note cards, and some snow, part 3 of 4 or 5

post #379
       In parts 1 and 2 I have shown all horizontal views, that may use different colored papers to enhance the colors in a particular photo. It's work to cut the paper, but I really enjoy doing the matching up. Today I am showing six of the vertical images -- which use a standard photo holder card. This allows for greater strength if the card is displayed without a frame. It means that the outside edges of the photo are not visible, which, for me, someone who frames my image in the camera, can be tricky, but most of the time it works well enough. I can no longer locate different colors for these holders, but maybe one day I'll find some.
       Now that I may have provided information some of you might not care about at all, I'm ready to get on with this post's images. Enjoy!

red, white, blue and green -- one of many views I like from this time and place

Sideway Road -- what I saw one day while checking my mail box

Woods Waterfall -- one of my first photos with a new lens

rescue donkey -- belonging now to my friend Peg in McCreary County in southeast Kentucky.  (The tips of his ears are not able to be shown in this card holder format because of the way I shoot by default.)

 

iris -- a good year!

tendril -- originally a slide, and title help from George Ella

rooster pride -- this guy also belonged to Peg. He stayed on that fence until we came back from our walk, and I knew that meant that he really wanted me to take his photo. So I obliged him and thanked him.

             I want to take time to add a few recent snow photos --  this first one was made by Jeremey. I love the contrast between the soft blanket of snow (which melted by the end of the day) and the angles of the hill, sky and clouds. This is a new view for me of the house where I used to live!  As I've said before, you never know.

             Now for two snow photos from where I live now, close by:

the view from the second floor deck, Saturday, covering the driveway mid afternoon

 

the same view this morning, with a different camera, after 5 inches of snow the day before, ending at midnight

        This morning, soon after taking this photo, I was part of a family pickup at the Lexington airport, 2 hours away. By the time we all got back here much of the snow had melted, but some remains. I suspect this might be the last of our winter in this region?  No guarantee....
        
        I would like to give a loud shout-out to the young people and others who marched and rallied yesterday all over the world demanding more sensible interpretation of the second amendment.  They have shown more caring and WAY MORE BACKBONE than our elected officials.  The NRA appears to use fear as a way to make a profit for their supporters -- though I haven't heard a good explanation why I can't drive a car or a boat without a registration but guns don't require much.  I think this heightened distress about guns has little to do with the 2nd amendment and everything to with some realities of modern day America. The Founding Fathers could have had little conception about what lay so far in the future.  It's hard to believe that back then they envisioned the citizens of this democracy needing clear rules so we don't kill each other and especially how we would have to realize how much we want to make a priority of keeping our kids alive and safe.

a work in progress

post #357
     I am still feeling contemplative these days and truth seeking. I am not able to understand how it's all right to fan the flames of differences between people. Or how we can possibly imagine that more guns will bring anything except tragedies. The framers of our constitution certainly never envisioned AK47s. I am grateful as always for conversations with friends, an opportunity to speak our ideas out loud and be listened to.  Every year of my life there is so much more to figure out. No sense in getting stuck on some unexamined point of view!
      I always love to look around me, to discover what there is, and literally see other points of view. I want to post some photos this week that might show the way I work. Sometimes a certain photo might not be particularly striking, but it is on the way to seeing whatever is there more clearly. I hope to make more sense eventually from what I am saying now.

 

across that same road, from Margie and George's porch

a detail from the photo above

another detail nearby

Three more photos, somewhat connected by subject matter or texture or design:

a nearby field

another morning fog in the same field

a morning web

the harpist after the recent Cave Run Symphony orchestra concert, and her magnificant harp

                                             Thank you, Elaine Humphreys Cook


     There's nothing like the creative mind of a child to see things in new ways: thank you, Thea!  The world needs all of us to keep using our creative minds to go beyond our perceived limits of imagining what our inner worlds could encompass.

        I do feel I will have more to say and see on what I am mulling over in this post so inadequately. Thank you, dear readers, for your patience.

a tribute to the French, from a fan

post #259
       I have been neither to Mali nor to Beirut, but I have been to France. In light of the recent attacks by extremists in all three places, I figured one thing I could do was share here some of my photos from France, a country where I lived for a year as a high school exchange student when I was 16.  I have stayed in contact all these years with the family I lived with, in Alsace in eastern France. In May 2015, I was able to spend a week in France visiting  various "family members" as well as some other friends of mine who live in Rennes.         
      Needless to say, I deplore thoughtless destruction of human life and the impetus to impose a single set of values on all the lives in the world. It happens in democracies as well as in dictatorships, and we have to work hard all our lives to nurture fairness and tolerance and respect for the world and all the peoples in it. 
      Now some views in France, an imperfect place like any other but certainly not deserving of random terrorism.  No one is. Anywhere. Isn't it about time we all take up working toward more global cooperation rather than increasing fear and hatred and divisions based on the behavior of extremists? We can take a photo of Pluto but we can't work together to solve hunger, poverty and inequalities?  The reason I was an exchange student to France way back when was because my school was part of the school exchange project set up by the Quaker organization (called the American Friends Service Committee). It sought to reestablish trust and understanding between nations after World War II. They set up these  exchanges in schools in France, England, the USA and Germany. I felt so fortunate to be part of that effort.  Each of us had a small role to play, which added up in the long run to something bigger.
  
 FIRST, FRIENDS:

     

My French "nephew" Frederic taking his son to school

Frederic taking me to the airport, via the River Seine.

modest Mariko, my longtime friend

in this famous park in Rennes

and at the market on a Thursday morning.

Mailys and her children, in Paris, on the train

        SECOND, FOOD:

 

a market in Rennes

my French "sister", Maud, in her kitchen in Mulhouse

   
  THIRD, WONDERFUL MOMENTS:

Maud and donkey (?), during our long afternoon walk

a stork nest, in Alsace

a stork overhead

in the Rhine Valley of Alsace, looking toward Germany

vineyard

beehives

          and in the VOSGES [Mountains]:

looking from Alsace over the Rhine River to the Black Forest in Germany

Annette and a friend come to the mountains for a Sunday walk.

                                                               

un cafe, s'il vous plait....

       It should go without saying that the idea of not welcoming refugees to our country is insanity!  We Americans allow any kind of person to own a gun and then some of them wreck havoc and kill children, yet we shouldn't reach out to people in need because of atrocities in their own countries?  Give me a break.  Fear may be convenient, but it is not helpful in the face of tragedy.  Merci, mes amis, et a la semaine prochaine, Ann