Category Archives: words

Being a photographer …

Posted on August 25, 2014 | Leave a comment

these days means little more to most people than having a phone or buying an expensive camera and setting it to full auto.

Taking what they get because an image is just an image, right?

I feel sick when I look at photographs that have been photoshopped into submission.

Jpeg files that leave little room for development because so much is lost.

I still shoot film quite often and develop my prints in a borrowed darkroom.

The possibilities of what an image can be are endless.

When I shoot digital, I shoot RAW.

I’m amazed how many digital “photographers” I come across who have no idea what RAW means.

Maybe it’s wrong, but I dismiss them immediately.

Getting lucky now and then doesn’t make one a photographer.

It makes them lucky and cowardly.

A true photographer realizes that yeah, once in a while, we get lucky, but knowing when and where to shoot is an art.

Up hours before sunrise.

Hiking miles in the dark.

Sunburned and thirsty, dirty, scraped, wet, exhausted and sometimes bleeding.

I will likely never be a “discovered photographer”, but being real is more important to me than faking it.

I feel the light, hear the wind, understand the rain.

As do my fellow photographers.

We see beyond the end of our lenses.

We are what we shoot.

And proudly, we work for our shots.

We are a dying breed, but at the end of the day, understand what it really means to be a photographer.

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Posted in being myself, blog, from my heart, Life, life experiences, Lightroom, moon, nature, Nature Photographer, photographer, Photography, RAW, Time, trail shoots, words, writer

Tagged chasing light, developing film, film, gina minton kearns blog, Gina Minton Kearns Photography, images, light, Lightroom, photographer, photography, RAW

Friendship …

Posted on August 21, 2014 | Leave a comment

is sacred.

A thing that transcends space and time.

Or should.

But everyone knows that people come and go in our lives

It is part of the natural order.

Fate.

Luck.

Devine intervention.

I look at my own life and see a series of failures.

I was blindsided many times.

Left trying to find the individual pieces among the shattered remains.

Abandonment.

Divorce.

Death.

Trusting becomes more difficult with each betrayal.

But I’m glutton for punishment and keep trusting people.

I can’t help it.

I am an optimist.

And on some level, I suppose, a sucker.

But aren’t we all just that now and then.

Wounded.

Scarred.

Survivors.

Strength comes through trials.

Difficulties.

Impossibilities.

It comes at a price.

Sometimes, that price is steep.

But who am I if I’m not myself?

And who are you?

Something to think about.

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Posted in afraid, alone, blog, blogger, choices, Encouragement, friends, from my heart, healing, human, Life, life experiences, peace, Pentax, Pentaxian, photographer, Photography, Southwest Virginia Blogger, strength, Time, words, writer

Self destruction …

Posted on July 19, 2014 | Leave a comment

seems to be at the top of my bucket list.

Who does that?

Who works to sabotage friendships just to keep from being hurt?

I do, apparently.

I don’t trust anyone.

Not even those I once trusted.

I have lost, or mahaps misplaced, a vital part of myself.

I hear everything yet believe nothing.

I find myself in the same place I’ve always been.

I’m manic, yes, but I’ve been manic before.

This is different.

This time, I’m predominantly, unequivocally alone.

I’ve burned the bridges that led me out of a place I’ve been to many times.

There are no more bridges to burn.

All destroyed.

From here, I am solitary.

Alone.

A reflection that has no image.

A premonition fulfilled.

A frightening, sobering thought.

Though I’ve often wished for it, I don’t truly want to be completely isolated.

I only realized that once it was too late.

Be careful what you wish for.

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Posted in alone, being human, being myself, bipolar, blog, blogger, bloggess, broken, emptiness, Life, life experiences, manic, manic depressive disorder, mental illness, Time, trust, vulnerable, words, writer

Light, to me …

Posted on July 4, 2014 | Leave a comment

is much more than simply the absence of darkness.

I watch it.

I chase it.

I adore it.

The golden hour, and there are two, are my favorite times to be alive.

I didn’t take courses in photography, though I wanted to.

I learned through trial and error.

Light is unforgiving.

If I miss the perfect moment, it doesn’t offer a do-over.

It is Edwardian in its boundaries and doesn’t allow room for foolishness.

I love that about it.

It is constantly changing.

Sometimes, it is indescribable and others completely intolerable.

It gives what it gives; therefore putting the burden of catching it on my shoulders.

It keeps me centered.

It makes me yearn for something that, to a layman, is intangible.

