Bootsie's pictures

My friend Bootsie is an AMAZING photographer. She took up the art form just a couple of years ago, but she's already got such a great eye for composition, color, and mood that I just have to share her work with our little readership. Aren't her photographs lovely? Such diverse styles, but there seems to be a thread of melancholy that runs through most of them that really strikes me...

{For more of Bootsie's photography, see her flickr page: *Bootsie.
She also has great taste which can be admired on her tumblr page.}

{all images courtesy of Bootsie's flickr}

August

"The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot."

- Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

Image courtesy of TheShutterbugEye

Reason to love rain (#7)

 

via Random tea house

North Carolina needs a serious downpour right now - it is so darn hot. We get the occasional and brief rainstorm, but it only contributes to the humidity. At least for that second it rains - it looks pretty from the inside of my window (though I really need it to start feeling cool on the outside of the window too...)

 via These are a few of my favourite things...

 "Attempt at Flight" by 'Lilyas

via vi.sualize.us

via i am bittersweet

 

"Raindrops on the window" by Shooz

Sum-sum-summertime!

Image courtesy of Babble

This "Kid's Car Wash" at Child's Garden preschool in Covedale, Ohio makes me smile.

swim cap beauties

via glamour daze

Yeah, I know... In my current condition, I'm not one for hanging out on a hot beach or crowded pool in a swimsuit of any kind. And with my pinhead, I am also someone who should never - and I mean never EVER - wear a swim cap. And yet I punish myself by being drawn to these vintage pictures of bathing beauties in the prettiest of swim caps. I wish being at the beach could still look this lovely...

 via Modern Marie

via Conde Nast

via Pink Cupcake Vintage

 via mOnKeY pAnTs

And they lived happily ever...ur... oh wait...

No matter what life you lead

the virgin is a lovely number:

cheeks as fragile as cigarette paper,

arms and legs made of Limoges,

lips like Vin Du Rhône,

rolling her china-blue doll eyes

open and shut.

Open to say,

Good Day Mama,

and shut for the thrust

of the unicorn.

She is unsoiled.

She is as white as a bonefish.

from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"

A friend of mine sent me a link to a photo project, called "Fallen Princesses" by Dina Goldstein because she thought I would love it and she was so right! I love the real looking scenarios, but with these very Disney-esque princesses still all dressed up.

Goldstein writes:

"These works place Fairy Tale characters in modern day scenarios. In all of the images the Princess is placed in an environment that articulates her conflict. The '...happily ever after' is replaced with a realistic outcome and addresses current issues."

I think these images are amazing and I can't wait to see the 2 that she has yet to shoot. And because I can't help but think of Anne Sexton's retellings of classic fairy tales found in her collection, Transformations, I've posted some snippets of the poems for your reading enjoyment.

This one day her mother gave her

a basket of wine and cake

to take to her grandmother

because she was ill.

Wine and cake?

Where's the aspirin? The penicillin?

Where's the fruit juice?

Peter Rabbit got camomile tea.

But wine and cake it was.

from "Red Riding Hood"

I must not sleep
for while I'm asleep I'm ninety

and think I'm dying.

Death rattles in my throat

like a marble.

I wear tubes like earrings.

I lie as still as a bar of iron.

You can stick a needle

through my kneecap and I won't flinch.

I'm all shot up with Novocain.

This trance girl

is yours to do with.

from "Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty)"

Cinderella and the prince

lived, they say, happily ever after,

like two dolls in a museum case

never bothered by diapers or dust,

never arguing over the timing of an egg,

never telling the same story twice,

never getting a middle-aged spread,

their darling smiles pasted on for eternity.

Regular Bobbsey Twins.

That story.

from "Cinderella"

So many Alices

Burton's Alice from tengossip.com

On March 5th, Tim Burton is set to release his vision of Alice in Wonderland here in the states. I feel as though the buzz surrounding this film is near deafening and I'm very curious about the finished project. When I saw the first still shots and press from the movie I remember thinking it was an interesting choice for Alice. Later, I realized that is because I have an image of "Alice" that has everything to do with long blond hair and a blue dress and for some reason anything that deviates from this seems odd. I'm a little ashamed to admit that is probably because I was first exposed to Disney's Alice and that is the image that stuck (despite reading numerous beautifully illustrated versions of the tale), but really there are so many Alices out there. Lewis Carroll's story, first widely published in 1865, has inspired illustrators, animators, photographers, and film makers for well over a century. Burton is certainly not the first to put forth his version of our gal and her Wonderland and, undoubtedly, he won't be the last....

