Month: October 2019
A Photo a Week Challenge: Open Topic 10/26/19
So the whole Time Marches On thing is in my face right now…well, the face of my whole neighborhood, actually.
My chosen theme for this Open Topic Challenge from Nancy Merrill is Experimenting with Telephoto Photography. I’m hoping it can help me see more clearly into the distance (and the future)… and maybe understand it better.
When I bought my home in 1976, there were only 4 other houses, all with horse acreage, on my long dead end street. Now there are 25 homes…and although, we still have a few chickens, there are certainly no horses. I’ve seen a lot of changes in the 40 plus years I’ve lived here but the trend now seems to be for a builder to come in and tear down anything from the 1980’s and before, and build these whopper new giant homes. I’m only partially complaining. We’ve gained a wonderful new group of neighbors, and luckily, all of our lots are still over-sized enough to accommodate a 3,000 to 4,000 foot home fairly well.
But sometimes heartbreaking things happen in the process….especially to the old growth trees! I have addressed this before and here is an example: Tree
Right now there is a wonderful little red and white farm house, barn, and matching well on the lot behind me facing the next street over. It’s been there since the late 1940’s. They are about to tear it all down (of course) and are building an 8,900 square foot house with a huge wall (not a fence…a WALL) around it. (None of the older homes in our neighborhood have fences. It’s wonderfully wide open.)
I should also say we live on a fairly tall hillside, and many of our homes have western views (if only partial) of the Olympic Peninsula and mountain range…beautiful!
Back to my complaining about so-called Progress…
So this McMansion builder, who is going to level the cute red farm house, first came in and took down 6 or 8 HUGE, beautiful trees along the western border of the property…assuming for the VIEW, right?? But I had to go over there and see just exactly what view would be worth murdering all those trees!
What follows is my telephoto experiment.
Here’s what’s most interesting to me. Remember, I am experimenting with telephoto photography, using the feature on a relatively inexpensive Canon point and shoot.
The whole time I am taking these pictures, I think I am shooting the Bellevue Skyline.
But I am actually capturing a blend of downtown Bellevue and the Seattle Skyline some eleven miles west of us.
And when I got TOO close, I accidentally got this shot! (which I kind of like!)
It was hazy that day, so all I could see clearly, in my clearly biased view, was that this builder guy had killed all those trees so his buyer had a view of our famous, rapidly growing, “tech-centered” city. All I could see was the combination of two city’s massive, view-blocking high-rises!
Then, later that day at Sunset, I got this shot…Bellevue, Seattle AND the Olympic mountains, which are 65 miles away (as the crow flies).
Oh……OK, at least from another person’s perspective, maybe I get it…….
Pull up a Seat Challenge 10/25/19
I’ve been saving photos for this challenge for a while so here goes:
One of my favorite places to Pull up a Seat (if I can’t be right next to the Pacific Ocean) is on my sister’s porch….especially at, but not limited to, sunrise. Nothing like having your morning coffee on this porch in the early summer.
But then there are benches all over their property for sitting and becoming one with Nature…
Or you can be like Ola, the Wonder Dog, and plant yourself on one of the bridges over the pond between the house and the gardens and green house. (Although this might be better titled “Pull up a BED“.)
Ah, but the memories of me with my grandsons pretend-fishing off these bridges…Maybe that’s my favorite.
I love seeing where other species choose to Pull up a Seat.
Then there’s our friend Mark who has a very boring selection of where to Pull up a Seat…
At our Mountain Retreat, someone has chosen to Pull up a Precarious Seat, but for very good reason!
They were putting in a new glass roof over our other favorite place to Pull up a Seat…our Porch Swing!
It looks out over a beautiful valley.
I always hate when this time comes each year when the porch seat gets tied up to make room for firewood…
Then I just remember all the different butts that have planted themselves here.
Three Brothers
Then there were two…
And I know James is not looking forward to being just one…
But he’ll have so many memories to savor…pulling up this particular seat!
WordlessWednesday 10/23/19
Weekly Prompt’s Challenge: Bottles 10/21/19
A Photo a Week Challenge: Signs (II) 10/20/19
Uh Oh. I had to circle back to include these wonderful old Neon Signs collected inside the old “Vertigo Building” where I get my hair cut.
