Clinton Friedman Photography

Wow! These are some georgeous prints. I would definately want to hang these on my walls. Go and have a look at South of the Sahara, or directly to Clinton Friedman's website. They are absolutely beautiful variations on the traditional botanical and wildlife prints!

There is such a variety of art in the UK, the markets every week have canvas prints: most shops have an artwork section and there are so many ways to print out your own images and hang them. But sometimes I just want something familiar that reminds me of where I come from. Sometimes the reminder is too painful, the photographs here might remind me of home and I start to feel incredibly homesick. But I still think that his photographs are lovely.

Reading

We recently diyed a bookcase, call it a corner where we store our books. It always surprises me how many books we have, and yet ... there's always another book that we want. We both read alot. I like to look in peoples bookcases whenever I visit them, just to see what they have, if I can find anything I might want to read. And yet I am amazed by how few people have lots of books. Just 2 or 3 shelves in a bookcase, maybe. It's really sad. Since I can remember I have loved reading. I used to compete with the boys in my class at junior schools who could read the most or something similar. It so beats tv, and the internet. But increasingly, I find I switch on the computer and sit surfing the net or the tv channels rather than picking up a book. This has to change. I am going on holiday for a month in a couple of weeks and so due to where I am going, I am likely to not have access to internet or tv, so I can relax truly. I would love to take books back with me, but that said, we only have an allowance of about 20kg's and because we read so much, I can finish a book on the 11 hour flight out there, and then I would have nothing to read. So its ok, I can find books at the families homes, it means I get to try books I might otherwise not have considered.

Whats on your bookcase? We have a selection of books ranging from CS Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, through to Art Now, Post Colonial Theory (OK admitedly thats a library book, vampire yarns like The Day Watch through to Sebastian Faulks Birdsong and Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative, and then there are the poetry collections. Reading opens up the world, and when you open those book covers you are immersed in an alternate reality, sometimes a fantasical one. Who wouldn't enjoy doing that?