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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Favorite Images of 2023

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My favorite photographic reminders of 2023:

I will remember the mutual benefits and joys of supportive friendships whenever I see this photo of Hunter, my friend’s cat that I stayed with for more than two weeks during the winter holidays. Hunter is a very affectionate cat, a perfect emotional support professional.

I took the photo above while I was watching a different friend’s cats, who were too afraid to come out of the closet for days. There is beauty in warmth, and beauty in chill. What Life brings is a gift. Appreciating all that Life brings is a practice.

This photo of the Yaquinta lighthouse will always remind me of an acute shift in perspective, from the minutiae of my own thoughts to the realization of vast forces unfettered by attempts at “meaning”.

In the hallway of a museum in New Mexico, I found balance and peace and space, even though I was far from home in unfamiliar surroundings.

A spider camouflaged by flowering bear grass reminds me that slowing down to notice Life on a smaller scale reveals beauty and complexity and mystery.

I snapped this photo of my brother and his dog walking in their new neighborhood two months ago, and it reminds me that change is the nature of life, and that adapting to it requires support and cooperation.

This photo of the Georgia O’Keefe museum in Santa Fe reminds me that venturing out is worth the anxiety. There are bright, sunny, beautiful things to see in the wider world.

I love the playfulness and sweetness of new friends and having fun. This photo brings those memories to mind.

When I am tempted to grow bored with the familiar, I like being reminded to look again, look deeply, and notice with joy the abundance of beauty in the world.

And finally, reflection is good for my soul. There is always a different way to frame things, to appreciate what IS. I appreciate the Lens-Artists community and celebrate its growth in sharing images and stories across the globe. Thank you for supporting creativity and humanity! Thank you, Tina, for hosting this week’s challenge and sharing your beautiful favorite images of 2023. Click HERE to see her post.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Telling a Story

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I have to admit that when I saw this week’s challenge theme, I immediately thought of this series of photos I took about 30 years ago of my mother reading a story book to my niece.

How does one photo allude to a story line, an interaction, a web of relationships or events? I think one element might be action, another context. Perhaps the picture begs a question and sends you in search of an explanation.

Just for the record, I have absolutely no idea what the people crawling on the beach were doing. I captured the image at Natural Bridges State Beach in Santa Cruz, CA. My own hypothesis is that these were students from UC Santa Cruz doing some kind of observation or exercise about marine biology. Could they be searching for evidence of some life form? What story would you tell?

Thanks to Patti for this week’s challenge and for the wonderful stories she illustrates on her blog.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Memorable Events

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Ann-Christine’s challenge this week tells of memorable events from her travels through the Sahara desert in Morocco, illustrated with stunning photos. I encourage you to visit HER POST and see for yourself. My most memorable travels in the last decade have been domestic roads trips to National Parks. On one trip, I visited 11 federally protected sites – parks, monuments, and forests. They are chronicled in the page listed below my banner heading called “An American Adventure”. Here are a few of my favorite shots from that journey.

“Roads were made for journeys, not destinations.” – Confucius

  • Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota
  • Dinosaur National Monument, Utah
  • Canyonlands National Park, Utah

“Once a year, go somewhere you have never
been before.” – Dalai Lama

  • Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Colorado

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Simplicity

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“I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.” ~ Lao Tzu

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” ~ Leonardo da Vinci

“There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.” ~ Leo Tolstoy

“Three Rules of Work: out of clutter, find simplicity; from discord, find harmony; in the middle of difficulty, lies opportunity.” ~ Albert Einstein

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” ~ Confucius

“The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time. Any fool can do it; there ain’t nothing to it. Einstein said we could never understand it all.” ~ James Taylor

Patti is perfectly appropriate in her challenge theme this week, Simplicity. Stay home, wash your hands, spend time by yourself. May we all grow wiser, more grateful, and more compassionate during this break from “normalcy”. 

Lens Artists Photo Challenge: Small Towns

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Amy starts out this week’s challenge with:

This week the photo challenge is about the countryside and/or small towns.

