In Detroit, a work of art for the WordPress photo challenge:
Tag Archives: postaday
WordPress photo challenge: Work of Art
This week’s challenge is Work of Art. The post says art can be anything, from the painting you love to the sculpture your five year old made in kindergarten.
I’ve been thinking about this and wonder if it can’t involve more. Dance is art isn’t it?
So when I saw a poster for the Bow Wow Motor City Freestyle Dog show happening this weekend only a few miles from me I thought…..Huh! Dance+Dogs = Art! Right?
I got to the event early this morning and spent a fun hour watching people and their dogs run through their routines in front of judges.
The people seemed nervous. The dogs? Not so much.
There was much applause and smiles.
The venue wasn’t exactly photogenic, and of course the dancers were preforming for the judges more than for me. Still, I think in the end you have to agree that dogs, people, music and dance is one fun way to express a form of art.
See a couple of my favorites from other photographers looking for art here, here, and especially here. Me? I’m still looking for the perfect photo to express art…stay tuned.
The also rans for photo challenge: On the move photos
Moving on out.
This week’s photo challenge was ‘on the move’ and you all saw my pick from my weekend mini adventure to one of my favorite parks. I like that photo from a composition and color standpoint, but there was a lot of other ‘moving’ going on that Mother’s Day morning at the park. So I’ll show you a few of the photos that didn’t make the cut. Just for fun. Click on any of the photos to see them larger and with more detail.
It’s not that I don’t like these. Some of them make me smile, and some seem sort of artistic. And it’s not that these disappointed me or weren’t what I was looking for. In fact most of them are exactly what I was looking for when I headed out to the park that morning. It’s just that when I saw the one I used I just had that gut ‘this is the one’ feeling. Though these make me smile they weren’t the one. You know?
You never really know when you head out to find a photograph how things will turn out. Sometimes when you have something specific in mind you discover a surprise that works even better. And sometimes you have no idea until you come home and look at everything just exactly what you found. That’s what makes it all so fun…the adventure, the chase for the perfect image, the surprise when something unexpected jumps out at you, and the satisfaction when you capture more than you hoped you’d find.
But I’m rambling.
When I went to the park I expected to see a lot of runners, and walkers and people on bikes and maybe even skates. And I was not disappointed.
Daughter daddy day.
There was all of that and more. Individuals working out, focused on their heart rates and stride lengths, foot turns.
It was a really big hill.
And friends talking nonstop as they walked or ran together.
Catching up on events
People like me meandering around with cameras.
Really big camera.
Or just meandering.
It’s a wonderful park full of people finding their space, breathing deeply, living fully.
Riding together.
It’s one of my most favorite places in the world. Soon I’ll show you some of the nature I found there. But for now, enjoy one more shot of someone on the move.
Because I liked the bottom of her shoes.
Orange.
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.
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.
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!
Weekly photo challenge: Inside
WordPress has challenged us with finding a photo that represents inside. I think we’ve had that challenge before. I remember seeing flowers inside my kitchen window last fall. So all the ‘inside’ ideas I thought of this weekend involving windows I chucked. And of course some of you have seen a photo just like this when I posted about my sister’s visit here last summer. But I don’t have access to my archives at the moment, so Katie and I went out to the driveway and recreated her version of inside…outside.
Love my tunnel! Got a treat?
Of course this involved me setting her up in a ‘wait’ and then casually walking down to the other end, lying on the cold hard asphalt and yelling ‘COME!” A couple of times. And this was the best we could get. It makes me smile, so that works.
She’s a very good girl.
Here and here and here and here you can find a few of my favorite versions of ‘inside’ from the WordPress blog. Or go there yourself and see even more!
Weekly photo challenge: Perspective
The photo challenge this week from WordPress is to show perspective. As usual my mind pulled me this and that way when I considered what to do with that concept. I think I know what the photo challenge developers are getting at with the assignment. But I think, this week, I have to go in another direction.
