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I NEVER lost my marbles!
I got these marbles as a kid from my neighbor Georgie Poor. I was really little. I remember the sunny day he gave them to me, gathered together in a coffee can. We were standing under the cherry tree in my front yard. He lived right across the street. It was probably when he started High School or driving or dating girls or something; he passed them on to me. Mom said I could keep them. Georgie got sent to Vietnam. He got killed and came home in a box. I remember my mother crying. She cooked things for Georgie's father to eat and brought them to he and Georgie's grandfather, who also lived across the street. There was no mom at Georgie's house for whatever reason. My little kid mind doesn't remember why.
I photographed the marbles on my coffee table when the daylight was bright but not direct. The camera's settings were "macro" & "flash". I put the camera on a tripod aimed at a piece of white fabric. White reflects light through the marble's transparent parts, and something white in the image makes it easier to color-correct in Photoshop, too. I wanted the marble portraits to be true as can be color-wise.
The links to the pages of marble thumbnails are below. There's an marble still image automatic slide show, and 4 pages of marble thumbnails- size their fluid window however... Using multiple images is the best approach I could devise to share what it is like holding the marble between your thumb and forefinger, up to the light- revealing a peek inside the little round glass world. So beautiful! |
I wouldn't play the marble game with mine. I never wanted to lose them. I just loved looking at them. I used to stage marble beauty contests. My favorite, marble 2, always won, of course! Some groups of similar marbles I gave names. I can't remember which ones I thought were ugly, but there were a few. I would never ever give those marbles up either. ALL were sacred. They still are.
The night I got inspired to document these precious marbles I talked to Georgie Poor. I thanked him out loud for his meaningful gift as Scrappy checked his pee-mail on our last-of-the-night dog walk. It felt as if Georgie Poor was walking with us too. Being the wee hours, my neighbors were asleep, privacy prevailed, thank goodness. Cell phones with near invisible head gear make walking down the street in broad daylight talking out loud to no one (visible) "normal" rather than "loony" behavior anyway. 
Each marble has three "poses" animated (with a black background) into a small 10 second looping Quicktime Movie, and a larger jpg still image (like the thumbnail) on the marble's page. The thumbnail images are all the same size, even though in real life the marbles are not all the same size. However, the bigger the movie, the bigger the actual marble. Oh! If the animation stalls, hit "refresh" or double click the movie to set it free.