String Music ~ the kind that only green beans can make

Posted on July 11, 2011 | Leave a comment

My dad is an avid gardener, farmer and all-around jack-of-all-trades.  He has a thumb so green that it makes the grasshoppers sigh with envy.  Everything he touches in his garden grows like wildfire.  While that is, on most occasions, a good thing, there is one part of it that makes me sorry he even knows what dirt is.  That part is bean-picking.  I put bean picking right up there with being staked to an anthill.

The garden itself doesn’t look like it is all that big, but the vines are large and tangled, weaving in and out of the corn, weeds and other vines.  There is certainly no shortage of beans hanging on those voluptuous vines and for every one that is picked, there are fifty more that magically appear.  The rows, which at first glance look like they are firmly planted in the ground, get longer and longer once the picking starts.  At last look, the rows were well over ten miles long.

The foliage on the vines is filled with a poison that eats into the skin and causes unspeakable itching.  Or perhaps it is the millions of mosquitoes, gnats and other biting varmints that do that.  Redness and numerous whelps show up within moments of stepping into the rows of vines.  Just thinking about it makes me itch.

He has other things in the garden besides beans, of course, but gathering the corn, cucumbers, squash and zucchini doesn’t make my leg muscles feel like they are going to explode and my back want to just lie down and die.  While I inwardly lament, complain and whine, the picking of the beans doesn’t seem to phase him at all.  As a matter of fact, I truly believe he likes it.

Now, I like to eat green beans as  much as the next person and am thankful for the garden which provides a great deal of food not only for our family but for the folks that dad sells or gives the beans to.  While I’m not afraid of hard, backbreaking, browbeating, muscle-bursting, sweat-inducing work and will help in the garden  in any way that I can, I sure do wish the beans would somehow pick themselves.

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Posted in gardening, Life, Photography

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A dance with shadow and light

Posted on July 8, 2011 | Leave a comment

On this past Fourth of July weekend, while many folks were out and about boating, traveling, vacationing and watching fireworks, I was walking a beat in the middle of the countryside, immersing myself in a life that I knew absolutely nothing about.  Although color and vibrancy is expected to surface on a holiday such as Independence Day, with the flag flying and fireworks blasting, there was more to what I was seeing than just color.   A wise man once told me that no photograph that is about color should be developed in black and white.  I’ve held onto that advice and have learned along the way that sometimes an image is about color…  And sometimes it’s not.  The ones I was looking for were about light and shadow and I was not disappointed.  So while the rest of the country was caught up in the celebration of freedom, I found myself caught up in the lives that live under the beauty of that freedom.  I spent the Holiday weekend with a bunch of rough, cigarette smoking, tobacco chewing men, tough, driven women, brave kids of varying ages and a myriad of horses, mules and dogs.  A small group they were, but nonetheless, an interesting bunch of people who held a common interest.  On this particular weekend, they brought their campers, horse trailers, wagons, bridles, saddles, grills, tables and vittles and set up camp.  In a flat piece of bottom land in Scott County, VA, what was just a bare place became a starting point for the week ahead.  Each day, beginning on Independence Day, the riders planned to mount their horses or mules and the wagon masters to hook their equines to their wagons and take off for the day.  There was friendship alongside friendly rivalry, but at the root, there was a love of something that bonded like glue.  Photographs can only take me so far and without the intimate knowledge of how a group of people thrive together, the story stops at the image.  When I first showed up with my camera in hand, there were, as expected, some curious glances and several “who is that” questions mouthed amongst themselves.  A close knit group who didn’t have the time or inclination to entertain outsiders, especially ones who knew little to nothing about horses or riding, they were leery of a strange woman with a camera.  I was fortunate enough to have an invitation to this event and was, after a few hours, accepted as part of the gang.  My main goal, secondary to photographing the happenings in and around the camp, was staying out of the way.  I asked questions when there was something I didn’t know, and kept my eyes open for anything that could be used to document what these people were about.  Though there was plenty of coming and going, I was drawn, not inexplicably, to the lined faces of the older men, the laughing smiles of the children and the character of the animals.  Shadows, shades, contrasts and light have always fascinated me and here, with these people, there was no shortage of real life happening right before my eyes.  No one posed for photographs or changed their habits in the event that they might find themselves caught on film.  They did what they had come to do and paid little mind to the gal with the camera around her neck.  After three days trolling the bottom field in the hot sun, I had a “tog tat” around my neck in the outline of my camera strap and a collage of photographs that reminded me, as I developed the RAW files in Lightroom, why it is that I so love being a photographer.  In each face, line, smile, grimace, frown and laugh, there was evidence of a Creator who is able to take the same features and make them different millions of times over.  I am thankful for the opportunity to, for just a little while in a span of time, be a part of something that previously had been foreign to me.  These people work hard, live hard and play hard.  They have lives outside of the wagon train, but for this stretch of days, they come together to share what they love.  And this time, I was allowed to be a part of it.  So to those who made these images possible by doing what they do and being what they are, I am grateful, for without a subject, be it human, animal or nature, a photographer is just a person with a gadget hanging around their neck. I don’t want to sit by as life happens around me and let lessons that I could have learned pass me by.  I don’t want to regret not learning what makes people tick, what makes them laugh or cry and what makes them want to work so hard to accomplish something.  I don’t want to let the colors in the world blind me to the brilliance of shadow and light.  I want to be more than just a gadget rack.

