Tag Archives: nature photography

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Night and Day

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In darkness —
I slow down
I look within
I care for myself
I comfort myself
I pour out love
I breathe in love
I make peace with being alone

I wrote those lines at the Unitarian Universalist Winter Solstice service a month ago when prompted to consider the gift of Darkness. It was certainly a challenge to contemplate the shadow side of life as a positive thing. I feel oriented towards the Sun in so many ways — an August birthday, a “morning person”, uncomfortable at night driving, a Californian for 15 years — yet Night can create a cocoon that births creation in beautiful ways.

“Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy
Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely
Sunshine almost always makes me high” — John Denver

We are approaching that season in the Wheel of the Year known as Imbolc, halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox, which falls on February 1. From now until that day, daylight in my area of the globe will increase by 10 minutes. Slowly, the Earth here is warming. Today it was close to 60 degrees F. Oh, Happy Day!
Thank you, Sofia, for reminding us of the yin and yang of our Earth experience. Please visit HER POST to see this week’s challenge.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Illustrating a Poem

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Ann-Christine’s challenge to us is to illustrate a favorite quote or poem with 1-4 photos. Donna increases the challenge by suggesting we use a poem that we wrote. I did a post back in June of 2012 featuring this poem, with a photo I took with a borrowed camera. I’m giving it a make-over now, but you can see the original post HERE.

The Sky by Priscilla Galasso

Did I ever thank you for the sky
spread far around like an open field
piled high with moods and structures,
a playground for my soul?

This space above bids my thoughts expand
to climb the heights of an anvil-cloud
and teeter on the edge of a dazzling glare
or slide down the shafts of the sun,

To swim to the center of its lonely blue
where I find no mist to hide me,
and lie exposed to the western wind
like a mountain braced for sunrise.

Or clad in the shroud of brooding gray,
it coaxes me to musings
far removed from the minutiae
that chains me to my life.

I search for light and openness
to shadow the bonds of earth,
exploring the vault of heaven
for its meaning and its truth.

Thanks for this cathedral speaking glory through its art.
Thank you for these eyes admitting Sky into my heart.

Click HERE to see Ann-Christine’s Challenge post.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Dramatic

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“The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy.” — John F. Kennedy

The summer sky in New Mexico is strikingly close. I’m not sure why that is, but it took my breath away in an ordinary moment, outside a museum. I had been ambling along at the pace of a typical tourist browsing an exhibit and crossed a courtyard toward another section of the campus. There had been thunder showers off and on all day, and as I emerged from the building, I glanced up to see if I needed to put my hood up. This is what I saw, this dead tree silhouetted against the powerful, changing sky. This image has not been altered by any post-processing except cropping.

And this is Life in a single, passing moment – triumph and tragedy juxtaposed on a stage that we forget is all around us. There seems to be no greater opportunity to be caught up in the thrill of emotion and beauty than to simply become aware of what IS.

Thank you, Patti, for inviting us to be aware of what is Dramatic through our lenses. Click HERE to see her post.

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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.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Last Chance

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Winter Solstice 2023 – my last post of this year. Where I live in the Northern Hemisphere, there will be more than 15 hours of darkness tonight. It is a time to gather inwardly, to reflect on the shadows of what has been, to practice being comfortable with uncertainty, and to hope bravely for the coming light.

I came upon a phrase today from a campaign to protect wild buffalo herds. “Place-based coexistence”. It makes me think of the place where I live, the forest that I see from my window every day and the life that is sustained here – the flora and fauna, the lichen and moss. We are all to be plunged into darkness tonight. We all breathe the same air, soak up the rain, turn our faces to the light. I want to be mindful of all that is turning together in the Earth’s orbit. I want to celebrate our interdependence.

I think about the relatedness of all Beings in this web of existence and reflect on my actions. Have I been kind, gracious, patient? I think of the quiet days of coexistence that passed while I gained the trust of two cats I was tending for a friend. After days of being stared at from the safety of the bedroom closet, I earned the company of a purring furry friend beside me in front of the woodstove while I read a novel. This has been a long year of waiting and hoping for relationships to heal and grow. I have spent more time in deep observation and reflection and learning than I ever have before, I think. I am grateful for that.

I think of the positive actions I have taken, the aspirational direction of my thoughts, the building, creating, and rising to which I have challenged myself – physically, spiritually, intellectually, emotionally. During this dark time, I want to gather the energy to do more of that.

Finally, I remember that these moments of my life that add up to a year are as ephemeral as soap bubbles. Although they glisten with a rainbow of colors and take my breath away in their flight, they do not endure. They may instruct me, but they must not enchant me and lure me from attending to the present. This is a very difficult lesson for me. I have a photographic memory (as I’m sure many Lens-Artists do), and I find it easy to slip into my mind and out of reality. When I find myself doing this, I can choose to focus on the breath that comes to me, new, every minute. With this breath, and this awareness, I can create new glimmering bubbles of love and light, a gift in real time.

I wish you the warmth of Love and the light of Hope in this dark night. Thank you, friends and followers, for journeying around the Sun with me this year. I look forward to another trip! Special thanks to Tina for the inspiration and leadership her post provides for this year end challenge. Please visit her blog HERE.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Magical

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You might describe something as “magical” when it fills you with a sense of awe. Like that light that comes from the sun rising over the mountain and filtering through fog and frost to create diamond sparkles on every tiny filament of life – in the trees, on a spider’s web, on the rocks lining the river bank.

