Hello, 2019!

It's my goal this year to get outdoors and take more photos.  I've been lacking in the "getting out" part of my life this past year, and that needs to change.

It's not easy, because I always feel guilty leaving Sadie at home.  But taking her with me in the car causes me a lot of anxiety because she doesn't travel well.  The minute we're in the car, she's bouncing off the walls like a 2 year old who's just had a bottle of sugar water!  On the days when I take off for some photo ops, I make sure to take her on two extra long walks so she doesn't feel so left out.  Ugh.  That's a lot of effort because I have dog! 

The other reason for not getting out as much is due to health issues.  When the need for a bathroom arises, there isn't much time to dash -- and you can't always take a dog into a restroom with you, so where does that leave me?  Dashing to the car to lock her away, then dashing back toward a bathroom!!  The fear of not making it on time has kept me home the past year, and with the help of meds, I'm overcoming most of it, sans dog.  

Today was a quick jaunt over to Riparian Preserve.  Because the weather was 20 degrees warmer than it had been all week, the park was full of people and dogs.  I'm happy they were all outdoors, but it chases away the birds and animals ..... so photos were few.  I'm never sure if people care when their photo gets accidentally taken.  There were some little girls playing follow the leader, and that could have been a wonderful photo, but these days you can never be too careful when photographing kids.  So I didn't.  I just watched as they all followed the bravest girl, who led them up, over, down all the cement climbing opportunities she could!  Oh to be so carefree again!!

Hello, 2019, I hope it's a terrific year!

Avid Photographer

I consider myself an avid photographer - I love to take photos!!   I'm also an amateur, I take them purely for my own pleasure.

But lately, the inspiration seems to be taking a backseat.  And I'm trying to figure out why.

Did I miss something?
Am I missing something?
Perhaps I'm bored.

Sometimes it seems as if all I am taking are photos of birds, sunrise/set or cactus.  Then again, I *DO* live in the desert.





I guess it's all a matter of ... inspiration. 
Or finding what inspires me.

A few years back, I found a small group of folks like me, and the leaders who ran it would create a different topic every day.  It became a lot of work to force a photo out every single day, but that's part of what makes us grow.  I haven't found anything like that again, but every now and then, I run a search to see if there's something similar.



I was a bit inspired on a recent trip to the Bay Area:
a yellow rose peeking through the cyclone fence
and the red on this tree against the brilliant blue!

Maybe with cooler weather, I can get out and
find a few things to shoot again.

Amateur Photography

I like photographs, but I like *taking* photographs even more!  And some days I'm torn.  Go somewhere special and just take photos?  Or ... making a photograph out of something ordinary?  It's never an easy choice.  Either one of them takes some kind of effort.  And it takes practice to engage yourself, and sometimes in many ways you're putting yourself into the photograph. 


With camera phones and all the other technology available these days, it's easy to take some pretty amazing photos, but it's an effort when you're trying to create a photo of something out of an ordinary thing.  Last weekend I stopped off at my local park and was just snapping photos. 


I was attempting to get a few things that were a little more eclectic than the usual of finding something to focus on and take a photo.  Like, if there's a bird on a pond, it's an obvious choice to take a photo. 

Here's an example of one that I might have tossed, but as I looked at it, I liked the whimsical angle of the cactus reaching for the sky - not as if they're standing tall, but as if they were ... perhaps, dancing in the wind?   Ok, maybe that's a stretch, or my fanciful imagination, but not all photos should look ... hmmm... staged.









And this second photo,
while there's nothing really
in the photo - no bird -
I was fascinated by the way
they sky and clouds were
reflected in the
(not so clean) water.





Another thing I like to do is make comparisons.  Take this old fence post.  You can see in the color photo that it has a little age, and some rusty barbed wire.  But convert it to black and white, it can take on a whole different look.  I'm not sure which is my favorite of these; I tend to favor black and white photos, but the soft green in the color photo gives it a nice look!

























So if you enjoy taking photos, try new things,
explore, even get a little edgy if you want. 
To me, it makes life just a little bit more interesting!

Passion

It's Saturday night, 11pm, and I can't sleep.  And the word that kept coming to mind as I lay here trying not to think, but unable to avoid it, is passion.  An intense emotion compelling feeling, enthusiasm or desire for something.  We all have different passions.  We have a passion for life, for living; we have a passion for our hobbies, things we enjoy, some have a passion for art, and some for love.  Of course, there's the passion used in the context of romance or sexual desire which generally implies a deeper or more encompassing emotion than that implied by the term lust.

It was a warm day here in the Valley of the Sun.  As the sun started to go down, I sat on my back porch (in the shade, overhead fan spinning lazily) and watched the sky turn from blue to indigo.  The birds were flitting about, calling out to each other in their chirps, and I imagined they were saying goodnight to each other, or giving last minute advice to watch out for the neighborhood cats. (lol)  I could hear the occasional motorcycle in the distance as it traveled down the road in a hurry.  And I felt a sense of peace that things were right with my world for the moment.

But what's that got to do with passion, you ask?  Well, one of my passions is photography.  And if I understand passion correctly, if my passion for photography is in the right place, that's what I should be doing more and more, and lately its been less and less.  Of course, you readers who know me won't be surprised that I checked online for some quotes about passion and found this one:

“Passion. It lies in all of us. Sleeping... waiting... and though unwanted, unbidden, it will stir... open its jaws and howl. It speaks to us... guides us. Passion rules us all. And we obey. What other choice do we have? Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love... the clarity of hatred... the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion, maybe we'd know some kind of peace. But we would be hollow. Empty rooms, shuttered and dank. Without passion, we'd be truly dead.”     ~Joss Whedon

On that note, I'll head to bed and finish this post in the morning. :)

I awoke this morning to find that in daylight hours, this topic changes its meaning. Last night, I was more longing for the kind of passion you see in movies, or on TV.  The kind where music plays, kisses are tender, and desire burns in each others' eyes; the kind where you feel desired, wanted, and needed.  How much more exciting would life be if that kind of passion came into our lives more often? But reality prevails, and while we may have moments in our lives that could live up to that scenario, it's not how real life works.  That doesn't mean you won't have passion in your life; sometimes you just have to look other places for it.

(As you can see, I was up early, and yes, had my camera out!)

It's 6am Sunday morning, and as the sun rises again,

 I can feel how warm the day will be. 

If you have a passion in life, embrace it, 

use your passion for something great today!