eastcoastwestcoast

Sunprints

At the International Center of Photography on the Avenue of the Americas in NYC, I finally found some long sought sunprint paper for sale (along with a pinhole camera kit, hurray, I can't wait to try this!), and in Vancouver, I started to experiment with it.

First, I collected some leaves, branches and pine cones on a walk in Lighthouse Park.

Later, while hanging the laundry outside the backdoor, enjoying the cool breezes and the chirps of hummingbirds alongside the buzz of seaplanes over the harbour, I saw some fluffy dandelions and wondered what they would do to the sunprint paper. I left them out in the sun for a few minutes to see what happens. Pale shadows of the dandelion fluff.

Still working to perfect the sunprint, in Toronto I found a perfect maple leaf and placed it atop the paper in the sunshine, where I promptly forgot about it instead of dunking it in water after the prescribed 1-5 min.

Happy mistake, however, as it was the best one yet, the perfectly outlined maple leaf shape standing out crisply against a nice dark blue background.

Back in Dubai, the sunny locale that first inspired the sunprint purchase, I collected some of the fragrant flowers that we see around the apartment, and placed them out for a longer-than-recommended amount of time (this seems to be the secret, 1 to 5 minutes is what the instructions say, whereas 10 minutes results in good, sharp images).

I love how you can see the overlap of the petals, it's like a subtle watercolour painting. Such a favourite. I will spend the summer looking for other little goodies that can make for interesting sunprints, what a fun project, just how I hoped it would be.

View From A380

I love booking window seats so that I can watch the changing landscape below, but this was my 2nd flight on the doubledecker A380, a majestic plane, and there's no real point to the window seat because the massive wing takes up about 80% of the windowframe.

View From The Seabus

I fell asleep in front of the TV last night, after the first day back in Dubai and back in the office following our North America Reunion Tour. The waves of jetlag had me in a deep sleep by 9pm, and when James woke me at 10 so that I could crawl to bed, I was thoroughly disoriented, certain that I was still in Canada, confused that I was seeing the Burj Khalifa outside (maybe I was still semi-asleep). Two weeks of holiday plays tricks on the brain, crystallizing the Canadian DNA and causing every work-related concern to evaporate in the clear fresh air.

So many stories and photos to share, including stories and photos of all of the changes that happened in Dubai in the two weeks we were gone (they work fast, those builders).

For now, a view to remember out the Seabus window, heading across the water to Vancouver.

Garden Update, April 2012

I'm still enjoying the little patch of green that we've installed in our apartment, and the novelty of snipping a few green onions or sage leaves or rosemary springs for cooking.

Below, from left to right, our glorious basil plant that has flourished in this sunny spot and gives off a lovely pesto fragrance when I'm watering the soil. Then, lavender, also doing well, followed by the chives that I've trimmed a ton for meals, so they look a little mangy. And my little cute petunia, 2 dirhams to buy, and it's rejuvenated to blossom in some more flowers, how nice!

Check out that rosemary, reaching for the sun! And then a couple of bulbs that are growing green shoots, one is a hyacinth and the other a lily. Then the parsley, the original herb that we bought ages ago, still doing well.

Finally, the patch of sage and oregano, which are growing like weeds and getting all intertangled. And two more hyacinths, go bulbs go!

I took this last photo because I like all of these cozy Rie Munoz paintings, and it's one of my favourite nooks at home, with the little garden in the background, seashells from a neat beach in Oman, and a frankincense burner from Muscat, bright white like the buildings there.

Morning Visitor

I was sitting at our desk this morning, when I heard the distinct "hoohooooo hoot" of a pigeon, and looked over to see that there was a visitor perched outside. I was glad it chose our window to say Hi.

Rainy Evening

One overcast afternoon earlier this week, a colleague caused quite a stir when she came back from lunch and said, "hey, you know it's raining outside?" Everyone's heads whipped towards the windows, looking for signs of rainfall, and there were eager happy gasps. And then she burst out laughing, saying that she was joking, "you should have seen the looks on all of your faces!"

And then later in the week, I headed outside after dark to meet James who was picking me up after work. It was raining. The fragrance of hot pavement, the pattering sound of the rain on the road, the slick sound as car tires passed by.

Drops of rain and the Burj Khalifa

Of course, the rain against the dusty windows means that our view is a bit obscured. Soon, the rappelling window cleaners will be descending to wipe them clean (what a job). My camera struggles to focus when I take my weekly timelapse photo, focusing on the grime, then the scene outside, then the grime.

Rare rainfall, noteworthy in our desert environs.

Abstract Everyday Patterns

Our wastepaper baskets at work have starry moon patterns cut into them.

And our windows are in need of a good clean, coated with desert sand and showing evidence of a recent sprinkling of rain.

"Seeing Them As Something So Purposeful"

My reading this year has mainly consisted of a series of "Best American Travel Writing" books. These collections feature several dozen travel-related long reads from magazines and newspapers, and they are consistently excellent. Be it a travelogue of an eat-and-drink walking tour through villages in France, a story about a trip to Vostok in Antarctica, a study of Moscow's traffic problems, or an article about Tristan de Cunha (the most remote place in the world, an island right in the middle of the Atlantic, in between South America and Africa), the writing is excellent and the stories are compelling.

Today, I read Susan Orlean's "Where Donkeys Deliver," about the role these animals play in Morocco. You can read the story here, there are interesting parts about medina and the vet clinic that takes care of the animals.

One excerpt that I particularly enjoyed, as it reminded me of our donkey encounter high in the Hajar Mountains in Oman a few weeks ago:

But seeing them as something so purposeful - not a novelty in a tourist setting but an integral part of Moroccan daily life - made me love them even more, as flea-bitten and saddle-sore and scrawny as some of them were.

April's Photos

If you have one of my eastcoastwestcoast calendars, you'll see that this is the mosaic of photos that we chose to feature this month, springtime pink (like cherry blossoms) and pale blue (like the sky).

From left to right: a doorway in Notting Hill; radishes at a market in Paris, where we bought items for a lovely picnic in Luxemburg Gardens; and the shwarma cart outside our favourite Middle Eastern take-out joint here in Dubai (I just had their fattoush salad for lunch today).

Scattered Showers

I made a note on my calendar that April 11, 2011 was the last day on which I saw rainfall in Dubai. This morning, we woke to grey skies and the ground below looked damp. Puddles had formed overnight. The view of the water is back, as the particulate haze in the air has been cleansed. I put on my running shoes for another short post-half run (still sore, but feels good to loosen up even on a shorter course) and felt some raindrops along my route. The air had that fragrance of summer rain, like hot pavement.