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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Glowing Moments

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“We too can repair our cracks with gold
And glow again.
Crazed by life,
More beautiful than ever before.”
― Scott Hastie

Glowing moments, those incandescent peaks of joy and warmth, are precious in the present and heart-breaking in the past. I suppose the trick is not to look back on lingering light so much that you miss the approaching sunrise.

Thank you, Siobahn of Bend Branches, our guest host this week, for a beautifully luminous challenge!

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: It’s Tricky!

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“Lord, what fools these mortals be.”
– William Shakespeare

Tonight, I’ll be performing in a production called “The Blaming of the Shrew”. It’s an adaptation of Shakespeare’s work. Our director says, “This adaptation, a conflation of the two distinct extant texts of this play, The Taming of the Shrew and The Taming of a Shrew, intends to explore the social and dramatic tension of the idea that this story is ostensibly a comedic one. We hope that this adaptation will spark conversations about patriarchal control (which is, at its core, what restricting abortion access is all about), as well as the prevalence of misogynistic humor in the stories that our society continues to tell.” Proceeds from the ticket donations will go to support women’s reproductive rights.

My character, Grumio, is a servant to Petrucchio, the man who “comes to wive it wealthily” by marrying Katharina and taming her independent nature. Grumio is a kind of comic narrator, but he is also a “Bro” who creeps on Katharina and contributes to breaking her with abuse. I get to deliver a lot of sexual double entendres around lutes and meat and mustard. I do have great fun clowning around in my foolish old man identity for laughs, but I am moved to tears when our lead actor implodes and becomes a shell of herself. It has been interesting hearing audience reaction and noting how poorly the text has stood up over time as a comedy. There are content warnings posted prominently in all our publicity.

Here are some production photos of my character…obviously I didn’t take them. They were taken by our director, Rachel Kohler.

It’s tricky to be an evolving and compassionate human being. Our species has been working on that for a long, long time with mixed results. For my part, I intend to keep on trying and supporting others in their journey to be a little less foolish each day. Thanks, Donna, for your April opening challenge!

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: New Experiences

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“…We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time…

…Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;

…At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall…

…And the children in the apple-tree…

…Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea…” ― from “Little Gidding” by T.S. Eliot

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” ― Roald Dahl

“…Just think—no one has ever seen
inside this peanut before!

It is hard being a person.

I do and don’t love you—isn’t that happiness?”
― from “One Boy Told Me” by Naomi Shihab Nye

New experiences occur with every breath, every heartbeat. Each present moment is new and not repeatable. The gift of being alive can be wrapped up in so many different ways. I love the idea of “Beginner’s Mind” – it makes a new experience of everything, allowing a fresh perspective. It is a worthy challenge to cultivate this break with habit and sameness and taking-for-granted. I really enjoy hanging out with young people and watching them discover and exclaim over so many things that I have been seeing with dull eyes. I look forward to volunteering as a Teaching Naturalist for some school field trips coming up this Spring.

Anne’s challenge this week has inspired a lot of exciting posts about travel and adventure, but it has inspired me to look at the exhilarating experience of finding joy in my local environs. With warming temperatures and emerging life, it’s a whole new world out there!

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Lens-Artist Photo Challenge: Spring

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Spring (excerpt) – Gerard Manly Hopkins

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –         

   When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;         

   Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush         

Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring         

The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;

   The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush         

   The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush         

With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.         

What is all this juice and all this joy? …  

“Come with me into the woods where spring is
advancing, as it does, no matter what,
not being singular or particular, but one
of the forever gifts, and certainly visible.”
― Mary Oliver

When have I ever NOT needed Spring when it was ready to arrive? Winter in Wisconsin, and winter in Oregon, does its job of cold and dark and cloudy to the point that my soul is so ready for the ‘YES!’ of new life that I can barely contain myself. I head outdoors to feel the sunshine on my face and see what transformations are going on with its return. I listen for the return of friends: frogs, blackbirds, cranes. I measure the emergence of daffodils in hours, not days, too exuberant for patience. I can’t imagine whether I deserve Spring or not, but I am certainly grateful that I cannot stop it. Thank you, Sofia, for inviting us to share what Spring means to us with this week’s Challenge.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: The Road Most Often Taken

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“Keep your love of nature, for that is the true way to understand
art more and more.” ~ Vincent Van Gogh

The challenge this week centers around a metaphor: the road most taken on your photographic journey represents your preferred style or genre. In looking at my portfolio, it became obvious that road I take most often with my camera is a walk in the weird, wonderful, wide world of Nature. The unexpected, the unexplained, the unusual, and the astonishingly beautiful never fail to catch my eye. Pattern, color, life, texture, phenomenon – it’s like performance art: everything, everywhere, all at once. I can never get enough!

