I’ve got nothing much new to say, so I’ll share an old poem instead. This is one of several atomic bomb poems I wrote many years ago after my father-in-law told me stories about them (he did three tours in Korea, and before he was shipped overseas to fight he was dropped off in Nevada where the US government was testing atomic bombs by dropping them on soldiers to measure the effects on humans, among other things). His stories got me interested in all these atomic bomb tests carried out in the 1950’s and early 60’s; this particular poem was based on an eyewitness account I found online of the very first bomb drop ever conducted on American soil. It was written by one of the two men who’d been stationed out in an old shack in the middle of the desert, and it described them sitting outside at night watching the plane inch closer that would drop the bomb right on top of them – no one knew what was going to happen, and they didn’t know what to do except sit there and wait.
Frenchman Flats, 1951
The desert floor is crumpled as an old photograph,
sand as cold as fisheyes. Joshua trees surrender
like enemies in the distance. The coyotes
are crying on cue, howling their presence to the moon,
the moon a zygote in the sky, an untreated wound.
They insist this moment matters, not the one
for which you wait, when the bomber banks right
and the world goes white. There’s a pulse
in the eastern sky – humming high over the horizon,
a heavy underbelly flashing red. Remember this.
After uploading the shots from Saturday’s session, I noticed a few of them looked a little blah. So even though it was way past my bedtime, I pulled them into Pixlr and gave them a go. I’ll share the originals here again even though they are already loaded into the previous post, so you can see what I did.
I may have overdone this first one, but on its own I found it lacking. It had that feeling of OK fine, but why am I looking at this? that I sometimes get when there isn’t enough visual punch to the photo. Original first:
Can you tell, by the way, that I was lying down?
There was a lot of empty space in the first pic, and I feel this makes better use of it. The texture also contributes to the feeling of movement, which is what I liked about the photo originally but wanted to enhance.
The second original:
Same comments as the first Pixlr edit, really. Better use of empty space and enhanced movement.
All in all, it’s funny how rushed and one-off this shoot was but how many shots I really liked from it. As Beth pointed out the other day, photography is therapy for me. I hadn’t consciously thought of it as such until she mentioned it, but it is lovely to have an activity that I know can brighten my mood when I get into a funk – and that it can be as simple as throwing on a wig and flinging it about for the camera. I will always prefer the photo sessions where I get to construct the elaborate makeup and costumery I love, but in a pinch, all I need is a wig and a camera. So this is not only photo therapy for me, it’s wig therapy! I don’t know why, but putting on that fake hair makes me feel transformed, and synthetic wigs, at least, move better in photos than real hair does – it’s plastic, after all, and it maintains its shape and style so well.
Since many of the shots from this quick set were rather plain, I ended up spending several hours Sunday pulling more of them into Pixlr and really messing around with them. The ones I worked with that day were all wearing a different wig, so I’ll share those in tomorrow’s post.
Just a few more from Sunday’s shoot that I’ve had time to process. As I mentioned earlier, I forgot to alter my lighting setup when I switched from portraits to full-length shots, so these suffered a little from that error. They weren’t nearly as crisp as I like them to be, and the light was blown out a little – so I used Pixlr to disguise these flaws a bit. Plus, I’m getting bored of the beige backdrop now – it wasn’t nearly as easy to transform into another color as I thought it would be, and was next to impossible to do in these full-length shots (you need a lot of contrast between the subject and the background – which is why people use greenscreens so often – and that mottled beige background did NOT contrast with what I was wearing at all) so without some Pixlr-ing they weren’t all that exciting to me. At first I wasn’t excited by them even after giving them the Pixlr treatment, but they’re starting to grow on me.
Can anyone spot the kitten in this photo? I purposely left him in the shot.
I always try to go easy with the Pixlr effects, because it’s a very popular free program and I don’t want my shots to scream that I used it. I don’t know why this matters to me; I guess I just want the edits to blend well into the shot and not have any one particular filter or effect stand out to people.
Clearly though, I like the scratchy textures Pixlr offers.
Love the movement of the skirt in this one.
I used some interesting overlays here – one was a space filter, and fire was another. I kept them subtle so you wouldn’t be able to recognize what they are; I think the end result looks rather ghostly.
I thought I’d show the evolution one of my photos from Sunday’s shoot went through, because I personally found the process interesting. This photo didn’t end up at all where I thought it would, but I do like the results.
