Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Tag Archives: Photography


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Saturday morning light

Weekend possibilities are endless.

Weekend possibilities are endless.

Saturday morning, early because some short furry member of the household insisted that I get up before 5 a.m., I am puttering around trying not to feel grumpy and tired.  But I am grumpy and tired.  Said furry member of the family has long since gone back to sleep when I notice the sun tipping the tops of the trees out back.

Happy light.

Happy light.

I hurry her awake and we go outside, slipping on the frosty deck and almost falling, but feeling decidedly less grumpy.  I take a few shots of sun on birch.  Katie stands hopefully in her kennel.

Hey mama! Can I stay outside?

Hey mama! Can I stay outside?

And then I notice this:

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Two sandhill cranes flying silently across the sky.  Amazing.  And I would have missed it if someone hadn’t insisted I get up.

I forgive her.

Told you mama!

Told you mama!


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Ephemeral – the one I didn’t use

In the 1980’s I traveled with my folks through the Southwest.  We visited a number of national parks and monuments but at Canyon De Chey my mom purchased a refrigerator magnet, reproduced Indian petroglyphs, painted on a bit of flat brown stone.  It stayed on her fridge  for years as a reminder of our trip together.

After she died unexpectedly in 2004 someone in their church gave my grief stricken dad a small prism which he placed on the windowsill above the kitchen sink.  When the sun shines at a certain angle a rainbow plays across the kitchen.

Now, with both of them gone, we find comfort in that rainbow when it glows in mom’s kitchen.  And sometimes dad’s rainbow falls for a few brief moments on mom’s magnet, reminding us that life itself is ephemeral at best.

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I wrote the above thinking I’d use it for the ephemeral photo challenge.  Then I realized the photo was very much like to original challenge photo and I always like to do something different.  I’m not even sure I took this photo, I think perhaps husband did on one of his trips to Alabama.

So I didn’t use it.  But I like the photograph and the thoughts behind it, so I’m sharing it with you anyway.

Life is ephemeral.  Now go hug someone you love.

 


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WordPress photo challenge: Orange

Oddly enough this week’s photo challenge is ‘orange.’  It’s ironic, because I used orange as a unifying color in a photo challenge a couple of weeks ago.  So of course I can’t use my photo of oranges from that post.  And that would be too obvious anyway.  So I spent Saturday and a bit of Sunday scouting out orange things that represent life here in Michigan in March.  When there aren’t any orange things blooming.

 

Once I started looking for orange I found it everywhere.  From my toast in the morning, to the bittersweet vine on a bush down the street, to the orange snow fencing everywhere, the gumballs at the mall, the lights on the side of a restaurant, the Detroit Tiger English D, the New Balance shoe in a shop window, to the ever present orange barrels, orange is everywhere!  And the orange car?  I followed it for a few miles before it turned into a Wall-mart parking lot.  Then I circled the lot until the driver went inside.  Couldn’t resist showing you an orange car, right?  Cars + Michigan.  Can’t beat that.

 

You can see other interpretations of orange here, here and here.  And I bet, if you look around, you’ve got a little bit of orange somewhere near you!  It’s nice to look for some color during these last long days of winter.  Show us what you found!


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WordPress photo challenge: Reward

If you look at the latest Wordless Wednesdays on this blog you’ll understand why this is a reward.

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You can see other interpretations of ‘reward’ at the original challenge.  Or stop by here, here, here and here.

And don’t miss this one.  It’s the kind of place I’d use as a reward myself.

What’s a reward for you?  Have you treated yourself lately?

It’s time.


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WordPress photo challenge: Rule of Thirds

Some of you have heard about the rule of thirds; the placement within a composed photo of the point of interest near the intersection of lines drawn dissecting the  entire image into thirds.  It’s one way of adding interest to a photo.    Katie the sheltie-girl and I went out to see what we could find that was fun and interesting.  And though I took plenty of photos of her sitting dutifully in her lower right corner, the photo I like best out of all of them was this, a hurriedly composed shot, with only one chance to get it before he moved out of sight.

 

Going for a walk

Going for a walk

It was the man’s orange hat that caught my eye just as I was putting Katie back in the car.  I rushed her back out into the parking lot and grabbed the shot.  This is not a classic rule of thirds image as the rest of the image surrounding the subject is not empty.   If I’d had more time I’d have raised the camera a bit and had less snow, (you know, about a third of the photograph) in the foreground.    But I only had one split second, and I like the result.

If you go to the original challenge post you’ll see an absolutely beautiful redbud leaf and the description of doing the rule of thirds while also focusing on creating a bokeh, that interesting and beautifully blurred background.  I messed around at home trying for something similar.  This is as close as I got before the afternoon sun sank and my kitchen reverted to uninspiring.

Orange afternoon light.

Orange afternoon light.

This also is not classic.  The background isn’t blurry enough and the subject is certainly taking up more than a third of the foreground.  I’ll be trying this technique again. But still.  I like the color and the warmth and the light.

The fun about these photo challenges is that they make me think a little bit about how to answer creatively before I run out to find the actual image.  I like the adventure of  finding new photos, trying new things, and the challenge both gets me out of the house with the camera (and sometimes the dog) and makes me see the world around me in a slightly different way.   Today while driving I was looking for something that divided into thirds.  This morning at the grocery store I was looking for something interesting for a an indoor bokeh.

Without the photo challenge I’d probably have spent the afternoon doing laundry, and how fun is that?  For more fun rule of thirds images go here, here, here and here.

And this one too.

Katie’s kind of miffed that she’s not the star of this post.  But she’ll get her turn.

She always does.

Never ignore a princess.

Never ignore a princess.