Adieu 2012

And here we are at the end of 2012. 

I have a plan (on paper!) for 2013 and if I don't stick it in a drawer somewhere, I may get a few things accomplished. I have also written some unhealthy habits and people's names on pieces of paper and put them into a 'goodbye' jar and I will burn these tonight. These will be left behind as I ring in the new year.

None of this has anything to do with a red-bellied woodpecker; he was at the snack bar and I snapped a photo of him. :)

Happy New Year! Wishing everyone health and happiness in 2013.

No words

Christmas 2002

The tragedy that took place in Newtown on Friday is so horrific that words fail me. If I would try to express my sadness, my broken heart would not allow it. There can be no answer to 'why'. No matter what forces brought those souls together, there can be no reason... nothing can explain the evil. 

We, as a country, will show what we are made of now. Maybe there aren't enough people who want to change our culture and we will continue to reap what we sow. And the next time, we will be saddened and heartbroken and we will wonder how this could happen again. We need only to look inside ourselves for the answer. Because we allow it.

The last holdout

We have been trying to trap all of the feral cats that I have been feeding and taking them to be neutered/spayed. This guy is the last holdout... he will not be lured into the traps. We're going to take a little break and try again later.

Mama Too won't be a mama no more!

The feral cat fixing saga: Four of eight have been trapped, neutered and released. It has been quite a learning experience for me. I had no idea how the traps worked... stinky mackerel is the key. The logistics of the process always kept me from taking action and if my pet sitter hadn't volunteered to help me, I'd still be at square one. For instance, I was so clueless, I thought I would have to block the access to underneath the deck (where they hide). Again, the stinky fish-bait is the key... and the traps, of course. I now know how to set a trap and how to release a raccoon or two, who also enjoy stinky fish.

We will set the traps again tomorrow night and hopefully the last four will be fixed by week's end. One of the females, the matriarch, got out of the garage the morning after her surgery and I haven't seen her since. She should have stayed inside for forty-eight hours. I feel terrible about this, but I'm still hoping to see her on the deck soon.

Today is the four-year anniversary of my husband's death. I'm trying to focus on other things.

Road Trip Thinking

Long trips (especially by car) usually get me thinking about where I've been, where I'm going and mistakes/situations to avoid... if possible. You know... do more of 'this' and less of 'that'. And on this most recent trip I vowed to never, ever, ever (no, I wasn't channeling Taylor Swift) worry that I'm not good enough. Never. Ever. You want to judge me? Go ahead, I care not one whit.

I know that my self-confidence has taken a hit since my husband passed away. He was my biggest cheerleader. I'm too critical of myself and in the past, have worried too much about what others think. I may come from a long line of people-pleasers or else it's a female thing... but I am drawing a line in the sand now. Do me wrong and you'll be gone. (Now there's a song)

Road Trip

Spent a few days in Biloxi, MS, checking out the casinos. In other words, we contributed to the Mississippi economy; but not too much. ;)

The Saturday Triptych

Yesterday was not a good day... except for the weather. The leaf color is more prevalent now and the trees seem to glow in the sunshine.

It must be Saturday

Didn't make it to the mountains. The weather is mostly cloudy with a cold front moving in from the northwest and hurricane Sandy pushing clouds in from the southeast. Plenty of color here at 306, though. :)

Saturday Triple

The perfect autumn weather continues... cool mornings and warm afternoons. I think I might have missed the peak color in the North Georgia mountains, but I still may drive up later this week.

Perfectly Saturday

A gorgeous autumn day, I ate lunch on the deck - with camera close at hand. Looking up, I noticed the leaves at the tops of the trees are turning already, while the lower foliage is still very green. One of the ferals lounged nearby, keeping a close eye on me. The fountain provided the soothing sound of water falling... a good day indeed.

Color Smackdown

It seems the latest photo-snobbery is to diss the bright fall color. Pffft. We'll have 'brown' all winter long; I have no apologies for loving and capturing the riotous color palette that mother nature provides.

Fuzzy Thinking

Last day of summer. Not at all sorry to see it go, though I will miss the delicious fruits and vegetables. I may not taste a decent tomato until next year.

These furry visitors are everywhere today. Is there some adage about caterpillars predicting winter weather?

Hit the road?

David Alan Harvey posted on Burn Magazine today that he is taking a camper/van and heading west... a 4-6 week free-form trip. I would love to do that! How can I make it happen? What would I do with the cats... they would be miserable on the road. I hate camping so I might have to do it in a car. Something to think about...

