Monthly Archives: January 2023

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Messages

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Donna of Wind Kisses leads our challenge this week with a whimsical post about Messages in photography. She calls herself out as the “hippie of the group”. I get to be more (ahem!) serious with history, literature, and religion.

“Every child comes with the message
that God is not yet discouraged of man.” — Rabindranath Tagore

The Children’s Farm Home in Corvallis was built in 1925 by volunteers from the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in order to house orphans, neglected children, and children whose families couldn’t take care of them in the years leading up to the Great Depression. The school closed in the 1980s. Today, the facilities belong to a Family Services organization that offers residential care. The brick school building still shows the etched names and messages of children who came to live there over the decades and longed to leave their mark on their new Home.

“There are always messages in fiction, of course, even if they’re only implicit ones. In fact, most such messages aren’t obvious. They tell us things about life, about the author’s understanding of the world, and often convince us to change our minds about things without ever having to come out and say it.” — Sarah Reese

“All religions try to benefit people, with the same basic message of the need for love and compassion, for justice and honesty, for contentment.” — His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

But I leave you with these very profound message photos:

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: One Lens Walk

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“Look and think before opening the shutter.
The heart and mind are the true lens of the camera.”
— Yousuf Karsh

It has been a long time since my last Photo Walk. Winter in the Pacific Northwest is often rainy, dark, and cold. It affects my mood more than it affects the beauty of my surroundings. I struggled to leave my warm, flannel bed this morning, but when I looked out the window, I saw the fog and sun in a dance of the Present Moment. I grabbed my camera and headed outside my door into the big world of the temporal rainforest. This is the story of One Walk with lenses.

I have only one lens for my camera: the one issued with my Canon Rebel T3i – 18-55mm. It also has some helpful pre-sets for close-ups and landscapes which I use quite frequently. I also bring along the lenses on my eyeballs and my varifocal eyeglasses. I am rarely without those.

The lens of my mental state has been fixated on the cold and my longing for sunshine. I visited the chickens in the yard and thought about their being cooped up outside all winter, albeit with down coats to cover themselves.

Oregon cold is not the same as Wisconsin cold. I’ve discovered that it’s wetter. It’s more colorful, too.

I wish I could imbed the experience of walking around here into this post. The ground is thick with fallen needles, ferns, rotting wood, Oregon grape, mosses, lichen. It’s springy and moist as well as colorful. There are literally worlds underfoot.

After a short ramble, my fingertips are numb. I head back inside to the warmth of my garage loft studio apartment. I have a bird’s nest view out my window.

Thank you, Anne, for motivating me to get outside for a Photo Walk. I appreciate that Lens-Artists are out and about in search of beauty all over the globe this week, traveling lightly. Happy hunting, all!

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Looking Back

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“And the seasons, they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We’re captive on the carousel of time
We can’t return, we can only look
Behind, from where we came
And go round and round and round, in the circle game”
– Joni Mitchell

“This challenge is about time, how things evolve.” – Sofia of Photographias. Click HERE to see her excellent post on Art History and play along.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Favorite Images of 2022

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The sun has set on the year 2022, but the memories, the images, the lessons learned, and the resolve for the future carry forward. My most epic adventure of the year was my wilderness backpacking trip in Olympic National Park, during which I fell and broke my wrist. I have now learned that I have “severe” osteoporosis, which may well mean that it will have been my last wilderness adventure. Nevertheless, it will always stay in my memory for its awe-inspiring natural beauty.

The Pacific coast is only an hour’s drive from my home, so I can hope for more glorious sunsets in the years to come.

I am so grateful to have been here in the Pacific Northwest, near mountains and coastline, for all of 2022.

Thanks, John, and all the Lens-Artists for your inspiration last year. I look forward to seeing what 2023 brings into your viewfinder!