As a photographer, however, I understand the language of the light and revel in it.

It is what fuels me, sustains me, makes me who I aspire to be.

I work as a nurse so I can be a photographer.

It is all I ever wanted to be and the light, inexplicably, seems to understand that.

I’m a child of the Creator and He has given me an eye for His magnificence.

I am, beyond description, blessed.

Light, in every season, in several circumstances and with unimaginable awe makes me fall, literally, to my knees in thanksgiving.

I adore and will, as long as I have breath in my body, seek the light.

It is HIS gift to me and I praise HIM, through photography, for it.

Amen.

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Posted in being myself, believer, blog, blogger, bloggess, chasing the light, creative, daydreamer, earth, Encouragement, faith, God, healing, imagination, Jesus, joy, Life, life experiences, nature, Nature Photographer, Pentax, Pentaxian, photographer, Photography, Sagittarius, Southwest Virginia, Southwest Virginia Blogger, Southwest Virginia Photographer, Storms, the wonder of nature, Time, VA, winter photography, words, worship, writer

Tagged creation, gina minton kearns, God, golden hour, learning, light, lightning, photographer, photography

Guilt …

Posted on July 3, 2014 | Leave a comment

is something I am well acquainted with.

I grew up on it.

It was my parents’ first line of defense.

Even when I was innocent, they had a way of making me feel at fault.

At fault for what?

Having sex when I wasn’t, my total incapacitation with math, the hostages in Iran?

It made no difference.

I was, for whatever the cause, to blame.

What matters is that I was too weak in my spirit and confused in my mind to argue.

So I went along.

They didn’t understand me.

Nobody understood me.

Nobody at that time really knew anything about bipolar disorder, or, as it was called then, manic-depressive disorder.

I knew I was different, but was made to believe, as everyone else did, that I was a rebellious teenager with a bad temperament.

I slammed doors.

I cried.

I drank.

I cut myself.

I was the epitome of a sufferer of Manic-Depressive disorder.

I had no control and yet was expected to exhibit control.

That is messed up in the purest sense.

I owe one doc my life. He recognized my plight and got me help.

He is one of my heroes.

Thanks, Jerry.

That was a long time ago.

In present day …

I believe Bi-Polar, one of the now-accepted terms, is a bastardization that allows people who have ups and downs now and then, to name themselves so they can be cool.

It let everyone into the nut club.

A place that was, when it wasn’t cool to be ‘bipolar”, only for those thought to be crazy, different, outcasts, criminals, nuts.

Now, however, you aren’t cool if you aren’t either bipolar or gay.

If I were gay, I would take exception to that, but I’m not gay.

I’m just crazy.

I hear rational people who exhibit no signs of affective psychosis , another PC name, proudly proclaim themselves as such.

Bipolar, that is.

Who are these people? These wanna-be’s who haven’t a clue.

They pretend to be psychotic and then turn it off as if it’s water.

I inwardly laugh just before I curse them with the single exercise of spending a week in my head.

A day would be sufficient, but a week would make them catatonic or institutionalized.

A win, either way.

There is nothing glamorous or popular about suffering from manic-depression and if one thinks so, then they are pretending to so they can either …

fake being in high gear for the sake of getting attention …

have an excuse to be sexually promiscuous; if I may say, if it is real, the sex is unimaginable – (y’all know what I’m talking about) …

or find no fault with jumping out of the high windows on buildings because they know they can fly.

The alternative side of that msnic high is crouching in the bathroom with a razor blade, or cutting or purging or a million other coping mechanisms.

They forget that side while they are being manically cool.

Glamorous? NO.

To those who know what is real,
hang in there and fight.

To those who pretend to know what it’s like just to be manic-depressive, just shush.

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Posted in afraid, alone, being human, being myself, bipolar, blog, blogger, bloggess, brokenness, creation, disappointment, dreamer, dreams, fear, feeling crazy, feelings, from my heart, Guilt, human, knowledge, Life, life experiences, manic, manic depressive disorder, mental illness, moon, pretense, strength, Time, weirdness, words, writer

Raw oysters …

Posted on June 29, 2014 | 4 comments

are one of those things that evoke an immediate and unwavering response.

One either loves or hates them.

Adores or abhors.

People who know me personally would say loudly and with confidence that I would never, with intention, put a raw oyster in my mouth.

They would be sadly mistaken.

I love raw oysters.

There is something about slurping the organism and the juice around it into my mouth that takes me right over the edge of culinary ecstasy.

A delicacy that did, I freely admit, surprise me.