When choosing which shots to process, I decided to play around with this one in spite of its flaws, because I found the pose and facial expression to be compelling (if it’s not snobby to say something like that about myself; I don’t consider me “me” when editing my shots anyway, I’m just the subject of them).
I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do anything with this because of the makeup problem here – it was not applied THAT badly, but at this point in the shoot it had gotten a bit smudged, and that combined with the lighting I was using accentuated it. In this shot, I wasn’t using the softbox I normally use for portraits, because I’d already taken it off the flash and wasn’t interested in putting it back on (this was taken right at the end of the shoot). Without the softbox, I get a much softer light on the face, which is a prettier effect for portraits, but it creates its own problems – especially on a middle-aged face. For example, when looking in the mirror I do not see dark circles or major wrinkles under my eyes, but with the external flash attached to my camera and bounced off the ceiling, they are definitely accentuated (the bounced flash also creates a lot of shadows on the face, which on one hand adds a lot of interest, but can also highlight wrinkles and flaws, unless you’re a spring chicken, which I am not). So, when I choose to use the bounced flash, I almost always end up needing to use Photoshop to get rid of things it accentuates that are not appealing. This is why I normally choose to go with the softbox, as it hits my face with a lot of light, which erases lines and shadows, but it’s filtered enough that I don’t get that awful “hey I used a flash in this shot” light blowout that occurs with an in-camera flash.
Bit of a digression here, but this example to compare the two. This first one is using the softbox on my external flash (I shared this shot yesterday as well):
The softbox allows me to aim the flash right at my face – great for eliminating those dark eye circles and other wrinkles, but it’s definitely a “look.” I consider it a high-fashion look, but that’s just my little name for it. While the softbox won’t create too many shadows on the face, it does create a lot of background shadows that are very sharp and dramatic, which can work well, but it isn’t always what I want.
Now here’s another shot from the same shoot, taken without a softbox and with the external flash bounced off the ceiling:
TOTALLY different look. The overall effect is softer and more dimensional, I think, than the one using the softbox – but I did have to do more editing to my face to get rid of the dark circles that magically appear when using this lighting.
Anyway, back to the original shot. The bounced flash created a bit of a mess around my eyes, so I managed to use PS to edit most of that out. The end result was this:
I also got rid of the freckles on my arms, I don’t care one whit about them in real life, but in photos I find them distracting.
Much better, but still a bit of a problem. I pulled the shot over into Snapseed and gave it a go; I was pretty sure I’d need to go black and white with it, since all that color around the eyes and the smudged makeup on the nose was going to be bitch to even out without it looking weird, but on its own the B&W wasn’t appealing to me – it still needed more oomph to work. So I ended up using a red B&W filter on it, which gave it a crazy glow, then added a “Grunge” filter with texture to give it an antique-y feel, and well, here’s the end result.
Now I really love it. I don’t think I’ve ever used a red B&W filter before as it makes everything overly bright and glowy, and I’ve never known what to do with that. But it worked here to eliminate the problems of the shot as well as contribute to the tense mood I felt the expression created. It looks nothing like the original, but it fixes the flaws of that one while really ‘coming into its own,’ so to speak.
I don’t think I’ll ever get bored with editing photos and playing around with filters. It’s the same freedom and magic to me that coloring held when I was a kid. Now if only I didn’t get so absorbed in it that the kitchen stays dirty for hours and I get to bed way too late. But one thing at a time, I reckon.
Got up about 7 AM Sunday morning, enjoyed a leisurely cup of tea, then got to work on taking photos with the pink Target wig my friend Chadwick sent me from Chicago. Setting up the studio took about 30 minutes, including breaking down the office and converting it into a studio space, then setting up the camera and lighting, then it took an hour so to apply the makeup. All in all, I was ready to shoot by 9:30 and completely done by 11:00 AM, which may be a new record for me. I’m sure the extra hour from ending daylight savings time helped (and am I the only one who does not get up in arms over the whole daylight savings thing? To me, it indicates the start of a new season, so I enjoy it both coming and going), plus I’m not including the reassembly of the office into all of this. I didn’t clean up until late afternoon as I immediately got absorbed in editing the shots, as I always do.
Overall I am pleased with this set. I really went on a marathon today trying to process as many shots as possible, but as usual I couldn’t get them all done. The portrait shots came out better than the jumping and movement ones, because I forgot to change the lighting setup when I switched from close-ups to full-body shots, and as a result the lighting is off on those (too bright and the focus isn’t very crisp). But when I spend as much time on the makeup as I did with this set, and the portraits don’t come out nicely, that’s a real pisser – so I’m happy enough to have gotten some great shots that accentuate the work I put into my face.
