From a young age, I’ve always loved birds. Something about peacocks drives my curiousity. Maybe, its the specific mix of colors.
Does the meaning change or is it enhanced when the two are combined?
The picture of the peacock, by itself, portrays a peaceful and majestic moment in nature. Once the audio is associated with the photo, the meaning or feeling is changed in an unexpected way. The bird developes a deviant auro that resembles a serious moment on the catwalk of a fashion show.
For as long as I can remember I have loved being surrounded by trees. The forest has always been a magical place to me and a place to let my imagination roam free. My steady diet of fantasy books fed this fascination. As kid I could find fairies and dragons anywhere. I chose Forest Pond by Zoë Bijl, because it brings me into the woods.
The audio adds a bit of wonder to this forest photo to bring in the magic, transforming it into an enchanted forest with the light piano and the bird sounds. The sound of the synth about 30 seconds in makes me think of 80s fantasy movies like The NeverEnding Story.
I can also picture myself, toes in the water, just thinking and dreaming of far off places with this music playing in the background.
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend”, as per one of my favorite authors, Melody Beattie, in her book “The language of letting Go: Daily Meditations on Codependency.”
I consciously choose to focus on “it can turn a meal into a feast”. As a family, we sit together around the table at least twice a day- this can be an easy way to create a new habit, a ritual that involves myself, my soul partner and our 6 year old. This can be an opportunity to pause when the food is ready and at the table, to inhale the smell, herbs, and the warmth that surrounds it, to thank everyone who helped provide it, including the farmers who planted it, the soil and its ingredients, the sun and the rain, and the trucks that carried it throughout the country and oftentimes from another country.
This is our chance to give our blessings and love to the actual colorful, nutritious energy in front of us that we call food. I invite you to join us in this “feast”, and to give thanks to all who participated in preparing this “feast”- through this process you will also feel the connection to all beings on earth. If you wish, when you choose to turn your meal into a feast, accompany your meal with the song “Majestic Earth” by Joystock. It is a beautiful background to enjoy your meal!
And let me know if something feels or tastes different compared to the previous meals you have had…
For my image, I wanted to use some sort of scenery or environment that I love. I’ve always enjoyed the denseness of forests and the sound of dirt crunching beneath one’s feet, so I went searching for a forest picture that called out to me. Lars-Henrik Snow’s picture of a winter forest has a beautiful contrast of darkness and lightness. I’m especially enamored by the darkness being in the forefront, making the light in the background all that more mystical. I knew my goal going into the assignment was to discover an image and audio that will pair together to completely alter its meaning, which I want to complement with a short narrative. This image was the perfect first step.
Then, it was audio hunting time. I wanted an audio that would change the ambience into something eerie and unsettling. At first I looked into audios where people were murmuring, expecting to use it as an auditory experience for my character’s unsound mind, but none of the audios I found this way felt quiet or isolated enough. Instead, I searched under the keyword ‘ominous’ and found interesting clips, but xtrgamr’s reverbed version of Rock-A-Bye Baby gave me what I didn’t even know I was looking for. Hit with inspiration, I scraped off the rust on my creative writing skills and came up with this:
Two nights, three frigid days now. Matthew’s fingers felt numb even beneath his multi-layered wool gloves. The avalanche swallowing Timmy and Gloria beneath mountains of undiscerning white had been cataclysmic, but the following blizzard even more so. He’d holed up in a cave where the walls had accumulated thin sheets of ice and spent the passing two nights blowing warmth into his unresponsive hands and eating measly rations of jerky and sunflower seeds. The storm had only cleared this morning. He hadn’t realized that wherever he had fallen in the aftermath left him with nowhere to go but through the dense, frozen foliage of an ever-expansive forest. He’s been sludging through 3 feet of snow aimlessly for 4 hours. His joints ached or throbbed – he was unable to discern – and he heard the crooning of his mother’s favorite lullaby. No… that wasn’t a voice, but the mesmerizing trill of the music box he’d unearthed when he was six. Where had it come from? It sounds… distant, back towards the cave. But it was familiar and familiarity is all Matthew has yearned for in the past 72 hours. His feet turned back around and he could not say if it was of his own volition. He followed his sunken boot prints back to the cave, to the warm embrace he was convinced he’d receive. When he was finally back, he entered the belly of the cavern that had not been there. The music stopped.
Apologies for the length of this post! I always get wordy when I don’t mean to… Eerie/creepy/horror writing is not one of my strengths and I was starting to rush it, but I hope it was still atmospheric. Thank you for taking the time to read it all.
This image popped up in a search for cozy reading and encompasses everything that I envision in a comfy, cozy weekend: a fall, rainy day, snuggled up on the couch with candles burning, a good book, and a relaxing drink. There were several rainy sound choices to choose from by the same creator, TRP. I chose 220822 because the rain was loud enough to be heard on the roof with just a touch of thunder in the background. It sounded like the perfect amount of rain without being an annoying mist or a torrential downpour.
