FIRST THINGS:

I have made a couple of folders of Creative Commons images and will be adding more to them. But if you want to use any of my images that aren’t marked creative commons for any non-commercial purpose I’m probably going to be agreeable, just please do ask first. For any such use, credit and a link to the pic would be appreciated. And if you use an image of mine as a layer or part of an altered image of your own I’d love to see your pic in my comments!

Now if you have any ideas for actually making money off of any of these images, in some collaborative way or whatever, email me and we’ll talk!

ABOUT CONTACTS:

After being on Flickr for a couple of years now I have come to some guidelines about contacts. Here they are as clearly as I can state them.

I will make you a contact if:

a. I happen upon your stream and your work blows me away and I want to be able to see new things as they come along because I really love a lot of what you do.

b. You make me a contact and I visit your stream and find images that I really like enough to want to comment on.

I will NOT make you a contact if:

You make me a contact and I discover that it's because I commented on one or more of your images, but you didn't bother to visit my stream and comment on any of my images. That means you are only doing it to get more comments, and I'm sorry, but that's just arrogant and self serving and rude! It has to be a two way street.

THAT SAID:

I've been on Flickr for about a year and a half (as of today, Dec. 28, 2008) and had not written anything in this space! Kept promising myself to do it, but never got motivated.

Then I got "TAGGED" for this group thing, if you're tagged you have to tell "16 random facts" about yourself. Lots of people wrote nice little succinct fun lists--but I found others who wrote longer more revealing ones. Mine falls in the latter category, as short and succinct is NOT something I do very well! Anyway, I decided the list would serve pretty well as something to introduce myself here in this space--for now at least. So here is the list, as done for the group Tag, you're it! "I've Been Tagged!" Group www.flickr.com/groups/926021@N24/

16 Random Things about Me

1. I am a major packrat. Things pile up around me—actual and digital. My total photoshop file contains 176 GB. I just went on my computer and looked that up, and watched it take a minute to add all that up before it arrived at that number. Now that’s truly scary. And I’ve been deleting things, honestly I have! Yikes.

2. I have become a major Flickrholic. I usually spend at least an hour or two every night on Flickr and sometimes way more. I seem never to be able to keep up with all my contacts but I try.

3. I’m an aging hippie and glad of it. Those WERE the days, my friend. Did it all, don’t regret a bit of it. Walked out a lot of doors in my mind and back in through others. If you were there you know what I’m talking about.

4. I love that era music: Doors, Hendrix, Jeff Airplane, Santana, Country Joe’s one awesome psychedelic album, Zeppelin, etc. etc. Some cuts can take me back in time and space to some very awesome state-specific experiences.

5. I also love a ragingly eclectic mix of other music. World music, especially mid-eastern; dark ambient music, Steve Roach, Robert Rich etc.; singing bowls; dhrupad, didgeridoo, all kinds of world beat, I love artists who mix it up and defy categories. See my profile for a bit more detail. Along with photography and art, music is a universal language.

6. I’m addicted to scary movies and scary books. Love Dean Koonz, Stephen King, Anne Rice, vampire fiction in general. Favorite movies in this genre: The Shining, Poltergeist, Sixth Sense, The Exorcist, Interview With the Vampire, Queen of the Damned, to name a few. I do NOT like ugly bloody gory slasher type movies. That’s not scary, that’s just gross. I read constantly, always have a book going, sometimes two at once. Flickr has cut down on my reading time though!

7. As you’ve undoubtedly noticed I’m a big blabbermouth. This is not one of those beautifully succinct lists. I have been known to write entire paragraphs consisting of one sentence. Brevity-r-NOT-us! I was an English Lit major in college, and my biggest problem with writing papers etc. was always to pare it down to manageable size!

8. Spiritually I’m a mystic. I think that at the heart of all the traditions, there’s that ineffable place where we encounter the mystery, where we know our connection to one another and to the whole web of existence. I think there are many many paths to that place but they all lead to the same place. The essence of that place is love and harmony and connection and compassion and beauty and peace. It’s a place that feels like home, someplace we’ve never exactly been yet we know in our DNA, in our brain chemistry, in our soul.

