Tag Archives: nature photography

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Town Mouse/Country Mouse

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A Town Mouse once visited a relative who lived in the country. For lunch the Country Mouse served wheat stalks, roots, and acorns, with a dash of cold water for drink. The Town Mouse ate very sparingly, nibbling a little of this and a little of that, and by her manner making it very plain that she ate the simple food only to be polite.

After the meal the friends had a long talk, or rather the Town Mouse talked about her life in the city while the Country Mouse listened. They then went to bed in a cozy nest in the hedgerow and slept in quiet and comfort until morning. In her sleep the Country Mouse dreamed she was a Town Mouse with all the luxuries and delights of city life that her friend had described for her. So the next day when the Town Mouse asked the Country Mouse to go home with her to the city, she gladly said yes.

When they reached the mansion in which the Town Mouse lived, they found on the table in the dining room the leavings of a very fine banquet. There were sweetmeats and jellies, pastries, delicious cheeses – indeed, the most tempting foods that a Mouse can imagine. 

But just as the Country Mouse was about to nibble a dainty bit of pastry, she heard a Cat mew loudly and scratch at the door. In great fear the Mice scurried to a hiding place, where they lay quite still for a long time, hardly daring to breathe. When at last they ventured back to the feast, the door opened suddenly and in came the servants to clear the table, followed by the House Dog.

The Country Mouse stopped in the Town Mouse’s den only long enough to pick up her carpet bag and umbrella. “You may have luxuries and dainties that I have not,” she said as she hurried away, “but I prefer my plain food and simple life in the country with the peace and security that go with it.”

Poverty with security is better than plenty in the midst of fear and uncertainty. – The Aesop for Children, Library of Congress

Thanks to Tina for suggesting this whimsical and wise tale for our weekly challenge! Do visit HER SITE for a broader interpretation of contrasting City/Country photographs.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Quiet Moment

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A quiet moment
In harmony with nature
While tourists stroll by

I got an opportunity to visit the Portland Japanese Garden today. The juxtaposition of clean, geometric lines and natural areas was so very calming. The uneven surfaces required a slow pace. Visually and mentally, it created quiet in me, even though there were plenty of people around. And now, at home at my laptop editing and posting the photos I took, I am enjoying a very quiet moment indeed. Thank you, Ritva, for inviting me to share it!

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Live and Learn

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“Crater Lake inspires awe. Native Americans witnessed its formation 7,700 years ago, when a violent eruption triggered the collapse of a tall peak. Scientists marvel at its purity—fed by rain and snow, it’s the deepest lake in the USA and one of the most pristine on Earth. Artists, photographers, and sightseers gaze in wonder at its blue water and stunning setting atop the Cascade Mountain Range.”

“Iron Mountain Lookout, located in the Willamette National Forest, was a fire lookout structure that stood on a prominent rock pinnacle above Highway 20. While the lookout is no longer there, having been destroyed in 2007, the site is still a popular destination for hiking and wildflower viewing. The mountain itself is part of the Old Cascades and offers stunning views of the surrounding peaks, including the Three Sisters.”

“With its ideal location on the magnificently rugged Oregon Coast, the entire city of Newport is a natural observatory that offers a number of fun and educational activities for the whole family. Spend the morning exploring tide pools, combing the beach for fossils and spotting marine life in their natural habitats. Then head over to the Oregon Coast Aquarium where you can pet an octopus and walk through a glass tunnel surrounded by sharks. Newport is also home to two lighthouses, one of which is the tallest on the Oregon Coast. Historic Nye Beach, with its colorful cottages and laid-back atmosphere, is the perfect spot for a picnic and a quick rest from all the sightseeing.”

You hold in your hands a guidebook of destinations. With a rush of excitement, you realize that these are not far away, they are within a few hours of your home. How were these amazing places formed? What is their geological history? What species live there? What kind of seasonal changes affect them? Are there trails there that I can hike? And finally, how can I get there from here?

There is so much to learn and so much to live for. I am so grateful to have such beauty surrounding me! Thanks to Tina for inviting us to share so many things we’ve learned and for her examples of photography techniques

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Into the Woods

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“The way is clear, the light is good, I have no fear, nor no one should.
The woods are just trees, the trees are just wood.
No need to be afraid there– there’s something in the glade there…
Into the woods without delay, but careful not to lose the way.
Into the woods, who knows what may be lurking on the journey?
Into the woods to get the thing that makes it worth the journeying.
Into the woods–” Stephen Sondheim

I was at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival last weekend and saw a production of “Into the Woods” at the Elizabethan theater. How perfect that this is the Lens-Artists challenge theme this week! Thanks, Egidio!

My neck of the woods includes a great number of Douglas Fir trees and a carpet of Solomon’s Seal, ferns, and wood sorrel. Lichen and moss cover the branches of oaks. This is the temperate rain forest.

For much of the year, you could literally bathe in the forest. Walking through clouds is not unheard of, either.

My weekly Monday walks give me the benefits of forest oxygen and sanity, cardio exercise and socialization.

Sleeping In The Forest

I thought the earth remembered me, she
took me back so tenderly, arranging
her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds. I slept
as never before, a stone
on the riverbed, nothing
between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated
light as moths among the branches
of the perfect trees. All night
I heard the small kingdoms breathing
around me, the insects, and the birds
who do their work in the darkness. All night
I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling
with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.