Enchancement
The visual and the audio truly enhance each other by immersing you in the experience. Listening to the rain while viewing the photograph makes you feel like you are really sitting at the window, gazing out at the rain while you take a break from your book. The photograph without the sound is still beautiful, but the beauty is magnified when multiple senses are at work. The audio alone is just listening to a clip of rain, but added on top of the photo, it becomes a close-up of relaxation.
That is what I told myself as I watched a sunset much like the one featured in ‘Grand Canyon National Park, Powell Point Sunset 1310035’ by NPS/M. Quinn and Grand Canyon National Park. It was quiet, except for the sounds of nature; the gust of wind, the echoing of birds, and the occasional crunching of loose rock under our feet. This was all impermanent, just like us.
Last fall, as the seasons were shifting from fall to winter in Grand Canyon National Park, I took one of my last hiking trips before giving birth to my beautiful son. Accompanied by my husband, I remember standing out on the ledge of that enormous gulf thinking that there would never be a time quite like this again. One with the freedom to take off and go whereever we wanted, unencumbered by the responsibilities that parenthood entails. We knew we wanted this new, scary and wondrous change. But it was just that, scary and wonderful. Like gazing down at the depths of the canyon, pondering what new things are to be found around the bend.
The song, ‘Cloudy (Cinematic Lofi Beat)’ by MichaelSchullerMusic, paints a contemplative picture, one that isn’t quite sad or joyful, but reflective of what has been and what will be in the future. The birth of a child is a time to consider who we are as people, and who we want to be for our children. It truly is like standing at the precipice of a canyon, ready to jump into the unknown.
That silence my husband and I shared at the Grand Canyon is now gone. In its place, there are belly giggles, triumphant grunts of success, and a fair share of frustrated cries. Someday the quiet will return, but the adventure we feared would leave us remains as we constantly learn and explore new things about ourselves and our spectacular baby boy.
A woman meditating beside a tranquil lake, reflecting the colors of a serene sunset, as the gentle evening light creates a peaceful atmosphere. By Ralph is licensed under CC BY 4.0 DEED
small waves at lake By Garuda 1982 is licensed under CC0 1.0 Deed
For this assignment, I wanted to focus on a peaceful atmosphere created by a sunset. Each day life brings us ups and downs and all sorts of challenges and sometimes we feel like the weight of the world is on our shoulders. The picture by Ralph Ai Artis shows a woman meditating beside a tranquil lake with the sun setting in the background. Sometimes we need to still away to a quiet peaceful place alone and reflect. During this time I think about how thankful I am for life, health, and the challenges I face each day. I am thankful because I know prayer, grace, and mercy are with me and nothing is bigger than my faith. This picture reminds me that although it may seem like I am alone, I am not because someone bigger is always with me.
I picked the gentle sound of waves and water lapping at the shoreline. The sound is calming and soothing and reminds me of an early morning walk along the beach during a summer vacation or an afternoon relaxing on the beach with family. The sound of water is relaxing and puts the mind at peace.
I talked in the first blog about being born in Egypt. Here I’m posting a picture of the Pyramids of Egypt at Giza area. What is it famous and know to people that Egypt has only three Pyramids, but this is not true. Egypt has more than fifty Pyramids, but the famous ones are the Three at Giza area. I also tried to upload an mp3 for techno track I liked, but WP did not allow me to upload it because the audio file was exceeding 10mb, so I had to change it another audio from Soun Cloud. After getting with Dr. Barrager, I was told not to embed anything from Sound Cloud due to the copyright. I uploaded a similar audio that sounds close the original one I wanted it upload.
Have you ever wondered that the night sky is the original state of the universe? The morning sky we see is because of the medium-sized star we revolve around. The universe has been always my favorite thing to learn about. I found Darkriver by Hypatia Alexandria a perfect way to show how beautiful the universe looks like. I have always been a fan of sci-fi movies so I was searching for a soundtrack that could fit in to show how intense the universe is. The Jet Fueled Vixen by Kevin MacLeod soundtrack blends completely with the picture. The deep bass in the soundtrack makes you feel like you are an astronaut in a spaceship looking out of the window and seeing the ocean of stars. That’s the reason I believe this soundtrack goes well with the picture.
For this assignment, I found this photo by Sarah Zanini so striking and almost aesthetically pleasing, I had to share. This is a picture of Gangi, Sicily. The way this city is formed, with houses and buildings built one on top of the other, looking like a mountain. The aerial view looks almost like a mozaic, I love how no building is shaped the same. It looks intentionally imperfect, and I love how the mountains on the top capture what’s outside of the hilltop. Most cities are built outwards, and I love how it’s built upwards but not industrial. The historic hilltop looks like it still preserves this historical element to the city.
I paired this photo with Agnus Dei, a religious Latin chant. This particular copy is from Michał Ziółkowski. I thought it was very fitting with the history of Gangi. A Latin chant to show how Sicily’s culture and history of being primarily Roman Catholic. The architecture reminded me of this chant, and I think the two fit together. The audio is almost eerie and enchanting as well, which is what I immediately thought of the photo when I saw it.