I’m going to share with you a little secret about posing for portraits that I picked up from an online member of a wig message board awhile back: before taking close-up shots with bright lighting like this, I shave my face. I do this because I have a lot of peach fuzz (getting more as I get older, too – thanks nature) and with the amount of bright light that I aim at my face, it all shows in close-ups. It’s always bugged me and I’ve done my best to edit it out, but when she mentioned the face-shaving thing I decided to try it, and I love the results. The woman who shared that she did this lives in Japan, where apparently this is a common practice for all women – peach fuzz apparently is a much bigger deal there than it is here, and is considered very unappealing. I got online and read up on the subject, and it turns out you can go to an aesthetician and pay a hundred bucks or more for a service called dermaplaning, which isn’t much more than a straight-edge razor shave. I use what’s called an eyebrow razor and my husband’s shaving cream, and do it myself (this actually is also great for shaping eyebrows, which is how it’s marketed). It makes the face smoother and the makeup blend and stay put – it looks so much better in photos and is actually the secret of many a supermodel. I don’t believe for a second that it makes the facial hair grow back any darker or more coarse, so no worries about it on my end (I’ve been shaving my little lady-mustache for years anyway; creams burn my skin and to go for waxing constantly is too much maintenance. Never had a problem with it). If you ever want to try it, don’t be afraid of those old wives’ tales about facial growing back darker if you shave it off. It’s baloney. And a good face shave is better than a scratchy old exfoliant anyway – that’s why men always look so fresh-faced after shaving. .
But enough about my face shaving:
Not totally pleased with this shot, but I edited it anyway because you can really see the eye makeup. My eyebrows have gotten sparse over the years, but they are still dark, so I actually used a long-wearing Lime Crime coral red lipstick called Suedeberry on them, then blended the pink eyeshadow into that. I got those false lashes on sale after Halloween at the grocery store, and as you can see they didn’t stay put too well. One of them is popping off there, but hopefully it’s not too noticeable. I can also see on my chin where either my skin was dry or my face powder wasn’t blended very well – that’s how harsh the lights I use can be. Makeup really does need to be flawless, because every little error will show. Not that anyone else would notice when looking at the photo. But I do.
A bit of a weird shot, but I couldn’t resist that shadow on my face that frames one eye. You can also see that I played with layers in this set – all of the shots were taken in front of my beige backdrop, but I changed the color of it to work better with the bright colors of the subject. Also, I got those paper butterflies at Party City over the summer, and finally found a use for them. Unfortunately the butterfly at the very top fell out at some point during the shoot, and I didn’t realize it until I caught it in Simon’s mouth after shooting was done. So I have loads of pics with one less butterfly (More about Simon later – this was his first time experiencing photo day and he was quite interested in what was going on).
Now this shot makes me happy. At some point I applied a bit of talcum powder on my face because it kept appearing shiny and I wanted my skin to look a bit lighter. I think that worked well here, and this is one of the shots I did not end up editing much, as tempted as I was to jack with it like I do most of my shots. I thought it worked as is, and just made a few adjustments. Oh and the butterfly isn’t actually balancing on my nose – kinda gross, but the butterflies were stuck to very thin, long pieces of wire that I was able to stick into the wig to get them to stay – here, well, I have the wire shoved up my nose. Just keeping it classy, people!
I admit to having run out of good ideas for portrait poses at this point, so I often end up reverting to some old standby stances and faces to get some variety. This is a goofy, half-surprised look I seem to enjoy making (probably in life as much as in photos). Sometimes I move the camera around to shoot my face from different angles, but from the sides in this wig you could see too much of the wig cap and my natural hair. These wigs are cool as hell, but not exactly easy to wear. In fact, most of the problems I had with this shoot were due to that wig – once I managed to get it on my head properly, I could not in any way shape or form put my glasses back on, so I had to focus the camera without seeing what I was doing at all, which is less than ideal. It also kept banging into doorways and lighting umbrellas and was just generally a nuisance for self-portraits. But it looks great. It had also, after about two minutes of wearing it, worn off all the makeup on my forehead.
Simon, however, had no such issues.
