Day 32 - SkyLines from the French Lock-down: A Change of View

Bonjour chers amis! (Hello dear friends!)  In spite of the fact that we're wearing winter clothes in mid-April, we're thinking sunny thoughts and hoping you are keeping your spirits up. And if it helps, maybe it's time to try a change of perspective. 

One day, I took a "special effect" photo of Place Salengro
but I didn't know it until much later!

Day 32 - After taking a day off yesterday, today we set ourselves back on track. My French partner, Y, became my cameraman once more and we made a third video that is more of a virtual visit with far away friends we can’t see than a vigorous exercise workout. (There were leg lifts - we did do some physical activity.)  Next he sat down and searched for shows and films for our evening sprawl and binge watching hours. (We’d exhausted our first list.) I helped a bit and then he settled in to research electric bikes and windsurfing gear.  It’s not as good as getting outside and feeling the wind on his face but for now it has to do. I went to work reading through the folder of future projects and scribblings of ideas for other books and stories.

When I look at all the things I hope to write, it seems that the days and weeks are not nearly long enough! It is a passion that takes me out of the ordinary and into another world. I'm lucky. I can write everywhere I go and being in confinement does not prevent me from writing. I’ll work on my kid’s book soon but now I get to write to you and that’s a wonderful treat. It indulges my passion for words.

I have a second passion that is more difficult to satisfy under lock-down. It is photography. A class in Photography filled a breadth requirement at college and counted

as an art credit.  Mostly, I took it because it was at the right time to let me arrange my serious classes early in the morning.  I found I had little talent at it, but I did enjoy it. At the time, my focus (ha ha, yes like a camera) was not on finding a new way to see things.  

I wanted the camera to show life the way I thought it was supposed to be. The mountain needed

This is a nice memory
but it is only a snapshot.

to be at the center of the photo. The person needed to be smiling. I couldn't stand it if there was a bit of graffiti on a side wall, or a crumpled paper on the sidewalk.  I avoided taking them. I even moved leaves or flowers to fit my idea of what should be. And I now believe that in doing so, I missed out on the best shots I might have taken. I enjoyed the class and left it with a handful of mundane black and white photos.   

  Then one day while using a digital camera, I inadvertently set the dial to special effects.  I didn't even know there was a special effects mode until I'd downloaded the photos to my computer and saw the result! The effect posterized the colors and added a strange sandy grain to them. It was as if the photo had been drawn by an artists instead of captured in the mechanical eye of the camera.  And I was horrified.

I was very disappointed as several of the photos were of a festival in the village and so could not be “done over.” The light on the drive home had been so wonderful that day. I even stopped my

The light was not as I had seen it.

car to take a photo of the road to my village. It reminded me so much of Provence. Now, as I looked at the shot, I was sad. My “perfect picture” was ruined. There was no way to reverse the effect worked by the camera. I sighed, reset the camera, and vowed to never touch that wheel again! 

However, when I looked at them a few days later, I found one and was intrigued.  I really liked it.  I looked at the special effect photo of my neighbor's house

A new view on life

with yellow gorse flowers . And a it came to me, that  the "picture perfect" was a boring idea. There was a strange beauty to the photo that took it into a new world.  And I began to play with pictures. When the time came to publish my first book, there was no way I could afford to pay for an artist to make the cover.  It was a book about the customs in my village and the festivals of the region.  I had a truck-load of photos but they were just that - photos.  

Then I remembered the special effect photos.  I decided that maybe I could try to make my own special effects. This was a long time ago but there was software to change my photos into something more artistic. I took my very best photo of the village and softened it into a pseudo-oil painting. It isn't art, but it is pleasing. A year later, the second book 

My first book cover

cover was done in the same way.  These days, when I can, I pay an artist to make a cover for my books, but I am so glad that I realized there was more to pictures than trying to capture a "perfect" copy of what I saw. Sometimes it's more about the way it feels.

From that moment on I really fell in love with odd-ball photos or trying to see things from a different angle.  Often, the photo I intend to take, turns out to show me something I didn’t even see. And I end up with one that works in a different way. It lets me share with others the world that I now see with a new perspective. A world that is just a few degrees into a different reality. And I like that.  

I think we can apply this philosophy to our everyday life. I have been trying not to line the books up by height, or theme. My French partner, Y, has a better developed sense of this than I do. He doesn't put a candlestick at each end of the mantle piece

My second book cover

the way I would. There is a French knack to the way things are arranged. He staggers things and the books are in a pleasing mix of size and color. One day, we moved the kitchen table.  It had been sitting at a straight angle to the sink and the wall.  Y proposed changing it to be at a 45 degree angle to make the room less "rigid." I was perplexed. But I helped him move the table. And when I saw how it made space and changed our perspective at the table, I fell in love with the new arrangement. But I would have never thought of trying it at that angle. It's tough to change our view on things. 

Change is never easy. I'm working on seeing the world from a new perspective. I want to wander and run off on adventures, but for now, that can't happen. And it may be a while before any of us can do that. So I'm working on making this space a window on the world. And within this space, taking what we have and making it something more interesting than it was before.  This is a time for dreaming our dreams and adjusting our perspective to make this a place in which we can be content.

Day 32 - have we all become slipper-wearing philosophers? Maybe not. Whatever it takes to get

through the day, is what you do. Perhaps it can help to try and see the world from a new place - in a

And now back to work on book 9.  The first two in the
kids on Mars series have professional covers and this
one will also.  But when I dream up their adventures
it's a way for my to change my perspective!

manner of speaking. We are all stuck at the moment.  But if you can make the place you are in, no matter how confined, into a closer vision of the world you want to see, then you can be free in any space. And, right now, that's as good as it's going to get. But we will get through this time together.

A demain, nos amis!  (Until tomorrow, our friends!)
Link to Day 33