Tag Archives: photography

If you listen …

Posted on October 14, 2012 | 3 comments

you can can  hear the songs the leaves sing.  I suppose it comes as no big surprise that my blog posts this time of year pretty much revolve around Autumn, specifically  October, which brings with it the beauty of leaves that so many people, both photographers and just onlookers, seek out.  It is easy to find places to look at and enjoy the leaves on the trees that are turning colors of fiery red, brilliant orange and intense, glistening gold.  It is also easy to find trails to walk, especially around Southwest Virginia, that will take you beneath that brilliant canopy.

But those aren’t the only leaves that call to me.  One of my favorite experiences is walking along a mountain trail and have a gust of wind come up; one that blows a hard puff and send leaves spiraling out of the trees, floating and swirling as they fall gracefully to the ground.  There they make a carpet that can only be found once a year; a colorful carpet that transforms an otherwise brown and dying earth with a brilliance that cannot be rivaled.   In that carpet, it is not unusual to find mushrooms, acorns, walnuts and a myriad of other things that add their own beauty to that which is already there.

In the silence of a trail shoot when there is only me and what surrounds me, I listen to the sound.  What a symphony.  As the wind blows through the leaves, they rustle, talking back and forth, singing because, after all, this is their time.  Their moment to shine and take the spotlight.  And they sing because they know that even on the ground, they are spectacular.

They find happiness in falling and flying, giving way to freedom and pure unbridled joy.  At least it seems to me to be a joyful experience.  They look to be having so much fun that it makes me wish I could float from the trees, singing a song of thankfulness just to be a brilliantly colored leaf in October.  I find it exhilarating to speed around the bends of curves of leaf-covered mountain roads where leaves have pooled as though waiting for me to come along.

They laugh as I speed past, blowing them up and swirling them above the road and then back again.  Sometimes they find their way through the open convertible top and into my car.  They make me want to laugh just as, at times, the magnificence that I am allowed to be a part of makes me cry.  Not sad tears, but tears of happiness that I am alive and able to become, even for a short time, a part of Autumn.  I love being a photographer, especially in October.

 

Ecclesiastes  3:11 ~ He has made every thing beautiful in his time: also he has set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God makes from the beginning to the end

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Posted in Autumn, blog, emotions, Greeting Cards, Life, Mountains, music, October, Photography, Time, travel, VA

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Today, I feel …

Posted on October 14, 2012 | Leave a comment

strong.  accomplished. motivated. tired. empowered.  It was a long day consisting of a long, difficult hike, mostly uphill, to be able to stand a bit closer to the sky and look out upon the beauty that lay below.  My trail shoots are usually five miles and under and while they are often to high places, with climbs and some measure of danger, today took the cake.  For eight hours, myself, my sister, niece and cousin trekked ten miles, mostly uphill, at a fairly steep incline.  At times, the steepness was such that holding onto trees or putting our hands on the ground was essential if we wanted to live to see another day.  It is, to date, the most difficult hike I have taken.  Had we decided to come in after visiting the White Rocks overlook, it would have likely been pretty much par for the course.  But no.  It wasn’t enough.  We went on to the Sand Cave.  I blame myself for it as I wanted so badly to see it and while we were there, we decided to bite the bullet and add an extra three miles to our adventure.  Knowing now what I didn’t know this morning when we started, I realize that in the future, I will go to one or the other, not both.  Actually, after having visited the Sand Cave, I can’t think of a good reason to go back.  Don’t misunderstand, it was beautiful, but it wasn’t what I had pictured in my mind.  The sand was deep and nearly impossible to walk in with shoes on.  I’m not a fan of sand in the first place, especially with shoes on, and this didn’t do anything to make me more of a fan.  The sand had the consistency of baby powder and didn’t stick to anything; a couple of stomps on a rock and all the sand feel off my shoes.  It was unusual and the ceiling and walls of the cave were spectacular, but still …  not a place I would purposely go to again.  The hike down to the cave was steep and, at times, treacherous, but the hike out was dangerous in the beginning and just plain exhausting by the end.  Already being tired and hungry (since as usual, I only had a pack of Toast-Chee crackers) made the climb out from the cave unusually strenuous.  The entire trail was rocky and rough, making it even more arduous.  The trail is listed as moderate, but don’t believe it for a minute.  It is, in places,  somewhat moderate but mostly difficult and not a trail I would recommend for amateurs.

