Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.


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3 quote challenge – Day 3

“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.” — Rabindranath Tagore

The sky over Katie's park.

The sky over Katie’s park.

For me there’s nothing more spectacular to photograph than the sky. Sure there are beautiful oceans and spectacular mountains, gorgeous open farmers’ fields and the intense fall color of the deep woods.

And of course there’s Katie.

Good morning mama!

Good morning mama!

But always, always there is the sky turning colors beyond description morning and evening, huge, always changing. Accenting a beautiful tree with a puffy cloud, hanging low, heavy with stars above the ocean, outshining the sun with brilliant hues.

Sunset over Lake Michigan.

Sunset over Lake Michigan.

Sometimes I think I’d like to live in a little house in the middle of a big woods. And then, as I’m walking the dog under the dark, starry sky, I know that I’ll always want to live in a place where I can see the sky in all it’s immense splendor.

I’ve been challenged by Carol over at Wandering of an Elusive Mind to post a quote each day for three days. This is the last post of that challenge but I’m finding I sort of like finding quotes to add to photos. So don’t be surprised if you see more going forward.

Change isn’t always hard.

A foggy morning greets the sun.

A foggy morning greets the sun.


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3 Quote Challenge: Day 2

“In every change, in every falling leaf there is some pain, some beauty. And that’s the way new leaves grow. – – Amit Ray

My favorite tree.

My favorite tree.

I was challenged by Carol over at Wanderings of an Elusive Mind to post quotes for three days. If you’d like to play along we’d love to have you!

I have a young ginko tree in my backyard. Every year the leaves turn a wonderful yellow color and hang on long after most of the maple trees have released their leaves to the wind.

Golden ginko

Golden ginko

And every fall I wake up one morning and find all the leaves huddled like a life ring of gold around the base of the tree. After a hard frost all the leaves drop at once.

It must be an amazing site, to see all that gold come fluttering down at once. It would be magical.

This year I kept track of the weather, determined to see my tree shed it’s summer clothes.

Darn!

Darn!

But I missed it again. I guess it’s shy and only disrobes in the dark. Next year I’m going to have to camp out and keep watch all night, become a tree paparazzi.

If I capture the image I’ll share it with you. Next year for sure.

Mama makes me sit in these leaves every year.

Mama makes me sit in these leaves every year.


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Stalking the super moon

Sunday night's moon.

Sunday’s moon.


Let’s just call this a good lesson in what not to do while trying to get that perfect shot of a huge moon rising up from the pumpkin patch. Oh wait. That’s a different story.

The super moon sort of snuck up on me, even though we’d been told about it daily for at least a week. Suddenly it was Sunday and I hadn’t looked up any instructions on how to shoot a great image. I figured I’d wing it, using things I’d learned about shooting stars.

Moving up into Sunday's sky

Moving up into Sunday’s sky

Right. Never wing something that only occurs every 18 years. Especially when you’re already 60. I never did get it right, though, while messing with white balance I did get a gray image that was pretty sharp.

Different white balance on Sunday night.

Different white balance on Sunday night.

So Sunday night I went home and read some articles online. I put the manual settings into the camera prior to heading out into the dark. I had good intentions.

A little cloudy Monday evening.

A little cloudy Monday evening.

Monday evening the moon came up more than 45 minutes later than Sunday night. Plus the library was open, so there were lots of parking lot lights to contend with. AND the moon came up much further to the north on Monday.

So far to the north that at first we thought it had been obscured by clouds, and we packed stuff up and headed to the car. During the walk down the hill I glanced over my shoulder and saw it, right above the library!

Super moon over library.

Super moon over library.

I tried a lot of different shutter speeds and found out that the faster it moved the sharper the image when it was just the moon.

Golden orange moon Monday night.

Golden orange moon Monday night.

The clouds shifted, moved over the moon, then moved again setting it free. The moon grew more golden, though it still came out orange in my camera.

It was a dark and cloudy night.

It was a dark and cloudy night.

I tried and tried to get a true color, trying all the white balance options, but though I got one shot that was more black and grey, otherwise they were just shades of orange. Eventually the moon was high and my fingers were cold, so I gave up and went home. Some of the images are nice, but none of them are what I actually saw.

Clouds move in.

Clouds move in.

So more lessons must be learned, more studying needs to be done. And I need another clear night with a beautiful moon so that I can try it again.

I can’t say the evenings were total failures — after all I got to spend two nights under a beautiful super moon.

Really, I can’t complain.

Goodnight moon.

Goodnight moon.