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Posted in equine, Life, Photography, Scott County, Southwest Virginia, VA

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A squirrel’s tale

Posted on July 7, 2011 | 3 comments

Tonight, my sister called me to regale me with a tale that still has me nearly hysterical with laughter.  To the best of my ability I will try to relate the story, as told to me, so that my readers may roll around in hysterics as well.

 

For the first time all week, the house was quiet.

My niece and cousin, Taylor and Emily, were sitting around the living room and Sophie was, for the moment, feeling better than she had in the last couple of days.  I haven’t felt so great myself this last week, so a momentarily calm respite was a welcomed time and a bit of relaxation was, as far as I was concerned, in order.

Leaving the girls in the other room, I walked into the dining room to look out on the back yard and gaze into the sky, wondering if it would be another rainy evening.  As it usually does, my gaze wandered to the pool; the clear water, blue like the tiled lining, was still and inviting.  The leaves in the trees trembled slightly in the light breeze and birds flew here and there as though playing tag.  It looked to be a wonderful time to sit down and just chill out for a while.

As I turned to go back and join the others, something caught my eye.  I blinked, because at first glance, I didn’t believe what I was seeing.  In an instant, the serenity that had been within my grasp was gone.

There, in the calm waters of the pool, was a squirrel and it wasn’t moving a muscle.

Having, as I said, felt less than stellar the last couple of days, I immediately felt a wave of squeamish nausea.

I could not face the thought of fishing a dead squirrel out of the swimming pool.

Without hesitation, I started calling the people I knew who could handle this situation with ease.

Any other time, they would be driving me bats, calling, texting, questioning… but on this night, it was as though they had all been transported elsewhere and there was no answer to any of my calls.

So, as a last resort, I called my husband at work to demand he come home immediately and get that thing out of the pool.  He was less than excited about the whole incident and frankly told me that he wasn’t going to leave work to get the squirrel out of the pool; but that someone had to do it.

He was even kind enough to tell me where I could find a pair of gloves.

Jerk.

I was on the verge of requesting to speak to the man who works with him to see if HE would come and help me.

But I didn’t.

I wanted desperately to scream, stomp and throw the phone into the pool with the dead squirrel.

But I didn’t.

Instead, I did what could likely be the dumbest thing I have done all year.

Turning back into the living room, I addressed Taylor, Emily and Sophie.  I told them calmly and concisely what was up and what they needed to do.  My niece promptly retrieved the gloves, donned them and was ready for action.

We went outside as a unit, myself, Sophie, Taylor and Emily.

As the two brave girls walked toward the pool, Emily shrieked “It’s moving!”.

Everyone sprang into action.

Taylor, wearing the heavy gloves, stood near Emily as they prepared to move what was now the nearly dead squirrel out of the pool.

Almost like a movie, the events that unfolded reminded me of a song that Ray Stevens sang about a rogue squirrel in a Mississippi church.  The squirrel was, as we say in East Tennessee, playing possum.

Not only was it not dead, it was very much alive.

It jumped out of the pool and the two brave girls turned into stomping, dancing, flapping, screaming, squealing babies.  The dog, a dachshund of all things, began chasing the squirrel around and around the pool.  The girls continued their dance of terror as Sophie began screaming for me to not let the dog kill the squirrel.

She didn’t seem to mind that the squirrel was dead when it was dead, but once it showed it had plenty of life, it became an issue.

So there I stood with two half-grown girls freaking out, a five-year old freaking out and a dog trying her very best to catch that blasted squirrel, who by now was also freaking out.