Next weekend, I will go back to my beloved falls to see the foliage change and sit on the rocks for a while, enjoying the sound of rushing water and the complete solitude that I have found nearly every time I have gone there.  After today, it will feel no more strenuous than walking to the mailbox.

Let all creation sing a song
So that I may sing along.

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Posted in blog, dreams, family, God, Hiking, Life, Mountains, Photography, Southwest Virginia, Time, travel, VA

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Living for the Weekend …

Posted on October 13, 2012 | Leave a comment

isn’t really wishing your life away.  During the five long days between Sunday and Saturday, while I wish for the weekend to be here, I’m living.  Every day, every minute, I am going about the daily grind that is a big part of my life.  I wish for 5:00 on Friday starting first thing Monday morning.  I know that once Saturday comes, I will be up and out before the sun, doing, living, moving and embracing a beauty that otherwise lives in my head.

Occasionally something comes along that distracts me even from wishing for days off.  When that happens, there is little to do but hang on for dear life and ride the wave until it either drowns me or dumps me out somewhere; broken, blessed and sometimes disheartened.  Each failure and triumph is a lesson and my purpose is to learn them.  I have no illusions, however, that there are not others who feel this way.  Some  call us weekend warriors, some call us wannabe’s, some call us weird and unsatisfied and others just call us nuts. I don’t consider myself a warrior on the weekends, nor a wannabe, nor unsatisfied or nuts; I am just somebody who wants to see and do and see some more for the vastness of creation can never been fully experienced in a single lifetime.  I have difficulty staying in one place when I know there is somewhere else to go … and there is always and forever, as long as time lasts, somewhere else to go.

Some days I wish could go on for weeks and others cannot possibly end soon enough.  But inevitably, I know that if I can hang on for  a few days, (because once I’m set free I will be rewarded by one amazing thing after another) I will be set free as a bird from a cage.  I don’t mind working, not overmuch anyway, but there are many other things I would rather be doing.  A disheartening thing  for me is looking out the window and seeing the light change and knowing that, for the most part, I am missing it; as a photographer, watching the light change without me becomes, at times, physically painful.  At times like that, I wish even harder for time to pass.  I don’t feel bad about it and have no intention of not wishing for weekends.  The drum I march to may not be the same rhythm as others’, but it suits me just right and, at some point, they meet up anyway.

I’m not much of a joiner.  Where I am, for the most part, I am there alone.  I, unlike many, however, don’t mind being alone.  It would be a fallacy to say there was never a time I didn’t wish for company, for someone special to share the beauty that embraces me, in the recesses of my mind, like a lover …  but there is something so serene and renewing about being in the middle of a beautiful place in nature with nothing but the sound of the earth mingling with the music in my head to keep me company.  If anyone has ever stood on the top of a mountain, feeling the wind, lifting their arms and face to enjoy the sheer freedom of it … or  lying down in a field of blooming flowers, letting the sun warm their body even as the fragrance overtakes them … or standing close enough to a waterfall to feel the mist as it moistens their hair and skin as it plummets to a clear pool below, or feeling an intimacy that moves the soul and spirit in ways that were never expected or imagined; they understand.  They know what words can never describe.

These days, my time off is spent hiking in and around Southwest Virginia, not just because it’s where I live, but because it is a spectacular sight to see.  I pack my gear, put in my earphones and listen to the beauty of music while I immerse myself in the beauty of nature; a Pentax around my neck and my eyes always searching for what I wouldn’t have seen if I hadn’t been looking.  That is part of being a photographer at the core of my heart.  Everything is beautiful, everything is alluring, everything is a photograph and nothing is too small to stop and admire.  During every moment, every adventure, every triumph and every disappointment, I know that I have been blessed beyond imagination by a loving God who knows what moves my heart and soul.  There are lessons to be learned and joys to be experienced.  It’s too late for me to change now, being as I’m getting old and set in my ways, so I’ll just go with it.  So far, it seems to suit me just fine … but eventually, the need to photograph will overtake everything else.  I feel, as I have for years, that this is God’s will for me.  He has encouraged me when I became discouraged and opened new doors into photography.  I am humbled that He would use me to encourage His people by doing what I love.  I am truly and excitingly and reverently and beautifully and gratefully blessed.