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Finding color in all the right places

Katie here. So it’s mid-November, the leaves are pretty much gone from the trees and it’s getting cold. I like the cold unless it’s rain. I don’t appreciate my mama making me walk through cold rain to do my business, but I like snow. I don’t know why mama doesn’t. She’s silly, my mama.

Hey mama!  Wait up!

Hey mama! Wait up!

Anyway.

We don’t have snow here yet, but I’m having fun anyway. This weekend my mama took me to meet my friend Deuce and his mom Karen and we got to walk in beautiful Bloomer Park!

My friend Deuce and me.

My friend Deuce and me.

Even though most of the leaves were gone, we still found a ton of color. The down side is that the moms made us pose next to every single leaf. I swear. Every. Single. Leaf.

Are there treats involved in this?

Are there treats involved in this?

OK. Maybe not every leaf. But a whole lot of them! We got bored!

BORING mama!!

BORING mama!!

But mostly we had fun! And guess what? We walked two whole miles! That’s a record for me lately.

Do you see me?  Isn't this beautiful?

Do you see me? Isn’t this beautiful?

I’m sort of a one mile kind of princess, you know?

Did you get my good side mama?

Did you get my good side mama?

I did get sort of tired at the end and my mama worried she was going to have to carry me but I was strong and powered through it.

Never ever underestimate a princess.

Talk later guys!

Talk later guys!


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WordPress Photo Challenge: Chaos

New York City can be pretty chaotic. It’s a city that can chew you up and spit you out, and by the end of my ten day stay last July I was exhausted.

Near the end of our visit we rode the Staten Island Ferry over to the island and back. It was a relaxing trip, and I expected to get some nice night shots of the city.

But the vibration from the huge engine deep within the ship caused everything on board to vibrate too. Including me and my camera. So versions of this is what I got.

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I was disappointed, but didn’t delete all the blurry images. Some of them were kind of cool and I figured I’d find a use for them. And even if I didn’t, looking at these reminds me of the boat trip across the warm night water, of the floor vibrating beneath my feet, the rails shaking under my hand, the lights shimmering along the shore.

And I think this particular shot provides a beautiful and impressionistic image of the chaos that is New York City.

It’s early in this challenge, but here are a few of my favorite chaos entries so far.

You have time to play along, this challenge continues until next Friday. Look around. I bet each one of you has a bit of chaos in your life! Show it to us, it might reduce it to fun for a moment.

And that’s worth a lot.

Staten Island orange.

Staten Island orange.


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Happy Halloween!

Stay safe everyone!

Stay safe everyone!

Katie here again. I know. I’m hogging mama’s blog. But I wanted to make sure all you dog and cat (and other pets) lovers out there take extra care today as little hobgoblins come to your house. All those doorbells ringing and kids screaming on front porches tend to make us nervous. Sometimes we run out the door into the scary night.

So make sure we’re somewhere safe in the house tonight, OK?

For me, I’ll be hanging out with my mama in a back bedroom watching really loud TV. Yep…that’s my favorite thing to do anyway, sleep upside down on the bed next to my mama.

We hope you all have a wonderful and safe night! And don’t let us doggies eat that candy either! We’ll take cheese please. Or better yet, some special chicken cooked just for us!

Talk later – love, Katie-girl
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One More Boo

2016-one-more-boo-flyerIt’s that time of year again. Time for musicians around here to get dressed up and play the first Community Band concert of the season. No we’re not dressing all in black, no tuxes for the guys, no black skirts or dresses for the women.

It’s time to get dressed up. Seriously dressed up.

We’ll be playing our season opener next Tuesday. We’re doing several scary pieces, but perhaps the scariest is Strange Humors by John Mackey. For some of us in the band it’s the stuff of nightmares. Those of us sitting in the back are counting over 100 measures of rest in assorted time signatures. 3/4, 5/4, 4/4. Pay attention or you’ll be lost. Don’t listen to the music, just watch the baton and count.

Count.

We there in the back have marked our music with which instruments are playing during which section of rests that we count. So that when we get out of sync, when we lose concentration for a moment, we might have a chance of getting right. Otherwise we miss our entrance and then all is lost.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

So if you come to our concert (7:00 p.m. at the Clarkston High School, Tuesday November 1) and wonder why we at the back are all focused and serious when we aren’t playing anything you’ll know it’s because we’re counting.

Don’t distract us.

The piece is just over five minutes long; we make our entrance at three and a half minutes. We don’t want to miss it. And yes we’re doing our Halloween concert the day after Halloween.

Because everyone needs One More Boo.

I’m going as a pirate. You’re invited to dress up too.

Middle aged pirates wear glasses.

Middle aged pirates wear glasses.