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.

fog and fun and Chelsea Clinton

post #325
      I've had a busy week photographically - our photo class assignment was to present contact sheets for 80 photos and then decide on 6 of them to work on before making fine prints this coming week on the Epson 4800 printer which the University uses as a work horse.  With luck, the new version of this printer will be available before the end of the semester.  I do believe I will have even more trepidation using newer than I already have for tried and true. That's my problem, though, nobody else's.  The theme for these photos is supposed to have something to do with a personal connection to land in some way  -- so of course I headed down to our beloved waterfalls since they are an emotional siren for many of us. Here are two photos from Wednesday late afternoon and Thursday; R. helped by carrying my tripod down for me. She then returned a couple of hours later to bring it back out. Sweet! T. loves her book about seeds.

Good help is priceless.

Lucky for me, the sky was cloudy (no glare) and actual water was coming over the highest of the falls!

I'm using the tripod here. That big waterfall looms to my right.

A second "project" this week was the discovery of early morning fog when I woke up. Such a fleeting moment is always a way to get a literal jump start on the day! There were those magical glistening spider webs everywhere (see one place with them 7 photos from now.)

The barn is in each of the next three photos.

 from the front of my gallery/house:

my driveway looking its best

          I will be showing more photos from the waterfalls next week, after I have lived with them for a bit and perhaps tried some tweaks on them for the class. I want to mention some other work I did, some on Friday and more yesterday, gathering photos for the second book that George Ella Lyon and I have had on the back burner for a couple of years.  George Ella is making a presentation today at an elementary school neear Cincinnati, and she'll be showing the PowerPoint that she assembled for "Apple Orchard, Bluebird, Creek". Shw wrote it and I have provided most of the photos. After hearing about the responses from the kids, I'll share more.
 
        Lately I have been quiet on the blog about the strange, challenging behaviors coming out of the White House and Congress this month, but that doesn't mean anything is getting better. I hate to hear all that nonesense about the press being an enemy when the constitution defends the need for open, reliable, and accessible information as a protection from secrecy and corruption. It's called Democracy. Get over it, tweeter. If truth is to be told, it will have to be by the press, since there are as many lies as ever coming out of the White Lies House.  History tells us sowing lies is a classic strategy for causing confusion, establishing unrest and then seeking control.  I'm proud that so many people who understand this are speaking up. Maybe soon some real Republicans in leadership positions will find their hidden backbones and do the same instead of being bamboozled by someone who doesn't dare to show his tax returns or speak with civility to his fellow Americans in all their variations.
        
       Anyway today I wanted to celebrate The Curious Mind that is not afraid of new ideas. I happened to read today's New York Times Book Review interview with Chelsea Clinton. I was amazed and heartened by the tone of her words as well as by the range of her reading -- with two small children around! (I know, she has household help.) So here is the link to that article even though I know most viewers may be understandably too busy to read it.  

        Now here are the last three photos for today:

headed to the pond

passing some fog draped webs en route to the pond

returning to the waterfall area for some fun and some boots in the creek

My thanks for visiting, listening, watching, and wondering with me what life is all about.
    

a whole post about a single pond

post #266
      Greetings from southeastern Kentucky, in McCreary County, where I am visiting my friend, Peg, for a few days. She lives surrounded by forest and by her farm, which is also the location of her B & B, Farm House Inn.  Friday she drove me around in her "Mule", a very handy mode of transportation on forest trails. It can hold at least three people or instead one person and several big dogs.... 

       I had intended today to show a variety of photos from my stay, like I have done after other visits here, but this time we came across some unexpected misty magic! I am not sure photos can capture the wonder of it, but it is worth a try. Video might have been better suited for sharing what we were seeing, but I wasn't equipped to do that. So here is our first view of the pond, unexpectedly covered with mist:

        We were not there long, and the mist kept shifting the whole time, revealing sections of ice and levels of mist. All this was happening around 5 p.m. after a relatively warm day. Peg doesn't think the pond was "turning over", a term I had to look up, yet she had never before happened to see her beloved pond acting like this. I will post the following photos in mostly chronological order, and I tried out two in black and white to catch the ice patterns. As usual, I don't even know how to do some of the fancy stuff, and I don't usually do anything anyway for the blog photos I show.

      Once we decided our time had run out and we had to return to the house, I made one last photo farther along the pond's edge, with its different feel of the place.

 
       I was moved by seeing this pond, and, as usual, I feel even more connected to what I am seeing if I use my camera.  The photos feel imperfect for the occasion, but I share them in any case to honor our being at that place at that time. The wild things we don't always get to experiece are so very much needed in our world and always have been.

my unexpected Appalachia

post #252

from this afternoon, at the pond, unexpectedly

      On the way home from town last week, I had another unexpected sight. If I had not had my camera with me in the car.... and if there were not a spot to pull over, complete with a white bovine, who can show up the colors on her hide.... To me, such moments are always gifts.  Here are six shots, shown in consecutive order.  Had I been at my house, which is in a hollow, I would not have even seen this, or known to go seek it out.

      The next morning, there was fog, and visitors, and, yes, the leaves are beginning to change.

dogwood

     Happy change of seasons to all, and good luck with non-seasonally connected changes as well  -- and with whatever unexpected comes your way.