Travellin' Penguin

AI gave me a random “My Day Out”.  I wrote about this in my previous post. It stated I should visit a book store. How appropriate is that?  So that’s what I did. 

I invited my 91 year old good friend to go with me and we drove north for 45 minutes to visit the small, but elegant, Black Swan book shop. It is owned by Alexander Okenyo and he and his staff are lovely and don’t even mind a quick chat even when extremely busy making many coffees. They have the most interesting shop, they are independent and their coffee is some of the best in the state. Cappuccinos are covered in chocolate and it is hot. Did I mention that my friend and I also shared a fudge brownie between us? 

I took the Penguin with me on this trip. I also took his American friend with him (who by the way is now an Australian citizen), Bald Eagle.  He left America too. Literally!  The two of them seemed to enjoy what was going on in the shop. We had a small photo shoot, after all Penguin really wants to be his own influencer. (Roll eyes…) I have decided that Penguin needs to get out of the house more often too and I don’t mind if he takes a friend as he has several. 

I bought a beautiful journal. I also bought a very interesting non- fiction book called How to Live an Artful Life by Katy Hessel. I haven’t come across this book before and I felt it pull me across the shop once I saw it. You know how that is.

It is a book about a collection of ideas and observations drawn from the lives and work of women artists through out history. Rather than being a conventional art-history book, it offers short reflections- one for each day of the year- about creativity, noticing the world around you, finding inspiration in daily life, and having the confidence to make or appreciate art. It’s designed to be dipped into daily, almost like a creative journal or companion, rather than read it straight through. 

I am looking forward to a big “peruse”. 

I also picked up this lovely little journal as I liked the cover so much. 

When we left the book shop we stopped and looked at all the plants. We are into spring now and there are plants everywhere. There is a market here every Saturday morning and my friend enjoyed looking at unusual things for sale as we strolled down the street. She is an Op (thrift) Shop queen. She loves a bargain.

I bought two ranunculus plants for my back patio area. The patio area is actually all enclosed as it doubles for a large cat enclosure. I need to be careful of what plants I put out there. Not that the two of them bother plants but you just never know. They are more interested in the spiders and lizards and other little bugs. 

The last shop we went into was FLYWHEEL. Flywheel is an absolutely beautiful stationery shop. I have to take tissues in there with me as I drool over the journals, the colourful inks and the fountain pens. Did I get another journal? Yes I did. These particular journals have paper that the fountain pen glides over and I really like them. I’ve never seen them in other places.  Penguin and Bald Eagle agreed they were gorgeous. 

The woman who runs the shop is lovely and she helped me pick out a beautiful forest green ink for my pen.  It is a little bottle of ink made in Japan but I also own a couple of small bottles of ink I bought there previously that are made in Tasmania. 

I must say the first random, Day Out day was a winner. I look forward to where Chat GPT sends me next week. I told it I am limited to anywhere in southern Tasmania. Anything to do with photography, books, art, touristy reserves, parks, etc. It sends me plan every Sunday morning.

Did any of you have a Day Out this past week? If so, tell me about it. I’ll put your adventures in my journal. I love little stories from friends. All the best for the next week.

By Tori Haschka.  Illustrator – Andrea Turvey; Photographer- Isabelle Wield

Published by Ryland Peters & Small London/New York

This book came up on the spinner and I pretty much got through it in the hour allocated to it. 

This book is a mixture of travel writing and cookbook inspired by her journeys around the world. The author shares personal stories alongside recipes that capture the flavours of places such as Venice, Paris, Morocco and Greece. 

The best part of this book, in my opinion, is the photography and the illustrations. I really enjoy looking at urban and travel sketches and the food photography is very good. I know how hard it is to photograph food in a lovely setting.

The recipes looked lovely but nothing I would ever make.  

The things I liked about the book:

• Sketches
• Photography
• Stories of the travels
• The hard cover and binding- very attractive
• What I didn’t like as much
• Too much meat. I need more balance in a cookbook and I don’t eat a lot of red meat. We also don’t eat lamb or pork. 
• Too much double cream, cream cheese. Desserts are too rich and complicated.
• Book published in 2013 but recipes felt like 1970s and 80s to me. Trying to be a bit trendy I think and would have liked more recipes that are common to the people in those countries instead of the 5 star restaurants.
• So with that – enjoy the scatter of photos throughout. Those are very good. 

I hope your week is going well.

Penguin really enjoys his time in France.

The spinner came up on Photography today so I spent an hour on this book.

Before I start though I’ll mention the randomly picked Penguin Archive book from the Penguin Anniversary challenge that was Night Owl by Nikolai Leskov was a DNF for me. I read half of it and needed to stop. Night Owls” by Nikolai Leskov is a short, sharply satirical Russian story that looks at religious faith, hypocrisy, morality and social pretence. Not for me at this time.

I am just not in the mood at this moment.

**********

So onwards to Photography.

I have a few favourite street photographers from the past and most were in New York City. Though I have several books that are not located there. In NYC Jay Maisel was my favourite and I see he just died last month at the age of 94. I really liked him. He was very down to earth and lived his entire life with a camera. His main message was, “Street photography is light, colour and gesture” This is what one looks for. You tube has a lot of info on him.

Though originally street photos were all black and white which is also still popular even though colour has now been available for years.

I like Vivian Maier and Dorothea Lange and Saul Leiter. But of course they ate all gone now. Street photos can be edited by balancing the light or removing objects that might detract from the photo. This is different from photo journalism where the photos must only be published as is. Nothing should be changed from the final result.

There are different types of street photos. Urban architecture to the stories of people in the street. Here are a few I like.

GThe photo of the world trade center was taken by Joel Meyerowitz. No one was allowed within the rubble outside of city workers after the event. But he dressed himself as a construction worker and was the only person to reveal those photos. He is still living.

Look at the pictures below. They either tell a story or they feature shadows and light that are quite artistic. Just a few examples.

The above photos were copied from this book.

The following photos are ones I took in Hobart a couple weeks ago.

Enjoy your week.