After several rounds in and around the pool, the squirrel finally realizing it had a brain in that walnut sized head, jumped upon the deck railing that encloses the pool and made his way into the back yard and out of sight.  After the adrenaline waned and everyone had calmed down enough to go back inside, I made a decision.  Since Sophie was feeling better and there were two babysitters on the premises, my mind was made up.  I had to get out of the house.  So, I left the three of them watching a movie and am now on my way to Wal-Mart.

If I can only get my hands on some cream horns, nobody will get hurt.

* I laughed so hard when my sister told me this, as a matter of fact, I am still laughing.  While I realize this post is not about photography, or encouragement or even greeting cards but laughter and camaraderie among a bunch of girls, I felt it was important to relate it.  Laughter is, after all, one of the very best medicines.  Enjoy the post and laugh out loud if you feel like it.

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Posted in Life, wildlife

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Spiritual Encouragement… we’re all on a journey to somewhere

Posted on June 30, 2011 | Leave a comment

Over the years, I’ve taken tens of thousands of photographs and created nearly 800 greeting cards; birthday, love, funny, serious, soulful, uplifting and more… but of all of them, the Spiritual Encouragement ones are my favorite.  They are thoughts and verses that have come from the ashes of the trials and difficulties in my life, the sorrows, disappointment and heartbreak… born of the refining that I didn’t realize was even happening.  I know that just as I stumble and fall, there are millions of people in the world I live in facing the same trials… hitting the same walls… struggling with the same demons.  During my own journey, with each refining came learning and the more I learned, the more I knew and the more I knew, the more I wanted to know and I started listening.  Once I became still and listened to what The Spirit was whispering to my heart and soul, it all started to fall into place.  Before I created a single card, spiritual encouragement or otherwise, there was a phrase that exploded in my mind and it was crystal clear ~ Through the Eyes of the Spirit ~  He was setting me on a path and I didn’t even realize it…

In the late winter-early spring of March, I felt compelled to create a greeting card for people who were struggling with the death of a loved one and the profound feeling of loneliness, sorrow and pain they would face that first year.  The words were there, and they were not mine, for there was a wisdom, though I had never experienced such a loss, of complete understanding and empathy. The photograph on the front of the card is one that was taken on a country road in the Fall, beneath a canopy of the brilliant colors of the changing leaves.  It was on the way to Bark Camp Lake, a beautiful lake park located in Northern Scott County in Southwest Virginia. Dad fishes for trout there and tells me how pretty it is and that he thinks it would be a good place to take pictures.  So in late October, Jim and I made our way up to celebrate our anniversary.  It was a beautiful day, the trees more beautiful than I had seen in years.  The sky, a perfect October blue, was dotted with fluffy white clouds and the wind rustled the leaves, causing an occasional windfall.  Along the concrete paths and on the wooden dock, fallen acorns, not yet discovered by deer or squirrels, lie among the fallen leaves.  Yes, it was a beautiful day…  And it was the last anniversary we would celebrate, but I didn’t know that.  Even so, I found comfort in the words, and after Jim’s sudden death a few months after, they sustained me with encouragement.  My sweet Jesus was, as far as I am concerned, speaking directly to me and His encouragement inspired me to encourage others, using the photographs and verse that I see and feel Through the Eyes of the Spirit, an incredible gift and a blessing that I cannot describe.  It consumes me.

For more Spiritual Encouragement cards from Through the Eyes of the Spirit, click the links on the right to open a new window, or visit the homepage of Through the Eyes of the Spirit by clicking on the photo below:

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Posted in God, Greeting Cards, Holy Spirit, Life, Photography, Southwest Virginia, VA

