Author Archives: damienpitter

The Third Life

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Bali, Indonesia. December 2012.

I came across a furniture shop in Bali that used recycled wood and recrafted it into very beautiful chairs and tables. Each piece showing so many layers of paint and varnish and degradation, each it’s own life, it’s own story. Each piece made of mismatched boards from different stories, a collision of pasts in the present. Sadly, there is no room for more furniture in our Japanese apartment, so I took some photographs to be reminded of the colors and textures I found there. In truth, even if there were room in the apartment, the most beautiful pieces I saw that day were all claimed with little yellow sticky-notes that read “Miss Libby.” So Miss Libby, wherever you are, may you sit in the dreamy beauty of layered lives and bask in the satisfaction of a great find.

Dawn in the Skies

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Over Southeast Asia. August 2012.

One of the few advantages of not sleeping well on overnight flights is the chance that you might be awake when the sun rises. It’s one thing to be on the sunward side of the plane to see the sun break over a plain of white clouds. But if you are lucky enough to be awake and to have to a window seat and to open the window shade at just the right time, and be sitting on the other side of the plane, if that’s your kind of luck, then you get the colours.

Platform Reflection

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Kamakura, Japan. April 2011.

It is very nearly Sakura season again in Japan, which has me thinking of this trip we took to Kamakura the first time we came to Japan.
We were heading for the main street where there is a two kilometer stretch of boulevard lined with cherry trees and I took this photo on the train platform. Originally, it was the poster that drew my attention, looking so like what we had come to see. In retrospect, though, it’s the likeness of the woman in the poster to the woman on the platform that makes me smile. You know, life and art in mutual imitation.

Nourish

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Yokohama, Japan. February 2013.

Every once in a while, I get to do some graphic design. The pomegranates in the Nourish poster are not my photographs. I’ve used them under Creative Commons attribution and share-alike licenses.
Sliced Pomegranate: cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by stevendepolo
Whole pomegranate: cc licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo shared by You As A Machine

The Vendor

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Bangkok, Thailand. January 2011.

When shown Van Gogh’s Starry Night and asked what they see, some people will catalog the elements: “I see stars, a swirl of wind, a crescent moon, a tree, the buildings of a small town.” Others will tell the story of what’s happening: “I see a warm summer night like the ones of my teenage years when we’d sneak out of a sleeping town and lay down next to a cornfield to watch the August meteor showers. I see a warm south wind sweeping the day’s gossip and rumors away like a gentle broom in a sure hand, while crickets serenade their one true star and bullfrogs bellow their heartache into the hungry dark between huddles of dreaming trees.” I take photographs like this one because often, it’s the story that appeals to me, more than the details. But what about you? When you look at this photograph, what do you see?

What You Said

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A quick thank you to those of you who completed my survey about what you might like to see in an Etsy store. I have to do some printing tests now, but your feedback is very much appreciated. I thought you might be interested in the results, too. Beside each photograph is the percentage of respondents who selected it. Respondents selected up to ten photographs each.

61% 31% 22%
33% 22% 50%
19% 25% 33%
3% 31% 14%
3% 47% 28%
42% 17% 25%
39% 22% 53%
25% 17% 6%
6% 6% 56%
33% 11% 31%