Category: Shadows

Lens–Artists Photo Challenge #103–Surprise (Day 116 of being “grounded”

What a delightful challenge for this starting-to-seem-endless, cooped-up time. It comes from:

https://lagottocattleya.wordpress.com/2020/06/27/lens-artists-photo-challenge-103-surprise/

I am especially blessed these days by my father’s powerful teaching and modeling. His most strongly held spiritual belief was that boredom was a sin, and an insult to Mother Nature. He taught us to always look for that big surprise. He believed we were constantly surrounded by miracles and could find one anywhere, anytime.

Nothing cancels out boredom better than a miracle.

Being trapped in my rooms for so long has been mostly OK because of this exact philosophy. But I have to admit, I almost get to the point of boredom sometimes. When I find myself feeling that, I know it’s time to get outside. Even if just in my country-like, suburban neighborhood. Rain or shine, day or night, peopled or not, the miracles abound.

Here are some recent Surprises!!!

First, water, early morning sunlight, and shadows…a great combination for surprising beauty.

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Next, the bunnies are still around, which means the Coyotes, Owls and Hawks are probably well-fed elsewhere…for now.

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Surprise! The baby Apple Tree has its first baby apples!

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Next, very early sunlight sometimes messes with my mind. At first I thought these lovely plants had been attacked by some strange blight, only to discover on closer examination, was surprised to see it was the sun slipping through the cracks in the fence!

 

I love experimenting with things that close-up, are mysteries….but a step back reveals the origin of the surprise.

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And this one surprised me because I didn’t notice until writing this post, the shadow, light and colors from the Hummingbird feeder look remarkably like a Hummingbird!!

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And lastly, though I’m not sure it will actually work to post this, I had a long-awaited surprise just this morning.

I love my local crows and have been feeding them everyday for many years now. I wait each year for early summer, hoping to capture the Teenage crow “Feed Me!!” phenomenon.

They put on quite the show for me today!! The video is long-ish, and kind of bumpy, but if you listen closely, you’ll hear the reason for the camera jerks.

 

You can hear Miss Lucy, purring her competitive little heart out, and see the results of her head-butting my camera.

What a wonderful, surprising challenge today!!

 

Go here to see others’ creative interpretations of “Surprise”!

https://lagottocattleya.wordpress.com/2020/06/27/lens-artists-photo-challenge-103-surprise/

A Photo a Week Challenge: Timing (again) 8/3/19

Maybe you had to be there to understand the whole Timing part…

A few days ago, in the late afternoon, I walked through my darkening Group Therapy room. I was headed for the door into the main part of  my house, and was stopped in my tracks by a stunning image.

There was one narrow beam of sunlight, still left in the day, and it was streaming through the row trees that border the west side of my property. This spotlight shot through my window, perfectly aimed at a crystal elephant that sits on the window sill (a precious gift from my grandson).

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The combination sent a laser-like rainbow clear across the room! It was huge and landed on the only section of West-facing, uncovered, white wall.

I knew I wanted to snap a photo of the results but, honestly, by the time I got back from the sprint to get my phone, it was already fading…and fast!

I got these shots…and then it was gone!!!

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Good enough photos I suppose. But it triggered in me the idea for a photo card, which I have made for years, and give as gifts.

I set my alarm for graduated sundown times, for the next three days, and waited for that perfectly timed beam to recreated the rainbow wall-art, so I could create my imagined photo.

But it never happened…not even close and no amount of staging, shifting, twisting and turning of my crystal elephant brought that big color spectrum result from a few days earlier. One of the days, I even ran across to my neighbor’s house, whose kitchen I know gets a ton of late afternoon sun. Me and my elephant, racing the sunset, frantically searching for the right timing and position.

No luck!

But I’ll tell you what I was after so you can picture it yourself. And who knows, maybe you’ll come upon a perfectly timed rainbow someday and can capture my illusive photo.

It’s an image that would be good for everyone!  (In my opinion.)

Here it is: Imagine the hand shadow in the photo below, imposed across that rainbow. I can think of so many uses for a greeting card like that, especially for some of the struggling, newly “out” young people I work with these days…

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A Photo a Week Challenge: Timing is Everything

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge-Shadows 3/20/19

OK, another stretch for me. Hope you enjoy this.

Here are some of my favorite Shadow photographs, taken over the years, followed by several of the moon, both last night, and this morning as she set on the western horizon.

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And my FAVORITE Shadow photo…my grandson dancing with his…

(This photo always makes me thing of the amazing and beautiful Whippets on https://whippetwisdom.com/. Worth a visit!!)

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Last night I went looking for a perfect spot to watch (and maybe photograph) the      Moon Rise…a Trifecta of Nature, as it was a full moon, a “Blood Moon” and it was happening on the Vernal Equinox.

Don’t get too excited. All photos taken with Galaxy S8+ phone camera or my point and shoot Canon. So no National Geographics winners here.

And, if you scroll down and hit “play”, I’ve even provided a background sound track to enhance your viewing experience.

I settled in and at first, I was disappointed because right about the time she was due to appear on the horizon, and contrary to my phone’s weather app, the clouds rolled in.

I almost gave up but decided patience just might pay off.

