Tag Archives: Photography
Photo Challenge: On the Move
This week’s WordPress photo challenge is “on the move.” I immediately thought of the metro system in Washington DC, the long escalators down to the train platforms, the swish of wind just before the train arrives, the lights glowing then speeding away. But I’ve shown you all of that. And I thought about going down to Detroit and showing you the People Mover, Detroit’s version of mass transit, and some day I will.
But for this challenge I went a bit more natural, and headed out to my favorite park – a place I used to run every weekend when I was training for an event, and a place that still holds my heart. It was a beautiful day and I have so much to show you, but for this, a photo challenge, I’m choosing just one.
Moving through green hills.
I sat in cool tall grass high on a hill and watched the runners bikers and walkers as they made their way around the base of the hill through a beautiful meadow. I could have sat there for hours. In fact I did.
You can see some favorite on the move entries from others here, here, and here. These challenges are so much fun for me, especially when I get to go on little photo adventures to find something new. You should try it for yourself. You never know what you’ll find until you go out looking.
And soon, I promise you, I’ll show you what else I found at the park.
It was wonderful.
Katie’s perfect day
Hi there everybody!
Katie here. Bet you’ve missed hearing from me haven’t you! Sometimes my mama forgets I’m a princess and need to talk to my subjects regularly. She’s sort of ditsy like that you know.
So anyway. I got her up this morning at 6 a.m. I tried to get her up at 5:30 but she told me to go away. So I did for a few minutes. I can be patient if I have to, but not forever, you know? So after we were up she started getting stuff done, like she made humming bird food, and she cooked some chicken (and no I didn’t get any) and she did some laundry and she went to the grocery store and then we went out front where I supervised her while she started spring weeding.
Mama filled this cart up with weeds.
Mama says she really appreciates me getting her up so early because otherwise she’d never have gotten all that done before lunch! I figure if I get her up about 4:00 tomorrow morning she’ll be even more appreciative.
And then you know what she did in order to say thank you to me? Yes indeed, I bet you know already!
This is my park.
She took me to my favorite park! Of course I had to sit around and get my photograph taken in all the yellow flowers. We do this every single year. Except for last year. Last year mama got to the park a little late and all the yellow flowers were puffy things that made me sneeze. She says this year she’s trying to be more organized.
We had such a great time at the park! The weather was beautiful and no one else was out there! We walked all the way around, and I even stood on this stupid bench for her so you could see the little lake in the background. I’m cute aren’t I. I practice being cute all the time when they aren’t looking.
See how pretty it is here?
Then we got home and mama made me stay inside while she and daddy went out and did lots more weeding. I wanted to stay inside anyway to rest my eyes you know, after being out in the park and stuff.
It’s exhausting being perfect.
OH! And I almost forgot! Mama bought a new tent and I helped her put it up this evening! I don’t think we’re sleeping in it tonight, she’s just letting it ‘air out’ whatever that means.
This goes up pretty easy with my help.
I think it’s pretty cool, I ran right in as soon as it was up, even though none of my camping stuff, like my blankets and my pillows, are in there yet.
Did I tell you that mama and I are going to go camping at a State Park up north sometime? She made reservations for us, I just can’t remember when. The calendar sort of confuses me. I think every day should be a Saturday, don’t you?
Welcome to MY tent!
So that’s the story on my perfect day. We have a whole new day tomorrow too! I can’t wait. But I really need to get some sleep. I might not be able to get mama up so early tomorrow if I don’t get to bed soon.
Happy Mother’s Day to all of you out there tomorrow! We hope you have as perfect a day as we had today! Spend it in the sun with people you love.
That’s my plan, yes it is. See you guys later,
Katie-girl.
Made you smile!