– Mary Oliver

I wish you all time and place and space to vanish into something better. May the trees shelter and breathe you once again.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Quiet Hours

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“That country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain.”
― Ray Bradbury

“The quiet sense of something lost” ― Tennyson

“All [peoples’] miseries derive from not being able to sit quiet in a room alone.” ― Blaise Pascal

“…If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.” ― Pablo Neruda

In response to Lens-Artist guest host SH.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Reflections

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Reflective poetry gives voice to musings about life. As I walk around Cronemiller Lake in Peavy Arboretum, my thoughts tumble about, touching on the past, the present, the future, the things that worry me, the things that confuse me, the things I long for, the things I ought to do.

It feels jumbled, directionless, unsettled. I need to sit. I need to breathe, slowly. I practice leaning into gratitude, allowing the layered impressions of life and radiance to swim together in the water that surrounds everything – fish beneath, duckweed floating on the surface, dragonflies and branches above. We are all water, we are all together in the flow, we are all reflecting the light of Life.

“Wonderful how I celebrate you and myself!
How my thoughts play subtly at the spectacles around!
How the clouds pass silently overhead!
How the earth darts on and on! and how the sun, moon, stars, dart on and on!
How the water sports and sings! (Surely it is alive!)
How the trees rise and stand up—with strong trunks—with branches and leaves!
(Surely there is something more in each of the trees—some living Soul.)
O amazement of things! even the least particle!
O spirituality of things!” ~ Walt Whitman, Song at Sunset

Thanks to Anne for this inspiring Challenge.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Stormy

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“The storm is out there and every one of us must eventually face the storm. When the storm comes, pray that it will shake you to your roots and break you wide-open. Being broken open by the storm is your only hope. When you are broken open you get to discover for the first time what is inside you. Some people never get to see what is inside them; what beauty, what strength, what truth and love. They were never broken open by the storm. So, don’t run from your pain — run into your pain. Let life’s storm shatter you.”
― Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life

Have you ever been on a road trip and discovered that you were heading into a storm? Have you felt time hanging around you while your brain rifled through options? Do I change course…stop here…or go on? How bad could it be? How bad will it be? Do I trust myself to adapt to what I find and keep myself safe? Can I keep my car safe? What if I find others on the road who are not safe?

I have been parked under an overpass crowded with cars while a hailstorm ran over us. I have been parked at the side of the road while hail buried the windshield wipers and made them completely ineffective. I was not the one behind the wheel then. I once drove through a blizzard in Utah, talking the whole time to the passenger beside me. And on a perfectly calm summer day, I was in a car accident that killed my sister. I know myself when I’m worried, when I’m scared, when I’m braving through, and when I’m completely overwhelmed and having a panic attack. I’ve encountered myself on road trips. And I’ve encountered others. I am grateful to have learned some very important lessons about life, and safety, and kindness, and what is really important.

The storm is here. I am leaning into the lessons I’ve learned and keeping my hands steady on the wheel, my eyes locked on the horizon. I trust in a rainbow future.

Thank you, Beth of Wandering Dawgs, for joining the Lens-Artists host team. Your first challenge is inspiring! I look forward to more.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Mellow

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“There was a time when I was in a hurry as you are; I was like you
There was a day when I just had to tell my point of view;
I was like you
Now I don’t mean to make you frown
No, I just want you to slow down
Have you never been mellow?
Have you never tried to find a comfort from inside you?

Have you never been happy just to hear your song?
Have you never let someone else be strong?

Running around as you do with your head up in the clouds;
I was like you
Never had time to lay back, kick your shoes off, close your eyes;
I was like you

Now you’re not hard to understand
You need someone to take your hand

Have you never been mellow?
Have you never tried to find a comfort from inside you?
Have you never been happy just to hear your song?
Have you never let someone else be strong?”
~ John Clifford Farrar, songwriter

Wishing all you Lens-Artists and photo lovers a relaxing, mellow day!
With thanks to Sofia for inspiring us with beautiful, soft-toned images.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Serenity

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“Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity.”
― Lao Tzu

“There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
― Lao Tzu

“The beauty of meditation is that you never know where you are, where you are going, what the end is.”
― J. Krishnamurti

In response to Egidio’s Lens-Artists challenge

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Cinematic

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lilac

This week’s challenge is “Cinematic“, hosted by Sofia. She describes the theme this way:

“There are a few things that give a photo that cinematic feel: camera angles, bold and high-contrast colors, light, locations, just to name a few. The main objective is to take a shot that is part of a story, there’s mood and a sense of location; our image is but a snapshot of a much wider situation.”

My opening image was taken in a meadow that always reminds me of the opening scene in The Sound of Music. Imagine the helicopter shot through the clouds, and the camera swooping closer to Julie Andrews as she begins to spread her arms and sing. The cinematography is iconic and plays up the contrast between a sweeping landscape and a single character. Background and foreground allude to a wider situation. If I were to expand on my image, I’d imagine the camera panning down to a vase of lilacs on a picnic blanket, a bottle of wine, a loaf of bread, a wheel of cheese, and two fascinating characters…perhaps a talking Douglas squirrel and Steller’s jay.

Two movies stand out in my mind for their cinematography. The Brutalist is a 2024 film that looks and feels just like the title. It’s full of abstract, angular shots. I felt as I was watching it that I was less aware of the story than I was of the photography.

The second movie that came to my mind is Lawrence of Arabia. I was advised to see it on the big screen so that the cinematography could have its full affect on me. I will never forget the desert sunrise scene. It has been hailed as the “greatest cut of all”, a close-up shot of the main character blowing out a match, and then the desert sun rising on the horizon in an extremely sparse long shot. Of course, the music enhances the scene: eerie and mesmerizing, then triumphant and glorious.

I feel like ending this with a 1970s “rom-com” shot…

Thanks, Sofia! This was super fun. 🙂