Two days ago I took a photo of three magpies happily pulling out worms (or rubber bands as Isla calls them). The garden is full of birds at the moment. We also have a family of blue tits, while countless … Continue reading
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Blog: Alan Dapré - Children's Author (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: alan dapre, Have Kid Will Scribble, alan dapré blog, fledgeling, magpie plays dead, play possum, young birds, magpies, Add a tag
Blog: Cinda Williams Chima (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Taos, Young Writer, Magpies, writing technique, photography, Add a tag
I am a fiend with a digital camera. I come from the desperation school of photography—take enough photos, and a few are sure to come out. In the old days of film cameras, each decision to shoot was an economic one—how much do I really want a picture of Aunt Milly in the flower garden? So-called snapshots were rare. If you didn’t have time to actually frame and compose a photograph, you didn’t take it, because who wanted to pay to develop a blurred image of a roadrunner’s butt?
Now that I am free to shoot away, I do. I’ve taken photography classes several times, but find that many of the principles sieve through my mind like sand through a colander. Likely cameras, like cable television, are too sophisticated for me. But I’ve learned enough about my little digital camera to take some pleasing shots. Out of a hundred or so. Happy accidents that capture the truth of a place.
I use my camera as a substitute for my imperfect memory. I can remember things from childhood like the fifty states in alpha order or Frost’s “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.” But when writing in my journal, I find myself calling over to my long-suffering spouse, “What was it we did today?”
When I use a camera, it’s all about story telling. What photographs do I need to tell this story? How can I recapture the atmosphere, the light, the scents, the experience of being in Taos, NM.? Little things—what were those flowers along the river that smelled so good? Who were the innkeepers and what was their story? What were the colors that smacked my eyes—the browns, the oranges, the multiple shades of gray—so different from the greens of home?
The mountains are called the Sangre de Cristo Mountains—the blood of Christ. How do I capture that?
I take dozens of photographs, because I am acutely aware of the limitations of the camera lens compared to the human eye, with its filters of emotion and memory, the other senses layered onto the images it captures. I am always a little disappointed in my photographs. But it was better than that, I think. I can’t always get at the truth in a photograph. It doesn’t produce the same emotional experience as the real thing.
We saw the Georgia O’Keefe Abstraction exhibit at the O’Keefe Museum in Santa Fe. Quotes from O’Keefe annotated the paintings, most done early in her career. Much of what she said seemed to apply to writing, too.
One can't paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt.
I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at - not copy it.
I often painted fragments of things because it seemed to make my statement as well as or better than the whole could.
Objective painting is not good painting unless it is good in the abstract sense. A hill or tree cannot make a good painting
Blog: Jrpoulter's Weblog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: children's books, books, illustration, Reading, Reviews, Fiction, picture books, Writing, inspiration, fantasy, children's literature, Reviewing, parenting, grief, loss, children's stories, separation, Magpies, Sarah Davis, story books, step parents, J.R.Poulter, Listener - Arts and Books, Canberra Times, Brisbane's Child, Sydney's Child, Melbourne's Child, Adelaide's Child, Perth's Child, FeMail, Bundaberg News Mail, Add a tag
New Zealand children have chosen “Mending Lucille”, placing it in the top 6 picture books for 2008. This is a wonderful honour to be chosen by the children themselves! Sarah and I are suitably excited and humbled at the same time! Dunedin Public Library District is one of the largest in New Zealand , incorporating 6 pubic libraries in its territory.
See page 3 of the promotional brochure:
childrens-choice-picture-books_-dunedin-public-library-nz1
Other Reviews for “Mending Lucille”
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mendinglucille_canberratimes_oct08
mendinglucille_magpies_sept08
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AND
“New Zealand Listener”, December 20-26 2008 Vol 216 No 3580 - has placed “Mending Lucille” in the top 10 chldren’s books/young adult books for 2008 - Full review available online on 3rd January 2009
http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3580/artsbooks/12442/breaking_barriers.html
Virtue is a jewel of great price. ............................................................