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Monday, September 12, 2016

Deltiology is the term for the study of postcards. Who knew? AND Why post info re this now?


Some of you may recognize the first image atop this blog entry. It shows the front of a postcard that features a picture of Cam, a cardinal who has been a frequent visitor to my rooftop garden in NYC (which she discovered from the tree tops that are in my courtyard.)

The picture has also been featured on Brian Lehrer's NY Values Board for WNYC, as well as in my cyber-venues (Blogger, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, tumblr and Twitter). Moreover, this particular photograph is included in the book, Words In Our Beak Volume One, that I wrote with Cam.


Our book is set in my urban garden and it is currently available in Apple's iBooks Store and in the ePub or Kindle book department of Amazon. Words In Our Beak Volume One has been reviewed in both of those venues and also by members of Goodreads. At this time, I am assisting Cam by converting our book into a format that will be reproduced into a limited run of soft snd hardcover versions.

Meanwhile, I've created picture postcards that feature photographs from Words In Our Beak, Volume One.  These postcards were introduced to cyber-space via Chris Deatherage, my web-designer for Patricia Youngquist, The Last Leaf Gardener (PY-TLLG). As of this posting, I have had twelve images rendered into postcards, beginning with the one atop this blog post. The following (a cardinal couple, house finches (three views), a mourning dove couple, an American Lady Butterfly, a dragonfly, a caterpillar, a single rose bud, a tulip, and some leaves from my kiwi vines, are the remaining eleven.












All of these images (and hundreds more) are included in both of the digital formats of Words In Our Beak Volume One. In terms of the hard and softcover versions of the book, I hope to use as many of the hundreds as possible, but because the printed version will be in the shape of a square, and sized at 6" by 5" (that does not include allowing for a one eighth bleed all around), I may not be able to do so. These types of edits and filtering in bleeds are not in my skill set, and I had hoped to do this before Thanksgiving!

But getting back to my postcards, each one has my signature on the front and are basically the same on the back (the name of a given image is the ony thing that varies from one given postcard to another). An example of the backside of my WIOB postcards can be seen below.



As a result of my creating these postcards, I've recently discovered the study of postcards is known as Deltiology. According to Wiki, "Deltiology (from Greek δελτίον, deltion, diminutive of δέλτος, deltos, "writing tablet, letter"; and -λογία -logia) is the study and collection of postcards. Professor Randall Rhoades of Ashland, Ohio, coined a word in 1945 that became the accepted description of the study of picture postcards (This term) initially took about 20 years for the name to appear in a dictionary. 

Compared to philately (the study of stamps and postal history), the identification of a postcard's place and time of production can often be an impossible task because postcards, unlike stamps, are produced in a decentralized, unregulated manner. For this reason, some collectors choose to limit their acquisitions to cards by specific artists and publishers, or by time and location."


ADDENDUM FALL 2018: 

The non-hardcover version (or versions)  of Volume One within the Words In Our Beak book series that are mentioned in this entry may only remain available for a limited time, but hardcover versions of Volume One, Two and Three can now be found wherever books are sold. Please click here to go to my blog post that provides details as to where you can get these books.

MY BOOK SERIES

Additionally, I have rendered some images from these books into other formats and they are available via Fine Art America (FAA). Some of my other photographs (Black & White Collection, Kaleidoscopic Images and the famous Mandarin duck who visited NYC) can also be found on my FAA pages.

ANOTHER ADDENDUM:

As I write this addendum, it is July 2020, and the world is still under the consequences of COVID-19 (a worldwide coronavirus pandemic) that has caused hundreds of thousands upon hundreds of thousands of people to die. Many parts of the world are now mandating individuals to wear face-masks to prevent its spread.

Earlier this year I designed a line of face-masks (details are in my press release) which are produced by the sister company of Fine Art America (FAA) who reproduces a selection of my photographs on to a cloth face-mask. 

One of my selections includes an image of a dragon-fly which can be seen in the series of photographs directly below.


DRAGONFLY-THEMED MASK AVAILABLE VIA FAA
DRAGONFLY-THEMED MASK AVAILABLE VIA FAA
DRAGONFLY-THEMED MASK AVAILABLE VIA FAA

For your information, I have other selections available and the best way to learn about them is through my aforementioned press release and with that I include my addendum, but not before wishing that you and yours remain safe during this pandemic and beyond.

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