Squares

A "square"--back in the days when I was a pre-teen--was a pejorative term: it meant that you didn't kiss the boys who wanted you to kiss them.  Boys called girls "square"--I suppose, to encourage them to round up?  Or grow rounder? Or get our of their box and play?

I'd like to research to origin of the word in that context some day.

Charming towns are often built on squares--stores, cafes, coffee shops, and salons around the courthouse.  Sitting down on any point of a town square, I love to observe the people shopping and looking and visiting.  Within large cities, like Florence and Venice, market squares are usually the places we choose to stop and sit, listen to live music, and have a leisurely snack while watching the waves of walking people.

I love the fabric squares that make up patchwork quilts, the squares of certain rooms, even the black and white tiles on my bathroom floor.  I like the blank squares on a fresh page of a calendar not yet filled in.

Photographs are usually rectangular.  I've spent hours this week turning 4 x 6 photographs into squares.  With the help of computer editing tools, you can erase extraneous details and zoom in on faces or eyes or hands, whatever is most compelling about the photograph.  Landscapes don't often lend themselves to squares; you're after a wide angle of land and sky.  But people photographs, particularly pictures of children, become more interesting when you crop them into square formats and get closer than you could have gotten when you snapped the picture.

The snapping of the original photograph captures a bigger scene--including big patches of brick or sky.  Editing  shows you more (and less) than you noticed at first snap.

Nathan often has a pensive look on his
face when holding animals. 

Marcus painting

Marcus is always a good subject for portraits--
with his tremendous blue eyes and his love of hats. 

Elena's golden eyes

Instagram has made us all aware of the charm of square pictures.  I'm planning to create a wall-grid of square pictures.

If you go to Prinstagram, and other sites online, you can create huge poster collages using square prints.

See the love in Nathan's face when he met Skippy for the
first time?

And the excitement on Jackson's face in a waterfall?