Speaking of Simon, as I mentioned earlier he was fairly curious about what was going on during this shoot. His main fascination was with my little remote, since I toss that to the ground after pressing the button for each shot. To him, that was a clear indication the item was there for his enjoyment, and he kept grabbing it in his little mouth and scampering away with it. He also got into swiping and biting at my skirt a bit, but not nearly as much as he got into pouncing on the remote.
Although clearly he got into pouncing on the skirt a bit too – as evidenced in this next gem, which was not intentional on my part in any way, shape, or form; in fact, I had no idea what Simon was up to until I saw the shot. I’m sure I felt him landing on my skirt and starting a little kitty-war with it, but at the time I had no idea I’d managed to capture his little ambush on camera:
Eyes on the prize, Simon!
My makeup also didn’t translate well to the full-body shots and I should have slapped on some lipstick for them. So overall, not too pleased with the full-length photos in this set, but that one was too good to pass up. Also, in this shot my right arm actually was in the photo originally, but the angle the camera caught it at was just plain weird, my elbow looked huge and distorted, and overall I found that arm to be a huge distraction. So I just edited it on out of there and figured I’d pretend my arm was behind my back or something. Much better this way.
As I’ve mentioned in several previous posts, I went to the Wings Over Houston air show with my father last Saturday. I’d never been before, but my Dad is crazy about airplanes – particularly the B29 bombers his father worked on during WWII. The last B29 still flying, Fifi, was there, along with many other antique planes, but due to the sequester there were no military aircraft this year. This meant attendance was low, but that was fine by me as crowds aren’t my favorite thing in the world. I’m more a fan of the modern, high-speed, showy planes, though, so not getting to see any of that stuff was a bit of a bummer. Still, we had a good time, and of course I took photos. Once again I decided to just take my iPhone and make do, although there were loads of nice cameras around. This was just two days after Ramone disappeared, though, and I was still feeling very sad about that, and I just wasn’t in the mood to lug my big camera around to take pics.
I actually drove out to my parents’ house Friday night and spent the night with them, since my father likes to get to the airshow right when the gates open. He also likes to park his car at a shuttle pick-up and ride the bus over, which means getting to the shuttle station at 7:30 AM (my father is perpetually early; it is not a habit I picked up from him). I figured his idea was better than driving through all the traffic, and since the air show is nowhere near my house but is fairly close to my parents, I stayed Friday night with them and got up early Saturday to head out with Dad.
First ones inside. Yep.
Dad wanted to get there at 8 AM so we’d have enough time (two whole hours) to check out the planes. This sounded excessive to me, but it turns out he was right – in fact, we didn’t even get to Fifi in time to go inside or even get close to it, because at about 9:30 they had her blocked off and ready to taxi over to the runways. I got some video of her later though:
Love the sound of those engines.
Some the planes made you pay before you could go inside them; others offered up their interior for free. I believe this was taken in one of the free ones – no idea who they are, but I’m sure that guy with the iPad knows:
No air show photo-post would be complete without a little airplane art:
I did plenty of color shots too:
A propeller aimed at the moon.
I probably should be able to tell you what plane this is.
But I can’t.
For a little vanity, here’s two shots of me in propeller reflections:
I should have tried jumping.
My legs aren’t really that short.
Time for a video break: Apparently the show performs some sort of re-enactment every year. This year it was Pearl Harbor. While watching it, my first thought was I bet they do the same plane choreography every year and just give it a different name. Kind of like this re-enactment:
OK, so theirs was a little bit better:
Interesting side note about this battle: Right at the end of it (it went on for quite awhile, because my dad and I went to get lemonade and came back, and it was still going on) they set off about eight of those explosions at once, and it scared the crap out of everyone (as you can see, by the way, we were in the front row of the gated seats. My dad buys up two boxes every year then gives the tickets to friends and co-workers). Right after this, the entire field filled up with smoke, and the faint wind blew it all right over the spectators – then stayed there. For about 20 minutes we all felt as if we were being barbecued. People’s eyes were watering, and everyone was shielding their faces and starting straight down – it was a quite a miserable sight. My next thought was that I would have lasted about fifteen seconds at Pearl Harbor, or anywhere one bomb detonated, much less many bombs – because I was completely incapable of functioning due to the smoke alone. Throw shrapnel, enemy fire, and airplane strikes into the midst and clearly I’m a goner.