9. I love nature and all her creatures. (Well OK not all. I have a hard time feeling love for, say, mosquitoes!) But I love animals and it breaks my heart that we humans are taking the habitat of so many and driving them near extinction. One of the major categories in my favorites folder is animals, wild or domestic, can’t get enough. I may not ever get to go to the wild places of the world but I need to know that they exist.

10. I am married to a wonderful man, we will celebrate our 38th anniversary this year. We have three grown children and three grandchildren, the loves of my life. Also two kitties, my current at-home children!

11. I run a small consignment clothing store. It’s very work intensive and I don’t get rich, but I make a modest living and I love it. It feels like right livelihood, recycling at its best, a win-win situation. We’ve been interviewed lately about how consignment stores are doing well in this scary economic time. So far so good, all fingers and toes firmly crossed. If you’ll look back at item number one (I’m a major packrat) you’ll see that I turned a positive aspect of that into a good way to make a living.

12. I love hot tea! Morning Thunder, Matte for day, soothing herbal teas at night.

13. I’m almost embarrassed about my Flickr handle now (Fractal Artist) because for the last couple of years I’ve not been doing much with fractals, much more with photography and making abstracts and altered images out of my digital pics. A lot of people think the altered images are fractals, but they’re not. If an image is a fractal or based on a fractal, it will say so in the title or description, and definitely in the tags. Fractals aren’t just about fractal programs, though; all of nature is based on fractal patterns and fractal math, so there are fractals everywhere! And I love patterns, I’ll sit and take multiple pictures of things like super close-ups of water in a fountain, because of the endless fractal patterns they create. I learned photoshop by working with fractals though, so I learned a lot of techniques, just by playing, that I now use in my digital photography altered images.

14. My vision is quite poor, 20/ 200 without glasses, 20/ 80 in my best eye on a good day with. The biggest pain in the ass thing about that is that I don’t drive, don’t see well enough to have ever gotten a license. That’s limiting in many ways, no point pretending it’s not. Other than that, I can do most things I want to do with some adjustments. My computer screen is set low res. so the icons and print size will be readable for me, and I have special glasses just for the computer. I can’t tell if an image on the camera is in sharp focus, so mostly must make do with the auto-focus settings. Also can’t see the little tiny read-outs on the LCD screen if I wanted to use the more manual settings. Surprised? I think the way I see effects the way I see the world in good ways as well as inconvenient ones. I sometimes have a somewhat unique and different eye for what I want to take pictures of, stuff other folks would not see or be interested in. My eyes have never focused together, but I don’t see double. Some magic hooey the brain does in it’s processing. I’ve often wondered if that didn’t have something to do with my ability to usually see both or many sides of an issue, hold them in my mind at the same time, understand divergent points of view, even if I have a strong opinion about the matter—which I often do.

15. One of the things I love best about Flickr is the internationality. I have so many contacts from all over the world! Many don’t speak my language, and I don’t speak theirs. Yet the images are a universal language which we all understand. And a fav or even a comment in a language you don’t understand, is “I really like this” in any language!

16. Boy oh boy, this was harder than it looked! I have REALLY super enjoyed reading my contacts’ 16 things lists, such a great way to learn wonderful things about everybody! I think this is a SUPER idea! Thanks for tagging me, and I’ll look forward to tagging some other folks! I'll be really surprised if very many people make it through this "list"--it's way too long!

Your Personality is Very Rare (INTP)

Your personality type is goofy, imaginative, relaxed, and brilliant.

Only about 4% of all people have your personality, including 2% of all women and 6% of all men

You are Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Perceiving.

www.blogthings.com/howrareisyourpersonalityquiz/

Re the "favorite music and artists" section below, to check out more of my musical tastes, visit my profile page on last.fm, the best on-line radio station I've ever listened to! Check it out! Here's a link to my profile page:

(dolphinmoonwind is my handle on that site)

www.last.fm/user/dolphinmoonwind