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

~Robert Frost

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Posted in blog, dreams, emotions, God, Hiking, Life, love, Mountains, Nature Photographer, Photography, Southwest Virginia, Time, travel, VA

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That moment when you know …

Posted on October 12, 2012 | Leave a comment

that you have reached the point of emotional overload.  A few days ago, I posted about the power of music and how indescribable it is.  What I didn’t know at the time of that post is just how truly indescribable music is.  I have spent the last three days, every free, waking moment, listening to something I have never know before.  Pure and indiscriminate genius.  I have moments, and while to some, this will sound strange and to others, yet, it will make perfect sense, that I am not certain my brain and heart won’t explode; that the music will burst the seams and they will shatter like fine porcelain.  Shatter into a million pieces, each one alive and vibrant, overwhelming and overstimulating; this is the price we pay for what we feel.

All of the things I feel are not welcome thoughts or emotions, rather they remind me of something just out of my reach; something forbidden and yet wonderful.  A world of possibilities and endless scenarios … of looking inside oneself at things that frighten or intimidate us and seeing them reflected in the music we hear.  I talk about “we” because it is easier to admit to something when you know there are others who understand the feelings you cannot find the words to say.

I don’t know where this musical journey will lead, but so far, I am completely exhausted and drained just from the experience.  I can only imagine what I will learn the second time around, knowing what to expect and anticipating it’s arrival.  I may die before it’s over, but to my friends and readers I say; it was a good death.

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Posted in blog, dreams, emotions, Life, music, Photography, Time

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It isn’t an issue …

Posted on October 1, 2012 | 1 comment

my niece’s Down’s Syndrome, that is; as a matter of fact, until someone brings it up, I forget about it.  I thought about it quite a bit this weekend, though.  It was the annual Buddy Walk, a walk sponsored by the National Down’s Syndrome Society.  There is a chapter of FRIENDS (Friends Reaching and Inspiring Neighbors about Down’s Syndrome) that services Southwest VA and Northeast TN.  It is through them that the Buddy Walk takes place each year.  But, I digress.

I saw many children there, many who were the same age as Grace, some older others younger.  I noticed many disabilities that I never give a second thought to  because I haven’t had to confront them with Gracie.  She does everything her sister does, sometimes even better, giving the impression that there is no disability.  While surrounded by the children and their parents, I had to take a moment and wonder what they go through on a daily basis just to insure that their child can have a routine of sorts.  Our biggest challenge is keeping up with Gracie as she is as fast as lightning and can be gone before you can say “Where’s Gracie?”.  Maybe we should dress her in a red and white striped shirt and make a book about her.

At one point, I took her with me and let her jump in one of the air-filled things.  What she really wanted to do was go down a slide that you had to climb up via little “foot pockets” to get to, kind of like the rock-climbing attractions at some malls.  I made her wait so her daddy could with her.

As it turned out, she didn’t need anybody to go with her.  She climbed up that thing like a monkey and never looked back, except when I was taking her picture because she is, irregardless of everything else, a ham.  I was so proud of her and a bit disappointed in myself for not having enough confidence in her abilities even though I see them nearly every day.

There are many lessons I can learn from Gracie.  I can learn to not know the meaning of can’t.  I can learn that just because something is hard has no bearing on whether I can do it or not and that unless I try, I will never know.  I can learn unconditional love that is blind to looks, color, demeanor, personality, social status, intelligence and the myriad of things that I roll my eyes at.  She doesn’t see with her eyes, but with her heart.  I think we could all use a bit more of that.

I thank God for both of my nieces and would lay down my life for either of them, but I thank Him especially for blessing our Gracie, for healing the hole in her heart, for fixing her kidney and for making her a grand example to all of us.  God Bless you Gracie.  You make me want to be a better person.

Romans 11:33 ~ O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!

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Posted in blog, Down's Syndrome, Down's Syndrome, Photography, Encouragement, family, God, Life, love, Photography, Time

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What is it really like …

Posted on September 20, 2012 | Leave a comment

to lose, very suddenly and without warning, someone you love or are very close to?  To put it bluntly, it is like no other feeling in the world.  It supersedes all the other OMG moments as it settles into our bones like the chill of December.  It takes shock and disbelief to a new level.  I found out first hand a few years ago when I came home and found my husband, who was very much alive when I left to go to work, dead.  The shock was profound.  What in the world had happened in the hours I had been gone and totally oblivious to what was happening at home?  The instant feeling of emptiness will always be somewhere in the back of my mind and likely continue to show its ugly face at the most inopportune time.  It has been three years, or will be in a few weeks, since that fateful day, but there are times when I feel like I’m walking in for the first time.  How odd, that sensation, when I feel so vulnerable and so alone and so focused on my own loss and loneliness; how thankful I am that those times are now few and far between.