Believe it or not, my father actually DID sustain an injury during this battle. At some point during this 20-minute smokeout, a cinder flew into his eye. He did not figure this out until much later in the day, when he eventually ended up at a clinic getting it checked out. But for the rest of the time we were at the show his eye was watering and he was in a fair amount of pain. Being my dad, he tried valiantly to enjoy the show in spite of it, but we ended up leaving about an hour early because he couldn’t stand it anymore. That’s a big deal for him, as he’s been going to this air show every year for at least 20 years and I doubt he’s ever left one second early. Anyway, you’ll be glad to know he is fine now, and was actually feeling much better by the next day. But he was hurting pretty badly that afternoon.
Smoke ring from one of the explosions.
Honestly the re-enactment didn’t excite me all that much, but the acrobatics sure did. I tried to take some video, but as you can see, I got disoriented and started filming all sideways. I guess that’s a fair indication of how ineffective I’d be as a stunt-plane pilot.
You can hear my dad and I freaking out at the end, LOL.
I was pretty pleased with the iPhone’s performance once again; I managed to get some nice arty shots of the stunt flyers with it:
Pretty clear for a phone camera!
Backing up a little here – the entire show kicked off the way any good air show should: with skydivers plummeting down to earth attached to huge American flags while the Star Spangled Banner played.
OK, so you can’t see the flag in this shot, but AMERICA YAY!
And a few more arty shots to wrap things up:
Reflecting on the air show. Get it? You’re welcome.
This is an old airplane of some sort. It’s airplane #5. That’s all I’ve got, sorry.
I realize this whole thing might appear to be the antithesis of the way I’d prefer to spend a Saturday – but the truth is, I had a ball. For next year, I think I will take my real camera, and will definitely be there bright and early with Dad at 8 AM, front row. You bet.
I feel like yesterday’s post was so lame, that I need to write something tonight to move it off the main page, so to speak – but, I am preoccupied by things I’d rather not write about, because they’re not terribly important and are totally fixable if I’d just yank myself up out of this unhealthy rut I’ve been in for a few years now (I currently weigh more than I ever have in my life, and it’s pissing me off, yet it’s totally my fault for eating like crap and not exercising, so I’m not going to sit here and bitch about it. Except that I just did).
So, I’ll share a poem instead. I have over 400 poems collected from back in the days when I used to write, and the best ones I feel I’ve already shared here. But I have loads of them that aren’t what I’d consider my best work, yet still aren’t bad, so on occasion I throw them up here and see what happens.
I wrote this one after viewing a documentary of the Holocaust, the title of which I cannot remember. One of the camps it focused on was Treblinka, in Poland. A survivor was discussing how birds would land inside the camp, and guards would shoot them, because they were concerned the birds might pick up human remains and carry them outside the camp, essentially providing evidence to the outside world of what was really taking place inside. This witness made a statement to the effect that not even birds survived Treblinka (I’m paraphrasing, I saw this documentary well over 10 years ago). The idea stuck with me, and eventually I wrote about it, so here it is.
THE BIRDS CARRY BONES
At first, there were birds.
Black ravens with wings
we envied. They unearthed
scraps of skin and bone
from the ash until guards
in their towers
gunned them down
so they could not
bear witness. At Treblinka,
the master’s eye
was even on the birds,
while prisoners
dug trenches, pipes
funneled fumes
into chambers, and smoke,
heavy with bodies,
colored a creatureless sky.
We could not save them.
We could only endure
each new arrival
until the shower of bird
and bone from above
exhausted our concern.
It was only the fate
of ravens, after all, and ours
was not to worry
with the destiny of birds.
But now they have returned,
black-winged and chatterless.
The ravens are building
nests above our heads –
bone-nests, nests of teeth
and infant hair. Later,
we will call them down,
let them flutter among us
with the gaveling of wings,
allow them to unburden
their testimony of bones.
Follow the signs – you really don’t want to get lost out here
I didn’t even edit all the shots from this final house. I’ve been processing shots since Sunday afternoon, and photos of houses and whatnot aren’t my usual fare – so by the time I got around to this house I pretty much quit caring. Sorry.
4447 Rusk house (and Doug)
It’s rather fitting that it happened with this house, and perhaps the house itself is part of the reason why I lost interest. My husband commented after walking through it that the owners must have some pull in the neighborhood to have even been included, because it didn’t have any particularly significant improvements or details, and it wasn’t very impressive. The living room, den, and kitchen were nice enough, and the front porch and gardens were pretty, but nothing about it was memorable. Except that the owners were incredibly friendly, they were baking cookies, and they clearly owned a home that was geared towards community involvement and making connections with others.