(This post dedicated to the person whose blog is entirely about Neon signs. We had an exchange when she saw some of these signs on an earlier post of mine, but I lost her email address. Hoping she spots this and leaves a comment!!)
A Photo a Week Challenge: Signs 10/17/19
(Scroll to the bottom and hit play if you’d like music while you browse my SIGNS!)
I love Signs. I take pictures of signs all over the country. Some are funny, some thought provoking, some are informational, and some are great just to prove you were there!
We spend a lot of time in Natchez, Mississippi. Wonderful old signs with history lessons everywhere.
Mississippi may be lacking in some things but HUMOR is not one of them.
And these are also in front of Fat Mama’s Hot Tamales!
I love a sign that makes me laugh out loud…
Then there are pretty signs…
Or mind-blowing signs…..
Or signs that cause a double take…say WHAT now???
But my favorite sign is in my neighbors front yard!
Thanks for coming along. Hope you enjoyed the tour.
Background Music!!!
Re-released in 1971 on the A-side, “Signs” reached No. 3 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #67 – Candid
I had the same thought as V.J. ( https://onewomansquest.org/2019/10/16/candid/ )
![DSC03560[2]](https://i0.wp.com/chosenperspectives.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/dsc035602.jpg?w=318&h=250&ssl=1 "DSC03560[2]")
![DSC03564[1]](https://i0.wp.com/chosenperspectives.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/dsc035641.jpg?w=334&h=250&ssl=1 "DSC03564[1]")
I immediately remembered this series of photos of cousins meeting for the first time.
![DSC03582[1]](https://i0.wp.com/chosenperspectives.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/dsc035821.jpg?resize=660%2C880&ssl=1)
No clue what they were watching but they both look pretty serious. And it was not the first time I caught a glimpse of my grandson’s protective nature!
https://lagottocattleya.wordpress.com/2019/10/12/lens-artists-photo-challenge-67-candid/
WordlessWednesday 10/16/19
A Photo a Week Challenge: Sun & Water
OK, OK, so the feature photo above is NOT of sun and WATER…but when I took the photo, I thought it was!! We were on a fast moving train and I snapped several before I realized it was not water, but some sort of agricultural stuff.
Then I remembered another picture I took while also moving fast, late for the San Juan Ferry, so no time to pull the car over for a better shot. But it was a stunning sunrise for a few miles!!
Still wracking my brain for a Sun and Water photo, I found these next three, but they were kind of standard and I wanted something different.
OK stretch, I thought…water, sun, sun and water, two of my favorite things to photograph. Surely I had something!
Oh YES! This summer we went to The Wheel, our Church of the Blue Dome…which is a group (2 to 50 people) who meet on a mountain top, every Wednesday evening, and have for more than 20 years…rain or shine…sometimes to share food and music, sometimes to play Frisbee golf, sometimes to Walk the Medicine Wheel, and sometimes to drum. But always open to something miraculous.
These were taken at this year’s Solstice Wheel.
I have been there when coyotes come right up close, when Owls join us to serenade, and when it has snowed or rained or hailed in a big circle all around without touching us at all. So this gorgeous rainbow, doubling itself and then showing us two Pots of Gold locations at once, was miraculous but not a surprise. Sun and Water. What a beautiful combo!
All of this got me thinking about Sun and Water in it’s different forms. That’s when my very favorite popped into mind.
A few years ago, when driving my grandsons along the north side of Hood Canal out of Belfair, WA., the sun rise was at the perfect point for spotting THIS on the side of the road!
It only lasted a few minutes so our timing was fortunate! (I do wish camera phones were what they are today, but I love this memory!!)
OK, last thing, if you’ve a mind to…
I wrote a short story (true) a long time ago. I posted it on my blog when I was still new, so I did not properly credit one of the photos to National Geographic (although their name appears in the lower left corner, so I hope that’s enough).
It’s one of my best stories, and although Sun and Water figure prominently in the tale, it is not all sunshine and rainbows. It is the telling of one of the more profound experiences of my life. Please read if you like. When I first posted it, I had only a handful of “followers” and not much response. So please comment. (Less an ego thing than a bare, naked soul that needs recognition.)