I recently heard a talk on the subject of Awe. Awe is a heart reaction to an encounter with the vast Mystery that we don’t understand. It pulls us out of our Egos, out of our selves and our realm of control, and surprises us in a moment. It is a fleeting and powerful emotion. The speaker quoted from a book by Dacher Keltner called Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life. The author describes neurobiological findings caused by an awesome experience (including an increase in strength, a decrease in inflammation, and a kinder behavioral response to people) and catalogues the main sources of Awe in a study of 26 different cultures. The primary source of Awe in this study was not a beautiful sunset or the birth of a baby. It was Moral Beauty – experiencing other peoples’ courage, kindness, or strength in overcoming hard situations.

The second source on the list was Collective Effervescence: the feeling you might get at a wedding, or a concert, or a sporting event when you are part of a crowd of humanity in the throes of joy.

The third source is Nature, outside of us or within us.

The fourth source is Music; the fifth is Visual Design, for example in architecture or landscape.

The catalogue of sources of Awe goes on to list Spiritual Experiences; Life Experiences of Birth and Death; and Moments of Epiphany. Of course, none of these sources is really “magic” or supernatural. They’re all absolutely natural. We really don’t need anything other than the real Life around us and within us and our own Willingness in order to be lifted up into Awe.

Maybe Awe is the magic that we need to transform our world into a place of strength, resilience, kindness, and joy. I believe that magic is available at any time.

Please visit our host Ann-Christine’s beautiful post to view the magic through her lens. Click HERE.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Unique

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Like a fingerprint, patterns in wood grain are unique to the type of tree and the way in grows in its environment. With over 60,000 different tree species on our planet, there are a lot of variations.

“Follow the grain in your own wood.” — Howard Thurman

Similarly, in a way, the ice crystals of frost create unique patterns based on fractal process development and the variations in the surfaces on which they form.

“Frost is the greatest artist in our clime – he paints in Nature and describes in rime.” — Thomas Hood

This Unique Challenge is brought to Lens-Artists by Amy (click HERE for her post with some wonderful examples of the unique in Nature).

(and in case you didn’t see it, here’s one I posted on Wednesday that I really like…)

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Empty Spaces

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“Form is emptiness, emptiness is form” states the Heart Sutra, one of the best known ancient Buddhist texts. The essence of all things is emptiness.”
― Eckhart Tolle

The space between atoms. The space between stars. So much of the Universe is made up of distance and empty space…at least in one perception. But perhaps our Big Brains can turn that around and imagine that spaciousness is a thing that something can be full of. Vastness. Expanse. Capacity. Potential.

I have been silent on this blog for a few weeks. I have been doing some Grief work and spending more time in the company of humans than in the company of my camera. I went to visit my brother at his new home on the coast yesterday. I had Patti’s Challenge in my mind as I walked from his house to the beach, and I brought my camera along.

If you’ve ever spent time along the shores of an ocean on a completely cloudless day, you will have had a glimpse into the spaciousness of our position in the Universe. No matter how much you may have filled your immediate environment with Stuff (things, people, thoughts), there is still empty space available to contemplate. There is still an expansiveness available. I find a hopefulness in that, and it feels natural and healing. Especially in a time of catastrophic chaos and dire predictions.

I wish you Peace, Lens-Artists, and the Beauty of seeing possibility through your lenses.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Tell Us Why

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Tina of Travels and Trifles is an award-winning photographer. Her challenge this week is a tough one: “choose up to a MAXIMUM OF TEN images which are your all-time favorites. No matter the subject or how long ago they were taken, you need to TELL US WHY you chose them. If you select images for their sentimental value they should still be strong from a technical perspective.“

This one always gets great reviews, and I’ve posted it a few times. It’s got the “WOW!” factor of an exceptional landscape that shows depth, scale, color, and unique geographical features. Steve is the human scale model in the lower third, perfectly placed. I love how it turned out! I also love that it was an absolute WOW moment in real life. We’d driven a long way from Wisconsin to the Badlands of South Dakota, and this was our first view of the Sage Creek Wilderness, where we’d be camping. We pulled over at this vista to stretch our legs and take a look. And yes, WOW!

This one is a shot that I was really excited about. I had just bought myself my first digital camera for my 50th birthday and was learning how to use it. We were out on the Ice Age National Scenic Trail when these sandhill cranes suddenly took flight just yards away from us. I quickly shot off my new Canon without even looking at the settings, and this is what I got. I was thrilled! The clarity, color, wing position, composition with birds and clouds…everything came together in an instant without any forethought. What luck!

I think I did a pretty good job depicting this iconic Wisconsin landmark. I got the rule of thirds in the composition, great Fall color, and an interesting sky. After I posted it, someone contacted me asking to use the image on a Memorial Service leaflet. I consented proudly.

I was both thrilled and terrified when my son asked me to do his wedding photo shoot. Outdoors, to boot. I’d never studied portrait photography, never even played around with it much. The weather was perfect, fill-in flash helped eliminate shadows, somehow I got the lighting to work with their very contrasting skin tones, but the fact that they’re both ridiculously photogenic was my absolute best strategy. It all worked out beautifully! I love the old-fashioned lace and the Mona Lisa smile in this one.

This one may be my technical best. I took a long time playing with exposure settings to get the water to do that impressive silky thing. Then a Lens-Artist Challenge taught me how to soften the image in post processing (thank you, Bren Brashley!) to create a dreamy look that I really love. This is Alsea Falls in Oregon, my new home state, so it also represents a journey.

These four just prove that there are plenty of fascinating things in the natural world that make great images when you capture them in their ordinary splendor. Color, depth of field, cropping, and getting close make them stand out.

This final one is my favorite as a photo journal; it really tells a story. There’s mood and action, reflection and great light. Plus, it’s my daughter on the Oregon Coast, so it’s sentimental to me.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my favorite photos…again. And learning why I think they’re special. I love seeing your favorites, your travels, and hearing your stories. Thanks, Lens-Artists!