Free library in the yard – take a book, leave a book
Aside from the “little library” in their front yard, where neighbors can leave books or pick one up, they also had numerous books about the area displayed inside the house for people to peruse, and a coffee display table that clearly represented their political affiliations – you can barely see it in this shot, but it was chock full of Democratic bumper stickers, buttons, adverts, and other paraphernalia from as far back as LBJ (I took a close up picture of the table, but I am writing this post from work and it’s on my computer at home):
Den with original fireplace and shelving
Here’s another shot of the den. Again, it was nice enough, but not nearly as refined as the other houses on the tour.
The Rusk house was small, but very homey. Lovely den
I did love the formal living room – those lace curtains reminded me of my great-grandmother’s house.
Living area at 4447 Rusk
The kitchen did boast original cabinets, with their glass faces:
Original glass-faced cabinets
Kitchen – this house had a lot of the original cabinetry still intact
And the front porch, as with all the other homes, was lovely:
The porch at 4447 Rusk
“If you have a garden and a library then you have all you need”
Annnnnd that’s IT for my Nostalgic Neighborhood Home Tour. In other news, those of you who follow me on Flickr or Facebook probably already know that our old cat Ramone is missing. I’m being a bit premature, because it hasn’t even been 24 hours, but he’s 14 years old and has been losing weight for some time (we’ve had him tested but they couldn’t find anything except his age to be causing it). I hope if he’s gone, he went peacefully, and that he’s not suffering wherever he is. But I’m distracted today thinking about him, so this post might not be up to my usual. And please don’t tell me I need to keep my cats inside. Number one, that’s not helpful to me right now, and number two, I already know that’s best. But Ramone was Doug’s cat before he was mine, he was already accustomed to going outside on the regular when I moved in, and anyone who’s had a cat knows once they are used to going outside, you can’t stop them. He hasn’t wandered any farther than the backyard in years, so that’s why my concern level is high. Keep him in your thoughts as I’m worried about him today! I’ll keep you all posted.
A few things happened to reduce the amount of photos I have of these next two houses: #1, as previously mentioned, is the fact that by the time we got to these homes the tour had gotten crowded, and there were lots of people milling about either getting in the way of shots, or the shots were getting in their way. #2, however, is that after the tour, I came straight home and went on a processing binge, spending hours editing shots, and quite honestly, by the time I got to these last two sets I was a bit too delete-happy. Things like that happen when I get tired and really should stop processing, but the obsessive part of me continues on, making editing mistakes and, in this case, deleting shots out of a sense of fatigue. For example, with this house, I took loads of shots of this sunken sitting room which was definitely my favorite part of the house, but by the time I got to looking them over on my computer, I decided screw it, I’m tired and I want to finish this task – I only need one good shot of that room, and deleted the rest. Then when I went to write this post, I realized I wanted more than one shot of that area – but it was too late. So. That’s why even though this was the most impressive house on the tour, I don’t have as many shots of it.
This is the house, by the way, that was a private school for awhile, and was also used by a local church for a time. It was built in 1913 and sits on a double corner lot. It is beautiful, but not cold or ostentatious; it is still homey, but definitely more of a show home than any of the others on the tour.
I would love to show you pics of the servant’s quarters in back, but I deleted them.
So many fabulous wraparound porches on these houses.
I can’t recall if that’s the front or back door to the house. I guess it’s the front door, since there are so many people using it.
I loved this little study area:
The smaller the space, the better, as far as I’m concerned.
Lots of little antique touches in this one, too:
Carved wood Bible cover.
Two shots of the den:
They also had a lush backyard (this pic was taken through the window, though – they didn’t want anyone going back there):
This is another outdoor shot, but in looking at it just now, I realize it’s actually from a different house – I just don’t know which one:
Whatever, it’s pretty; I’ll put it here anyway.
Prepare to ooh and aah over this kitchen, it’s pretty gorgeous:
And here it is, my favorite part of this house, which I really wish had more photographic representation. But one shot will have to do. This is a sunken sitting room off to the side of the house. I love the tile, the high ceiling, and all the windows. If this were my house, I’d put up police tape and never let anyone else in. I’d also never leave.
I have no idea who these women are or why they are in my sitting room. They must have cut through the police tape.
