Category Archives: blogging

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Photography 101: Double

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Happy Thanksgiving!  I am doubly thankful for you, the blogging community.  Thank you for your visits and thank you for hosting me when I visit.  It’s been great fun and great learning doing this project.  There are (at least) twice as many wonders in this world to see than I imagine.  I am grateful to be opened and broadened and expanded by your lives and your art.  Thank You, Thank You!!

double

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Photography 101: Treasure

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Treasure: what is it?  I’ve worked at museums long enough to know what an artifact is.  Usually, it’s an object that you find or dig up.  It can tell you about the environment, what kinds of things lived there, what they did and when.  Paleontologists like to say that archaeologists study garbage, stuff people throw away, while they study bones and fossils.

Some artifacts get handed down from one generation to another instead of being thrown away.  There is a sense of value in the thing itself.  It’s special to someone in some way.  It carries attachment, and those attachments are preserved along with the object.

So, maybe ‘treasure’ is really about our attachment, the things we want to hold on to.  Many times those things are ephemeral: feelings, living beings, pleasant moments in time.  We know they will not endure, so often we transfer their significance to objects that may last a bit longer. 

And, of course, this is just what we’re doing when we take photographs, isn’t it?  But what is it that we actually treasure?  Life and love.  How do you preserve that kind of treasure?  You can’t, really.  What you can do is be absolutely present while it is within your grasp.  Celebrate it, bring yourself to it, flow with it.  Enjoy it, with all your heart. 

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Photography 101: Landscape

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This is my passion.  Landscapes – wide open spaces, gently rolling hills, big sky.  When I was a little girl, my family went on outings to places like the Morton Arboretum.  We would follow a walking path and come upon an open field of dandelions or daffodils, and I simply couldn’t contain myself.  I would take off running, cartwheeling, spinning and singing….like Julie Andrews in the opening shots of “The Sound of Music”.  Freedom and joy as big as all outdoors is the feeling that landscapes give me.  I have met a few expert landscape photographers on the blog scene.  They go above and beyond (literally) to get spectacular shots.  I am not likely to be up at 3am to climb a snowy peak.  I take my camera where I’m going and shoot the scenes that present themselves.  I am still picking up techniques for making those shots more compelling.  One is to have something really interesting in the foreground:

the myth of nothingOr to put a person in it for perspective:

Storm in Western Oklahoma

It’s more challenging to get depth and interest in a scene without those things.  Of course, equipment plays a part.  I don’t use a tripod; I don’t have a special lens.  I end up with more flat, snapshot-type scenes.  They’re missing a bit of drama, I suppose.  Something to work on.

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Photography 101: Swarm

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I witnessed a perfect example of this theme last month.  The sight of this swarm was so moving that it brought tears to my eyes.  I did not bring my camera to record the event because it was prohibited.  We were invited to watch the emergence of 300,000 bats at dusk from Carlsbad Caverns and instructed to sit in absolute silence and be still.  We did not want our presence at the door of their habitat to be disturbing to their natural activity.  To disrupt their nightly venture to find water and forage for insects would be disastrous to their livelihood.  There were school groups in attendance, and the children were remarkably respectful.  The park ranger began the program by taking some questions and giving some information about the bats.  He was, in effect, stalling for time.  When the bats began to emerge in a climbing spiral behind him, he left.  All were silent.  The rubbery slap and flap of wings became audible and the bats poured like pepper into the evening sky.  Lines of dots headed for the horizon in waves, like bait balls in the ocean, like starlings over the fields, like natural creatures who live and move and have their being in great numbers, synchronous and individual at once.  They came from deep within a cavern so huge it had taken me an hour to descend to its first level on foot.  They rose in an unbroken ribbon for 45 minutes.  Steve & I were the last to leave the arena.  It was like tearing ourselves away from a cathedral after a sacred service.  I am glad that I don’t have this image in my camera, only in my gut.  Here is a shot of the arena before the sun set:

swarm siteI do not have any photos of what Dave Foreman calls “Man Swarm”.  I shun crowds when possible.  I do live with inanimate objects in number — namely books and CDs. 