Volumes

Stacks of books to be taken to the donation box at the library. It's a revealing process to see what books you purchased throughout the years. I bought a lot of self-help books. Why do we always believe the media hype that we're lacking in some area? 

I no longer buy hard cover books and I never buy self-help books. I'm not perfect, but I've won the battles that I had to face. Maybe I'll write a book. ;-)

Remember director's chairs?

Another empty chair, but a different story.

As I was in one of my trying-to-get-back-to-sleep periods last night, this chair popped into my head. It was sitting in a corner of my bedroom and over the years had been piled high with extra blankets and pillows. There can be things/situations right in front of us every day that do not register. I have a fear of becoming a hoarder, so today I stored the pillows and blankets in proper places and moved the chair to a different (mostly empty) room until I decide what to do with it. 

Talking to an empty chair

As we age, we all think we're still at our 'cool' age. At least, that's what's inside my head. And I'm quite insulted when someone implies that I'm not.

We need an inner voice, a restrictor plate (in Nascar terms), to prevent us from looking quite foolish; when the youngsters roll their eyes and look as though they'd like to be anywhere else.

So... while Clint thought himself quite clever, in fact he looked old and foolish. If only he had delivered a 'normal' speech of endorsement... *sigh*.

BTW, the chair says I look fabulous! ;-)

New Month

It seems like only yesterday I was saying goodbye to July. August was a blur and here we are again... making promises for September. It would feel more like the 'unofficial end of summer' if the temperatures would back off a bit. Ninety degrees today... I'm ready for some seventies.

I spent some time last evening going through boxes of old photos. I began with a quest to find pictures from a particular vacation in the mid-70s. No dates or notes on any of them  (another plus for digital). I found a few that I was sure were taken on that trip, but many, many more were too generic to deduce a when or where. Mountains? Could have been almost anywhere. I know one thing for sure, I had no business taking photos back then. I knew nothing about composition, light, focus! And I'm sure my camera was a basic point-and-shoot. Very embarrassing. 

I also think I've been getting sloppy with my shooting of late. Part of it I blame on Instagram. My phone camera takes lousy photos and yet I keep opening that program and taking a pic! I must stop... none of them are worthy of posting. So there's another goal for September!

Fleeting

I saw this quote yesterday: "It's a moment that I'm after, a fleeting moment, but not a frozen moment." - Andrew Wyeth

Fleeting: passing swiftly; vanishing quickly; transient;

I must think about this... without over-thinking it. I have a feeling that I'll know it when I see it.

The photo above is not a fleeting moment; I know that for sure.

The photo below is. We arrived at Grayton Beach, Fla as a hurricane was moving out, heading west along the panhandle. Timing. It turned out to be the last vacation before my husband passed away - three months later.

Risen

Saturday: Sunrise

Check it off.

Not a cat

I get irritated by a few people who insist on playing guessing games with my photos... particularly macro or abstract. I'd like to tell them, if you cannot simply enjoy the light, shapes, colors, tones - please just move along. I'm considering no longer posting on sites that do not have an option for controlling privacy.

Sometimes I just like to experiment with an idea or a concept, but these people can't accept that the image is not a 'thing' that they know. If you don't see anything from me on Pbase or Flickr, it'll be because I'm using a private gallery.

Ribbit

One of these days, I'm going to get up and get out before the sun comes up... maybe Saturday.

Doldrums

At the beginning of August, I promised myself that I would take a photo every day. Well... except for the hydrangeas and this photo of my flooded driveway, I have nothing to post. I have no excuses; I just don't feel it. Whatever 'it' is. I'm weary of flowers, cats and food. Weary of photographing them. that is.

Must get out of this slump!

Creative Endeavors

As I was floating in the pool this morning, I wondered if you are a writer because you write or because you are read? If you wrote every day (non-journal) and no one ever read it, would you consider yourself a writer? The same question goes for photography (and every creative process, I think)... if you could never show your photos to anyone, would you still make them?

Is the 'creation' complete when the artist puts down the pen/camera/brush? Or is it only finished when it has been published/printed/displayed?

These questions are not for the purpose of labeling oneself, as in "I am a *fill-in-the-blank*" I'm strictly referring to the process of creating some thing. Some thing that did not exist before you had the idea and made some thing that expressed that idea.