After leaving Rosecroft, we wandered one block up to an usual home for the tour – a new construction, it was built in 2011 by two long-time residents after a fire destroyed the original home. Although from the outside, the house was true to the era of the area’s old homes, my husband and I found the interior to be similar to what we might see in a new home in the suburbs where we live. We didn’t stay long at this house, and I wasn’t motivated to take photos. I get why it was on the tour – to show people that a new home can also be constructed in the area, if house restoration isn’t a potential buyer’s cup of tea – but personally I was disappointed that the interior of the home was so bland.
So, no photos of house number two. Next up was a 3,300 sq. ft. home which was one of the first three built in the area back in 1912. As Lana mentioned yesterday, the trees in this part of town are so old and beautiful, and they feature prominently in my childhood memories. In my great-grandmother’s neighborhood, all the trees were dripping with Spanish moss, and the sound of cicadas would lull us into naptime on lazy summer days. However, all those huge trees made it difficult for me to get exterior shots of this house, as it was barely visible from the street – so you get a shot of the porch instead.
One thing you’ll start to notice in these shots is that the spaces got progressively more crowded as they day wore on, and it became increasingly difficult for me to take photos without random people wandering into the frame. I also became more and more rushed, as I didn’t want to be obnoxious about framing the shots and therefore ruining other people’s experience of viewing the houses (people immediately jump out of the way and wait for you to finish when you’re taking photos, even if it’s just with your phone). It was also incredibly bright outside, so a lot of the shots I chose to convert to monochrome were altered because the outdoor light blew out most of the color in the shots anyway; plus I felt doing so made those blasts of light look more arty and intentional (in several of them, I even went ahead and made the light brighter for added effect).
View one of what I call the den. I’m not sure that’s technically the proper term.
This is actually a split staircase, but because the house was crowded when we visited it, I was not able to get a clear shot of the other side. When taking the stairs from this direction, you would turn right to continue up to the second floor. But if you took these stairs and turned left instead, you’d walk down another set that led you into the kitchen.
The brochure says the wood is silver pine. I say it’s GORGEOUS.
Another shot of the den. Who wouldn’t die for this woodwork?
Lots of smaller spaces in this house too, which I’ve already mentioned I love, so getting the full dining room into the shot with my iPhone wasn’t possible. And when I look at these homes, I just wonder why we feel nowadays that we need so much damn space anyway. In a contemporary home in our neighborhood, the ‘dining room’ would have to be twice this size to be considered livable, not to mention it would need to be completely open to the kitchen and the den!
Another shot where the light lent itself to a monochrome treatment. This may be my second favorite shot, behind Rosecroft’s den picture.
This a nice shot of the sitting room – for the life of me, I cannot remember where in the house this was located:
I mainly wanted a shot of how the wainscoting covered the ceiling here too, but I threw the fan into the bargain. Probably should have kept the original color, so you got the idea that this is still in the yellow sitting room. But, my compulsive editing got in the way of the consistency level. Sorry.
So many lovely details in these old homes, like these little sitting areas located beneath many of the windows. This was a consistent detail from home to home – except for the new construction.
We certainly weren’t nosy enough to check, but you just KNOW this is also a storage area. So many places to store one’s wigs!
I really didn’t find the bedrooms in any of these places to be anything thrilling; maybe it’s just me, but maybe it’s also the nature of these homes to consider the bedrooms less necessarily showy than the public areas of the house. Maybe it’s both. Anyway, this is one of the few bedrooms I even bothered to photograph:
I didn’t ignore the bedrooms on purpose, it just happened.
This house is situated on two lots, so the owners had a decidedly larger outdoor space to work with than most of the others featured on the tour. As a result, it was the only one we viewed that had a pool. I don’t have anything much to say about this one, since clearly it is not a restored feature of the original house, and it certainly doesn’t evoke any childhood memories of the area for me; my granny sure as hell didn’t have any swimming pool in her backyard aside from the little plastic ones she stuck us in when we were small. She did, however, have lots of trash cans in her backyard which she used to burn leaves in on fall evenings (not illegal in the city back then).
Yep, there it is. A pool. You’re welcome. The trash cans must be stored elsewhere.
Up next: one seriously huge-ass house (at least for the area, although still small by today’s standards) that served, in part, as a private school in the early 1900’s, and was also owned by a local church for a while (during which time it was painted purple and, according to our docent, got “pretty much trashed”). While it was too big for me to consider it homey or reasonably see myself being able to live in, it was certainly impressive and stunning. The sunken living area and the kitchen, in particular, are amazing. Come back tomorrow!
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