Monarchs of the Glen

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These wicker deer are in a friend’s garden. I’d photographed them before, but had never been able to get the right angle – largely because I took the pictures from the street while walking the dog. I didn’t want to disturb our friend. Today, however, we were over for drinks, snacks and to take a look at his garden. He has a lot of interesting garden art so while my wife and our friends were talking I ambled around the garden taking pictures.

Interesting pieces I thought as I noticed the small deer, which I hadn’t even seen in earlier pictures I’d taken.

First photograph of Van Gogh as an adult discovered

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Image of Vincent Van Gogh as an adult discovered. Article via DIYPhotography.net

Fascinating! He’s the third from the left – with the pipe.

Photography is probably one of the greatest tools for preserving history.  While present generations stand at a perilous place with all of our memories sitting on hard drives and SD cards, we are thankful for those who had to take the time to develop each shot into a physical medium.  Writings and paintings can only provide so much accurate detail and are often skewed by the perspectives of their creators, but photographs seem to preserve another level of historic accuracy.

Vincent van Gogh, the Dutch post-impressionist painter best known for The Starry Night, his insane preoccupation with selfies, and chopping off bits of ears long before Mike Tyson made it popular, has often been portrayed as a dark and brooding cloud in art history.  Yet, we have never seen a photograph of his face in adulthood…until now.

Known photographs of van Gogh in his youth have been confirmed for a while, but this week, a 1887 photo of van Gogh as an adult sitting around drinking with friends went to auction at The Romantic Agony auction house.  Along with the melancholy painter are pictured such greats as Paul Gauguin, Emile Bernard, Félix Jobbé-Duval, and André Antoine.

via Recently-Unearthed Photo Is the First Confirmed Image of van Gogh in Adulthood – DIY Photography

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Canoes

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I came across these canoes while visiting houses around the lake as part of the annual “Garden Tour”. What attracted me was partly the colors. I’m not usually very good with color photography, but these bright colors seemed to good to miss. I also liked the arrangement of the canoes – the way that yellow and orange canoes faced towards me, while the red one faced in a different direction. I also liked the way that the yellow oar in the background picked up the yellow of one of the canoes.

Weathered Wood

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This magnificent piece of wood is holding up a glass table top in one of our friend’s garden. I was sitting sipping a vodka and tonic when I noticed it. At first he jokingly said that he’d pulled it our of our lake, but finally admitted that he’d bought it. It certainly makes a nice base for the table. For me it was all about the textures and the contrasts.