How do you use photos?

Because of the photo within a photo challenge, I have been thinking more about the photos around me--the ones in my office and at home sitting on shelves, hanging on walls and, well, in this case, sticking out of books.

I doubt I'm the only one out there to use just about anything for a bookmark. Some of my favorite makeshift bookmarks are snapshots back from before I went digital. I came across a small pile I took in Paris and London way back in the twentieth century. They're quirky photos of store fronts, street signs or candid scenes that I like, but what am I going to do with them? Put them back in the shoe box? Flylady them away for the sake of less clutter? Neither seems right, so I'm letting them get worn and used so they can die of natural causes rather than be buried alive.

The photo within a photo you see here documents one way I use photos. I bought a book about blogs yesterday, read the first seven chapters (it's a fast read, and as a new blogger I love learning from people who would slaughter me in google analytics risk) and picked a photo from the pile of surrogate bookmarks (fyi, it's a woman reading a newspaper next to a metro stop in Paris). Today, when I saw the legs popping out the top of the book, it made me laugh so I took a picture for this post.

This certainly isn't going to win any technical prizes (it has focus issues, noise--don't get me started), but the photo within a photo theme and blogging caught my eye and I wanted to save the moment. I have never taken many photos of how I use photos, but I think it's something worth exploring.