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Finding Peace

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“The Earth is so beautiful. We are beautiful also.
We can allow ourselves to walk mindfully, touching the Earth, our wonderful mother, with each step. We don’t need to wish our friends, ‘Peace be with you.’ Peace is already with them. We only need to help them cultivate the habit of touching peace in each moment.” – Thich Nhat Hahn, Touching Peace

“Breathing in, I calm my body.
Breathing out, I smile.
Dwelling in the present moment
I know this is a wonderful moment.”
– Thich Nhat Hahn, Being Peace

Tina’s challenge this morning is the perfect sequel to Ann-Christine’s “Alone Time” challenge last week. Finding peace in the present moment is a beautiful thing to experience, to savor through a photograph, and to share with others.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Alone Time

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I absolutely love this photo challenge from Ann-Christine, and I admire her beautiful post giving us a glimpse into the outer world she’s created to express and host her inner world.

I deeply resonate with the story of finding the significance of Alone Time. When I was young, I didn’t much value alone time – it reminds me now of how being sent to spend time alone in my room was used as a punishment, and felt as such. As one of five siblings, I didn’t get my own room until I was 14. By then, I was ready to appreciate it. I went from a college dormitory straight into my honeymoon apartment, and had four children in the next seven years. As the mother of a large family, alone time became HIGHLY valued, and I found it in solitary walks into the green spaces around our suburban home. I found myself craving time to write alone as well. As my children were leaving the nest, my husband died. Suddenly, I had more alone time than I knew what to do with and the pain that came with it felt very much like punishment again.

“On my own, pretending he’s beside me,
All alone, I walk with him ’til morning…”
– from the musical Les Miserables

Two and a half years ago, I moved into a studio apartment and began to live entirely alone for the very first time – during a pandemic, which of course added to the isolation. I am emerging from the narrative that frames alone time as a negative consequence and beginning to really cherish the autonomy, the quiet, the slow pace, and the creative freedom that comes with having my own space and my own time. Here in my studio, I explore creative self-compassion with intention in a way I never had the opportunity to do before. I practice music, memorize lines, write, process photos, listen to music, dance, do yoga, meditate, dream, feed myself, read, and learn, alone in this very private 700 square feet of space. Somehow, while photographing it this morning, I chose monochrome. I like the clarity and simplicity it evokes. I like how ‘mono’ means alone. There is a quiet joy here, even if there’s a somberness to it.

I hope, Friends, that this challenge inspires you to invest in your inner life and in the most important relationship you will ever have: the one with your precious and unique Self.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Bringing Softness

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Bren of Brashley Photography is the guest host for this week’s challenge. She has an amazing studio aesthetic and creates beautifully dreamy photographs. She inspired me to find out what my very limited software can do. I don’t have Photoshop or Lightroom, just the editing software that came with my Canon and the Microsoft jpeg editor that’s on my laptop. I did discover a Clarity tool and a Vignette tool that I’ve never used before. I wish I had the spot focus tool that Bren mentioned because I can see how a little pop of clarity would greatly enhance my photos. Nevertheless, following her suggestions, I came up with a few new versions of flower and landscape favorites:

When I got my first Canon in 1979, there was a soft-focus style of photography that I learned could be achieved by smearing a filter with Vaseline or stretching a nylon stocking over the lens. I’m really glad I can play around with this affect without those measures!

Thank you, Bren, for the fun of this challenge and the invitation to Dreamland.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: East Meets West

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At the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship I attend, there is a ritual for the seasons on the Wheel of the Year. During these services, we call upon the four directions: to the East, we call upon the Wind and Air; to the West, we call upon the Water; to the South, we call upon Fire; to the North, we call upon the Land and Rock. Therefore, where East meets West would be where Wind and Air meet Water. In my experience, it looks something like this:

Where North meets South might be all those places where Rock and Fire interact – think volcanoes and earthquakes. I attended a geology lecture at the public library yesterday and learned that there is a Corvallis Fault that featured in the formation of Mary’s Peak, the tallest mountain in the Oregon Coastal range. And the Cascades across the Valley contain a chain of volcanic peaks, part of the Pacific Ring of Fire created along the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Here’s my experience of what that looks like:

For a really awesome global and cultural perspective, visit Amy’s Challenge post HERE and enjoy her world-traveling lens.

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Lens-Artist Photo Challenge: Shadows and Reflections in Monochrome

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Patti sets up an awesome challenge this week and opens with a photo that blew my socks off! Took me a while to find a new pair of socks and venture out with my camera. Actually, it wasn’t so much the socks that caused the delay as it was the weather. You see, shadows and reflections require some strong light, and I happen to live in Oregon…and it’s February still. So when the late afternoon sun came through my windows today, I grabbed the camera to see if I could capture some of the magic thrown off by the nuclear fusion going on 93 million miles away. I set my Canon to Monochrome and started looking around. Here’s what I found:

I don’t have any inspirational quotes or deep philosophies to go with this challenge. I just want to share the fun and gratitude of getting up and finding something beautiful close by. Light is beautiful. I’m sure you Lens-Artists agree!