WordPress photo challenge: Spring
While I still seem unable to follow the WordPress photo challenge series, I am grateful that Heather sent me this week’s challenge. Especially because the topic is spring. I’ve been encouraged by the signs of spring around here in the last couple of weeks. It’s still cold though, and today the 46 degrees (7.77 C) is augmented with rainy drizzle and clouds. It didn’t feel much like spring, but it wasn’t winter either, and after all…anything is better than this past winter, right?
So I headed out on a photographic adventure. I just drove a bit and thought about what things make me believe that spring is finally here. Of course the red-winged blackbird arrival signals spring, as does the goldfinch changing from olive drab to brilliant yellow. But I’ve shown you those before, and I wanted this to be different.
I hadn’t gotten very far along the road when I saw a bit of yellow green far off among the still leafless hardwoods. And I knew. Spring can sneak up on a person when they’re fully involved in their lives, commuting to and from work, filling the weekends up with chores. And then one morning as you’re driving you see a simple willow tree turning yellow green long before the rest of the trees bud out. And there it is. Spring.
So this morning I headed out to a local park, hoping I’d find what I was looking for; the brilliant green of hope set against the dark trunks of tall trees still hanging onto winter.
It wasn’t long until I rounded a corner and found it.
I spent a wonderful few minutes just enjoying the quiet and the water and the green. Then I explored deeper into the woods and found more hints of spring.
But that’s another post.
WordPress photo challenge
For quite awhile I’ve been getting photo challenge prompts from WordPress on Friday afternoons. They have been so much fun; I looked forward to them eagerly as Friday mornings went by and I’d check while I was still at work, eager to find out what the current week’s challenge would be. Then I’d think about it on the long commute and generally by the time I made our driveway I’d have an idea.
I haven’t received a photo prompt in two weeks, and it looks like maybe there haven’t been any. I’ve always wondered who comes up with the challenges and where they got their ideas and how long they could keep it up. But, still, it makes me very sad to think there will be no more ideas coming. Especially since I couldn’t find what I was looking for on the last challenge “threshold.”
I never did post the photo I thought I might use for that challenge. It’s a stretch, but here you go.
I think of the sky between the old building and the new building as the threshold between time.
This was on the University of Michigan campus, I was wandering around and happened to glance over my shoulder and saw the two eras standing in the bright sunshine.
So there you have it…..’threshold.’ Sort of.
I’m going to miss the photo prompts. I hope they come back. In the meantime if anyone has a challenge for me…well…I’m up for it.
Picture a photo
I’ve been enjoying the photography of Heather in her blog for a long time; she captures life in the north so beautifully. Her photography website showcases her art and if you take a moment to stop and peruse, you can enjoy all four seasons of the beautiful north country in just a few minutes. This winter she had the opportunity to take amazing photos of the ice caves along Lake Michigan, who knows if we’ll ever have another chance to see something like this, so go take a look!
I especially enjoy her photos of the Point Betsie Lighthoue, both because it’s beautiful, and because it’s where my folks went on their honeymoon in 1953. I’ve been there a couple of times myself and have my own photographs, but I’ve never been in winter so I was especially taken by this shot:
I know, I know, it’s a bad photograph of a great photograph! It was hard for me to decide which Point Betsie lighthouse photo to purchase but I eventually chose this one because it was different and because I loved the shapes of the ice in front of the lighthouse. I plan to hang it in my folk’s house down in Alabama, a modern twist on their love of northern Michigan.
Thank you Heather! For taking wonderful photographs that remind me of my trips to the north, and for making them available on your website! I can’t wait to see what you discover next!
Wordless Wednesday – swan fight (click on photos for details)
Birds at the park
Sunday afternoon I went to a park without Katie. Don’t tell her, she’ll never forgive me. I needed some time to myself and I wanted to walk on some nature trails where they don’t allow dogs.
At this park there is a heron rookery, and the herons were all paired up on their nests high in the oak trees out in the middle of a shallow lake. (Click on the pictures to see more detail.)