So glad I waited.

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It got more and more interesting…

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And then, I woke up at 5 AM this morning with Cat Stevens in my head, the moon on my mind…and shining right into my eyes. So I hopped in my car and drove to a place I knew would have a great view of the Moon Set.

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The shot I was most hoping for just was not going to happen…too misty. From this vantage point, on a clear day, you would see the moon set behind the Olympic Mountain Range! If you look closely, you can almost see them…..

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I had a truly profound time last night at our little local Blueberry Farm and Lake, and this morning at Sunset Hills Memorial Park. (Yes, I watched the moon set, while sitting respectfully in my car, in my pajamas, in the cemetery. Best view by far, in my city!)

Thanks for joining me. Let me know what you think.

Sound Track!

Lyrics
Oh, I’m bein’ followed by a moonshadow, moon shadow, moonshadow—
Leapin and hoppin’ on a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow—
And if I ever lose my hands, lose my plough, lose my land,
Oh if I ever lose my hands, Oh if I won’t have to work no more.
And if I ever lose my eyes, if my colours all run dry,
Yes if I ever lose my eyes, Oh if I won’t have to cry no more.
Oh, I’m bein’ followed by a moonshadow, moon shadow, moonshadow—
Leapin and hoppin’ on a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow—
And if I ever lose my legs, I won’t moan, and I won’t beg,
Yes if I ever lose my legs, Oh if I won’t have to walk no more.
And if I ever lose my mouth, all my teeth, north and south,
Yes if I ever lose my mouth, Oh if I won’t have to talk…
Did it take long to find me? I asked the faithful light.
Did it take long to find me? And are you gonna stay the night?
Moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow.
Songwriters: Cat Stevens / Yusuf Islam
Moonshadow lyrics © BMG Rights Management US, LLC

 

 

CFFC

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Shadows

Lens-Artist Photo Challenge #25-Reflecting on Perspectives, Perspective on Reflections

I love reflections. I like to mess with photographing them because there can be surprises you don’t see when looking at something directly.

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Here I am photographing the lights hanging from the deck railing and not until later, do I see the boat coming in…
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And here, I liked the blurry Santa reflection in the window but was later surprised by the clarity of the neighbor’s windows.

That makes me think of how different things can look, depending on where you stand, where you focus and what you are feeling.

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Here I was capturing the coastline from our train window and caught James playing a game on his phone! Busted!!!

I took these photos for the theme Blue, but discovered the trees and clouds afterward.

This is two shots of the same glass, just me deciding which perspective to focus on. (I’m sure there is a “glass half empty or full” reference here…)

I have this great photo hanging in my group therapy room that reminds me to always look at tough situations from different angles before I conclude anything.

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Flipping this upside-down sure changes the feel of the photo, doesn’t it?

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I’m so grateful to my Dad for teaching me that there is always, ALWAYS more than one way to look at something.

 

Here are some other posts I did about Reflections… Let me know what you see.

Reflections for WPC 5-12-17 series 3

Reflecting for WPC 5/10/17

 

 

 

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: #25 Reflections

Daily Prompt: Silhouette

via Daily Prompt: Silhouette

Once again, I cheat…some of these are shadows, not silhouettes, and besides, I think I am supposed to be writing about the word, not showing photos.

Well, there are eleven pictures, so 11 X 1,000=11,000 words, so I figure I’m covered…

(Boy, the lengths I go to get COMMENTS!)

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More Shadows from ChosenPerspectives

Shadow

I have become obsessed this week with Shadow photos but did not think about all the different definitions of the word until this morning.

Here are some of the shots I took inside to show how cool a shadow can be sometimes, cast from the sun on different objects…

My bathroom wall at sunset

Then I went outside to look for interesting shadows. As those who live way up here in the Northwest know, we can go for days and days without shadows of any kind outside.

So I was lucky to come across these…

And then I waited for a long time for these…

It was getting to be late in the day and I remembered playing a shadow game with my grandsons when they were younger…out on the back lawn, so I headed out to see what my shadow looked like.

This is as close as I get to a “selfie”.  Don’t I look tall and thin??

But then, as it darkened outside, I began thinking of all the other connotations for the word “shadow”.

I debate with some of my Psychotherapist colleagues who believe we all have this “shadow” part of us…a permanent dark side we can do nothing about. I don’t see it that way. I prefer to think of it as having unfinished work or areas of growth. We can bring “light” onto anything…sometimes simply by changing our perspective.

As I was pondering these various definitions, I remembered a photo I had taken recently, as a follow up to one of my very early posts. This particular story was very “dark”, so much so that I even warned my readers of its disturbing content. I wrote a lot about an incident as an essential part of my own healing. James and I witnessed a horrific car accident, resulting in the very graphic death of a toddler. Here is a photo of the scene just a few days after the collision.

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And then on the one year anniversary, I went back to the location and took this shot.

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But for this slightly ominous shadow, it’s like nothing bad has ever happened on this corner in Bellevue…like the sweet little girl named Sraddha Pancha Karla never existed.

I do like how the shadow sort of refuses to cover the spot where she died…

Read more about the accident here, but be forewarned…

The Choice