NO RAIN for a few days

post #376, 3/4/18
       Today I so wanted to post 10 photos of blue sky. What a happy, encouraging sight after weeks of mostly clouds and rain. Instead, since all that blueness might be boring to look at, here are some variations of my inclination. I hope everyone is by now reconnected to the grid and moving on, with thoughts of climate change firmly in their heads. Denial doesn't do much for our children's future.
      SO, first, my morning moons -- an accident to have caught the moment! I love learning about reflections and what comes out as sharp in a photo. l began with my iPhone, and then looked again with my Canon. I couldn't work fast enough to set up a tripod at that time -- my bare feet were already cold from being on the wooden deck around the second story of my building, and the morning was quickly growing brighter.
       

  (I've kept this dark since it was dark, so this is approximately I was actually seeing.)

Later -- simply blue sky. How beautiful. How appreciated at this time!

And the wonder of a shining sun and SHADOWS. OMGoodness!

 The weather has been challenging in Europe as well, especially in England but also in France. A close friend there found this view so unusual that she sent me a photo from her back yard. She lives in Rennes, in northwestern France.  Thank you, Mariko.

       Perhaps I need to sign off for now with three glimpses of my grandaughter during some of her time with me this past week:

visiting the neighbors and meeting their newly adopted extended family member

fixing up HER favorite chair in the living area of my gallery house

 

The other chair is MY favorite, but it was also redesigned and reconfigured by her....all in a morning's imagining.

       Note: My plan for the next few posts is to take photos of some of the note cards I have been selling over many years. I realized recently that I assume I have done something like that on this blog, but I have not. Yet. I look forward to sharing my titles and the stories behind some of the photos. Thanks as always for coming by to visit on this blog.....

beauty in our lives

post #356
       It has been raining here all day long -- after at least a month of steady warm and sunny days. It's wonderful the woods are getting a soaking as we head into fall where fire is a bigger problem if fallen leaves are dry. As I write this, Tropical Storm Nate is getting pretty close to eastern Kentucky. 
       I made the four following photos several hours ago as I left where I used to live. The only way out is by this beautiful driveway -- made even more beautiful now that I'm no longer responsible for getting leaves out of the ditch along the side of it....

headed out

looking back toward where I had just been

another view forward -- this time through the windshield!

around the curve, looking back

What I left behind -- after a birthday party for my daughter. These lovelies and tasties were brought by friends who have Forgotten Foods Farm, LLC.

the morning after -- my daughter, her daughter, and her brother -- sweet!!

     This last photo for today was made recently, while I checked the milkweed plants. There's something about the moon that brings out whatever love I have for mystery.  Also, I must confess, with the distressing travesties being carried out in D.C. that expose the weak links in our democracy, it never hurts to be in the presence of a beauty that is reliable and true to itself.

each photo has its story

post #150
       In recent weeks, I feel like I have been busy just keeping up.  Consequently, some photos have fallen through the posting cracks.  I'd like to share a few of those today.

       This first one was taken in June, in California, at a Vietnamese restaurant where I went for some take-out PHO.  While I waited, I found myself fascinated by the single photo on the wall.  Well, I guess pho and photo do have at least a phonic connection.  Anyway, I ended up having a long conversation about the image with one of the waiters, who thought the bridge shouldn't be off center.  I said I thought its offcenteredness made the photo a lot stronger.  It was graduation day in the area, so the place was busy. I just took a single photo and I didn't ask permission.  But I think of that experience and of this photo often, for some reason, so I have wanted to bring it to this blog.  I still wish I could cross that bridge -- and that viewers would sometimes want to enter one of my photos just as much. 

 

      On a different trip, again with family, I ended up with a bedroom that, just like home, had active birds staying within view.  I finally went outside and sat on the hillside to see what was going on.  This robin's nest was right above my window!  The babies were big enough to be pretty hungry, which explained all the activity.  Here are three of the photos I took, including the cleaning of the nest.  I was told that birds will take debris, like an egg that didn't grow, and carry it far away from the nest so that it won't leave a clue below that growing baby birds are nearby.  I wasn't expecting egg removal to happen, though, so my last photo isn't as steady as I would have liked it to be.

      

an unusual sighting of an anhinga, on the highest tree on a cliff by the lake near us

three of the herd of deer who seem to have adopted our field this past week

        I'll close with the full moon in Denver, during a delicious dinner outside.  This is really how it looked.  It was a thrill to have it be right where we could see it so well.  Sometimes things just work out that way, and they really do.

       

back from where I was

post #96
       A whole week seems to have gone by since I was somewhere else and without wi-fi access!  I hated to miss doing my blog last week -- after 96 weekly posts with only two other skips -- because sharing my thoughts and my work energizes me.

      Most of my recent photo work has been about people, which is what makes wedding receptions enjoyable, of course.  But since I have a big thing about privacy and unintended consequences, I am not comfortable posting any of those photos in this blog.  I do want to say 1) how much I admire people who are real wedding photographers (I have done four, which is plenty) and 2) how much I really get into being among a group of people with an excuse to make photos of them.  I guess this speaks to my photojournalist wannabe self.   So my thanks to all -- you know who you are -- for going along with the program last weekend.

     

      Today I would like to share a photo I made a month ago that looks as if it were taken by someone who knew what she was doing.  I did not.  In fact I didn't think it could be done with just a Canon Rebel T3i and my faithful 70-300 lens.  I am particularly excited about this photo because in June I wrote a poem about the moon, which now I have an excuse to include on this blog.   What I am unsure of now is the sizing for posting this photo -- the moon I caught is actually quite detailed, ridges and all, looking kind of like a NASA version, but it may not show up as such on your screen. 

 

     Once upon the moon

Once my father got me, once

he brought home a deed

he paid for, a thrilling title to

a piece of our moon.  It wasn't 

even my birthday.  He just did it.

It was mine.  I could look up,

see it on some shadowy slope,

though no touching was possible.

(Remember, we used to think

no one would ever go so far,

that distance being like God,

just out there and everywhere.)

Now that moon holds

my memory of a moment,

when I found I owned a whole square

inch of that bright disc, with a deed

for proof, from my father who once

knew what I would want.

     As for X, Y and Z for the Appalachian alphabet book draft, I have decided these letters would be the ones to use as a photography exercise, searching for the shapes of the letters in the world around us.  This also provides an opportunity to ask for help, for the use of other eyes... I have set up a blog email address if anyone cares to share an idea of something he or she has seen, more rural than urban of course, that has any one of those three shapes within it.  Have fun with this, and THANK YOU.   Here is the address:  annphoto@mrtc.com