Visually, I think the most effective compositions of swarms of things are the ones that are aligned with the vanishing point.  In other words, as James Taylor sings, “Line ‘Em Up” like Nixon’s staff when he left office, like wedding couples under Sun Myung Moon.  It gives the feeling of infinite expansion and maximizes the impact of sheer numbers. 

And now that I’ve figured this out, I’ll try to keep it in mind the next time I find myself pointing my camera at a swarm. 

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Photography 101: Architecture

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I notice something about my architecture preferences.  I don’t have very many shots of modern, abstract, minimalist architecture.  I prefer old buildings, old styles which mirror nature in their profusion of contrasting textures, lines and patterns.  I suppose I find the clean and “techie” look sterile and scientific.  It’s just not me.  I’m not Danish modern.  I’m Victorian, more likely, all gingerbread and painted lady.  My mother would shake her head,  “Just more difficult to dust.”  Who dusts, anyway? 😉

(go ahead and click on these for a bigger view)

 

Pendarvis, Wisconsin
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Photography 101: A Pop of Color

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Not to be confused with a soda of color, say Nehi grape or orange… 

Here in the Midwest, ‘pop’ has another meaning.  If I happened to have some, that would make a perfect combination for this theme!  But the pop I have in the ‘fridge is 50/50, and it’s not even as colorful as Mountain Dew.  So… back to the natural world, and natural liquids.

 

green stream

Green stream at the Madison Arboretum

And perhaps a double pop on this one…

out my window

Out the window

This one is a gentle, soft ‘pip’…

P1040687

Old World Wisconsin visitor

May you find some eye-popping delight today!

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Achievement

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Hoo, boy.  This challenge is monumental.  What is “achievement”?  Stay with me, folks…

It’s rather an emotional concept to me.  I was just discussing ‘success’ with Steve yesterday.   I am 52 years old, currently unemployed, and trying to venture into an area of work for which I never had any formal education.  I feel rather ‘late to the party’ trying to become an environmental writer/National Park Service guide/eco-activist (or whatever it is I will become) at this stage of life.  My perfectionist voice keeps talking about how unqualified I am.  What have I ever done to merit respect in this field?

Well, here’s what: I’ve grown.  Every day that I read more about the health of our planet, every part-time customer service or education job I took, every decision I re-examined over these years is a stepping stone toward living a life I’ll be proud of.  I can do better at being the person I want to be.  And I can keep working on that goal until the day I die. 

Maybe “Achievement” is simply growing into being the best you can be, year by year.  Here’s my illustration (and inspiration): sequoia sempervirens. 

achievementNow THAT’S something to look up to!

© 2014, essay and photographs, Priscilla Galasso, All rights reserved

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The Other Side of Bliss

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This morning, I posted a Photography 101 assignment on Bliss.  (You can scroll down to see that or click on the link to the right under Recent Posts.)  I “bliss out” when I am with people I love who love me.  I am a Lover by temperament.  I get all relaxed and happy and dreamy when my love tank is full.  It feels very nice, and I tend to fall asleep.  This is bliss. 

The other side of this, the fierce energy of love, is not far away, however.  I CARE about my loved ones.  I CARE about the environment.  I have a lot of beautiful landscape photos on this blog.  Those would depict the bliss I feel about loving the Earth.  But it’s not a sleepy bliss.  My relationship with Earth is not in the blissful, dreamy lover stage.  The Earth is in distress, and I am in distress with it.  The election results this week are chilling to me.  I got this letter from the Natural Resources Defense Council yesterday:

“Prepare yourself. Yesterday’s election results will put the Senate under new management, and its incoming leader — Senator Mitch McConnell — has made no secret of his pro-polluter, anti-environmental agenda.

