Category Archives: Photography

Unknown's avatar

Weekly Photo Challenge: EARTH!

by

I plan to celebrate Earth Day 2017 by helping the conservation foundation I work for plant 5500 trees on 11 acres of land that has been farmed for a long time. White oak, pin oak, red oak and shagbark hickory seedlings will be growing up around monarch and pollinator meadows for years to come. Eventually, the area will resemble more closely the hardwood forests of the area prior to European settlement.

I think a lot about the impact of the human race on our planet. 

I am trying to have a harmonious relationship with the Earth. It’s not easy. So much was put into place before I was born. I feel locked into an abusive and foregone conclusion. I greatly admire those who break out of that and live courageously and radically “off the grid”. I do what I can, beginning with raising my own awareness and spending more time listening and observing. 

How do you get to know a planet? It’s a complex organism. So many moving parts…

And I have been deeply moved. You too?


Earth

Unknown's avatar

Weekly Photo Challenge: Surprise!

by

“Poor, dear, silly Spring, preparing her annual surprise!” – Wallace Stevens

Thank you, Jen, for quoting Stevens, one of the best at intuitive word play and surprise.

Thank you, Spring, for injecting life into the world just when we thought everything might be dead forever. 

Surprise

Unknown's avatar

Weekly Photo Challenge: Security

by

My first thought on this subject is of Linus Van Pelt, the wise but neurotic younger brother of Lucy the fuss-budget in the Peanuts cartoons.  His blanket is rarely out of reach. He is aware of his dependence on it and unapologetic and creative in his relationship with it. He seems to be coping better than most adults. Aren’t we all neurotic in some way?

Now that I’m fifty-something, I’ve gotten to know my insecurities pretty well, mostly through the loss of things I relied on. I no longer depend on my husband for security, since he died 9 years ago. My kids all moved out of the nest and I sold the big, suburban house. Shortly after that, I stopped practicing belief in Christianity (and I had a serious practice). As all of these big pieces began to fall away, I began to realize that security was not about them, but about how I think about myself in the world.

You see, either I belong here, or I don’t.

If I don’t belong here, all of those things won’t help. If I do belong here, all of those things are unnecessary. I finally began to see that I am part of this natural world. I fit in it, just the way I am. And even when I die, all the bits of me will be reabsorbed into the earth and fit in just as well that way.

It’s pretty simple, really, but I have to say that I still get anxious and neurotic sometimes. The one who shows me what being secure in the world looks like is my partner Steve. We camped in the Sturgeon River Gorge Wilderness in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. By the time we got to the place, he was pretty tired from driving. So he just lay down and fell asleep. No tent. No bug spray. No gear.

No problem. 


Security

Unknown's avatar

Weekly Photo Challenge: Who You Callin’ Dense?

by

I appreciate the beauty found in the thick of things, like a solid mass of redwood roots…

…or lush undergrowth…

…or tangled hunks of kelp…

…or billowy cumulus clouds.

I like my environment filled in, robust, varied and fecund.  A sparse monoculture is not my aesthetic ideal. 

There is great wisdom in diversity, and intelligence in supporting it. 

Dense

Unknown's avatar

Weekly Photo Challenge: Green is Easy on My Eyes

by

I work for a Conservation Foundation. We try very hard to be green! Protecting watersheds and wildlife habitat while preventing the development of natural lands into human-dominated environments is a labor of passion and commitment for me. Green is not just my favorite color and the highlight in my eyes, it is my preferred world view! Here’s my green gallery:


It IS Easy Being Green!

Unknown's avatar

Weekly Photo Challenge: Atop

by

Mountaintop experiences give you a spiritual perspective. The sky is bigger; the minutiae of the earth is even smaller.  

Humility and awe meet you at the top of your climb. 

The view (and the climb!) is breathtaking.

And the opportunity to stay atop a while and ponder your place on the crust of Earth is a special reward. 

Seek higher ground. It’s good for your soul.

 

 
Atop

Unknown's avatar

Weekly Photo Challenge: Wish

by

I wish for the health and happiness of all beings, all inhabitants of this planet. May the land be happy…

May the water be happy…

May the air be happy…

May all the plants be happy…

May all the animals be happy…

And may all the people be happy.


Wish

Unknown's avatar

Weekly Photo Challenge: The Road Taken

by

These photo challenge subjects so often coincide with an experience I just had! I’ve just driven a rather harrowing 5.5 miles from my office back home in a white-out blizzard of Wisconsin spring snow. The county road goes up a steep incline of glacial terrain, and the snowplows hadn’t gotten to it when I and 4 others began the ascent. I was slipping sideways and barely able to get to the top in first gear with my 11-year old Honda Accord with front wheel drive. Needless to say, I wasn’t taking any photos during this journey!

Now that I’m safely home at my laptop, I’m thinking back to another wild road experience. I was so excited to travel through the Jemez mountains in New Mexico in October…the bright yellow of the cottonwood leaves, the blue sky and the red rock were absolutely stunning! The next day, we traveled the same route and were caught in a hailstorm that almost stranded us at the summit under two inches of icy pellets. Of course, I don’t have photos of that part of the trip, only the sunny splendor of the initial journey. 

street

scilla in NM
The Road Taken

Unknown's avatar

Weekly Photo Challenge: A Good Match

by

A “satisfying pairing” you say? Oh, so many come to mind…

There are, obviously, the many combinations of happily mated people:

As well as deliciously married flavors, like cheese and truffles or herbs:

cheese

And then there are the natural cooperations of plants and animals, like the monarch butterfly that feeds on milkweed in the larval stage and then benefits from that toxin as an adult that is distasteful to predators and pollinates wildflowers:

monarch prince

Sometimes, though, it’s just as satisfying to put two things together that don’t seem to have much in common – just for the hell of it: 

prickly feathery cold

Even if you never liked all those essay questions you answered in High School that started with “Compare and contrast….”, you probably learned something by thinking about them. What I hope to learn in the Match Games I play is appreciation — because the world is full of fascinating examples of A Good Match. 

good-match
A Good Match