza place was a short distance away, we decided to brave the frigid weather and walk. As we turned left out of the museum and walked across the bridge, I again saw the train tracks I had taken a picture of earlier from the museum. They looked even more unsightly from this side. I took another picture.

A few days later I was sitting in my office watching a one of my online photography classes during my lunch break. The lesson covered color photography vs. black and white photography. I immediately thought of these photos. Curious and eager to put my lesson into action, I made these photos in black and white.

I don’t like, what I’ve dubbed the A-Side photo (above) in black and white as much as I do in color. I really like the color quality in the original photo. It feels retro to me, as if it were taken in the 70’s or 80’s. The blue of the sky against the white buildings highlights their shapes. Without that color, the photo feels flat and boring.

In contrast, I think the B-Side photo (below) is more striking in black and white. The geometric shapes of the tracks and buildings standout more in black and white.

What do you think? Do you prefer color or black and white?

Elliot

Look at this weirdo. Since the day I moved into my condo nearly a year ago, he’s made his home on top of the fridge. Lately, he’s taken to wedging himself between the coffee maker and the knives. This is why I don’t cook for guests. They’d get a side of cat hair with their eggs.

Happy New Year!

Can you believe it’s the start of a new decade? I rang in the new year with the people I love most in this world (outside of my family, of course). We realized last night that we all rang in the last decade together back in to 2009 so our celebration last night seemed extra special.

I started this blog/website a year ago as a way to explore photography and become a better photographer. While I didn’t keep up with my photography as much as I would have liked, I managed to learn a couple things over the year:

First, taking pictures of people is more rewarding to me than photographing landscapes and objects. I particularly like taking photographs at parties. It’s so fun to go through and edit the photos afterwards.

Second, not every photograph is going to be a masterpiece. A photograph might not even make sense to another person and that’s okay. No one sees the world in the same way. My photography reflects the way I see the world.

I’m looking forward to continuing my photography in 2020. While I don’t have any set resolutions, I do have a couple of areas I’d like to work on this year. Mainly photographing groups of people and experimenting more in the editing process.

I’m so grateful for your support and interest in my little hobby. Cheers to a new year and new decade!

xoxo,
Bec

Dimitri Aleksander Romanov (aka Solomon Ferguson Firestone aka Oscar)

I read a lot of interior design blogs/websites to get inspiration for my own home.  I have been visiting one of my favorite websites, Apartment Therapy, for close to 20 years.  The site features pictures of people’s homes and interviews the individuals about the inspiration behind their design choices and as well as lists their sources for furniture, textiles and décor. Inevitably, these homes have some quirky (i.e., ugly) piece of art that the owner picked up at a thrift store or flea market.  I was always curious as to why someone would spend money on something that seemingly isn’t very beautiful and then display such an oddity in their home.  I was finally enlightened this past weekend.

Meet Dimitri Aleksander Romanov.  I bought him at the Randolph Street Market on Sunday.  A few friends and I went to brunch and then wandered over to the market for some vintage shopping.  

To Randy’s dismay, I fell in love with this piece immediately and he couldn’t talk me out of buying it.  The nicest thing he could bring himself to say about it was that he loves that I love it. For some reason that grudging statement that makes me laugh. 

In the end, Randy was a great sport about my newest acquisition.  He even carried it from the market to the pub where we ate dinner. On our walk there, he made up stories about the artwork which had all of us in fits of laughter.  At first we just called the cat Oscar because he looks so grumpy, but then we decided that if someone had their cat’s likeness etched in marble, he was probably a very important cat from a very important family and would definitely have more than one name – so we called him Solomon Ferguson Firestone.  Then for some reason that I can’t remember, we thought he was Russian so we finally settled on Dimitri Aleksander Romanov.  

We of course had to set the picture up at the end of table during dinner.  I’m happy to report that Dimitri garnered quite a bit of attention. We had several women (presumably fellow cat ladies) come over to our table to admire him.  One even tried to buy it from me for considerably more than I paid for it, but no way was I going to let go of my prized artwork.  

So now, like those featured on Apartment Therapy, I am the proud owner of ugly art, and I adore it.  He hangs in my entryway where I can say good bye to him along with Rose and Elliot when I leave for work and greet him as I do the others when I get home. This ugly piece of art will forever remind me of a wonderfully gloomy Sunday when my friends and I drank a little too much at brunch, wandered around an outdoor market looking at old stuff and laughing all afternoon.  And that is what makes this ugly art beautiful to me.  

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

I think this Mother Goose nursery rhyme was about Mother Nature for she has been quite contrary this summer. I spent all winter and spring dreaming of lazy weekend mornings on my deck drinking my coffee and reading. So far this summer I’ve been able to do so only twice thanks to Mary and her never ending rainy weekends.

Not only has the rainy weather kept me from my lazy weekend mornings on my deck, but it’s also kept me from going to the lake for a sunrise. On a clear day, I don’t think there is anything more beautiful or peaceful than seeing the sunrise over Lake Michigan.

For the past few weekends I’ve been trying to make it to the lake for the sunrise only to be thwarted by cloudy, drizzly weather. Last weekend I decided that if I couldn’t see the sunrise, I could at least get out during the Golden Hour and maybe get a nice photo or two. After walking around for a couple of hours and not seeing anything that spoke to me, I headed home dejected and uninspired. And then, just as I was standing on a street corner about a block from my home I looked up and saw the sky painted in such beautiful colors that it almost didn’t seem real.

I chased the sunset for a couple more blocks hoping to get a few more photos, but by the time I reached the second block the light was gone. In the span of 5 or 6 minutes, the sunset had faded to dusk and I thought about how much change happens in mere minutes.

RIP, Robert Frank

I was saddened to read about Robert Frank’s death in the New York Times yesterday.

There have been several articles about him in the New York Times over the past couple of days. You’ll need a dictionary and art degree to understand most of what’s written, but there was one word that I did understand without any help from Merriam-Webster. Influential.

He (along with Vivian Maier) has probably influenced my view and appreciation of photography the most. Before seeing his photographs, I thought of photography as perfectly composed and exposed pictures. Something pretty to hang on the wall. But his work in The Americans is sometimes blurry and cockeyed, sometimes grainy, and sometimes I’m not even sure what I’m supposed to be looking at. But throughout the whole book I feel like a voyeur peeping in the windows of a funeral or watching people eat a deli counter from front window, maybe even eavesdropping on a conversation at a table behind me in a restaurant. I find his work and the feelings they invoke infinitely more interesting than a perfectly composed landscape.

Please forgive the poor quality of the following photographs. I took pictures of the pictures in the book, The Americans. I probably could have found images on the internet to use, but given the industry I work in I’m a little paranoid about infringing on copyrights. Though I’m not sure that using a picture of the picture is any better.

The above photo is one of my favorites of Robert Frank’s. There’s so much detail. You can see an empty barbershop in his reflection in the window as well as the reflection of the street behind him. You see the texture of the screen over the reflection. The photo feels peaceful to me, like he took it on a Sunday morning walk around town. I wonder what made him stop to take this picture. Are there any other chairs in the shop or just the one?

This photo makes me laugh. There is something so strange about having a shoe shine stand in a men’s bathroom. That poor shoe shiner – does he have to sit in the bathroom all day? Or does he sit outside the bathroom and follow men in(also creepy) hoping they’ll want their shoes shined after they’ve dribbled on them? Which would be worse? I don’t think I would even have the guts to even take a picture in a restroom.

Is anyone else influenced by Robert Frank? Which of his photos are your favorite?