Simply put, come January, both houses of Congress will be run by a faction of climate deniers and friends of the Koch Brothers. A list of the attacks they have threatened to unleash is as long as it is alarming —

They want to force approval of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline … cripple the President’s bold plan to crack down on the power plant pollution that is driving climate chaos … open the Arctic Refuge to oil drilling … launch a full-blown attack on the Endangered Species Act … restrict the government’s ability to protect our drinking water from fracking … slash budgets that promote clean energy … and strip the EPA of its authority to block the disastrous Pebble Mine.

… GOP leaders are making a huge mistake — a potentially fatal mistake — if they think this election has given them a mandate to deepen our addiction to fossil fuels and shred our environmental laws.

Poll after poll shows overwhelming support for strong environmental protection. An ABC/Washington Post survey has reported that 70 percent of Americans view climate change as a serious problem and want the government to tackle it.

House and Senate leaders ignore these facts at their peril. …But, historically, there seems to be something about the headiness of victory that makes the fossil fuel lobby overreach and try to ram radical policies down the throats of the American people.

We’ve seen this movie before. In 1994, Newt Gingrich swept to power in the House, brandishing a “Contract with America” that never mentioned the word “environment.” But once installed, the new majority claimed a mandate for undoing 25 years of environmental protections.

NRDC and our allies fought back hard by mobilizing an enraged public; more than one million Americans wrote or phoned Congress in protest. In the end, the House leadership gambled everything — their budget, their power, their agenda — on an extremist assault on nature. They lost, and found out the hard way that protecting the environment is a bedrock American value.

We must do no less this time.

NRDC will bring everything to bear — the grassroots power of 1.4 million Members and online activists like you, the advocacy clout of our legal and scientific teams and the unmatched effectiveness of our rapid response operation — to stave off Mitch McConnell’s Big Polluter Agenda.

But playing defense is not enough. If we are to avoid the most catastrophic outcomes of an overheating planet, we’ve got to prevail on the Obama Administration to reject the Keystone pipeline, deliver on the toughest possible power plant rules and move America beyond all fossil fuels as rapidly as possible.

That is our planet’s last best hope for a sustainable future — and we are not going to let Congress stand in the way.”

I want to use the anger energy that is in my fierce love for this beautiful world to make a difference in the policies and mindsets that determine action.  I vote, I blog, I talk to people I know.  I want to raise awareness, to educate if I can.  Why are we harming the ones we love?  It is madness.  The opposite of bliss. 

Sign along Hwy 137 in New Mexico; near Guadalupe National Park and Lincoln National Forest...and oil wells.

Sign along Hwy 137 in New Mexico; near Guadalupe National Park and Lincoln National Forest…and oil wells. “Generally, any gas- processing facility where hydrogen sulfide is present at concentrations of 100 ppm or more must take reasonable measures to forewarn and safeguard people that have occasion to be on or near the area. Wells drilled where there is substantial probability of people encountering hydrogen sulfide gas in concentrations of 500 ppm or more must have warning “poison gas” signs.”

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Photography 101: Water

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Water in the desert.  It’s a huge factor, and not in the way you’d think.  Water shaped the desert landscape, even though you might think there’s none there.  The canyons and caverns of the American West were formed by water.  I heard a very enthusiastic Death Valley National Park ranger named Jay Snow expound on this amazing fact.  He was right.  Death Valley is all about water.  So is the Grand Canyon and Carlsbad Caverns and all those other iconic desert places.  Many of them were once part of a vast inland sea, believe it or not.  Water is ancient and powerful and wild.  When we’re not tampering with it, that is.  (and that’s a huge topic for another post on my ‘In Wilderness…’ page)

Upper Falls at Bandelier

Upper Falls at Bandelier

Carlsbad Caverns ceiling

Carlsbad Caverns ceiling

 

 

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Photography 101: Street

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street

Highway 4 near Jemez Springs, New Mexico

The Photo 101 prompt says, “try to capture an establishing shot: a wide-angle photo that sets up a scene. It might mean moving back some steps, or finding higher ground (like climbing stairs) to fit all of your scene in one shot.”  Here’s the ‘higher ground’ I used to get this shot:

scilla in NM

photo by Steve