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Back to Reality

Posted on June 27, 2011 | 1 comment

After a fun-in-the-sun filled week in one of the most beautiful places on earth, I and the family are back from Madeira beach on the magnificent Gulf Coast of Florida.  Back from paradise and back to the reality of my everyday life.  The sand was white, the sunsets were brilliant, the water was blue and the weather was warm. The colors of the water and sky seemed to merge, at times, so that discerning one from the other was nearly impossible.  But, paradise isn’t something that can be harnessed or held captive and there wasn’t a way to stay any longer this time.  Once back home, it didn’t take long for true reality to show it’s face.   I had to do two things last night that I haven’t had to do in a week… first, I had to run from a spider and second, had to turn on the heated mattress pad.  As I sit here this evening looking out the window toward the road, I find it hard to be completely happy that I am not looking out upon the ocean, feeling the humid air caress my skin and knowing that, in a short while, a new light show will manifest as the sun sets behind the Gulf and the sky turns a dozen shades of red, orange and yellow.  There are tractors in my vision as opposed to sail boats and fishing trawlers, tobacco as opposed to palm trees and dirt as opposed to sand.  While I dearly long for the sea, I cannot discount the beauty of the mountains and their likeness to the coast I left behind.  The mountains and hills, much like the sea, continuously roll and change, making the scene a little different each time I look at it.  Depending on the season, the trees display their beauty in the form of waving leaves, ripening fruit or their stalwart nakedness.  The fields will turn from green to brown, then will die away until spring.  The coast, however, will in some way, remain the same from season to season even though it changes from second to second.  While that sameness could get old for some, I find the beauty of a timeless place that changes with every roll of a wave, though it often goes unnoticed, to be a source of inspiration.  No matter how much the same something seems to be, underneath the sameness is a greatness whose workings are only known by God.   I’ve been to the sea, I’ve seen the desert and I live in the mountains… each one, though vastly different, is the same in that they call to my heart in a way that I never really expected.  I don’t want to stay in one place.  I can feel the wanderlust growing inside me and there will come a time, Lord willing, when I will get in my car with a few changes of clothes, my camera, laptop, phone and tripod and hit the road.  Where that road will lead me remains to be a mystery, one that I look forward to unraveling.  I find that waiting for that moment in time to become the present is likely the hardest thing I have ever done.  I don’t want to wait, but now is not the time.  When it is time, I will knowDaylight Moon and until then, the urge to go will grow and mature inside me so that when I go, I will know what to do when I get there.   I have faith in an awesome God who answers the prayers of His people.  He knows the deepest desires of my heart and the dreams of my spirit and I have no doubt that He will show me the things that I so long to see.  Until then, I will put the ocean away and embrace the beauty of the mountains with the foggy mornings and cool evenings… and I will wait.  Photography will take me where I want to go, I’ve no hesitations about believing that, and God will bless my photography so that it will glorify His greatness.  Yes, I will wait and while I do, I will continue to serve, worship and revere Him for all the things He has already shown me and thank Him for what is to come.

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Posted in Beach, dreams, Mountains, Photography

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Beyond imagination

Posted on June 24, 2011 | 1 comment

As I look out upon the amazing and vast ocean, one of God’s most magnificent creations, I find that what I can imagine doesn’t come close to what God is.  The sheer magnitude of creation is, in its own right, breathtaking.  Maybe it just seems more beautiful than before because this is my last day here, or perhaps that’s the mystery of paradise, that it really does get more unbelievable as each day passes.   Whatever the reason, I know that I will miss this place and though, for now my home is in Virginia, my heart will stay by the sea… until we meet again, I will see you only in my dreams.

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Posted in Beach, Florida, Gulf of Mexico, Photography

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Just Another Day in Paradise

Posted on June 21, 2011 | Leave a comment

The trip from Southwest Virginia to the beautiful area on the Gulf Coast of Florida known as Madeira Beach seemed to take forever, but, as with all great things, the time is passing rapidly and, all too soon, it will be time to return to the mountains with nothing but a tan and some wonderful memories.  While vacations are meant to be taken at a slow pace with sleeping late, lazy brunches, lounging around and doing a whole lot of nothing, those things have been elusive.  Before the sun shows its face, I’ve been out on the beach looking for shells in the moonlight, listening to the song of the ocean and watching the fishing boats going in and out of John’s Pass, a Channel which was named, allegedly, after a peasant turned pirate called John Lavique.  Spanning the Channel is a magnificent drawbridge, waiting patiently for the tall masts of the sailboats to signal their arrival or departure, then slowly lifts to allow them passage.  Although I’ve seen drawbridges before, I continue to be fascinated by the mechanism and the whole idea of breaking the road in half, raising it up to a near ninety degree angle and then putting it back in place again.

