Quiet Parlor of the Fishes TTV

These are through-the-viewfinder photos of The Quiet Parlor of the Fishes, in the Zymoglyphic Museum. I think as photos they are "okay," but the subject matter and the atmosphere help make them interesting.


This one benefits from both dust on the viewfinder of the Kodak Duaflex and dust on the terrarium itself. It's flaw is that the most interesting part is almost dead center. I took these quickly, as the sun was streaming in. I didn't really try to frame a good composition.


A well framed photo isn't necessarily the best one to use in a collage. This one looks too dark and mysterious to me, although I love the shadow streak across the glass. It also looks much better larger. When I was using film, my favorite photos for collage were the ones I didn't get charged for. They were blurry, streaked, or cut off by the end of the film. I do think these have some potential, I'll get them printed and leave them on my worktable.

This flickr set has more ttv photos and some shots of my set-up.
Through the Viewfinder group on Flickr. You'll see some really great photos, by expert photographers here.

TTV Details

Here is an uncropped, straight from my camera, through-the-viewfinder photo. You can see where light leaks through between the camera body and the chimney. When I took this photo I hadn't made the little ring that keeps my camera level, so I need to both straighten the image above and crop a lot.


Since taking this photo I put a little ring on the top of my chimney to hold my camera level. This seems to help with both the framing and focusing. I can set my camera in the chimney now, and use the remote to take the photo in low light situations.

Here's an earlier post that has photos of my cameras and the chimney.

I'm using a Kodak duaflex camera, with lots of nice dust in it. My digital camera is an Olympus C-60 Zoom. It's not a fancy or super-expensive camera. I think I'm getting a large enough image to have it printed as a 4 x 6 inch image, or slightly larger. My cropped photos are about 1200 x 1200 pixels. I intend to use these for collage, so I will probably sand them a little, or distress the surface somehow. I'm not greatly worried about photo quality.

My first ttv photos and my set-up are in this flickr set.

Coptic Stone Icon

In Portland this past fall I found this wonderful little Coptic carved stone icon. The recesses for the doors are about 3/8 inch deep. This is one side, the doors open, see below. I think this would make a fantastic book structure. I do plan to copy the format at some point.

Some artist friends came to visit this weekend. There was a lot of talk about where inspiration comes from. One of them is just beginning to make art and keeps saying she's not creative. (I intend to erase that idea from her head.) Every artist develops his/her sources of inspiration. For me it often comes from outsider art, folk art and art before the renaissance. (I don't like the whole "high art/low art" debate that went around when I was in school, but I'm not going to try to address any of it.) It's good to look at lots of art and draw your inspiration from the things you are most passionate about. I bought this icon because it spoke to me so clearly. It has charm, a primitive energy and a sincere purpose.


The doors are attached with a heavy cord. The stone is carved. You can see that the door on the right has broken and been clumsily mended. Too bad, but it made the price lower - that was good for me.


This is the other side. Same basic format. The door on the left appears to be a slightly different stone, perhaps made to replace a broken one?


And the second side, open.

There are larger photos on flickr.