Tag Archives: photography

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Time

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Time in a Bottle
– Jim Croce

If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I’d like to do
Is to save every day ’til eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you

If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
I’d save every day like a treasure, and then
Again, I would spend them with you

If I had a box just for wishes
And dreams that had never come true
The box would be empty
Except for the memory of how they were answered by you

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do once you find them

I’ve looked around enough to know
That you’re the one I want to go through time with

Donna’s post reminded me of the long weekend my late husband and I spent at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island. The movie Somewhere in Time was filmed there, an extremely sentimental and romantic love story involving time travel and starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. All of those associations with time reminded me of Jim Croce’s song, which was the love song my sister and her boyfriend cherished before she was killed in a car accident at the age of 20. In my mind, the best use of time we’ll ever learn “is just to love and be loved in return”, as Nat King Cole sang.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Black & White or Monochrome

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Anne, our Challenge host this week, instructs, “Black and white is the result of only using black or white and ‘shades of’. The ‘shades of’ meaning grayscale… Monochrome photos contain variations of only one color and nothing else. Meaning, different shades of one color like blue, red, green, etc.” My side-by-side comparison of Fern Frost gives you the ability to see what you think of the two. Do they seem to evoke different moods, different levels of curiosity?

There is a real challenge in finding subjects that are monochrome. I must say that I don’t often look for compositions or subjects that feature color as their distinguishing attraction. The LA Challenge of primary colors was one that my photo files just couldn’t address. If only GREEN were a primary color!

Thanks for the challenge, Anne, and for inspiring me to look at color composition differently!

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Framing

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Palace of the Governors, New Mexico History Museum

“The frame through which I viewed the world changed too, over time. Greater than scene, I came to see, is situation. Greater than situation is implication. Greater than all of these is a single, entire human being, who will never be confined in any frame.”
― Eudora Welty, On Writing

I suppose the framing of a photo subject provides contextual information about the surrounding area. Imagine this deer framed by a fence, instead of by pine boughs.

And how does the framing of the Golden Gate Bridge affect the mood or message of this monument?

Often, in the practice of mental health, it helps to ‘re-frame’ a thought – to examine the story I’m telling myself about a situation and see if there’s a different way that the story could be told, from a different perspective, with a different contextual focus. It’s amazing how profoundly impactful frames can be, shaping and informing how we view a subject. I suppose, as photographers, we can use that tool to tell the story we want to tell.

Thanks, Amy, for challenging us to examine our frames this week.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Work in Progress

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“Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.” — Ella Fitzgerald

“I am a work in progress dressed in the fabric of a world unfolding.” — Ani DiFranco

“Think about how long it took for the mountains to get there and look so beautiful. Think about how long it takes for this tree over us to grow. We’re so impatient. Think about it. This leaf here took forever to become that perfect leaf. We’re that. We’re work in progress. That’s actually being alive.” — Daphne Zuniga

What’s the difference between a process and a work in progress? I looked it up:

Because processes are sets of actions, they’re typically short-term. In a manufacturing context, work in process usually only remains unfinished for a brief period before becoming a final product. The term “progress” refers to measurable change over a period or movement toward a destination or outcome. – Indeed.com

I resonate with Ella’s passion to sing, with a photographer’s desire to share the visual beauty of the world, with an individual’s quest to belong to a more just and compassionate world, and with a group’s strides to reach the summit of a particular peak. I also want to be at peace and engaged in the present moment, to be joyful in the process, to be mindful of and grateful for being alive. There is so much process and progress going on in the world!

Thanks to Ann-Christine for this wide, wonderful theme.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Overlooked

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“What we do see depends mainly on what we look for. … In the same field the farmer will notice the crop, the geologists the fossils, botanists the flowers, artists the colouring, sportmen the cover for the game. Though we may all look at the same things, it does not all follow that we should see them.”
― John Lubbock, The Beauties of Nature and the Wonders of the World We Live In

Alcove House, Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico

Imagine looking at a canyon wall, eroded by wind, formed of crumbly volcanic tuff. Would you see in it a choice place to build a home, defensible from attacks, high above the river floods, cool in the summer and warmed by the afternoon sun in the winter? Would you see the path up to the sheltering alcove? And what would you be looking over once you got up there? Also, imagine that it is the year 1150 A.D. Can you look with an archeologist’s or anthropologist’s vision and imagine the ways of the people who lived there?

