Tag: photography

September to November-M.I.A.

Where to start…hmm…I won’t drag you through the last few months…nothing profound really…just life as we knew it before March, 2020 is over.

You know. You were there experiencing your own version of it.

I’ll just start with today.

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We are well in to my least favorite time of year.

Fall in the Great Northwest is so sneaky…tricky for me to navigate. In the other three seasons, my daily choice is crystal clear…be outside or be inside.

But Autumn tells blatant lies, almost daily.

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This morning it’s beautiful weather, so I leave the house expecting to enjoy all of the season’s best features; its warm, intense colors, clear blue skies, and easily tolerable medium temperatures. But during the short walk from my front door to the road, Autumn cackles out loud, her temperature plummets, and suddenly it’s 45 miles an hour freezing winds, filled with piercing raindrops.

First a pandemic and now THIS!

It’s just insulting.

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To make me even more irritable during this time of year, my allergies hit the hardest, blind-siding me with itchy eyes to asthma, literally out-of-the-blue!

I don’t have any reaction to all the lovely parts of Spring and Summer, gently blowing waves of grasses, tiny drifts of golden pollen on my windshield, or beautifully blossoming trees.

Nope. I get to be allergic to the dying, moldy leaves of Fall.

How glamorous.

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BUT…since I am obsessed with mastering my ability to shift my perspective at will, on this day, I easily concede that Autumn is also my favorite time to photograph.

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It takes some work though…

I was furious the other day when I finally had time to grab the camera and head out. I had spotted so many outstanding photo shots lately and wanted to go back to capture some of that vibrant color.

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Showing off her royal prerogative, when I wasn’t looking, that nasty, conniving Autumn had apparently had a Wind-Storm-Temper-Tantrum, stripping all the trees of their stunning October/November costumes. Grrrr.

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Then, later this morning, as I walked across the long spans of sodden grass to my neighbor’s house, these words came to me:

“Lovely, lacey, leaf-littered lawn”

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I’m NOT a poet so I had no idea what to do with those alliterated words.

But, it was magnificent, so out came the camera.

The birds even came out of their storm shelters to keep me company on my stroll.

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Today, I feel blessed to be in LOVE Autumn in the Northwest!

How’s that for a Perspective Shift?

Checking in

 

Well, that may be the longest stretch of NOT posting on my blog since I started it way back when…well, I don’t actually remember when my first post happened.

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But I have not posted for a whole month. And even then, and during the weeks before that, it was mostly the easiest post possible. (Thanks to whoever first coined the term WordlessWednesday!)

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I do think about it all the time though. In my mind, I create what I think are clever photography slide shows, or I write interesting or inspiring essays. But real life, the one outside my internal process, has been loudly in charge for a while. (Oh, the pitiful list of excuses I could insert here…sigh…and the thing is, my life-interruptions are similar to every person’s on the planet this last 16 months so no special sympathy for me…)

I’ve barely had the time or energy to read my favorite bloggers either.

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Self-centeredly, I do continue to check my notifications occasionally and am always pleasantly surprised to see a new follower. And a “like” on some older post can make my day!

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I always intended to welcome each new follower (I still hate that word “follower”. I’m not leading anyone anywhere! OK, each new “reader”) And I even saved each new name, but somehow those numbers climbed to 628 behind my back!!!

Realistically, I know that number does not mean that there are actually 628 people out there is the world who, with great anticipation, look forward to checking each day to see what I posted….only to be disappointed. Most likely the number is closer to 3 or 4 who look occasionally, just to see if I still happen to be alive.

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In hasty conclusion, because one of those life-interruptions is happening as I type, I long to be back at this more regularly.

Any encouragement greatly appreciated.

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And here’s a slide show with left over photos:

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Perspective-photo Challenge 7/25/2020 a fun story in pictures

I’ve written a lot of posts that contained embarrassing self-disclosures, but this one is a stretch, even for me.

First of all, I’m not clear who to credit for this challenge, but since perspective is one of my driving, life-force words, I’ve decided to just write and share photos anyway.

Here’s the story.

I have been photographing a tiny piece of mystery debris on my street for over a year. No idea why. Can’t really justify it except I spotted it, and became intrigued, and over the months, it evolved into a mild obsession.

