Lens-Artists – chosenperspectives

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.

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

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

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.

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!!

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/

Lens Artist Challenge 4/27/19 theme: Less is More

I always liked this photo. I loved the weird light from outside, and the way the moisture had collected itself on my window. But I always thought there was something wrong with the picture, something missing, something I needed to add.

Today’s challenge made me think of it in a whole new way.

Maybe it’s something I have to remove from it….making less more…

Here’s my experiment. Tell me what you think.

20170224_172902 — Cropping some of the dark strip on the left

These two are with the smaller dark strip more centered

I like the last one. It seems so much more full and alive with detail and color. And I like that it’s a little more difficult to identify.

Thanks for this interesting challenge. Now I’ll go out there and apply these lessons to my hectic day!

https://shareandconnect.wordpress.com/2019/04/27/less-is-more/

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.

20181213_163632 — Here I am photographing the lights hanging from the deck railing and not until later, do I see the boat coming in…

20181213_183454 — 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.

20151001_172131 — 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.

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

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.

https://chosenperspectives.com/2017/05/12/reflections-for-wpc-5-12-17-series-3/

https://chosenperspectives.com/2017/05/12/reflecting-for-wpc-51017/

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: #25 Reflections

Lens-Artist Photo Challenge #22 Happiness is…

…napping with my cat…for 18 years…

PS I am in the process of writing out my sweet Zorro’s life story. I’d love to hear from you if you are interested in reading it….

https://lagottocattleya.wordpress.com/2018/12/01/lens-artists-photo-challenge-22-happiness-is/

Lens-Artist Photo Challenge 9-1-18 ACTION

I officiated yesterday at a lovely outdoor wedding, with beautiful Mount Si as the back drop.

These shots are all before the real “action” for the day started.

First, there was the worrisome action in the sky, but the potential rain bearing clouds politely passed over before most of the guests arrived.

Then, while waiting for the ceremony to start, came the delightful, energy-releasing actions of these impatient flower girls.

But I can almost guarantee the action (though invisible) in this last photo is much more chaotic than the clouds or the dancing in the above photos, as this Groom awaits the beginning of his wedding.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #9: Action

Lens-Artists-a photo a week-Blue

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge–Blue

Disclaimer: I started this when the challenge was first issued but then lost complete control of my computer. She goes off on these non-working vacations from time to time, and she just returned this morning. Please, someone feel free to tell me if this is inappropriate or if it even works. This will be my first post for lens-artists.

Well, I’m not sure exactly how to do this but seeing a photo challenge about Blue is just what I needed to get off my stalled out blog-butt. I have been lazy since the demise of the WPC weekly challenge.

I confess, in advance, to being slightly obsessed with blue.

And though I am primarily an accidental photographer, I welcome any comments on my photos, or their stories as well.

Now, a photo (or two, or three, or…) of Blue.

Tough choice.

I am a Blue Angels Fan and they were just here, flying over my house for 4 days.

I have collected Cobalt glass since I was a small child.

And one of my favorite things to photograph is contrails.

Maybe one of each?

Blue Angels

(Here is what I wrote about the Blue Angels experience this year. Visit if you like…)

https://chosenperspectives.com/2018/08/04/blue-angels-time-again/

Cobalt Glass

Contrails

If you can make this one bigger on your screen, you’ll get the same surprise I got…

I even participated in a year-long, color-themed “Altered Book” project and my book was titled Defending Blue. This whole Blue challenge has inspired me to write that story up separately, but here’s a teaser…

Thanks so much for this challenge. Comments and feedback really appreciated!!

I LOVED this response to the challenge!

https://travelsandtrifles.wordpress.com/

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