I've been contacted by a publisher

And he wants to use a picture from my gardening blog in a children's book on container gardening.

Seriously, if you'd ever told me I'd get into print as a photographer I would have said you were nuts.

I'll get credited and will receive a copy of the book. Very, very cool.

But the irony of it is killing me.

Hey publishers, I've got a manuscript for you! Yoohoo! Over here!

I Can Has Cheezburger

This blog has become a daily stop for me. And it's too good not to pass on. I Can Has Cheezburger is a cooperative blog that allows readers to submit captioned pictures in the LOLCats tradition. Other animals or amusing pictures are accepted; the current front page has a lioness, a polar bear and a raccoon, in addition to the numerous pussycats. Several pictures are posted daily.



It's like the comics page in the newspaper, but often better.

Technorati tags: LOLCats

Skeleton in the Closet

I wrote some time back about stick-thin models and the pressures upon them to conform to a morbidly unhealthy body ideal. But it is not only models and not only women who fall victim to the distorted thinking that leads to eating disorders and other forms of self-mutilation. Photographer Fritz Liedtke experienced it to a degree as a young man and has now mounted an exhibit, Skeleton in the Closet, dealing with the issue through photos and accompanying text.

From Jeffrey Overstreet's interview with Liedtke:

One of the surprising things about people struggling with eating disorders is that, often times, they believe so thoroughly in what they are telling themselves (that I’m fat, ugly, unworthy of love, need drugs to keep going), that nothing you can say will help them. They won’t hear you. I’ve sat face to face with these beautiful people who were headed for death, and could do little more than listen. Of course, my role as an artist and photojournalist was to listen and tell their story, not be their counselor. But the depth to which we are able, as humans, to deceive ourselves, is quite surprising sometimes.

Another thing I found interesting in the interview process was how much people would share with me. I would sit there and ask questions and listen, and people would start telling me things that they hadn’t told anyone else, not even their spouses. I felt like a priest in a confessional. Obviously, they wanted to get things off their chest (with some encouragement from me), and I was honored to be able to listen.

Even a small sampling of the pictures had me fighting tears. They are eloquent and disturbing.

You can find Jeffrey Overstreet's complete interview with Liedtke at The Eagle and Child.

Technorati tags: Anorexia, Bulimia, Eating disorders, Fritz Liedtke

Paris

Portraits by the author when a young man (or in this case, the author's son).

Not your standard walruses!

Since we (all one of us) at The Walrus Said have a natural prejudice in favour of walruses, we would like to point out that this does not mean we are specieist. Proof:







More unusual critters can be found here. There may even be one to fit your blog! Thanks to Hassenpfeffer for pointing us (all one of me) in the right direction.

Technorati tags: Walruses

The other face of Haiti

Haiti, the poorest country in the hemisphere, is in the news again as Hurricane Ernesto sweeps over it. It seems that whenever we hear about Haiti, it is in connection with disasters - sometimes natural, usually man-made - and bleak grinding poverty. But there is another face of Haiti, and Jeff Mills wants you to see it.


Inspired by the documentary Born into Brothels, the Ottawa-area photographer took some cameras along with him when volunteering on a road-building project in March and gave two photography workshops for high school students. The cameras were then given to the students who proceeded to document their lives with the first cameras they had ever held.

It's obvious they see a different Haiti than the one we see in the news. Poverty, yes, but also hope and joy.


The project is continuing and expanding, with the young photographers immensely excited to see their work being published on the Internet. They're currently working on a writing project explaining the content of their work for inclusion in the photo gallery of Jeff's website, where you can go to look at all of the photographs to date.

To read more about the project and to find out how you can help encourage these young photographers and future leaders of Haiti, please visit the website. After all, any country that decks its cemeteries in cheerful colours has obviously not yet given in to despair.