Even though it is quiet in the wee morning hours, before the beachcombers and kids start pouring onto the sand and into the surf, there is no way to get up too early for the fishermen.  With their tackles, nets and

waders, they come out early to try to catch the big one out of the sea.  For many fishermen, my dad included, it doesn’t really matter if they catch anything or not, although it is always cause for excited celebration when they feel that familiar tug on the line.  Just the act of having a line in the water is enough for them and outwitting a fish is just a bonus.  One of the birds that hangs out near the outcropping of concrete and rocks that bellies up to the Gulf has befriended my dad, or rather has learned that he is quite adept at outsmarting the fish.  He’s also learned that if he hangs around, there’s a good chance he’s going to get a saltwater snack and is ever so willing to wait.  While he doesn’t mind that other birds come near where he waits, when the fish comes in, he starts moving closer.  At first, he would only come within ten feet or so of where Dad would stand, but this evening, when I went down to photograph the sunset, the bird was just a couple of feet away.  He has obviously learned that the hand that feeds him is a safe place be near.  Although I can’t prove that it is the same bird, I am fairly sure, just from the markings, that it is.  Why mess with success has likely become his new motto.  I’ve seen pelicans dive into the water and these large cranes skimming the surface, but until this past Sunday, I had not witnessed one of them actually eat a fish.  Usually, squeamish would describe me best in such situations, but in this case, I couldn’t take my eyes off the bird as it maneuvered the fish into a position where it could just gulp it down.  That long skinny neck doesn’t look like it could swallow a fish, but as with many things of nature, looks can be deceiving. Before long, the throngs of people will flock, pardon the pun, to the water and the sand, bringing with them their chairs, towels, toys, sunscreen (hopefully), drinks and children.  The kids will splash, the adults will toast and the sounds of summer fun and helpless laughter will fill the muggy, tropical air of this little slice of perfection that we have been allowed to enjoy.  The sky is a blue that is often seen in October, the water a lovely shade of light aqua blending, churning and merging into a deeper, darker shade of the same beautiful tones.  The Channel is alive with activity including wave runners, parasail boats with their smiley face parachutes, motorboats, yachts and of course, the ever-present fishing trawlers.  I can’t say I have a favorite as I like to watch them all, but hope that I never have to be out in the ocean on something that lets my legs hang in the water.  Irregardless of the beauty in front of me, if my feet are in the water, the image of Jaws is always in the back of my mind.  So for now, I will  continue to feast my eyes on the beauty and activity around me, watch my nieces play and splash in the surf and be content that I get to be a part of what the locals would consider just another day in paradise.

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Posted in Beach, Florida, Gulf of Mexico, Photography

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Dreaming in Color

Posted on June 21, 2011 | Leave a comment

There’s an old Gospel song called Beulah Land.  It is my daddy’s favorite song and one that I have heard and sung many times over the years.  While I understand the first line, which says “I’m kind of homesick for a country that I’ve never been before”, I’ve never experienced it in a humanized kind of way as I do now.  The mountains, save for a few years in my early twenties, have always been my home and though I have jokingly referred to moving to some sunny beach at some point in my life, that is all it has been, just talk.  Just joking.  Just thinking out loud.  But now, the joke is on me.  On the ride down from Southwest Virginia, I was looking forward to being back on the Gulf Coast and had, as the rest of the brood making the journey did, expectations of great fun and awesome beauty.  What I didn’t expect was to feel the gut-churning excitement of coming home.  Of seeing a place that I didn’t realize I had so greatly missed.  Didn’t expect to want to dig my feet into the sands and my roots into the community and become a part of honest to goodness beach life.  I didn’t expect to know, with certainty, that I would once again leave my family, friends and the home I know and love to go somewhere far away.  But it is a real possibility, one I can see in the near future as opposed to the wavering places that live toward the end of my days.  I can see myself sitting on the porch in the evening, a cup of coffee and my laptop, as the sun sinks behind the fathomless ocean and the sky above it turns to a brilliant orangy red with streaks of blue and darkening purple.  I can envision the brilliant mornings with the sound of the rolling tide as I walk along the sandy beach, a trusty dog by my side and my Pentax around my neck.  It no longer seems like just something I dream of, but something that I am going to have to do in order to fulfill what my life is about.  Here on the Gulf, there seems to be no sense of time or place, but instead, even for those who work here, from what I’ve seen so far, a laid-back attitude that comes from knowing that no matter what kind of day one has had, it’s ok because the ocean is nearby to soak up all the bad and replenish the soul with the depths that only our Heavenly Father knows.  I knew the moment I saw the farm where we live now, my parents in their big old farmhouse and me beside them in my little single-wide, that I had to live there.  That it was a place where God’s presence was in the trees and the hills, the changing seasons and the wildflowers.  I feel that same thing now, that feeling of urgency that there is somewhere else I need to be, but this time, it is one with changing tides, white sandy beaches, sea oats, ocean sunsets and warm, humid breezes.  There is no way to say when I will be back, but one thing I know for certain is this…  I will be back and then it will be to stay.  When Jim, rest his soul, was living, we often spoke of living on the ocean and he wasn’t the least bit interested.  Even then, there was a pull, but it had no power and it was something I could easily put in the back of my mind.  Now, with Jim in Heaven and my only child in college, there is nothing, save for my own fear of change, to hold me back.  There are many decisions to be made and heartstrings to be pulled, there are ties to be cut and tears to be dried, but in the end, I will go where God sends me to do what He wants me to do.  Just as I know I will end up living on the Gulf somewhere, I know it is photography that will take me there.  I have faith in an awesome God who doesn’t build up the dreams and wonders of His children only to look at them and say “Psyche!”  Until that moment when I can load up my duffel bag and take only what I need to start a life that I was meant to live, I’ll wait and I’ll watch and I’ll be the best servant I can be.  And once I’ve made the leap, I’ll wait and I’ll watch and I’ll be the best servant I can be, for God is faithful and He expects nothing less of His people.

