Reading an author’s words that have traveled through time and space.
Regret that dropping sun’s dusk;Love this cold stream’s clearness.Western beams follow flowing water;Stir a ripple in wandering person’s mind.Idly sing, gazing at cloudy moon;Song done—sound of tall pines. ~Li Po*
Camping with family in the Snowies
Watching clouds drift over Cameron Peak
Watching children explore life through play
Waking to the silence of an early Spring’s snowfall
Being grateful for photographers inviting me to see the beauty of the blue and yellowish-brown colors of early spring
Driving through Wyoming on clear roadways
Seeing the smile of togetherness
Opening myself to the wisdom of words spoke by those younger than I
Sharing precious love-filled moments
This week Amy (The World is a Book) invited us to share precious moments we have had, before or during the pandemic.
Nostalgia To glimpse old abandoned barns that dot county roads often awaken memories of a childhood filled with the freedom to roam from dawn to dusk without a morsel of worry.
Photography, in a nut shell, is lines, shapes, colors, and feelings
In photography negative space is perhaps the most important element as it embraces the subject within your image — the element of interest — helping it stand out and inviting the viewer’s attention. It is the aspect within a photograph that generally doesn’t attract much attention. It is sometimes referred to as white space and has the potential to change what appears to be an average subject into an outstanding image.
The simplest example of positive and negative are the words in this blog. These words draw your attention while the background doesn’t. The words are positive space, and the white background is negative space
Negative space awakens feelings of peace, calm, quiet, loneliness, isolation. It is less about the subject within a photograph and more about awakening a feeling in the viewer.
Negative space can create a sense of lightness, airiness…it can strengthen the positive emotions in a photography, emphasize the feelings of your subject, conveying whatever story you as a photographer wishes to evoke in your viewer.
Negative space provides “breathing room” giving the viewer’s eyes a place to rest and preventing an image from appearing too cluttered…creating a more engaging composition.
Negative space, in the world of photography, may be more important especially if the photographer tends towards creating images that are simple; yet effective. Michael Kenna, Bruce Percy, and Masao Yamamoto are three artists known for their minimalistic images.
Stay at Home Order … day 8 plus 14 seclusion retreat days
The true person is Not anyone in particular; But, like the deep blue color Of the limitless sky, It is everyone, everywhere in the world.
~Eihei Dōgen
Nikon D750 f/1.8 1/4000 35mm 200 ISO
Yesterday my mother came to visit…it was a remembered touch that announced her arrival not as the frail woman with a fierce determination time had transformed from the woman who carried with her the stature of Danish Vikings…warriors, explorers, conquerors, survivors. The English genes of a woman whose life was colored by an incessant search for union with God, an unquestioning moral and social mandate, and an aloneness I did not know.
She visited as my mom and walked alongside me as I gathered the ingredients for homemade soup, she watched me — with discerning eyes — as I made the bed and gathered the laundry, and she sat with me as I flipped through a photo book of fading memories. Memories…the mundane moments swept away into darkness by brooms of discontent, negation, and yes…shame. The shame that arises from a felt sense of a marginalized family’s “being different.”
She woke the memory within the shifting images of a night when I saw her sitting alone within the silence of deafness nested within the silence of night. Before her was a topsy-turvy pile of children’s scuffed and worn shoes. I watched her from the doorway, hiding as I did not want to be sent back to bed, slowly polishing each one and then matching them into pairs, forming a straight row — creating a sense of order. When her eyes acknowledged my presence, she invited me to sit alongside her. Moments passed as I felt her listening presence…a mother and a daughter sitting quietly in a dimly lit room, a protective barrier.
As this remembering faded, I felt a gentle gaze that spoke of a silent loving-kindness. It was as if she came from a place of waiting knowing that the barriers that blocked me from being receptive to the multiple color threads that weaved her life had begun to weaken and fade and — for the first time — I entered, felt, and embraced her aloneness. And she, in return, eased the discontent that ebbs and flows throughout this time of uncertain isolation.
I have often wondered, since her passing, that if we had met – not as mother-daughter but as children in a playground would she have wanted to be my friend?
Stay at Home Order … day 5 plus 14 seclusion retreat days
Seeping through the dawn,
the voice
of a Canadian goose–
in the distance…alone
mountain village in spring
Nikon D750 f/1.8 1/4000s 35mm 200 ISO
“The counselor was a friend of nature, nature was something quite special, nature was one of the finest ornaments of existence. The councilor patronized nature, he defended it against the artificial; gardens were nothing but nature spoiled, but gardens laid out in elaborate style were nature turned crazy. There was no style in nature, providence had wisely made nature natural, nothing but natural. Nature was that which was unrestrained, that which was unspoiled. But with the fall of man civilization had come upon mankind; now civilization had become a necessity; but it would have been better, if it had not been thus. The state of nature was something quite different, quite different. The councilor himself would have had no objection to maintaining himself by going about in a coat of lamb-skin and shooting hares and snipes and golden plovers, and grouse and haunches of venison and wild boars. No, the state of nature really was like a gem, a perfect gem.” (cited: Project Gutenberg’s Mogens and Other Stories, by Jens Peter Jacobsen, pg 7)
Information about COVID-19 to help you and your family/friends be safe through this stress-filled time.