It’s difficult, in the best of times, to come to terms with the sudden and unexpected loss of someone you care about, be it a family member or dear friend or even someone that you remember fondly from your past.  It doesn’t matter who they are if they meant something to you.  Artists who paint will either paint as if tomorrow is a myth, or stop; photographers will take chances they would have never have taken or they will simply stop photographing for a time, musicians will either write as though their life depended on it or turn from their music completely.    We artists don’t deal with things the way other people do; that is often hard for the “others” to understand.

In my own experience, photography became nothing more than a reminder of what I had lost and it was months before I could come to terms with it and be able to pick up my Pentax and look through it without a blinding fog over my eyes.  There was, I now know, nothing wrong with that.  At the time, I thought I was past weird and well on my way to the funny farm, but looking back, I realize that it was all part of the process.  There is no right way or wrong way to grieve.  There is only the way that feels right at the time.  If you go against what you feel in your heart, then the only recourse is regret.  I try very hard to not do things that I will regret; sometimes I do them anyway, but then, I think I speak for most of us.

Losing someone we care about doesn’t change who we are but it does make us wonder if we could have been more.  That thought, though, should not consume us.  There will always be more that we could have done, could or should have said, could have made happen; dwelling on these things will not change anything.  I choose to dwell on the things that I did and not on the ones that I will never be able to do.  I am happier, and saner, for it.

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Posted in blog, death of a loved one, Encouragement, faith, Life, Photography, Sorrow and loss, Time

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Today I walked in the rain

Posted on September 9, 2012 | Leave a comment

One of the simple pleasures of my childhood was playing in the rain.  As I grew older, I still loved the rain but never seemed to make the time to just enjoy it.  Not run from it; not dread it.  Just embrace it.  So today, as the rain put a damper, so to speak, on my original plans, I decided to just go with it.

I decided to go on a trail I hadn’t been on before but thought I might know where it would lead.  The first hour went quickly and it was then I realized that the trail had been, for the last half mile or so, on an incline.  It wasn’t leading where I thought it would; curiosity pushed me forward.  The incline continued to steepen as I walked up and up, the rain falling softly around me.  The sound it made as it fell onto the leaves, trees and forest floor is one that I don’t have words to describe.  It is its own song; the music of rain, the orchestra of nature.

After two and a half hours and still no real clue where I was headed, I decided to start back down.  The trail was already becoming slick from the rain and with the overcast skies, darkness would come sooner than usual.  I plan to go back when I have an early start and can get to the trail destination.  It likely leads to the High Knob lookout, which is a mediocre destination without the tower, but I won’t know until I get there.

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Posted in Life, Mountains, Nature Photographer, Photography, Southwest Virginia, VA, wildlife

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Once a dreamer …

Posted on August 23, 2012 | Leave a comment

always a dreamer … Being a nurse for the past twenty-five years has been an experience in and of itself.  It would take a hundred blogs running every day to review the exploits that happen just in my little world.  But this isn’t about nursing, not specifically, anyway, but about a path not taken.  I have enjoyed nursing, for the most part, and would not want to trade the experience and knowledge I’ve gained over the last two and a half decades.  It just wasn’t what I wanted to do.

I had three goals when I was a kid and they were to sing, play the piano and photograph the world.  All three of those things took guts and I didn’t have any.  I had no nerve, little faith and plenty of fear.  So I took the easy road, leaving my dreams to wither and fade into the dust of my past.

It only took a few months to realize that I had made a dire mistake, but I still had no nerve, little faith and plenty of fear; I just let it ride.  As years passed, the dreams I left behind refused to be still.  It became apparent to me that a dream that really did fade into the past, forgotten, wasn’t a dream worth chasing anyway; my dream was banging at my head and my heart.  At every opportunity, I found myself with a camera in my hand.   Nature and created things began to be a central focus in my life and weekends were spent jaunting around looking for “pictures to take”.  I went to work every day and spent the evenings fiddling with the camera, playing with settings, learning, without really realizing, to do what I had always wanted to do; be a photographer.  I never learned to play the piano and I sing only at church, but those are but ripples in the pool.  It is the light and shadow that I love and am thankful that even though I was foolish and fearful once, God saw fit to bless me with what I wanted most.

