Category Archives: Photography
Weekly Photo Challenge: Chaos
Sometimes I think WordPress has a surveillance camera on my life! How else would they know that my world is entirely chaos at the moment while I, in my natural state, am an extremely organized person? It so happens that I’ve just moved home and home business 35 miles away into a new rental. A normal move is somewhat chaotic. Add to that the fact that our home business is an online used book (and music and whatnot) store called Scholar and Poet Books. (Find us on Facebook or Ebay!) In our inventory and in our rental home, we have AT LEAST 25,000 books. Being quite the ambitious, self-sufficient types, we thought we could move those ourselves over a two-month period. We’re also over 50, both of us. And most of those books were in the attic, 3 flights of stairs up from the curb. Long story short, we had to hire professionals to help us pack up and move the last 285 boxes of books, each weighing roughly 50 lbs. Now all of that is in our new home, and we’re unpacking and organizing. Another yuuuuge task. *sigh* But our new place is gorgeous, a ranch-style house with only one flight of stairs (down to the basement), on land owned by the Conservation Foundation for which I work. I am not complaining! I’m just sharing what a bit of chaos is like — interesting, challenging, exhausting, stimulating. Here’s a gallery of our old place:
Chaos
Chaos
Weekly Photo Challenge: Shine!
My daughters sparkle and shine far more brightly than their surroundings…but maybe that’s only from my perspective. Here are some shiny photos of them. I can’t decide which I like better: the color or the monochrome. What do you think?
Weekly Photo Challenge: Local
What a coincidence! Here I am packing up my home and home business and getting ready to move to the place where I have a part-time job with a Conservation Foundation. Why? So that I can live locally with the land that I’m working to conserve. And this week’s word is LOCAL.
Living where you work, working where you live, eating what grows on the land where you live, using your energy to shape your life — not extravagantly, not wastefully, but sustainably — is important to me. I think it makes good, common sense. So, here’s a gallery of my office, my new home, and the surrounding area that’s in the land trust.
The Office
Office Parking lot
Prairie and kame
Ski Fox Hill Kame
My driveway
My new garage
Local
Weekly Photo Challenge: Water, Water, Everywhere
“Death Valley is all about water.” So we were told by Jay Snow, the National Park Service ranger, an Okie character with an over-the-top presentation. It’s the lowest point in the country, parts of it falling below sea-level. It would make sense that gravity would bring a lot of water to that place. And it does. It’s just below the surface of the salt flat. Fascinating! Water does not behave in ways we often assume it will. It remains mysterious, a shape-shifter. It goes from warm color droplets…
…to sharp-angled crystals…
…it will eventually dissolve and transform even rock, paper, or scissors.
Water is life, practically the very definition of it. What would we “dew” without it?
It may threaten to destroy us; at the same time, we can’t live without it.
For all of these reasons, H2O commands awe, wonder, reverence. We ought to treat it with a great deal of respect and not tamper with it in its natural state unadvisedly or lightly.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Nostalgia
Back in 1997, I self-published a book of poetry called The King’s Gift: Poems and Parables. It contained this one that I titled “Change”:
In autumn, the trees start to sing once again
of the bittersweet mystery of change.
Is it beauty or pain
now attached to my soul?
Is it grief…
…or relief…
…or nostalgia?
In the scarlet and gold,
the blood-red of life’s hold on my heart
and the warmth of its love
mingles memories and years
into afternoon tears
falling softly
…as leaves…
…to the ground.
I feel this way every fall. The change in light makes everything seem altered and thrown back into the past — until my eyes adjust and my brain catches up. Then the brilliance of the season kicks in. I really love Fall for its ability to draw out a range of emotion and hold it, fully aware and unashamed, in its transient environment.
Text and photographs © 2016, Priscilla Galasso. Poetry © 1997, Priscilla Galasso. All rights reserved.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Quest
At this point in my life, I am Over the Hill for sure. The sun is setting – how rapidly is anyone’s guess. Anticipating the unknown sounds like an exercise in futility. Any build-up is likely to increase anxiety. I think what is more important is simply practicing being the character I want to be. I am not on a quest to challenge my mortality, but to be at peace. I am looking forward to moving to a more rural part of the state in a month, on 56 acres of restored prairie that’s owned by the Conservation Foundation where I work. My quest will allow me to spend more time in Nature and more quiet time writing. We’ll see how rapidly that sunset arrives. I’m not looking to jump on any fast trains to get there.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Edgy
Ben Huberman talks about using a frame to “anchor” our compositions with something. Here’s my son holding down the Chicago skyline:
But he seems to be bobbing in the water. What if I anchor him as well?
Maybe that’s a bit unfair to put that on my kid’s shoulders. He’s not even as tall as I am. How about I anchor the skyline with some serious construction? Like Lake Shore Drive…
I like that. And the monochrome treatment makes it even stronger. Thanks, Ben, for the tip!
Weekly Photo Challenge: Mirror Question
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, I have a question:
Reflecting on life and love…
Reflecting on family…
Reflecting on Nature…
Aren’t these all just exercises to help us make sense of our selves? Or perhaps to discover that our selves are happier when senses don’t need to make sense?
Weekly Photo Challenge: Change Frames
The south window of my tree-house bedroom is where my eyes gaze whenever I look up from my computer. My bed is my home office. 
This has been my home base for 5 years now, in all seasons…
…and through various moods.
But time brings evolution. Things change. I’m anticipating a move this fall, away from this framework and towards my life work. I will get a chance to live outside this particular box.
This frame has served me well. Very well, and I’m grateful. But it’s time to change frames and let the picture advance.