My friend, Ranger Steve, pointed at the canyon wall. “Do you see that petroglyph up there? What do you think it is?”
“Um…a person’s head? A bear’s head?”
“WHAT?”
“You mean that round, red spot above that pale place on the rock?”
“NO! Not a pictograph, a petroglyph. Carved into the rock under the overhang, above where that cholla cactus is.”
“Ooooh, THAT. I didn’t see it before. Um…a horse bending its head down to drink, maybe?”
“A lot of people see that. It’s probably a parrot, actually.”
Thick-billed parrots now are found primarily in Chihuahua and Durango, Mexico, but used to range north to Arizona and New Mexico. I completely overlooked that possibility!

I was doing a botany hike with a learned friend recently. She was pointing out and naming the plants along the trail, and I kept finding what I call Bonus Bugs. This tiny, pale spider was well hidden in the blooming Bear-grass.

She examined the leaves of a small tree and discovered these spiny little balls. They’re not part of the tree at all, she told me. They’re probably the egg sacs of some insect. Or maybe the tree’s protective reaction to the injury inflicted when the insect deposited the eggs? I don’t know. It’s another one of those innumerable natural mysteries that go overlooked every day. The truth is probably very important to the tree and the insect, though.

Here I want to recommend a book I’m reading: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. When European settlers came to North America, they definitely overlooked the ancient and intricate relationships already established on the continent, relationships between many species that were reciprocal and mutually adaptive for sustainability. The wisdom in this book is astounding. The poetry of story and reverence in the writing is profoundly delightful. I believe it is a book to inspire revolution and a new way forward.


Thanks to Janet of Sustainabilitea: This, That, and The Other Thing for hosting the challenge this week!

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Simplicity

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“If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable, those things can unexpectedly become great and immeasurable.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

The presence of water.

A healthy diversity of insects.

Plants that produce food.

Yesterday, I went walking with a friend who writes biology curriculum for Montessori schools. We went to Iron Mountain in the Cascade range, one of my favorite places to climb for a stunning view of volcanic peaks. However, we didn’t climb much. We walked quite slowly, noticing the incredible biodiversity of plant life. She identified orchids smaller than my pinkie nail (Twayblade orchid), and we took lots of photos.

“If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.”
― Albert Einstein

I often think of Life as incredibly complex – this great, interconnected web of diversity and specialization. However, when I slow down and sit with it, Life is as simple as being breathed. We are as we are.

And that’s what I might say to a six-year-old.

Many thanks to Mr. Philo of Philosophy Through Photography for this challenge. May we live simply and simply live.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Kitchen Inspiration

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My mug shot:

Our guest host for this week has come up with a brilliant theme: Inspiration from the Kitchen. Her blog post shows an incredible artistry with this subject and technically stunning photographs. Do visit!

The subject of kitchens, of food and hearth, the center of a home, strikes a very emotional place for many of us, I suspect. Looking at the rich textures and sumptuous opulence of some of the photos I’ve seen so far, I began to feel rather sad, perhaps…nostalgic? I live in a studio apartment, and my kitchen is a simple L-shaped corner of the 700 square feet of my dwelling. This is my first time living alone. My kitchen doesn’t make me think of beauty or art or pride. However, I took a closer look and created a Mug Shot that has great meaning for me. The coffee mug was a Christmas gift from my housemates who live on the other side of the wall. They welcomed me to Oregon with this amazing opportunity to live deep in the woods on family-owned property going back generations. The backdrop is a painting done by my daughter-in-law, who is the most creative and inspirational cook I know. Her smoked/marinated/grilled/sauced/garnished dishes show layers and layers of cultural influence and bold experimentation. The cutting board was also a gift from a family member. It is wooden and incredibly useful, and I’m really glad to have it. So, in my kitchen, I find I am supported by friends and family, which is comforting because otherwise I might simply stand alone eating ingredients over the kitchen sink.