There’s a boardwalk built through the lily pads and cattails where you can sit and watch the herons, and later in the season the egrets on their nests. The most exciting time is when the youngsters begin to explore and test their wings.
But right now it looks like the nests are all occupied by pairs of herons, I don’t know if there are eggs in the nests yet, but certainly there are a number of pairs getting ready to be parents.
As I was watching from the boardwalk there arose a screeching to the left – sandhill cranes make such distinctive sounds. A pair of them flew right toward us on the boardwalk, then across in front of us and on into the marsh to the right. This is where I got the hugely cropped photo that’s currently my blog header. In the photo below you can see the legs of the bird as he/she descends into the cattails. It was so cool!
THEN…on the way home I saw a pair of sandhill cranes feeding in a field near the road. I turned around and went back. They accommodated me and posed for quite awhile.
Aren’t they beautiful!
I had a great day on my own. Katie had a great day with her Dad.
Win win.
🙂
Searching for threshold
This weeks WordPress photo challenge is ‘threshold.’ That’s an intriguing idea. I checked the definition and found:
“A strip of wood, metal, or stone forming the bottom of a doorway and crossed in entering a house or room.”
And:
“The magnitude or intensity that must be exceeded for a certain reaction, phenomenon, result, or condition to occur or be manifested.”
Huh. How exciting can a strip of wood, metal or stone at the bottom of a doorway be? And how do you photograph intensity exceeded?
I also found:
“Any place or point of entering or beginning”
This seemed more workable. Sunday morning I headed down to Ann Arbor because I remembered a plaque on the steps of the Student Union commemorating the spot that John F Kennedy stood when he announced the beginning of the Peace Corp. I thought that it would be a fitting interpretation of the beginning of something significant.
As I drove past the main university campus I noted that the roads ahead, in front of the union, were closed. So I found a parking spot and walked the few blocks. I soon found why the roads were blocked as there was a road race going on, right past the Student Union!
Once I was able to get across the road I eagerly climbed the steps and searched. The plaque was gone! It has been there for years and years and years and I thought I must just be missing it…but after a through search I had to admit it was gone. And so was my idea to represent the concept.
So I wandered back across the street and through the law library with it’s Gothic doors…
and courtyard…
…and towers.
It’s beautiful, but really…not thresholds. This is the best I could find, down two levels in the basement of the law library building.
Not very interesting. But the prettiest threshold I could find. So I gave up and drove cross country on pretty back roads to my favorite park where I enjoyed sunshine, lots of birds, blue water and a good book.
But that’s another blog.
Will I have anything at all for this week’s photo challenge?
I don’t know. There’s one shot I’m thinking about, but it would be a stretch. I’ll decide later in the week. Maybe I’ll keep looking, but I don’t have much spare time this week, and I have no inspiration.
Stay tuned.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Street Life
This week’s WordPress photo challenge is “Street Life.” I went down to Detroit this morning and parked near Greektown, hoping for something. But the light wasn’t great in Greektown itself, so I was wandering back to my car when I saw the towers of General Motors combined with the People Mover track overhead, the red brick factories converted to shops and lofts, and the tourists walking below.
I liked it, so I stood in the middle of the empty street and shot it.
Also on the way back to the car I saw a man, maybe Niki himself, standing outside a Greek pizza parlor…
…and unfortunately, a couple of homeless people sleeping near a grate.
Combined, these images show a version of the streets in the city of Detroit. There’s much more, of course, to this city – – much that is less photogenic. I saw some of that too but was not comfortable enough to stop. It reminded me that those of us out in the suburbs, in the country, driving our big SUVs, mowing our lawns, shopping in our trendy stores, have no idea what life is really like just a few miles down the road.
So that’s my street life submission. You can see a few of my favorites here, here and here. What does the street life in your part of the world look like? I’d be interested, and there’s plenty of time. You can post your images till next Friday at the WordPress site here.
I love how these challenges take us all over the world.
Enjoy!
Change Is Hard 