Category: sunrise
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:Â Tree
https://chosenperspectives.com/2016/10/05/tree-daily-prompt-from-chosenperspectives-10-5-16/
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…….
https://nadiamerrillphotography.wordpress.com/2019/10/26/a-photo-a-week-challenge-open-topic/
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.)
https://chosenperspectives.com/2016/02/12/calling-the-dolphins/
https://nadiamerrillphotography.wordpress.com/2019/10/10/a-photo-a-week-challenge-sun-water/
WordlessWednesday 11/14/18
vacation photos
No, I am not on vacation…although Nancy Merrill is. So she is skipping a week of her inspiring photo challenges. Her themes are great and the responses she gets are wonderful. Worth visiting her site:
https://nadiamerrillphotography.wordpress.com/photo-a-week-challenge/
Here’s one I responded to a while back.
https://chosenperspectives.com/2018/10/13/a-photo-a-week-whimsical-10-13-18/
Since Nancy is gone on vacation, I decided to use THAT as my own theme for today. I actually started writing about our 7,000 mile Epic Roots Road Trip vacation last summer but never got back to it.
Here’s a photo sampling.
Nancy Merrill’s Photo a Week Challenge 10/11/18 Unusual Clouds
https://nadiamerrillphotography.wordpress.com/2015/09/17/a-photo-a-week-challenge-unusual-clouds/
I wish I had had my real camera for these shots. My phone barely captured the beauty of these colors…
While I watched the following sunset, I kept expecting a BOOMING voice from the heavens, telling me to straighten up, or else!
This is a Sun Dog that WordPress always prints too big on my page… But it was beautiful. Many cars were stopped along the I-90 freeway, clicking away.
I thought this sky was proof there is an artist up there, painting cloud pictures every day!
My adopted Dad, who was an Air Force fighter pilot in several wars, used to tell me about the “hole in the sky (clouds)” pilots would watch for, presumably for the quick getaway?
This was NOT a meteor crashing or alien ship landing…at least, I don’t think it was….
a Photo a Week Challenge: Water
ttps://nadiamerrillphotography.wordpress.com/2018/09/13/a-photo-a-week-challenge-water-2/
I come alive around the water. I grew up on the beach in San Diego, so I am particularly fond of the Pacific Ocean.
Living in the Washington State for more than 45 years now, I have had to be creative in fooling my psyche into believing all water is the same…beautiful, calming, energizing, inspiring.
I’ve actually done a pretty good job. Of course, the Pacific Northwest is a water paradise
But occasionally, I still need to travel in search of water…
And if I can’t get to a large body of it, I’ll settle for anything…
PS I apologize for my complete lack of restraint!! Picking just one of almost ANYTHING is just too big a challenge for me these days.
https://nadiamerrillphotography.wordpress.com/2018/09/13/a-photo-a-week-challenge-water-2/
WordPressPhotoChallenge 3/29/18 Sunrise
Just a minute. The sun is rising as I am typing this. I’ll be back in a bit…..
Here’s what I just witnessed…(pump up your volume for the video)
I love sunrise in the mountains, especially in Spring when the turkeys are doing their mating performances!!!
But Sunrise in the city (well, suburb) where we also live can be pretty spectacular!
Sunsets, that’s a whole different thing. I have been blessed over my life with so many stunning views, I can’t even choose one.
So here are a few favorites…
I think some music from Jesse Colin Young would be the soundtrack….
I loved this topic. I may have shared this story before but a very special Sunrise taught me one of my most important life lessons ever.
See if you can put yourself in this scene. You are on a once-in-a-lifetime, month long trip with your 7 closest friends, sailing in the South Pacific (Fiji). You are sitting on the deck of a 95 foot yacht before first light. As the sun begins to rise, you realize that although every rise and set of the sun down here has been fantastic, this one is going to break all the records. It is quickly shaping up to be maybe the most spectacular sunrise ever, in the history of the world. There are no words. It is happening like a movie, the light changing dramatically every minute or so. All you can think of is waking everyone else up quickly so they don’t miss this one! You become frantic, not wanting to go below decks because you will miss some never-before-seen aspect of a sunrise.
Then it dawns on you (pun intended). This particular, exact, specific sunrise might be intended just for YOU!
Now try not believing in God………….
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!)
WordlessWednesday 5/25/17
I think I posted this but found it in my Drafts list so maybe not.
More Wordless Wednesday catching up…