More self portraits in bathroom mirrors...

In a previous blog entry I posted self portraits that I had taken in bathroom mirrors.  It appears as though I missed a couple!  This pair is almost a year old, I found them hiding in some forgotten corner of my iPhone's internal storage.  Enjoy!

Self Portraits in Bathroom Mirrors

The silver lining on the cloud of one particular ER visit in my adolescence (the reason for which I cannot now recall) was discovery a beautiful article on the website for The Mirror Project in an Oprah Magazine.

In college I submitted to this website often, and even printed out a screen shot of their home page when one of my submissions was chosen as a "notable recent entry".  Though I have not submitted anything to them in a long time, the urge to take my self portrait in mirrors (and other reflective surfaces) remains strong.  I beleive it was always strong, even before discovering the website, which is probably why the first hour browsing it was so magical.  Me and thousands of people all over the world get iPhones with cameras just for the bizarre hobby of photographing oneself in bathroom mirrors.  Are you one of those people?  I'd love to see.

Of course bathroom mirrors aren't the only reflective surfaces out there.  I often find shiny objects to photograph my reflection in while out dabbling in my other hobby: covert iPhone photography while shopping.  I will post some of those self portraits in my next blog entry!

P.S. I had some trouble getting the mirror project link to work, and there seem to be some other websites with the same name, so I'll share a working link to the right website as soon as I find one!

A grocery store ritual.

Growing up, my mom took me to McDonalds after every unpleasant doctor’s appointment. The promise of french fries and cheeseburgers calmed my pre-appointment nerves. Fast food was quite the treat in our household; Kix were considered junk food. The McDonalds parking lot was separated from the clinic parking lot only by a small grassless median. It was a fast and easy way for my mother to improve the mood of a child who had the usual dislike for medicines and needles.

Now I ride the bus alone to my doctor’s appointments. Occassionally I walk out the hospital doors in a cloud of mild sedation (nervous jitters are bad for medical imaging) and need a rest period before attempting the public transit system.  So I cross the street and head straight through the doors of Whole Foods.

Up until yesterday, I usually passed my time wandering the aisles and using my iPhone to photograph compositions I discovered among the produce and wine bottles. But for the first time, an employee approached me yesterday. I was still dazed from the procedure performed less than an hour previous, so when she told me I needed permission from the customer service desk to take photos (“It’s company policy.”) I actually went up to customer service and asked for permission to take photos. Of course this doesn’t actually work for Joe Schmoes entertaining themselves with their cell phone cameras. And of course the general manager (actually gotten for me by a very helpful Customer Service employee) explained that to me. I gave my best semi-professional spiel, “I’m a freelance event coordinator, and I was thinking of posting a blog on using Whole Foods to self-cater an event…” (not untrue) and she did give me the URL for their press ready photos.  But she did not give me permission to take my own.

So I spent the rest of my “appointment recovery period” eating free samples of pineapple and sausage and browsing their catering menu. And of course I ate some very tasty hazelnut gelato (served to me by a very friendly and attractive lesbian, with whom I shared a brief conversation about our mutual frustration over dietary restrictions imposed by health problems). I’m not sure if I am going to pretend to forget the photo rule during my next visit, if I do I will perhaps be more discreet (cell phone cameras are excellent for this). But in the meantime, I do have some lovely shots to share.  Hey, no one told me I had to delete the photos I already took.

It's easy to find photographic compositions in the produce aisle.

I couldn't imagine anything more decadent than an entire sweets table at a wedding loaded with these delicacies.

I love the label on the crates beneath the pumpkins and squash...

Another delicious catering idea; how gorgeous, how delicious!

I have always wanted to paint a kitchen this color, a subtle combination of pink and orange.