Goodbye July

August 1. I tried to remember if anything good had happened in July and came here to see what I'd recorded. Nothing. And therein lies the answer.

I do love Sunflowers though.

Transformation

Pasta, Boiling

Original, from the Nikon... cropped slightly.

Now, on to the 'LittlePhoto' app on my phone... used the 'Instant Film' effect.

Now we send it to Instagram, which forces me to crop to a square. And the 'X-pro' filter is applied. At least, I think that was the one. 

I like them all for different reasons. 

I wish I could say that the meal was as good as the photos. It was not.

Afterword

I attended the 2012 LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville, VA last week. What I enjoy most about this event is listening to the featured photographers talk about their photos and how they came to each of their projects. If there were only static exhibits, I wouldn't bother going. For me, the dialogue is what inspires and excites me.

The thing that strikes me every time I attend one of these events is the number of cameras. Everyone has at least one and the manufacturers and models are across the board. I think there are more Leicas than you might see among the general public, but other than that every camera make is represented.

And eating breakfast a couple of tables away from someone like Sam Abell is kind of cool too.

Two-to-One

Two books I recently read were both about grieving. I didn't choose them because of this topic; one was recommended by a writer-friend and the other was by one of my favorite authors. In both stories, the wife died in an accident. It must be even more painful to lose someone unexpectedly. I wouldn't know - everyone I have lost died from an illness. Even my dad, who died of a heart attack, had had one about a year before, so we knew he was not a picture of health. 

In the first book, the widower grieved long and hard. In the second, the husband remarried within a couple of years. The first book, though listed as a novel, was based on true events and real people. I'm drawing no conclusions from either of these books, but I have come to understand and accept that 'moving on' does not necessarily mean finding a new spouse/partner... though I do believe that society in general feels this way.

One in full sun

Usually I would have isolated the single bloom... eliminating the distraction of the other stems and leaves. But there are always distractions in our path; things we have to either step around or leave alone and look past to see where we're headed. Traffic. Life traffic. Eyes ahead and hands on the wheel.

A day at the beach

One more before I put the slides away for a while. I have found that going through these slides has begun to make me feel sad. I woke up one morning and 'saw' my life as a flip-book. You know the ones where you flip through the pages and it looks like a movie. I saw those who have died, as well as the births, friends, travel, school, jobs, houses, cars that make up my life. So, I'm putting the slides aside... for now at least.

As for this photo, I remember that air mattress - it was army green. And we always took a brown army blanket  to sit on. 

Back to the present...

Footwear Choices

Another from the archives. I certainly don't remember this moment and I doubt that my mother will, but questions abound:

It's obvious that I'm unhappy. Where are my gloves? Why is my mother putting a sandal on my foot? (Note: It is possible that I wanted the sandal and not the skate or the boot.)

And... apparently my dad thought the situation worthy of a photo. :)

Memories come flooding back

I now have in my possession, boxes and boxes of my father's 35mm slides. In this post not enough photos, I  lamented that I couldn't find old photos of Christmas mornings, vacations, etc. from my childhood. Well, I have them now. I've only gone through a few hundred slides (and scanned less than 20!) so far and I'm already feeling overwhelmed. I'm finding it difficult to stay in the present, with so many memories coming into sharp focus.

They haven't been stored in the best of conditions, so humidity, heat and age have left their mark on many of them. But I'm having a great time... I just need to slow down a little. :)

Here we are in front of our vacation cottage at the New Jersey shore. My older sister (center) died at age twenty-four, so this is a rare photo of the three of us. I hope to find many more in the remaining boxes.

Does anybody really know what time it is?

It's time to change the time. I have thirteen clocks in my house. Before you think that I might be obsessed with time, let me explain:

There are two wind-up clocks that I have to manually change.

There are three that have no batteries in them so... 

There are two that I never turned 'back' last Fall, so... they'll be correct with no intervention needed from me.

There are two appliance clocks (oven, microwave) that never seem to be correct, so I don't even bother to look at them.

There are two cable box clocks and two computer clocks that will automatically reset themselves.

Oh, I forgot my watch... that makes fourteen.

It must be Spring

Tulips and ladybugs... well, one ladybug at least. I was feeling as though I had done too many tulip shots, though I never tire of finding a new view of their graceful curves. Then this ladybug went walking across my window (inside). Not one to touch bugs, I encouraged it into a cup and then into the interior of a tulip. It cowered down at the very base, half-hidden beneath the stamen. I took a few shots of that spotted shell, barely visible. And then it began to climb up along the petals. As I began shooting again, flash firing, it turned and headed back down to safety. I figured this was the best shot I was going to get and so I set it free outdoors. Ahhhh, Spring... and the tales the ladybugs tell. 

