snow-covered trees

so this is the end of my first month (but not quite a month's worth of photos..)

and for april i'm going to be posting a whole photo series so, stay tuned!

love love

thanks for watching :)

Theo Jansen.

The first time I watched this video, I got to 0:17 and started shrieking, it's walking it's walking!

Theo Jansen is a Dutch artist and kinetic sculptor who creates these amazing skeleton things out of plastic yellow tubing, that walk. by. themselves, powered by the wind! on the beach (and detect things to avoid, like water)!

AMAZING work!

I know this post contains terrible grammar but I wanted to articulate the amazing-ness of the work. I know, shame on me for ignoring basic English rules. But I can't help it!

The snow flakes.

I recently had an assignment at uni based on nature-inspired design, mine of course was inspired by snow, and used this photo to show the delicate, almost crystal-like aesthetic of freshly fallen snow.

Al Batt

 

The secret of happiness is to make others believe they are the cause of it.

Burnt wood.

Okay, not quite burnt wood. Lots of houses in Switzerland are made of wood and when they're newly made, the wood is still soft and pale. As they age, the wood becomes darker.
This house shows the darker wood, near the bottom, further away from the roof and therefore exposed to more rain.
I just think the texture of wood is absolutely beautiful.

ducks

These ducks were so beautiful and friendly! They walked really close, one even came close enough to kind of sniff my shoe. So cute, and to get across the frozen lake they have developed their own way of ice skating by sliding their feet across the ice instead of exhausting precious energy to waddle normally. :)

The mountains

 














A simple photo of the mountains that I was very privileged to wake up to every morning for a week.

the water

this is such a lovely, beautiful song.
brooke fraser is an amazing singer who has such a wonderful voice

magical

this view just makes me think of the magic of snow, 

transforming a rugged mountain into a smooth, soft ski enthusiast's dream

clouds

if it wasn't for the fence in the corner, i could be fooled into thinking these are clouds.

even though i took the photo?

Fat birds.

The two lumps in this photo are well-fed little birds sitting on a tree in the midst of winter. 

How they manage to be so fat at this time makes me wonder.

dalton ghetti

 these beautiful sculptures are intricately carved into used pencils by brazilian artist dalton ghetti using a razor blade and a sewing needle. they are just ABSOLUTELY amazing, and my brain is boggled at thinking how he got all that detail and precision, and how much time they would take!

i love the tiny little hammer and button and i think the screw is so adorable, but my head is messed up thinking how he achieved the key in a ring!? or check out the detail in the letterbox?! this guy is just amazingly breathtaking!

discovered via here

images via here

The night lights of Zurich

when you have no tripod and shaky hands

flash mobs

I know I know, I've been posting a lot of videos, but that's because I keep finding videos I want to share!
I recently took part in a flash mob dance, which was absolutely amazing and I really want to do another one soon! But in the meantime, I've found some really awesome ones!

Is this not an awesome dance, done to a wonderful song?


This one is absolutely wonderful, I love GLEE and I love the mix of songs too!


And here is a flash mob with a difference

james joyce

i've been reading this book on and off for about 8 months, and i still haven't reached the quarter mark!

i find it difficult to read, thanks to the language and the almost train-of-thought writing style, but i will pesevere because i want to have finished it.

how pencils are made

i didn't even realise i wanted to know how pencils are made until i saw this, and i'm just so amazed!
i love what you can learn from the internet!

there's a whole series: google how it's made and you'll discover a wealth of information, and how complicated it is to make the simplest of things!

christmas tree again

i just love candles and the beautiful atmosphere they create

the walkway

this is a beautiful scene, but all i can think are bad memories.
this is right outside an ice rink where a fall turned into a trip to hospital and an all-round horrible experience for me.

a few random facts that i find interesting

animals that lay eggs don't have bellybuttons

flamingos are pink because they eat shrimp

there are one million ants to every human in the world

uni has started again, portrayed by my late nights staying up doing modelmaking. oh yay



love love

playground

this is on a kid's playground. i heart recycled fun stuff!

the first couple of days in switzerland were so cold, but we made sure to enjoy the sunshine because it was just so beautiful to walk around in

and if the tube looks familiar, check out the first photo of this post

mellow

the start may be deceiving, but once it starts this song is just a beautiful, mellow song to chill to.
by an absolutely wonderful band.
fell in love with their sound when they did 5 years time, and now they've released another 2 albums!

Elephant

 





So this the finished product and result of about 15 hours of embroidery.
(I'm a perfectionist and if it ain't perfect then I undo the stitching and start again. Same goes for colour continuity, if I don't like, it's out and another is put in its place.)

Rainbows of thread

This is just what my collection looked like before my crazy organising took place.

I love the colours and textures of thread, especially when you have a few together, like this..

information is beautiful

i agree with that statement.
but that statement is also a website!
they create visualisations of information, statistics, ideas etc and they are beautiful.
there are too many to just post here, so i'll just trust that you will all visit the website.

you can spend hours just going through
here is a link to start you off:
wikipedia's lamest edit wars


love love

Sew.

Holidays = free time. As a spoilt uni student I had a lot of holidays, so I decided to undertake some embroidery. I got so enthusiastic that I even sorted out my threads and how beautiful does the box look? You can also see, in the bottom right hand corner, my finished product, a photo of which I will post soon. :)

mountains

Oh how I love skiing.

love love

christmas tree!

in switzerland, you actually use a real tree at christmas. and real candles.delightful to spend hours watching. and we always bet on which candle will go out last, (which is always one near the bottom because the heat rises so the top ones melt faster).

Close up.

I love close-ups and this was just a crisp, clean view that I had to capture one sunny morning in Switzerland

Sunshine

i was so lucky to spend 6 weeks waking up to this vista, although i must point out that sunrise was actually about 9am and i got up in the dark everyday

a castle!

peeking over the hedge, the local castle
a beautiful, majestic, worn down building

Absolutely breathtaking.

A beautiful, magical animation by Ryan Woodward.
I can't stop watching it.


found via lunch bag art

chabis

i was so surprised to go for a walk in january and find this - it just seemed so out of place considering the snow around it.

That awkward moment..

when you have to decide if the elevator is too full, and then after you get in, 
you realise it is.

Magic

Beautiful misty morning in Switzerland

Another photo from the river, an overhanging tree. One of the main things when I go for a walk in Switzerland, is to take the camera along. So when I saw this vista, I was really grateful that I had brought along the SLR, complete with manual focus :)

P.S. One of my assignments at uni is to design inspired by nature, so looking back over these photos is really helping me get inspired.

Lac noir.

lac noir, fribourg, suisse

my host family took me here and it was amazing, the water was frozen and it had snowed the night before so we were able to ice skate on the ice, through the snow. dream come true

Snow snow snow.

uh oh, this person left their bike outside on a night that coincided with snow.
what luck

switzerland january 2011

Yay.

I just changed some html settings - I didn't know I had it in me - so that now the pictures can be and are bigger!  Perfect for my new project :) [And I also went through and made the most of my photos in older posts large too!]

and just to add in a quote, because i so love them



good judgment comes from experience,
and experience comes from bad judgement.

-barry lepatner

365 days. Starting today.

I have been inspired to take part in a 365 project.
And I've also just come back from holidays, where I went snap happy.
So from today onwards, I'll be posting a photo everyday, and some days when I'm not too busy I'll post other things too.

But from now on you can expect a picture a day.
And because a picture tells a thousand words, here's a start..

semi frozen lake in bern, switzerland

love love