Category Archives: Photography

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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

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Door – or No Door?

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The open door…

edge

…is a symbol of the fluidity of life.  We pass through, but may we not also pass around or over?  Most often, I believe, doors are constructions of our own egos, our own consciousness.  We perceive doors even where there are none, just as we construct walls in the wilderness for no reason other than to give us a sense of boundaries.  Why do we find boundaries and closed doors comforting?  Maybe because they give us an excuse for setting limits.  Maybe that’s how they make us feel safe.  Where do you build doorways?  How would you feel in a place where there were none?

Familiar door
Fancy door

Door

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Weekly Photo Challenge: My Muse

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Brie Anne Demkiw’s challenge invites us to share our personal ‘muse’, the subject that we return to for new inspiration and in-depth study.  She has a favorite pier (coincidentally Scripps pier in La Jolla — I went to Scripps College in Claremont), which reminds me of my own pier post, A Jury of My Piers.  My muse is always Nature, and mostly Wisconsin, and you can visit my gallery page of Wisconsin nature shots by clicking here or on Wisconsin Outdoors in the heading. 

But today is an historic day, and I want to celebrate another muse, my youngest daughter Emily.  Emily recently announced her engagement to Nora, and today the U. S. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a Constitutional right to same-sex marriage in all of the United States.  This is a break-through for the entire nation, but it’s a personal triumph for my family as well.  Emily is a ‘guiding genius’ (one of the definitions of the noun form of ‘muse’); she is a poet and singer and artist and recently became employed by a science surplus store….so she has all the Greek goddess talents going on.  In addition to that, she is an inspiration to me about social awareness, about being aware of yourself, your own psychology, and that of the people around you.  She is extremely intelligent and articulate, so that makes it easy for her to assess and communicate about what she notices and what she thinks.  She has called me out on my hypocrisy and my delusions (lovingly, of course) and challenged me to become more broad-minded.  She is a subject that I find particularly appropriate today….and she’s very photogenic.  So here’s her gallery:

So here’s to Emily and Nora: a bright, fabulous future to you!  May you continue to be an inspiration in the lives you lead and the love you generate.

Muse

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Proud of Roy G. Biv

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The rainbow is a perfect symbol and challenge for this June post! June is LGBT Pride Month, to honor the 1969 Stonewall riots in Manhattan.  My friend and colleague, Jamie Dedes, alerted me to the history of this on her blog.  Here are the facts:

“The Stonewall riots were a tipping point for the Gay Liberation Movement in the United States. In the United States the last Sunday in June was initially celebrated as “Gay Pride Day,” but the actual day was flexible. In major cities across the nation the “day” soon grew to encompass a month-long series of events. Today, celebrations include pride parades, picnics, parties, workshops, symposia and concerts, and LGBT Pride Month events attract millions of participants around the world. Memorials are held during this month for those members of the community who have been lost to hate crimes or HIV/AIDS. The purpose of the commemorative month is to recognize the impact that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals have had on history locally, nationally, and internationally.”

I celebrate all the colors of the rainbow, all the diversity of the world, the beauty and variety of life, its abundance and its sanctity.  Celebrate with me!  Have a colorful day!

photo by Marni (RIP)

ROY G. BIV

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Off-Season

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One of the advantages of being self-employed is that you can take advantage of the freedom of your schedule and do things when you feel like it.   Steve and I like to travel in the spring and fall when places are less crowded.  Consequently, we got the opportunity to be the ONLY visitors at a National Park one day.  It was Lassen Volcanic National Park in northern California, and it was April.  Here is what the walk up to the Visitor’s Center looked like:

off season 3We hadn’t really come equipped to hike in so much snow, so we settled for watching the video describing the volcanic terrain from inside the cozy Visitor’s Center.  One park ranger is all we saw there that day.  (I should note that this was in 2011, before the severe droughts of more recent years.)

Here’s a local off-season shot:

off season  Milwaukee on the first warm day in March.

I hesitate to label anything off-season, though.  All seasons of the year are open for exploration.  Nature is doing its thing whether crowds show up or not, and I love to see natural areas at any time and at different times.  It’s always beautiful, always worth it.  Here is my final shot of Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas in October: 

off season 2

Off-Season

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Here’s Waldo

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From Essay IX: The Over-Soul — “The Supreme Critic on the errors of the past and the present, and the only prophet of that which must be, is that great nature in which we rest, as the earth lies in the soft arms of the atmosphere; that Unity, that Over-soul, within which every man’s particular being is contained and made one with all other; that common heart, of which all sincere conversation is the worship, to which all right action is submission; that overpowering reality which confutes our tricks and talents, and constrains every one to pass for what he is, and to speak from his character, and not from his tongue, and which evermore tends to pass into our thought and hand, and become wisdom, and virtue, and power, and beauty.”

Steve and Waldo

Steve and Emerson (the golden book in his hand) on the Ice Age Trail

From Nature — “Nature is a language and every new fact one learns is a new word; but it is not a language taken to pieces and dead in the dictionary, but the language put together into a most significant and universal sense. I wish to learn this language, not that I may know a new grammar, but that I may read the great book that is written in that tongue.” 

© 2015 photographs by Priscilla Galasso, All rights reserved

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Vivid Wings

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The picture of the Sydney Opera House reminds me of this photo I took this week on a walk through the Fox Hill Nature Preserve, one of the properties owned by my new employer, Cedar Lakes Conservation Foundation. 

VividElectric lights don’t seem to hold a candle to a day of sunshine on the first of June when the air temperature is a cool 55 degrees Fahrenheit.  Even in mid-day, every color seemed to pop with vibrancy and life!

Vivid