Happy 12 euros: library card

Zuerst wollte ich auf ein Foto warten bis ich diesen Text veröffentliche. Dann habe ich gemerkt, dass ich nicht die Geduld habe, um auf dieses eine Foto zu warten. Daher musst du dich für eine Weile mit meiner folgenden Beschreibung zufrieden geben. Das Foto werde ich nachreichen – versprochen (*).

The outside (the photo)

You are standing in front of a shelf in a public library, probably 5 or more rows, all full of books. You can't see the end of the shelf, it extends beyond the left and right edges of the picture. The spines of the books are looking at you. And then there's a girl in front of you, primary school age. She is sitting in a crouch with her back to you. In front of the child is an opened book, half of the book is covered by the child. You're happy because it's nice when people, especially children, leaf through books.

The inside (thought and feeling)

This photo marks a special day. The day I renewed my library card in 2024. And the euphoria I felt when I held my card up to the machine and paid the 12 euro annual fee when asked.

Suddenly I realized what that meant: taking stories home with me, immersing myself in them and finding feelings and thoughts on a scale of 1 to 10 - those of the protagonists and my own.

No book promises me the world but the library promises me a thousand views of the world.

I didn't know how much I missed the world as a library user until I made the payment. Finally being able to spontaneously borrow eBooks again, finally being able to browse again and knowing that I could take the book home with me.

Eventually, I borrowed six books: 1 hiking guide and 5 novels. No way that I will get through all five novels in those four weeks of borrowing. But who doesn't know that happy feeling of taking books home?

So many things for 12 euros: stories, inspiration, perspectives on the world and society, discovering new things and the pleasure of immersing yourself into things. Into a love story, into Arabic cuisine, into the world of physics and languages, into new activities for your hands, into the history of the last twenty years.

Oh, books. Oh, libraries.

~

(*) Edit on 15 September: Herewith, I post the photo 🙂
You find a few words in the post A promise is a promise: The girl in the library of Mainz.

Wild mix and a surprise bag

Most of the time I write about "Something with Photo": Either about photos I took; learning stations that I passed intentionally or unintentionally; and thoughts about an image being captured.

A little piece of the blog is always left for my other hobbies and interests. At the moment it's all about needlework, especially darning and repairing clothes. And every now and then there are a few thoughts from life sprinkled in.

maipenquynh is not intended to be a photo blog - even if it is the biggest topic. As mentioned above, there's a lot more to it. But if it's not a photo blog, what else is it? How would I describe my blog?

All of a sudden, I felt the urge to label my blog. But doing so was difficult because a short and crisp description of my blog was not possible. In the course of this thought, I couldn't let go of another question: Is the overlap of my topics too small? Or to put it in other words: Are the topics too far apart and is there a lack of connection between the topics? Does my blog feel like a wild mix to others?

As I looked to the left and right of me in the blogosphere, I found many blogs to have a "wild mix" - just as life is, I suppose. Different topics are touched on, exactly those topics that bother the blogger. That doesn't bother me as a reader. The wild mix of others is interesting because it allows me to think outside the box from time to time. Of course, not everything on multi-topic blogs always catches my attention and I do skip posts sometimes. But having a possible point of contact is actually awesome. The most important intersection of topics is the person behind the blog: the blogger. On maipenquynh, that is me.

I got confused by the idea of having one focus and not doing too much at the same time. Talking again about being a diver versus being a scanner and how much the thought of having many interests at the same time but having limited capacities has bothered me.

Eventually, I am at the spot where I started: it stays as it is. A large portion of "Something with Photo", sometimes a few thoughts "thought out loud" and then there's the surprise bag. It contains everything else I do and want to show on my blog. The category used to be called "Scanner Focus" but that's too cryptic. The term "Wundertüte" (surprise bag) describes it better: it can be just about anything (except anything to do with photo).

With this I say goodbye to the previous name "Scanner Focus" - it was a good start to make up with "Being a Scanner".

While this text is still in draft status, I happen to come across posts by other bloggers who have already discussed this question. Such a relief. Also their conclusion that it's just right having a multi-topic blog, is a relief. Here are the links to the posts (german):

How do you feel as a blogger - have you ever had the feeling that your choice of topics is too broad and could seem "random" to the audience? Or even the other way round and you wished to expand your range of topics? Or has this question never bothered you and you it was clear to you that you would cover exactly your topics (be it a mono-topic blog or a multi-topic blog)? If you've already written about it, leave me a link to your text!


Picture was first posted here: Inside and outside, buildings | Sunny 16 #2 (Set 1/6)

Internet findings (2) + 1 Off-topic

📖 A visit to Books on the Hill and a mini Daphne du Maurier exhibit
Michelle from the blog Daisybutter likes to visit places with books. This isn't the first post I've read from her where she visits one of these wonderful book places. But it's the first time I took the note to visit more bookshops and lose myself in these wonderful places. Especially in the small bookshops. Of course libraries are included in the wonderful book places!

📷 Each negative holds a thousand photographs
Jim Grey writes on his blog Down The Road about how one (1) film negative can bring out thousand positives (this is quite the blog post title). What Jim Grey writes is as simple as true. I can't even really describe what this post has done with me. But something revelatory, in a positive way. Especially his statement in response to the question of what is the truth in photography has touched a soft spot in my personal photographic development.

📷 Sean Tucker (YouTube channel)
I stumbled across the YouTube channel by Sean Tucker . He talks about photography, with focus on the "how". And even though I have only seen two (2) of his videos so far, they made me wanting see more of his videos. His style and his videos are pleasantly calm and slowing down. His content has an effect. I've already seen other videos' thumbnails that sound interesting but I want to take the time to watch each one.
The first video I watched was the following one: Making Candid Portraits in Street Photography (feat. Dawn Eagleton). Dawn Eagleton is a street photographer I haven't known before and it was very interesting to see how she works. Even though street photography is not my cup of tea, I really enjoy listening to others on this subject.

Only english content today but that's how it is. (This sentence obviously makes more sense in the german version of this post.)

🐧 Off-topic: I feel a bit uneasy as I haven't brought any blog post to an end recently. A number of posts have been drafted already and most of the post is finished. But I just haven't got round to finishing them. Mainly because the finalization must be done on the laptop/computer and on a lot of days, I didn't have the energy or just didn't want to have more screen time. A small disadvantage of blogging... 😫