The Patient

I haven't posted anything in a while; I've been recuperating from some minor surgery and have been housebound. Cabin fever is setting in, but hopefully I'll be more mobile soon.

I took the watercolors out for a spin today... small palette, small canvas but I enjoyed the exercise.

Are you looking at me?

taunting me... daring me.

"You can't handle a brush!"

anymore.

"You can't devote more than 1/250th of a second to create something."

but I keep them within my view

and one day I will show them.

Too Early

When I first noticed these confused-by-a-mild-winter daffodils, I thought I would shoot close up. But the long lens was on the camera so I changed my mind and went for a bit of context. I like this... the green stems having pushed up through the fall leaves and the tree trunk lit by a sunny afternoon in January.

Stolen Pixels

I've changed the background image of my blog, using one of my images. I don't know why I just went with the template defaults... easy or lazy? But with all the discussion of piracy and SOPA and PIPA recently, I see (possibly) stolen images everywhere. I wonder if permission was granted to Google or if the template images were purchased from a stock agency or if they were just found and copied because they filled a design need.

I am surprised at the number of people who think that if something is online, it's free... or should be. And I'm even more surprised by the number of my photographer friends who are against any sort of reprisals for theft of intellectual property. Yet they would be in an uproar if they found one of their photographs being used without their permission. Why is a movie or a software program any different?

I am not for or against the proposed SOPA and PIPA bills. I haven't read them in full. Maybe they go too far, I don't know. But I am in favor of punishing those who steal and their indignance at being held to a higher standard is ludicrous to me. Am I a goody-two-shoes? I assure you I am not. But we must all agree to play fair; especially since, thanks to the internet, we are all neighbors.

Now, people have said to me "If you don't want it to be stolen, don't put it on the internet." Surely, we can do better than that. But this brings me to another question that I have asked myself and other photographers: If you couldn't show your photos to anyone... not online or in local galleries or at camera club meetings... would you still take them?

Stacked

“Art is not to be found by touring to Egypt, China, or Peru; if you cannot find it at your own door, you will never find it.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson


I firmly agree with RWE on this point. I really like this image and it's certainly something I see on a daily basis. And the bowl I usually need is on the bottom of the stack. 


Although I love my photos taken in far away places, I love the ones from own door just as much. A photo of a leopard resting in a tree is my treasure; evoking memories beyond the animal itself. Sitting in an open, 4x4 vehicle, snapping pictures of such a majestic creature was an extraordinary experience. Capturing my everyday life is just as rewarding. Here's another favorite quote:


“Photography is not about the thing photographed.  It is about how that thing looks photographed”. - Garry Winogrand

Golden

Ahhhhh, what a difference a day makes. I have a plan... well, the beginnings of a plan. Nothing too life-altering, but enough of a challenge for me. Today is a brighter day, in spite of a bad dream and waking to thunder storms.

I love the fact that pansies survive the winter, in fact they thrive on it.

P.S. Sometimes the universe knows best and should not be questioned. ;-)

Faye's Five

I don't have a plan. 

I'm not sure if I've ever been much of a long-range planner. I've always been more of a survivor and a take-advantage-of-an-opportunity type. If a job opened up that I wanted but was not quite qualified for, I went out and got the training or whatever was needed to be seriously considered for the position. And I've had a fairly successful life so far. Serendipity has been good to me.

And for the past few years, all that I have focused on is survival so I didn't feel as though I needed to accomplish much else. But when people say "If you could do anything, what would it be?", I don't have a good answer. I think I touched on this not too long ago when I wrote about wishes... 

I'll be working on a plan then - time's a wastin'! As the saying goes: if you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there.

Don't go in the garden shed...

I think that garden/tool sheds have a definite masculine energy. While men might consider them a necessity, a utility space for their tools, mowers, etc and think of them fondly,  I find them spooky. I never open the shed door without wondering what might have crawled inside and is waiting for me. Too many movies, I suppose. 

But I wanted to see if there was an additional rake inside before going off to buy a new one, so I (deep breath) took the padlock key and set off (camera in hand) on my quest. No rake (at least not the type I needed), so as I closed the doors, I turned to look at the house. Seemed so far away. No-one would hear me scream.