Because, you see, I’ve been thinking about truck safety stuff more lately. My family was permanently upended in December of 2004 because of a truck, but that doesn’t mean I eat and breath trucking issues every day. I slip into complacency just like anyone might. But this week a letter was published in the New York Times from Joan Claybrook, who once headed NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), the Joan Claybrook who helped get seat belts mandated, the Joan Claybrook who fights the good fight for all of us on highway safety issues still today. You can read her short letter here. So this week my thoughts on perspective are slightly skewed toward safety and trucks.
I see some awful stupid stuff on my long commute to and from work. In our hurry to get where we’re going some of us driving the cars are making moves that aren’t worth the risk. Let me plead with you. Please, never cut in front of a semi. Never careen crazily around a slower truck. Never shift lanes without warning to gain an extra 100 yards in stopped traffic. Never tail gate behind that big rig. Put down your phone. Pay attention. Stay away from the trucks. Stay as far away as you can get. Because when you look at the big picture, when you see in perspective how small you are next to them, well, it’s obvious who will be the loser in any truck/car altercation.
No matter whose fault it is, if you tangle with a semi truck you and your family are going to lose.
The trucking industry is still lobbying hard to get bigger and heavier trucks on the roads. The roads they share with you and me. Despite overwhelmingly public disapproval for larger or heavier trucks, they are still trying; in just about every major bill before Congress there is an attempt to override states law size and weight limitations.
You can help by calling your Senators and Representatives and telling them you don’t want bigger or heavier trucks on the roads you and your families drive. People are already dying. People are already living with life long injuries. Bigger and heavier trucks will not make the numbers of deaths (approximately 4,000 a year) or injuries (approximately 100,000 a year) go down.
Let’s keep trucks in perspective. Let’s stop bigger trucks. Visit the Truck Safety Coalition’s website for more information.
Please.
Weekly photo challenge : Abandoned
This week’s WordPress photo challenge is show ‘abandoned.’ Lots of things ran though my mind immediately. There’s an old rusted truck out by the main road and I thought I might do that. And I will someday. But as I thought more about the word abandoned I began to feel the city of Detroit pulling me. Some of you probably know the city is in bankruptcy, the biggest city in the United States to head down that road. There’s been a lot of abandoning that has happened in the city in the past many years, but hopefully the path is becoming clearer for the emergence of a new, brighter city.
There’s one building that stands, for me, to represent the abandonment of Detroit by so many. I’ve always wanted to go downtown and photograph it, but it’s a little daunting. Scary too. So I haven’t. This weekend I decided to drive down before our weather gets worse and just see what might be possible. Turns out there were lots of people out and about right there, going to some event down the street. So, though I wasn’t able to get really close as they have it all fenced off I was able to get a few shots of the abandoned Detroit Train Station.
What a magnificent building this was in its day and what a shame that it has come to this. You can see photos of the inside here and imagine what it once was. It’s totally gutted now. When you’re further away from the building you can see daylight all the way through it, from one empty window through to the empty window on the other side. This year they hung giant lit snowflakes in some of the windows. I hear it was pretty at night.
Then I turned around and saw an old hotel, probably the place people landed when they arrived in Detroit and first stepped off the train. It’s been abandoned too, though not by the graffiti artists.
And next door to the hotel was an abandoned house, you can still see the good bones of it hidden under the boarded up windows.
Around the side of the house was this, which epitomizes abandonment to me…the abandonment of hope.
Someone had dreams here.
There’s so much more abandonment in this city; I saw it everywhere as I scurried into downtown and back out to the illusion of safety in the suburbs. It needs a braver person than me to document the pain there, and to document the return to life of what was once a great city. I’d love to do it, but it’s just too darn scary.
You can find more photos by creative people that represent “abandoned” to them, up at the first link at the top of the post….or here and here and here are a few of my favorites.
Change Is Hard 