Category Archives: Photography

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Photo Connection of a Lifetime: Swallow a Camera

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I’ve gone much deeper into photography today than I ever wanted to.  Today, I swallowed a camera.  No joke.  I am undergoing what is known as “capsule endoscopy”; in other words, I ate the Pill Cam.  The thing was flashing when I put it into my mouth.  It’s about the size of the tip section on my little finger, beginning at the last knuckle.  Bigger than any vitamin I’d ever seen, but not by too much.  Presumably, it is flashing away as it winds its way down through my small intestines, recording images of a tunnel that wasn’t reachable using the upper GI scope or the colonoscopy that I had done in June.  These images are being picked up by a bundle of wires strapped onto my navel and recorded in a little metal box that I’m wearing slung around my shoulder.

I suppose what I’m trying to achieve with this exercise is to find out more about my body.  I am seeking understanding about systems that are intimately interconnected – my digestive system and my circulatory system – specifically, why a routine CBC indicated anemia while I have no symptoms.  These connections also effect my sense of self and how I connect with the wider world in larger systems like health care and the environment.  

I have to admit that I am not very comfortable with this technological connection.  I much prefer something more organic.

My vision

 

Connected

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Weekly Photo Challenge: From Both Sides Now

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Whenever you’re trying to solve a puzzle, it’s important to look at it from different angles. 

To read “A Little Story About Loving Yourself”, a story I created for this puzzle series, click HERE.

From Every Angle

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Today Is a Special Day – Birthday & Wedding

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Today is a GRAND day!!  It’s my birthday, actually.  My birthday present to myself 3 years ago was to buy my first digital camera.  It is not a phone; it is a Canon.  I do not upload ‘apps’ on my flip phone; I talk or text.  Therefore, I do not have a Mesh gallery.  I have been using the WordPress gallery display for almost all of my photo challenge posts, and I like how it looks. 

A grand day is a day of living in the moment; a day of real, physical interaction with living things.  I have lots of those days, and sometimes, I have my camera with me.  It groups all the photos I took in a single day together, so I do have chronological records.  I admit, though, it takes a long time to download, edit, and upload them into WordPress to post them in a blog.  I do not hate technology, but I do want to be very careful and aware of how I use it and how much I use it.

So, what does it mean to ‘share’ a day?  My definition will always include being present and only tangentially include technological media.  That said, here is a gallery of photos from a very grand day that I shared with my family 3 months ago.  My brother’s wedding day:


Today Was a Good Day

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Creepy!

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I don’t have to look very far to find “creepy” subjects to photograph.  I simply walk downstairs to the living room, dining room and kitchen.  That’s where we house our Museum.  My partner, Steve, has long been in the estate sale and used book business.  We sell a lot of stuff on e-Bay, Amazon, ABE Books and A Libris through our home business, Scholar and Poet Books.  But we also keep a lot of stuff.  Creepy stuff.  Stuff that Steve thinks is somehow “special”.  And he props this stuff in any available nook and corner that he can find.  Which is why I can easily photograph these:

 cha chacreepy 3creepy 2creepy

 
Creepy

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Beneath Our Feet

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Walking Meditation by Thich Nhat Hahn

Take my hand.
We will walk.
We will only walk.
We will enjoy our walk
without thinking of arriving anywhere.
Walk peacefully.
Walk happily.
Our walk is a peace walk.
Our walk is a happiness walk.

Then we learn
that there is no peace walk;
that peace is the walk;
that there is no happiness walk;
that happiness is the walk.
We walk for ourselves.
We walk for everyone
always hand in hand.

Walk and touch peace every moment.
Walk and touch happiness every moment.
Each step brings a fresh breeze.
Each step makes a flower bloom under our feet.
Kiss the Earth with your feet.
Print on Earth your love and happiness.

Earth will be safe
when we feel in us enough safety.

 

 

Sturgeon River Gorge Wilderness, Michigan

Print on Earth your love and happiness.  On the land, on the water, for yourselves, for your children.  Peace is the walk. 

Beneath Your Feet

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Wilderness Inspiration

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This photo challenge is familiar.  In 2012, there was a similar challenge which I responded to in this fashion.  I still blog about all those things, but lately, I’ve come to realize that I have been going through an evolution inspired by a specific concept: WILDERNESS.  In fact, I have an entire page set up to link to my wilderness posts.  (Feel free to browse around there!)  This last weekend, Steve and I went to find some wilderness in the U.P. (the Upper Peninsula of Michigan).  Sure enough, there were 3 federally designated wilderness areas in the western portion of that state.  We went to the Sturgeon River Gorge Wilderness in the Ottawa National Forest.  In 1987, logging operations there ceased and the logging roads were left to return to wilderness.  We were told by a forest ranger that the old road is a 7.5 mile “trail” that traverses the wilderness and given a map.  She warned us, though, that it’s not maintained.  We attempted to hike from both trail heads, but only got about 50 feet along before we realized that we would be foolish to go any further.  As I headed back toward the car, I realized that I was crying.  Not because I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to hike there, but for a very different, special reason.  It was as if I had been invited into the sanctuary of a foreign religion or to spend half an hour on a different planet.  I was humbled.  I was in awe.  I felt a reverence for the place that put my presence in profound perspective.  It wasn’t quite like I didn’t belong; it was that I belonged no more especially than anything else there, even the tiniest fungus spore.  It was a supreme experience of equality.  I did not dominate in any way.  I jokingly told Steve that this was a place “where men are food and flies are king”, but I was feeling anything but glib in my soul. 

To find yourself in the sanctuary of wilderness is to feel the breath of the Divine all around.  Breathe it in.  Be inspired. 

Inspiration

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Sliced in Half

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I whole-heartedly approve of this prompt.  I can play the magician and slice my picture in half to give you a thrill.  How do you want them?  Diagonal (like the upscale peanut butter & jelly sandwich), horizontal (typical of landscapes and layer cakes), or vertical (which is my favorite, I think, because I like going through life side by side)? 

Half and Half

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Symbols of My Father

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Today is my father’s birthday.  He’s been dead for 5 years, but his influence on my life has been incredibly profound.  I look through my photos and recognize him in symbolic images that point to something he represented in my life.  Representation is a well-developed part of human culture.  We use it in language, art, religion, philosophy, identity and so many other ways.  The real challenge we ‘civilized’ folk have is to strip away representations and come face-to-face with actual entities.  My father was highly educated and an educator himself.  His facility with symbol was quite advanced: he was a mathematician and a writer and combined those skills in his career as a Technical Writer.  I am grateful for the symbols I still see that remind me of his life, his personality, his love. 

My photos are valuable symbols to me.  Especially when I can’t access the actual things they represent.  GWHII RIP 2I miss you, Dad.  Rest in peace.

Symbol