Be A River

Feb. 2010- I was paging through some older posts tonight and found this that I did early on and it really had me thinking about how pertinent these thoughts still are to me. So I thought I'd share it again and maybe it'll trigger some pondering in you as well. I'd love to have you share your thoughts on this. :)

If you could be anything in nature what would you be? Would you be a tree? A mountain? A small still pond? I was looking at some photos from our vacation last summer. It was a good reminder that spring will come. Looking at this photo of mountains and trees and the river I felt some renewal and a peace.

Then this afternoon I was flipping through old sketchbooks and found this teeny tiny little entry in one from college.It was titled River as Life. I guess it was a personal creed I was thinking about because it goes on..

Meander through life.

Surround yourself with nature.

Be a source of life for all that surrounds you.

Be constantly moving and changing- sometimes slowly, sometimes in a torrent.

Be a still small creek that yet carves its own way through mountains.

I would add to that to be patient when life moves so slowly and enjoy the almost stillness. You're gathering strength for the rapids to come.

Christmas Scrapbook-2007

I took a few photos of a scrapbook I made a few years ago that I thought included some pretty fun pictures. I'm always trying to take pictures of my son that really capture who he is at that age or what he's doing. A way of stopping a moment in time.

I tried to create a mix in the scrapbook of still shots of decorations, activities, and my son being cute. I also cut up a few special Christmas cards we received and added them to the scrapbook as well. Oh, and a tip- I had the blank scrapbook already made at Christmas so after, when my enthusiasm for the holiday waned, all I had left to do was add the photos and text.

One of the best techniques I stumbled on while putting this scrapbook together was to apply rub-on's directly to my photo's surface. It turned out to be a really nice way to integrate the photo into the page as a whole. I also got my set of gel pens for Christmas that year and decided to try writing right in the book.

Some of my favorite photo opportunities are:
Mailing a letter to Santa
The first Snow
Decorating the Christmas Tree
Snuggled in bed Christmas Eve
Sledding
Holding a Christmas wreath
Throwing a snowball
Making Christmas Cookies

Life Close Up

Close up everything looks different- Sometimes it looks big and overwhelming. Sometimes we see parts we never saw before. I had a spider crawling across my wall yesterday and before I could give it a good smack my son stopped me. "Wait Mom, I want to see it close up." Then he got as close as he possibly could (inches) and just looked. He counted it's legs, he tried to figure out where it's eyes and mouth was and really looked. I'm fine with the things outside but absolutely hate how many we have living inside with us. They look like mini tarantulas. So icky. I wouldn't have looked twice at it. But because he did I did too. It was kind of cool. I'm glad he stopped me from just reacting and made me appreciate the spider for just a minute. I still whacked it... but I did appreciate it before I did. Still doesn't sound good. Oh, well. Life.

My thought is that looking close is an important part of observation. Which can be a huge source of inspiration. I'm thinking in particular of Monet's water lilies. I was able to see the panels the MOMA has in New York several years ago. They were just beautiful and the result of his fascination with his subject matter. Monet himself referred to himself once not as a painter but an observer. Which puts other series of his, like his studies of light and haystacks into a sort of Leonardo da Vinci like recording of what he sees. What amazing art was the result of these two men's interest in observing nature- closely.

My self assignment in my sketchbook will be, I think, to observe something CLOSE UP and see how my observation of it will change with the change of perspective. I'll let you know how it goes. :)

All the difference

Yesterday evening when the sun was going down, I walked into the kitchen and saw the light illuminating beautifully some flowers I had on the counter.

When I saw how they were glowing I ran and grabbed my camera and was able to snap a couple of photos. Now looking at the pics I'm really struck by the difference between the two that I took. In the first the light was streaming just right. Lovely! Then I thought I'd move some of the cluttery stuff in the background before I snapped the second pic. What a difference just a minute makes! In the first the flowers seem to glow, the light is streaming right through the petals as if they were made of stained glass. In the second the light is less warm, and the tulips seem more opaque. Duller.

I have a friend who has been trying to coach me to take better photos. Unfortunately we're doing it over the phone so I'm required to actually understand what she's trying to instruct me in. I learn much better through show and tell. This happened upon late afternoon lesson was a perfect demonstration of what a difference even a slight adjustment in light can do for a photo.