the earth ink

My annual personal project is a Christmas card. Every year my address list seems to get a little longer and every year the card is something a little bit different from the last - and from any other greeting anyone gets in the mail. I avoid writing long paragraphs to sum up the year. Instead, I use photography and graphic design to illustrate some of the highlights. This year, I chose to develop a 'passport of 2012.' I carefully blended the photos and places I had been together for each page and integrated a verse (James 1:16-18) into the design. I personalized the front of the passport with some Hawaiian holiday greetings and colorful splashy cutout photos. Inside, I placed scans of the country stamps I obtained in 2012 over photo collages of special memories. True to a passport, I rounded the corners of each little booklet and twisted a ply of yellow and red thread before tying it around the crease giving it an stitched effect along the binding. I also made envelopes

Alone, I rarely venture too far at night. This particular evening, I found myself  following my path back to my hotel after a late afternoon tour of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. I was  waylaid into the evening  due to an annual holiday gathering of the Netherlands Parliament near the Swissotel  where I stayed for my last night on a long overseas trip. I had hoped to catch a glimpse of the Queen, but later found that they had unfurled the red carpet at the back entrance to the building in Dam Square.  After the later-than-planned, but  provocative  visit to Anne Frank's home, I was in a hurry through the dark streets and winter cold to return to the hotel and warm up, but I found myself captivated by the warmth of lights along the canals and the matte effect of thin ice forming over the water. So, I walked a bit slower, and patiently balanced my camera on a railing to capture a still image of the evening glow.

Everyone knows that London is famous for its red telephone booths and the Big Ben clock tower. Beside black taxi cabs and the more modern London Flyer, nearly everyone who visits takes home a picture of one icon or the other. It can be challenging to find a booth free of tourists hanging over it, or posing in various positions to get the most unique snapshot. But, I managed to sneak one in over the heads of unassuming pedestrians and photo posers. In due diligence of the London experience, I gathered my own brilliant photo of these two London icons in one frame; one of my favorite shots from this London excursion.