John Tenniel's illustration from the 1st ed. Alice in Wonderland

Arthur Rackham's Alice and the Pack of Cards courtesy of art.com

Alice in Wonderland No 10 by Vladimir Clavijo-Telepnev

Mabel Lucie Attwell's "Oh Dear! Oh Dear! I shall be too late!" courtesy of childillustration.blogspot.com

Jessie Wilcox-Smith illustration courtesy of the-office.com

Disney's Alice in Wonderland courtesy of google.com

Lisbeth Zwerger's Alice in Wonderland courtesy of everypicture.com

Looking Glass 6 by Elena Kalis courtesy of google.com

Annie Leibovtz's Alice courtesy of fanpop.com

Image courtesy of thequeenbea.wordpress.com

Burton's Alice courtesy of fanpop.com

"Behind the Camera"

"Day in the Life of a Girl" via Norman Rockwell Museum

I don't know if you've noticed, but here at "Hiving Out" we have a serious soft spot for Norman Rockwell.

Call us sentimental, but we love the sweetness and nostalgia present in his images. Recently I came across a book that's making me love the artist even more. Titled "Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera," its a collection of the original photographic images which Rockwell used to create some of his more famous artworks. It is so interesting to compare the photographs to the final pieces and then also see how he worked as a director, scene and set designer, and, of course, artist of nuance and imagination. This is such a neat book to look through...

images via THERSIC

kitchen envy

Image courtesy of elledecor via hookedonhouses.net

I have seen this one shot of actress Ellen Pompeo's home no less than a dozen times in various places online. Every time I think- I love this kitchen. It is not at all what I usually covet, which are the crisp, light, white kitchens with large islands and streamlined cabinets as far as the eye can see. This is actually one of those spaces I can see living in. I mean truly living in...with toddlers... and their often spilled delicacies and tracked in mud and ground in crayons. I think I am usually drawn to light and white interiors because they are total fantasies at this point- any night of spaghetti or afternoon with Crayola would be a looming disaster, but this room is different because it feels "real".

It is laid back and stylish (I think it has to do with the awesome choice of an oversized black and photograph for the wall) and the terra cotta floor makes the space, otherwise filled with the more industrial feeling stainless steel, so warm and welcoming.

Time to start saving my pennies for terra cotta tile :).....

a quote

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul.
And sings the tune
Without the words,
and never stops at all.

Emily Dickinson
US poet (1830 - 1886)

Image courtesyof blamethecrane.tumblr.com via weheartit

a picture story

photographer unknown 

via Fifikoussout (via *Bootsie)

the gifts of GIFs

Another neat discovery via my husband. Watch these photos carefully and you'll see just the slightest thing happen: a man turning the pages of his newspaper, a taxi driving by as reflected in a cafe window (click on the images if they aren't "moving" for you). This is what it looks like when animated GIFs are done by artists. To see more work by Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg, check out their Tumblr: From Me to You.

deviantART

Image courtesy of *Gehoersturz via deviantART

I found this image on deviantART and bookmarked it. It has been ages since I took the few Art History classes I have under my belt, so I can't speak to the composition, tones, or technique- I've become unfamiliar with the jargon. I will say I find it striking and interesting and since I bookmarked it, I have revisited the photograph a dozen times.

deviantART is like an immense arts festival at your fingertips. It is a collection of millions of works, in all sorts of mediums, from artists around the globe. Every now and then I browse, and on occasion I bookmark an image I want to spend time figuring out. There is no shortage of talented artists out there and this is a place to see the work of many of them.

Paper Theater

"Tranquil Morning- Two Sisters"

"He found the rarest of thistles by his rock in the wood."

"When she held her child she could walk through the forest, eyes high above the tree-tops."

"Her parents had named her Spring, yet her heart belonged to autumn..."

"The Rose Thief"

"Dreams for Weary Sailors"

"Advice from a Robin..."

Artist Elly MacKay photographs her scenes of drawn, cut, layered paper to create these curious and theatrical images. It is a fascinating process that encompasses her wide array of artistic talents. Each print is an intricate, multifaceted piece of art.

All images courtesy of theaterclouds