Around the web with Stereographs

This post used to include the discussion of Creative Commons and the public domain, but I’ve broken that out to its own post. This is an around the web roundup of some journal ideas and animations I did from old stereograph photos.

ARound the Web

• Observation journals & Kathleen Jennings

  • Kathleen Jennings is an artist and author and as far as I can tell everything she does is fantastic. She has an excellent blog, and her series of posts about her observation journal practice (linked above) is inspiring. I also really enjoyed her gothic mystery fairy tale Flyaway.

  • I’ve been doing some observation journals myself, and it’s been a really interesting way to collect ephemeral daily experiences. It has also expanded the surface area for where new ideas live, which means I’ll need to figure out how to regularly review and consolidate things I want to look into further, but my piles of digital and physical notes could all use a little more regular maintenance, so right now it seems like a good trade-off.

• Stereographs

  • Picking out stereogrpahs to animate used to be an easy post for my turn on the socials when I was working as an archivist, and it’s still fun. I’ve been posting them on my tumblr blog. If you want to see the animations, you can click on the photos or the “see the animation” links.

See the animation. Publisher: Thomas Small (British), and Publisher: London Stereoscopic Company (British). [Group of 15 Early Stereograph Views of Cambridge, England and the Surrounding Area]. 1860s–80s. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. https://jstor.org/stable/community.18654245.

See the animation. The Crystal Palace, London: An Exhibit of Sea-Shells. Photograph, 1851/1862. Wellcome Collection. https://jstor.org/stable/community.24906341.

See the animation. Artist: Lewis Morris Rutherfurd and Publisher: E. & H. T. Anthony (American). Full Moon: The Left Hand Moon Was Photographed June 2nd, 1871. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. https://jstor.org/stable/community.27270259.

REading Recommendations

More books than usual fell by the Did Not Finish wayside for me in November, but I also read some real gems:

• Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark

• Strange Pictures by Utketsu

• Share Your Work by Austin Kleon

• Graveyard Shift by M.L. Rio

• Houses with a Story by Seiji Yoshida

Writing in November

In my blog post from earlier in the month, I said that my goal was to do a personal NaNoWriMo (50,000 words in the month of November) to finish the first draft of the novel I’m working on. I did it! I’m feeling very productive! It’s still a messy first draft and there’s a lot of work to be done, but I think the bones of the story are there.