I have thought at length about why in the world I would become so interested in this scrap of trash, and the only thing I can come up with is my Dad. It’s his fault really. He taught us very early on that boredom was a sin against Nature, and that if we used all of our senses, and just changed our perspectives, we could always find at least one miracle.

“Just look at the ground”, he would say. “It’s covered with magic!”

(I wrote about this in a story, with working title  The “Ruler” and the Torn Screen or One Square foot and posted it on on V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #40 “Things my Father said”)

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I guess what grew from that particular Dad-Lesson was a life long habit of looking down at the ground, always in search of treasures! No surprise one of my favorite activities in life is Beach Combing. I have huge collections of rocks, shells and beach glass! I have even been known to collect tiny treasures right off the street, especially if it’s been too long since I’ve had a trip to the ocean.

I’m fairly easy to please.

I have photographed what I am walking on many times…

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Even modern day litter…

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So spotting this one piece of junk on my daily walk was not the surprise. It simply stood out. Unidentifiable, it caught my eye.

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The surprise was that I started looking for it every day. Every single day. I became more and more curious about why it never, ever moved. Its location was on a high-traffic part of the street. With all the cars, bikes and people passing over that very spot every day, it should have been run over…repeatedly.

So I decided to actually start tracking it…on purpose…and taking its picture…

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Uh oh, I had bonded with a fragment of litter.

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Seriously, and now, over a year later, and I’m even writing a Post about it.

But wait , as Paul Harvey used to say, here’s “the rest of the story”…

Last week on my regular morning walk, I got to the top of my street, where my Scrap lives…and it was gone! GONE!

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I figured a car tire had finally knocked it off to the side, but after a long, elaborate roadside search (yes, a search) for my missing piece of rubbish, I had to accept it was over. My mystery remnant was truly missing.

 

In a world of uncertainty, a tiny, but predictable piece of my daily life, was gone. Sigh.

Believe me, the symbolism and the underlying explanations for this attachment are not lost on me. Been thinking about it all week. The pandemic. Being locked in my home, except for this daily walk, for 142 days. Reminders of my Dad, and wondering how he would have looked at today’s confusing, emotional, frightening new normal, ETC.!

I tried to find a replacement touchstone, something more permanent, and spotted this whale (or maybe it’s a country in Europe)…

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But when looking through photos for this post I discovered this formation, permanently embedded in the street, had been there all along.

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Anyway, this morning….I’m on my walk, approaching the former location of, you know who, (my reliable and familiar bit of trash), I decide maybe one more look around…

And there, well off the pavement, directly in a beam of early morning sunlight, I see this!

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I was disproportionately happy!!

And YES, of COURSE I brought it home with me, and put it in the cabinet with all the other treasures! It’s just not safe out there for such a vulnerable little guy.

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Yep, I’m glad I’m so easily entertained. Thanks Dad!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘A good photograph is knowing where to stand’

Reflecting on Flowers growing through Cement

Reflecting

For our WPC theme this week Nancy Thanki wrote: “Whether it’s water or some other reflective surface, what have you seen recently that has changed your perspective on the view?”

Here’s my take on it. It is my mission in life is to learn how (and teach others) to    Choose a Perspective.

There was no sunrise yesterday morning. I’m not kidding. The sucker just didn’t come up!! No Sun. Just continued darkness…inviting the kind of depression that comes with S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder).

This is the chair I fight the cats for each morning, when the sun comes up and is streaming in from all sides, but not yesterday!

 

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Then I remembered three things.

  1. This IS Washington State after all. The weather can change in an instant. We just don’t like to spread the information about how truly gorgeous it can be when that sun does come out. We are crowded enough…
  2. I am the Queen of blooming where I’m planted, making the best of things, Choosing HOW I look at things, so I better use all that knowledge now.

3. Since my other posts this week were on Reflections, I wanted to do one on    Reflecting, so I did that. I Reflected for a while…most of the day actually…and    sure enough, true to its reputation, the Northwest Spring changed it’s mind about  everything!

So I went for a walk…just one block…and here’s what I found!

OH, and THIS!!!

And then THIS!!

And lastly, THIS!

If all that glory, on a single block, is not enough to shift your perspective, then I suggest you reflect on this; with whom will you be doing some psychotherapy…and how QUICKLY!