Tag: photography

(in)spired stump

On my walk in the woods last weekend, my eye was caught by a particularly complicated-looking tree stump. Perhaps it was caused by the weather, or insects, or some combination thereof, but the wood of the stump was carved into an intricate display of spires and arches. It reminded me of a fantasy city, such as from the Lord of the Rings movies. stump-spires-1

My daughter, though, tells me she sees ghosts and screaming faces. I can actually see this, too. stump-spires-2

What do you see in the patterns fo the stump? A fantasy scene or a nightmare? Or do you, rather, see only the weathered and broken wood shards of a tree stump?

long shadows

election-day-shadowsA year ago today was an intensely emotional day. At this moment, I can’t recall any other comparable days in my life, wherein I felt both joy and despair so close together. The intensity of the emotions I felt that day about public events easily rival any that I have felt with respect to events in my own personal life.

I have thought back many times this past year that I wish I could have bottled the giddiness I felt when I cast my vote, excited about my participation in the historic occasion of electing the first woman president of the United States. I’ve wished that I could tap back into that momentarily unfettered optimism that kept a genuine smile on my face as I stood outside our town’s polling place, holding signs for both local and national candidates, and waving cheerfully at all who passed.

We all know how things turned out that evening. And that day has cast a long shadow across the past year for me. Again, there are few events that have transpired in my lifetime that have so deeply affected me. Not a day has gone by this past year that I have not given my thoughts, and often my time and energy, in big ways and small, into addressing the results of that day.

unexpected grace

paper-curl

It’s amazing to me how sometimes something trivial and ordinary can appear both beautiful and remarkable, given the right set of circumstances. This little scrap of paper, torn from some packaging and left on a table, caught the afternoon light coming in from the window to reveal in its shadow an unexpectedly elegant spiral.

leaf lines

When it’s after 11, and you really need to get to sleep, you struggle to come up with what to post for your daily post. You’ve toyed around with all kinds of post ideas during the day, but then you’ve run out of both time and energy. Ultimately, you decide once more to post a bunch of photos of leaves. In this case the leaves in the photos had all caught your eye for their striking pattern of lines, with veins contrasting with the body of the leaf. And also in this case you are really me. And both you and I should really get to sleep.

lily pods

lily-seed-pods

These seed pods caught my eye on my walk this morning. I believe that they are lily seed pods. I find it rather striking how lacy the pod casings are. They look so delicate and fragile. It’s hard to imagine both that these pods would have been fresh and green only a few weeks ago, and that these filigreed pods and their rather brittle-looking stems were strong enough to have weathered a fairly severe wind storm only a week ago.

 

 

a walk in the woods

While my daughter was off on a hike of her own with friends, my son and I headed out for a walk in some woods in a neighboring town. We both enjoyed the fresh fall air, and I especially enjoyed the glow of the late afternoon light.

various variegated leaves

I did promise leaf photos. Here are several leaves that caught my eye for their variety of color and pattern.

In my part of New England, this fall has been a strange one, foliage-wise. Well, weather-wise, which affects the foliage. First, the cool weather of fall was late to kick in, and we only had our fist chilly nights pretty late into October, which meant that most of the leaves stayed green up to that point. When those cold nights hit, we had a sudden dramatic change to the warm side of the spectrum. Then we were hit by a big storm a couple of weeks later, with high winds that pretty well cleared the trees of leaves. As one friend put it, we had a “pop and drop” foliage season.

(not quite) back in the swing of things

swing chain, triangle

It’s apparently hard for me to get back into the swing of posting daily.

swing

But I won’t let a day of failure keep be from my goals. I’ll climb back up on that swing, and start kicking my legs again.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Even if it means posting a bunch of photos that I took years ago (and may well have posted here years ago).

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Before you know it, I’ll get into the rhythm of it, and feel the breeze in my hair. (Blog posts cause a bit of wind, don’t they? Sometimes they may, at least, be full of hot air.)