“Sometimes you find yourself in the middle of nowhere;

and sometimes, in the middle of nowhere, you find yourself”   –author unknown

Here in the Midwest, small towns are often found along the shores of the numerous lakes. 

Ephraim, Door County, Wisconsin on Lake Michigan

Bayfield, Wisconsin on Lake Superior

Sometimes you will find a really BIG town on the shores of these lakes, too!

Chicago, Illinois on Lake Michigan

Being from a small town is nothing to be ashamed of. Even if the town’s name is Embarrass…

French fur traders found it difficult to float logs down the meandering river that runs by this town. They would create log jams, hindering the flow of timber to its destination. “Embarrass” in French means “block or hinder”. The Embarrass River and the town of Embarrass is not hiding a dark scandal, after all. 

School bus stop, Woodman, Wisconsin

Small towns that can sustain their small populations are wonderful models of the future, not simply relics of the past. Putting humans on the landscape while paying close attention to scale and carrying capacity is a challenge that must be addressed if our species is to survive much longer on this planet. 

My Favorite Fathers

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These are still my favorite fathers, and always will be. I did comment on a FB page today that Aldo Leopold was another fine example of Fatherhood – his 5 children all became Environmental Scientists. However, I didn’t know him personally.

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The obvious blog subject of the day here in the U.S. of A. is Father’s Day.  I have two stellar examples of fathers prominent in my thoughts and conspicuously absent in the flesh.  My husband, the father of my four children, died in 2008.  My father, who had 5 children, died in 2010.  What they have in common is that they both felt woefully disappointed by their own fathers (at one time) and were determined to do better.  I’m glad to say that my husband had the chance to improve his relationship with his dad over the years, whereas my father did not.  They both had an internal sense of the kind of father they wanted to be, and were clear in their values.  They were incredibly dependable, stable providers of basic things, although in slightly different mixtures.  My husband was far more of a “warm fuzzy”, emotional Teddy Bear. …

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Architecture

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I’m so impressed with Amy’s beautiful challenge post of the architecture of Machu Picchu with the accompanying audio that I’m going to have to go in a completely different direction for my post so as not to invite comparison.
After the sublime…the ridiculous.

And the humble.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Close-Up

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Thanks to Ann-Christine for this week’s challenge, and for including those of us who don’t have a macro lens. I love close-up shots and have longed for a macro lens, but just haven’t spent the money…yet.

Getting a closer look proves a few things:

1) There’s endless fascination in the world of detail — pattern and form emerge in astonishing places.

2) A change of perspective is eye-opening and stimulates the imagination.

3) You can never exhaust the discovery of something, even something that you think is commonplace and familiar.

Getting close up invites us into a world of enhanced appreciation. There’s so much to enjoy with our vision…even without fancy gadgets. 

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Nature

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“Measured against the agenda of human survival, how might we rethink education? Let me suggest six principles.

First, all education is environmental education.” — David Orr, What Is Education For?

 

I actually met and spoke to David Orr at a conference near the Aldo Leopold Foundation Center in Baraboo, Wisconsin a few years ago. He is a fascinating speaker, a person who has clearly thought a great deal about how humans fit into the natural world.

Yesterday, I spent the morning volunteering in a homeschool class at a Nature Center. The children, aged 6-8, shared their journal entries during snack time. They each had spent time in a “Secret Place”, observing the natural world around them, drawing pictures, writing sentences using vocabulary words, and playing. I was so pleased to see this, and told them that they were following in the footsteps of Aldo Leopold, Henry David Thoreau, Beatrix Potter and many, many others — very important thinkers and learners.

What do we need to learn from Nature? So much. I have a page on this blog called “Spiritual Lessons from Nature”. Click on the link just under the header if you’re curious about them.

Some things I’ve learned about Nature: it’s powerful and deserving of respect. 

It’s complex and autonomous.

It’s vast and largely incomprehensible.

It’s older than anyone can imagine. 

It’s more detailed than anyone can see. 

Humans are just one small leaf on the great Tree of Life.  That’s always good to remember. 

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Thanks to Patti for hosting this challenge and for sharing stunning photos of Fiji.