My heritage…

I grew up in awe of my mother’s mastery at cooking and serving gourmet meals. She created grand, formal dinners at my father’s request. I was not permitted to help in any truly participatory fashion. I could do small tasks. For family dinners, I could make a salad. When she was making a pie, I could pray that the top crust could be lifted and placed perfectly without cracking. My mother called this pie-praying. I was not allowed to touch. I was the youngest of four daughters, and I know her culinary skills were handed down to my oldest sister. As the mother of four of my own, I know that sometimes it’s just easier to do it yourself. I do not harbor any ill-will about this chapter of a complex family history. It’s just a fascinating scenario. We are all influenced by such basic stories.

The photo above shows a demitasse cup and saucer that I took before the sale of my mother’s estate as a small reminder of the dining room china – 12 settings, decorated in platinum. My mother collected several different sets of china, thinking that each of her four daughters would need one. However, life and lifestyles have changed. Her grandchildren have absolutely no desire to own china. Lace tablecloths fill the drawers of the curio cabinet I inherited from my mother-in-law. And I sit alone at my grandmother’s cherry dining table as I type this. Two leaves are hidden below the tabletop. There could be 8-10 people around it…and there have been at times, years ago.

But my everyday life is not lace and china and silver. It’s Douglas Fir trees and hiking boots and granola in a dish from the dollar store.

And that is my inspiration and my cup of tea right now.

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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.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Fragments

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Our guest host, Brian of bushboys world, sets out a poetic challenge this morning in wisps of memory, a fragrant breeze, a wistful thought, a glimpse behind a curtain of time.

Fragments begin an exploration of extrapolation…what is mssng? How to fll t n? Perhaps all photography is fragmentary. No image captures it all. I am reminded of an exercise I once did in art class. We were given a small card with a simple configuration of lines. We were to paste it onto a bigger piece of paper and create a larger drawing around it. In other words, we were given a fragment and asked to reconstruct a whole, using as much imagination as we could muster.

I love Brian’s invitation. It’s as if he said, “Once upon a time….your turn.”
And off you go, Lens-Artists! I look forward to seeing what has sparked your imagination.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: What’s Bugging You?

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I’m beginning to think that maybe Donna of Wind Kisses might be a secret sister to me. I love her challenge to us this week! Last week it was bilingual 3rd graders, this week it was Kindergarteners (70 in all) who sang this song with me:

“Head, thorax, abdomen, abdomen
Head, thorax abdomen, abdomen
Two antennae, four wings and six legs
And don’t forget the exoskeleton!”
OR
“Cabeza, tórax, abdomen, abdomen
Cabeza, tórax, abdomen, abdomen
Dos antenas, cuatro alas y seis patas
Y tambien el exoesqueleto!”

So, which of you Lens-Artists have a dung beetle in your photo archives? This specimen was living on the prairies of South Dakota. Could be elk or buffalo dung it was rolling around into a perfect sphere. I wish I had video to show you how he rolled it with his back legs until the slope’s gravity pulled him up over the top, facing skyward. Fascinating!

Another beetle. Ladybugs feature in nursery rhymes and seem pretty harmless, but my middle daughter discovered at Girl Scout camp that they bite, and so grew to be somewhat afraid of them, especially when some meaner girls threatened to fill her sleeping bag with them.

Okay, I’ll post some of the more glamorous bugs that everyone loves.

…and I’ll post some things that aren’t bugs just to see if you’ll jump.

I think it’s always good to meet the neighbors who sit on other branches of the Tree of Life, get acquainted, and learn to appreciate them. Most of them were here long before we were! I think they make great teachers.