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Posted in dreams, Photography

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I’d rather (NOT) be staked to an anthill after all

Posted on June 18, 2011 | 1 comment

The first leg of the 2011 Family Vacation began this morning, uneventfully, at around 7:30 am.  The trip over the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, well into the muggy depths of South Carolina and into the swampy terrain in South Georgia went at a fairly fast pace.  There was a good bit of traffic and actual congestion in some places, but the Indie certified driver I was following changed lanes at the speed of light with very little use of that little stick on the steering wheel that makes either the left or right back light blink, depending on which way you are swerving… i mean merging.  Not far from Savannah, we decided, as I was begging for food, to stop for lunch at Burger King®.  I was in the mood for a hamburger and didn’t really care where it came from.  My family, willing to accommodate me as I think they were close to collapse from hunger themselves, were just as happy to be at Burger King®  as I was.  After eating my junior whopper without ketchup and what onion rings Sophie didn’t steal from me, I hurried outside to photograph one of my favorite things… Spanish Moss.  It was hanging from the branches of the huge trees like the tresses of some long ago princess, blowing in the hot breeze of a South Georgia Summer, but unperturbed by the heat or the wind, it was just there and it was beautiful.  I managed to get several shots with my Pentax, but being an avid droidographer as well, (a phrase used by a fellow tweep, @Curt Fleenor), I wanted to get some shots on my motodroid.  There were several  large trees all with an ample amount of the lovely moss hanging, in places, nearly to the ground.  As it was a public place with an access road passing by, I wanted to be certain that I wasn’t in the road.  It is hard for me to concentrate on anything other than the subject once I get started photographing something and being ran over by a passing car was not on my list of things to do today.  Between the access road and the Burger King® parking lot, there was a lovely little patch of grassy-looking flowers with some shrubs in the middle.  It looked like the perfect oasis to stand while I scouted the best vantage point for the droiding shoot.  I stepped into the grassy mound which seemed to sink under my feet.  I remember thinking it reminded me of a bog-like area at the top of Sammy’s Hill near my home.  Before the thought was complete in my mind, I felt this intense burning sensation.  I looked down and, much to my horror, I could not see my feet or, two inches above my ankles, my legs.  They were red with FIRE ANTS.  Now, such beating, jumping and swiping you have never seen.  I had heard of fire ants and their ability to cover their intended victim quickly, but had never, first hand, experienced anything like this.  I counted, once I was certain all the ants were off my person, 72 bites on my feet an ankles.  Now while that number seems really high, at least to me, it is important to remember that the ants were on my person no longer than ten seconds.  The other important thing to remember and one I am trying not to find fascinating, is that there were hundreds of them.  It was appalling, frightening, horrifying and completely, totally enthralling that they could do what they did in so little time.  As completely befuddling as it was to my parents and, if I have to say it, to myself, I consider it a rite of passage that I was deep in the Southern recesses of Georgia where the Spanish Moss grows, photographing a beautiful thing of nature and was attacked by fire ants.  It may seem lame that it was in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant and it may make some folks roll their eyes and think that my sister was right and that I am a dork.  I don’t deny it anymore than I deny getting a real taste of Savannah was a cool experience, even if it did require benadryl to thwart a potentially severe allergic reaction.  While I’ve never had a severe reaction to an insect bite, I’ve never been bitten by so many at the same time.  I’m sure the patrons of the restaurant thought I was having a seizure, but no one came to see if I were dying.  After the initial OMStars! moment, I found it to be pretty neat.  I have decided, however, that this experience has taught me two things.  First, it turns out that, after all is said and done, I actually would prefer to go to WalMart than be staked to an anthill.  While I hope not to be devoured by an alligator or attacked by a rogue dolphin while in Florida, I do hope for some more interesting, fascinating and OMStars moments in my otherwise boring life.  I could just have easily been in the wilds of Africa or deep in the Rain Forest for all the excitement I felt at this small, though painful, event.  Who knew that being staked to  (well, actually just stepping on, but staked to sounds more profound) an anthill could make me feel so proud to be a photographer.  I guess there are some things that are only to be understood by a photographer’s heart. And second on the list of things this experience taught me… it was so worth it to get shots of the moss that so fascinates me.  So it was, in the end, since I didn’t have an anaphylactic reaction and die, a quite remarkable experience and as I said, well worth the pain of a few hundred biting, stinging, itch-inducing, burning-sensation causing, ants.  With such an experience on the first day, well before our destination was reached, I can hardly contain my excited expectations of what I will experience tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that.  I love being a photographer, even when it hurts.  Tomorrow is a new day and I can’t wait to see what awaits…

