January 2023: Doitsu Kujaku Hirenaga

 

There are over 3000 different varieties of koi, which is itself a type of carp.  In this case, the first word, doitsu, means "partially scaled". Some koi have no scales some are fully scaled, and some are partially scaled. The word kujaku refers to the specific color pattern this fish has. And hirenaga refers to the long fins, which are the result of breeding traditional Japanese koi with Indonesian koi.

As we head in to another new year, I encourage you to not wait for things to change. Actively overfill your own life with beauty, share it with those you love, and encourage them to do the same. Do that, and 2023 will be joyful not just for you, but for those around you as well!

Housekeeping notes:

I have added "Share" buttons to each monthly post, so feel free to use them to share my posts to your preferred social media.

And although the email subscription to notify you when I have updated the blog has been eliminated, you can still add the blog to your newsfeed and get update notices that way.  Or just check in at the beginning of each month, as I seem to be pretty consistently on schedule lately. :)

December 2022: Door and Vents

 

Been having some challenges here this month. Discovered that my monitor has been dying and not rendering colors correctly for some time. So I have got a new monitor now and am in the process of calibrating and verifying correct calibration with my print services. It is a long ordeal, as I am a bit persnickety when it comes to this sort of thing.

What I dread is that once I get the calibration confirmed I will go back and find that many of the images I have been sharing with you have not been what I intended! If it end up being the case I will fix them all and replace them with accurate images, but so far it seems that until very recently the colors have at least been close.

We shall see.

This month's image is another one from the old "asylum" in Traverse City.
It is a really telling image, especially from a temporal perspective.
Bricks, covered with cement, covered with plaster, covered with multiple layers of paint.
Doorknobs set low enough so that people in wheelchairs can access them easily.
Gorgeous ventilation covers still bearing the "cheerful" colored paint.
All of these things bearing witness to the human beings who lived here, and to their struggles.

It really is a privilege to be able to go into this place and capture these images, so that these places can be remembered for what they were, and the people who lived there can consequently be remembered for who they were as well.