Forgive our hiccup today...this post got deleted on accident-things happen-but i know a lot of you commented and left links and we apologize but it seems we lost those too! Rats. Note to self-it IS really smart to write posts in a word document before getting them up on your blog. Whew.

One of my favorite magazines of all time is Wondertime. Have you seen it? It still surprises me when people haven’t. I’ve had a subscription since the minute I discovered it. The visual sensibilities are off the charts cool. Photography.to.die.for. The perfect mix of art and everyday; a visual marriage that particularly speaks to me. And then there’s the content. With contributing editors like Catherine Newman and Brett Paesel (love and love) and articles from women like Alice Bradley (more love) what, I ask you, is not to like?

But even with all this periodical alchemy, when I get the magazine each month I go straight to the very back page…first. See, they end the issue with a photograph (actually usually a diptych) titled no comment. It’s usually a coupling that speaks so poignantly of childhood in that perfect, I laughed, I cried kind of way that no words are necessary. It’s great.

I have only given you all of this background to say that now and again if you come across a post here at Shutter Sisters called no comment (and if we’re being true to the phrase, using only a photo and no words) you’ll know where the inspiration came from.

And if any of you are so inclined to share your own no comment photos, by all means, show us what you’ve got. And if you enter them our Flickr pool and tag them “no comment” you never know when one might pop up on a post (with your permission of course). Sometimes a good image—or two—says more than any words can say.

Sarah Jessica Parker has said of the characters in Sex and the City: There’s not just the four of us girls. There’s a fifth, and she’s New York City, and she sparkles.

Here, there’s not just the one subject—a boy, for his first birthday—there are two. The boy and the light.

A photo is a snapshot when light is absent—there, obviously, but not playing an active role. That’s alright sometimes. For when you grab the camera to snap cookie dough on a cheek, candles on a cake.

For me, snapshots become more conscious when that special sort of light plays to my favour by chance—inches from a windowpane on a cloudy day, all diffused and wistful, or a burst of beloved flare that bounces off the water, glowing like some watchful spirit.

Specialness in light can be summoned, too, by calling it on stage: tracks on the kitchen ceiling, for instance, thrown out of focus for just what I wanted—the feel of a vintage wonder wheel, a circus, stars for my birthday boy and his spirit-brother.

I need it today. Show me light that’s conscious and manipulated, or discovered by chance, featured as that sparkling ‘fifth character’. Send some my way, will you?

When was the last time you got silly? This weekend, get outside. Walk around the block with no shoes on. Pick flowers out of your neighbors' yards and wear them in your hair. Let your kids stay up past their bedtime. Build a fort on your couch with sheets and pillows. Make up silly lyrics to your favorite songs. Watch a scary movie with all of the lights off. Do cartwheels and spin in circles until you fall down.

And don't forget to take pictures.

I found this tutorial today at www.fototiller.com via photojojo. The kids had so much fun making their "OWN" coloring pages. Thought yours might too. You could even make them into a book here or here, and give them as birthday gifts. Happy Wednesday!  :)

photo by HippyHappyHay

Flickr makes my eyes cross.

In a good way, of course. Eye-crossing world-rocking is what feeds music, art, films, literature—creatives influence enthusiasts who become creatives who influence enthusiasts, each imprinting a new twist on the original until you’re not sure where the muse left off and the student begins.

I’m immensely grateful to Pioneer Woman for her most excellent Photoshop tutorials, sitting two inches from the screen breathing with my mouth open all-like OoooohhNOWIGETIT! …But then everywhere you turn we’re all morphing into replicas, following step-by-step like an army of Verne Troyers to Ree’s Dr. Evil, complete with a chorus of mini-maniacal giggling that we all finally got our hands on the recipe for the Marlboro Man style.

It’s soul food for dry spells, and we love her for it.

But this week I was bewitched by HippyHappyHay’s portrait in our fabulous pool, and went on to admire the gorgeous tones and inventive backgrounds found in her photostream. Ethereal and washed out rather than saturated, delicately evocative rather than high-contrast and grainy. So refreshing next to the unrelenting BAM! BAM! BAM! of my intermediate photofinishing routine, the unchallenged 1-2-3 that I apply like a creature of habit.

And now I’m lit up, all hippyhappy. Still grateful for the generosity of the pioneers, but ripe for something new. So don't bust my bubble, 'kay? Don't say "DUH... that's just '#23 Low Contrast/Vintage' from Actions-R-Us..."

Let me bask in this apparent differentness.

(Come to think of it, maybe it's about time I jump on the actions bandwagon. Think so? Do you use actions for instant interestingness? And is it not a contradiction in terms to push a MAKE-IT-UNIQUE! button while everyone else does the same? Isn't adopting the latest popular pizazz like buying a Toyota—don't you then just see Toyotas everywhere? Does originality even matter, or is it all just about prettier pictures?)

I digress. Share with us: who’s taught you a thing or two? And who’s inspired you to turn it all upside-down?