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Sometimes, it’s all in the details

Posted on June 14, 2011 | Leave a comment

When I look back on the details of my life through images of the people and places, nature and creation, caught on a little 110, then onto 35mm film and finally, to a digital media card, I get a little bewildered that there are so many.    Traveling back, through the recesses of my memory, there are lots of details I remember and tens times that, I’m certain, I have forgotten.    Some little thing that stuck in my mind because it either brought me unspeakable joy or unbearable sorrow and was burned deep into the recesses of the millions of things that are stored in my mind.  The moment when my daughter’s eyes first locked onto mine and held them, as though she were reading my mind… I have no idea what day or time it was, but that moment will be with me always.  Or perhaps the day when the conviction of Christ was more than I could live with and I gave my life, willingly, to Him and the devastation later, when I tried to take it back.  Along the roads of my life, mixed in with the blooms, were briars with razor sharp barbs, that left their mark as well.  I wonder, sometimes, if I didn’t learn more from the briars than the blooms… But details were something that I really hadn’t given a lot of thought to until I seriously decided that all I wanted to be for the rest of my life was a photographer.  I started critiquing every photograph I took, played with the settings, went out at different times of the day to see what the same thing looked like with the sun in different positions.  It never even occurred to me at the time that I was learning to chase the light, urging it to bring something out that wasn’t there before.  Some small detail that, if it were only glanced at, would be missed.  I decided that if I wanted a better picture, I had to get closer.  So I started closing in.  Noticing what was around what I wanted to photograph.   I eliminated clutter by changing angles or moving around to get stuff out of the frame.  I didn’t realize it then, but I was learning to compose photographs.  But the more I did it, the more aware I became of the details.  They became more than just an image and started provoking emotions that I’m not sure I had felt from photography before.  I felt led to follow this fascination I had found and was, with practice, getting better at. The details of the art of photography were within my grasp when I lost what little there was of my mind and practically ran away from home to a place I had only visited a couple of times.  I threw everything I could carry into  an old duffel bag that Dad had kept after leaving the Air Force.  It wouldn’t hold everything, but it held the important things.  After knocking around there for about five years, I came home with a daughter, a husband, a beat up point and shoot camera and barely a dime to my name.  I had no choice but to work, and work I did.  Not too long after moving back home and getting into a place of our own, a cozy little trailer in a deadly curve, but with a big back yard for little girls and dogs to play in, my husband left my daughter and me.  He just decided one day that I wasn’t what he wanted and our daughter wasn’t important enough to stay for.  Without that income, I had to work more.  I took photos every chance I could, but there was no money to develop them.  I took them anyway, saving the rolls for when I could afford it.  My dream had been to take and develop my own photographs, but I couldn’t afford to develop three rolls through a mail order photo company… there wasn’t a chance that I could even begin to get to the place where I could develop my own photographs.  But, I kept on taking them anyway.  Of people, things, of reflections and lazy things.  I developed the rolls when I could and the rest of the time, I just let them collect until I could get them developed.  As the evolution of photography took a turn toward digital and digital cameras were the new best thing, I scoffed at them.  There was no way I was giving up my film.  I had graduated from the point and shoot and was now using my Dad’s old beat up Pentax SLR.  No way that is, until years after… Time passed, as it tends to do and I met and married my second husband, Jim.  A  wonderful man, was Jim, who seemed to know all the secret things about me before I even told him and didn’t hold a single one of them against me.  For Christmas the first year after we were married, he gave me a digital camera.  It was a life-changing event for me.  Needless to say, it was a simple point and shoot camera.  I have no clue as to whether there were digital SLR cameras available at that time, and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.  This one was well out of our budget, just as it were.  So, just like with the 110 I started shooting with in third grade, I began my thirties, now somewhat settled, with a Fuji digital camera. Early on, when I was first experimenting with photography, I kept a notebook of times, places, camera settings and other things essential for a photographer to keep a record of.  