I was apprehensive at the thought of my first raw oyster, but I wanted adventure and, well, come on, what is more adventurous than a raw bi-valve.

I remember closing my eyes, as if that would somehow make the experience less traumatizing.

But when that sweet, salty taste co-mingled with the sharp bite of horseradish hit my tongue, I was hooked.

Joyous.

Delectable.

Intoxicating.

The fear of an immediate emetic response was eradicated and pleasurable endorphins poured in to take its place.

It is like everything else in life … don’t knock it until you try it.

If, by chance, you’re ever in the Outer Banks of NC, take highway 12 to Buxton and check out Pop’s Raw Bar.

It will, I promise, be worth it.

Those were, I say with utmost confidence, the best raw oysters to ever pass my lips.

If you go, tell Wendy that the Virginian with the suspicious Ohioan companion said “Hi”.

At last I say this … try new things.

Divert from your everyday ritual.

Fear of the unknown will keep many wonderful things from your perspective.

I know this because I lived, many years, with fear.

Now, unless it involves spiders, I give it the finger.

I still freak out at spiders.

Overcome what you can, run screaming from what you can’t.

Pretty simple when you break it down.

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Posted in afraid, being myself, blog, blogger, bloggess, culinary adventures, dreamer, in my opinion, Life, life experiences, OBX, Pentaxian, Raw oysters, words, writer

Tagged adventure, blog, fear, food, OBX, Pop's, raw oysters

Over the weekend …

Posted on June 27, 2014 | Leave a comment

I had a total bipolar meltdown on my dad.

He was, at first, completely blindsided, and then perplexed.

I usually meltdown on my mom, who knows to just let it ride until the event is over.

But she wasn’t there and I was melting down in real time.

I think it was good for him, my Dad, that is, to see me as I have a propensity to be.

Totally crazy, on the edge of straight-jacket territory.

A mess.

I try to shield him from this side of me, because, well, at the risk of starting a riot, he is my dad and is, with abject certainty, a man.

Men rarely understand the astounding psyche of women.

Don’t roll your eyes and pretend to be insulted.

We know that maneuver.

Add bipolar to the mix and a total discombobulation takes over.

I love my Dad.

He is my, second only to Jesus and third to John Robert (who is dead, by the way), my hero.

A man who’s integrity I would bet my last dime on.

But he isn’t my mom.

He wants desperately to pat me on the head and tell me all is ok.

All is not okay.

I’M HAVING A MELTDOWN, WHERE IS MY MOTHER?

In my own defense, I didn’t say that.

I wanted to, but felt the ramifications would skew the effort to find out WHERE THE HELL my mom was.

So I cried, sobbed, made little sense while blindly clinging to my Dad.

I seriously doubt he will
ever be quite the same.

It’s a bit, I suppose, like trying raw oysters.

It sounds gross, but the rewards … well, they, by spades, outweigh the risks.

I hope, some day, to eat raw oysters with my dad.

A small, and yet ambiguous dream.

He hugged me while I was sobbing incoherently and told me he loved me, no matter what.

Major points for that.

Major.

Points.

Major.

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Posted in art, artist, being myself, bipolar, blog, blogger, bloggess, dad, daydreamer, depression, dreamer, dreams, Freedom, from my heart, healing, hope, in my opinion, learning new things, Life, life experiences, little things, Live as it happens, love, manic depressive disorder, meltdown, mental illness, parent, photographer, Southwest Virginia Photographer, tears, Thanksgiving, Time, Trees, Twitter, wanderlust, weird stuff, what was I thinking, words

Tagged bipolar, bloggess, dad, discombulated, life, love, meltdown, mom man

Vacation is over …

Posted on June 23, 2014 | Leave a comment

and tomorrow, it is back to business as usual.

The Outer Banks is a fond memory, both recent and distant.

It seems that, while I know I was there, I wasn’t there at all.

A week isn’t enough time to find everything I left there the year before, or the year before that or the one before that.

I feel, while I am there, as though I am as much a part of that world as the marshes and gnarled, wind-withered trees.

Yet now that I am back in the world I know, I wonder if I were ever there at all.

Will it remember me?

The sea, the sand, the wind, the beauty, the essence?

Will it long for me as I do for it?

I think not.

I am an outsider, a passerby, an intruder.

I am a stranger.

It doesn’t make it any less compelling or beautiful.

It simply makes me sad to know that there was nothing of myself I could leave behind to remind that place who I am so it will recognize me when I return.