Perspective

My family visited this beach this summer...showing one point perspective, all lines lead to one point on the horizon

Blogger which is no longer available on my iPad, at least each post is, but not the wonderful layout with header, pages and right hand column of my choices of other blogs I follow.  Thanks Apple for messing with things, your update really is of the worst you've done yet.  If I knew I would completely lose the blogger app with this update, I'd never have done it.  Can I un-do an update?  They of course say Blogger needs to be updated.  So I go to the app store, and Blogger is available again, if I pay for it.  Now $2.99 isn't that awful.  But geese, I had it free before.  I had it.  That's the point.  They removed my free app, and now are trying to get me to buy it.  Isn't there any justice in the world?

Yep I'm going to be ranting about this for a while.

See, it's like talking about athletes kneeling when Puerto Rico is slammed and its infrastructure demolished by a hurricane, then a music concert becomes a shooting gallery in Nevada.  There are some awful things happening in the world today, and I can talk about the latest iPad update and feel somewhat more in control of my life, though it's out of my control.  It's all about perspective.

Again, one point perspective, and showing the horizon itself helps.

When teaching about perspective, it helps to start with one point going into the distance toward a horizon line, which is directly related to the person viewing it. Always.  It's such fun to imagine the artist or photographer being part of the picture.

So here's my sharing for Sepia Saturday this week, perspective.

Several lines of perspective show here, but the diminishment of things (people, cars, buildings) as they go into the distance helps give perspective as well.  The height of things gets smaller the further away from us that they are.

 I've changed these color photos into black and white.  It used to be so great to use film which gave such beautiful designs, but now I just Picasa them. (again, Apple won't let me use Picassa on that laptop, so I have to go to my old one to edit my photos...what a fun game this is!)

Here we see 2 points going toward the imaginary horizon line of the camera's placement.  It' easy to see how if you extended the lines of the sidewalks outside the picture frame, they would actually meet the lines coming down of the roof.  What about the vertical lines? They also will head toward the horizon, but it's harder to notice on things that aren't very tall like skyscrapers.

In nature it's harder to notice two point perspective lines, so here we've had a bit of addition of straight lines of tents...and you can look at the corner of the closest one, and extend it's lines back to the horizon on both sides...all the tents are in a straight line, which helps.  You can do the same thing even with other things in nature, but it takes a bit of practice.

Inside we can see one point perspective on this old postcard of my mother's.

The lines all go toward the focal point, Queen Victoria's statue.  The camera was set up so it's eye level is directly opposite the statue.  If it had been lower, or higher, the lines would converge with a different invisible horizon line.  Is this two point or one point perspective?

Here's the back of the postcard. Flat things don't have any perspective!

State Apartments, Windsor Castle...
Grand Vestibule. - The Vestibule forms a  Museum in which are stored many articles of great value and historic interest, most of them having been presented to Queen Victoria or her successors. The marble statue of Queen Victoria by Sir. Edgar Boehm forms a prominent feature.

My mother received this postcard in 1938 from her pen pal in England (to San Antonio TX)

I hope we are able to keep our perspectives on the world events as well as our own lives.  For me that means that there are important things, and less important things...the further away from me, the smaller they get.

Quote for today:

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. Viktor Frankl

Mom's post cards of castles - One

My mother graduated from high school in 1934.  I remember her saying she went to some Catholic college for about a year, but don't know the name.  She didn't marry my dad until '39...so I don't know what she did during that time.  She did have a pen-pal.

It's interesting for me to remember writing letters to many people in my youth.  Sometimes you'd get assigned a pen-pal, who you didn't even know, that some group or another wanted to give young people a way to communicate across the world.

One of the few things my mother left me was her post card collection. Many of the cards are stored away somewhere, and I doubt that my kids or their kids will care about them.  I have scanned a few that at least had a note on the back indicating who wrote them from where.  They have no postmarks, so they may have been sent in envelopes with letters.

Hazel Autley wrote my mother on postcards, from Birmingham, England to San Antonio, Texas.  I think Hazel had probably been in school with my mother. There was a Hazel Pabst in her class, so perhaps she had married by 1937-8 when the cards were sent.

First let me share these three cards.  There will be more that I'll share in the future. After all these years, I only want to put a few up at a time.

Mataley's note in her handwriting says this card was received April 10, 1937 from her friend Hazel Autley, living (I think) in Birmingham, Eng.

Shrewsbury Castle was built around 1074 by Roger de Montgomery^[16]. Today the Castle is home to the Shropshire Regimental Museum, Shropshire, England.

History - The castle was built as a defensive fortification for the town, which was otherwise protected by the river. Town walls, of which little now remains, then radiated out from the castle and surrounded the town (although the area known now as Town Walls still has a small section of it and a tower known as Town Walls Tower and in the care of the National Trust).

In 1138, King Stephen successfully besieged the castle held by William FitzAlan for the Empress Maud during the period known as The Anarchy. The castle was also briefly held by Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, prince of Wales, in 1215. Little of this original physical structure remains.^[2]

The Shropshire Horticultural Society purchased the castle from a private owner and gave it to the town in 1924. 

Source: Wikepedia

I think the typed note came from Hazel, with my mom's note saying it was now 5/38

  5/38 Postcard of Queen's Closet sent from Birmingham, England to my mother from her friend Hazel A.

You may notice discoloration of two tabs on the back sides right of each one, which may have been from tape which was applied in a scrapbook in which they were afixed so the backs could still be seen.

I confess I know next to nothing about  Windsor Castle. There are many folks in Sepia Saturday who have more knowledge about it, and have probably even visited it.  Take a step over to see what the Sepia Saturday folks are up to this week.
 I obviously wasn't able to follow their suggestion very well this week.



I used this resource and was overwhelmed!  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windsor_Castle

So I'll be satisfied just to share my mother's pen pal's contributions, and not attempt to learn too much about the castle itself.

Today's quote:

Like a tree our growth depends upon our ability to soften, loosen, and shed boundaries and defenses we no longer need.
Madisyn Taylor on Daily Om

Post cards that were sent

I'm not changing my profile picture all over the place, but I did finally get my hairs cut the other day...and here I yam, again short for the summer.

About time!  That's one of my Susan Seddon Buolet posters behind my head.

Though I don't have time to research a post for Sepia Saturday this week, I'll share this and say my apologies to the SS folks.  I just don't have any post cards of old buildings. So check out their site HERE.

But if I were to chose an old building to post, I think it would be...mmm, thinking....thinking.









And the nighttime shot reminds me of the movies Sleepless in Seattle, and An Affair to Remember.  That's my romantic heart talking.

But the reason I chose the Empire State building was my own experience as a young adult visiting it for the first time, and buying a post card to send to someone I loved.  See, it all comes together after all.  I sent the card, so I no longer have it.  But I still have my dear one in my heart.