That notebook, along with the albums of my daughter’s first two years, disappeared somewhere along the way.  I can understand how, at that time, I could have lost the notebooks, but I still mourn the loss of those albums.  All I have of those two years are the details, both good and bad, that burned into my memory.  I delved into photography with a passion and grasp that, over the years, had become honed when I wasn’t aware.   I became drawn to nature and people, to the things they do for fun and how they share their lives.  Each year, at my parents’ farm, the whole family from all over, well many of them anyway, gather together for a family reunion.  It has become a tradition of sorts that there be music on Friday nights.  Cousins from further up in Virginia come down and bring their wives, their children, their banjo, guitar and fiddle.  And they play, some of it good, some of it tolerable and some of it that leaves you wondering how many times they will sing that particular chorus.. And no matter who comes with them, I am always drawn to Bill.  Bill plays the fiddle with the kind of touch you would expect a mother to give a child.  He can make it laugh or cry or shout with anger.  It amazes me that I know someone with something so  deep and beautiful inside themselves.  The strings, while he plays, quiver and sing, glistening in the porch light or, if we’re lucky, a full moon.  While he doesn’t object to my taking his photograph, I know he doesn’t like it, so I keep those photos in my own personal gallery so I can see the lined face and the stark blue of aging eyes that wear the marks of a man who has worked hard all his life.   And because time had nothing else to do, it continued to pass.  I saved and scrimped until I could barely afford a DSLR.  It was a Pentax that I found online and believing that this was part of my destiny, I didn’t hesitate.  I had to photograph and I had to write, two things that I had buried during what I have come to call the lost years.  I felt, as I had many years ago, compelled to follow this thread.  God took that camera and He took me and He used us together for His purpose.  For years, I knocked it around both at home and on trips that I was blessed to take.  I wasn’t getting paid a cent for any of the photographs, but I couldn’t stop taking them anymore than I could stop breathing.  The sheer joy of snapping those images was intoxicating and I didn’t want to stop.  I took thousands of photographs and became more and more critical.  I began actively searching for the details.  In looking for the details in photography, I had no choice but to see the details of my life and the lives of those I interacted with.  In getting closer, those parts that were hidden were more vulnerable and closer to the surface.  The tiny markings on a beetle, the first leaves in the spring garden, my daddy’s hands and my mother’s smile, tears, tantrums, animal tricks, an anthill, the color of the sun reflecting off a pooled place in the mountain stream, my sister’s children… whatever came into my path, whatever path I crossed.  As I continued on the journey, I became closer to the God I had all but abandoned.  My relationship with Christ began to strengthen and I found faith I didn’t know I had.  Jim and I prayed each night, taking turns about, and it was a truly profound experience, praying with the man who loved me like sunshine and rainbows.  His encouragement had as much to do with me following through on this dream that I had all but buried as just about anything or anyone else I had ever known.  He never stopped believing in me, not once.  I came home on a beautiful October day to find that he was gone.  His beautiful spirit flying free and another memory was burned, searing, into my brain.  I went for days without taking a single photograph of anything, but my love for it and knowing how much he wanted it for me won out and I picked up my camera again.  Since that heart-wrenching day, God has brought me many incredible experiences, but, perhaps the most profound experience, short of giving my life to Christ, was knowing that He cared enough about me to encourage me, in Jim’s place, with a photograph, taken two weeks after Jim was buried, that still blows my mind.  It reminded me that no detail is too small.  That there was no chance too risky if it is the only thing that stands between me and God and I learned that, through His grace, I did have the faith and the strength to follow Him wherever He led me to go.  Take from this photograph what you will. I took away closure, renewed faith and a profound feeling of being loved.  When I asked my sister if she thought that, if just for a moment, I hadn’t been so focused on the bees and blooms, that I would have noticed Jim standing there.  She said “maybe you would have, but you would have talked yourself out of it before you left the parking lot”.   She was right.  As life goes on, one thing remains constant… No matter what I see, where I go or what I do, sometimes, it is all in the details.

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Posted in dreams, Life, Photography