I find comfort in the images He shows me.  I will continue to work as a nurse but on weekends, I’ll be in the mountains or wherever life might take me, photographing the beauty that is before me.  It brings me inexplicable joy to be immersed in the feel and smell of creation knowing that I serve the one who created it.    I don’t believe in coincidences so I can come only to the conclusion that this path is one that God chose for me and continues to bless every single day of my life;  I may not have had the guts  back then, but I have them now, along with the faith and nerve to do it and do it well.

If just one is encouraged by this post to put fear behind them and follow their dreams, then it has served its purpose.

I had the ability to fly all along, it was courage to spread my wings that I lacked.

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Posted in Beach, believer, blog, dreams, Encouragement, faith, Florida, God, Life, Mountains, Nature Photographer, Photography, story, Time, travel, wildlife, worship

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It’s just a picture

Posted on July 26, 2012 | 1 comment

Just a picture indeed.  Often times … no, let me rephrase that … most of the time, when I’m heading out to shoot some photographs, I go by myself.  It’s not that I always prefer to go alone, but it’s hard to find folks who are willing to get up before the sun and spend the day watching the same thing for hours as the light changes, hardens, softens, highlights and clarifies.  When by chance someone does want to go along “for the adventure of it”, after about an hour, they’re done.  Too many times to count I’ve heard the words “how many pictures do you need?”  There is no harm or malice in those words, simply a lack of understanding of what it means to be a photographer in love with light.  To most people, light is just the opposite of dark, makes it easier to see, comes in the morning and leaves at night; they cannot fathom that it is oh so much more.

Light has many moods, influenced by many things, but there are a couple times of day that I can count on finding amazingness .  These are the golden hours or, as they are sometimes called, the magic hours.  These are the first and last hour of sunlight in a day (though they are more in tune with the golden 30 minutes) and they are pivotal times for a photographer.  The light is low and soft and depending on the weather, can manifest in a variety of ways that couldn’t be captured in a lifetime.  That is the reason another question always comes up.  “Why do you have to get up so early?” or “why would you want to be there so late?”  I have a simple answer; because I am a photographer.  I chase the light, gauge it, study it and try to gain intimate knowledge so that I can, in my weak, mortal way, capture it before it changes.

I don’t go to a place to take a picture or a snapshot, I go to shoot it.  Maybe the first photograph will nail it or it may take hours or even days, going to the same place, watching the same thing, knowing that if I keep up the vigil, I will be rewarded.  These are the kinds of things that my friends and family balk about and why I usually ending up going alone.  But it’s not their fault.  They don’t eat, live, breath, sleep and dream photography.  They don’t look around them and see a hundred things that draw their attention.  They don’t feel the Spirit of God instilling in them the need and desire to photograph that which He has made. Nothing wrong with that.  That is one of the things that sets me apart from them.  It makes me different or as they like to refer to it, weird, geeky or odd; probably some other stuff, too, but all along the same vein.

Understanding the language of light is to a photographer like understanding the concept of music is to a pianist.  Without understanding, there can only be frustration.  I have spent years studying the art of photography.  Maybe I could have made it easier on myself by taking classes, but I wanted to learn it for myself; to see what worked for me and, as the years pass, start to see a style of my own emerge.  And that is why I get up so early and stay so late and why i will continue to do so because the language of light is one of the beautiful ones that I know.

Psalms 19:1 ~ To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

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Posted in believer, blog, dreams, faith, God, Holy Spirit, Life, Photography, Time

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Thine, not mine …

Posted on July 21, 2012 | 1 comment

Sometimes it seems that life is at a standstill
That everything I want the most  is within my reach
But in my soul I know that if I touch it too soon, before it is time,
Then like sand, it will slip through my fingers and I will be forced into waiting again.  There are things I’ve yet to do before I will be ready for my destiny.  I await it, though, with bated breath.

So many people  cross my path every day in one capacity or another
Some familiar faces and others strangers, but the contact is there, even if only for one moment.  A word of encouragement or a nod and smile is so simple and yet …  Did I do it, I’m not sure, but still, I am  accountable for what I have or haven’t done because that is what moves inside me.

An opportunity for all I hope for presents out of nowhere, as if from the air
And words escape me as my mind races forward, struggling
Trying to grasp the answer that I know is there before me and then He moves
They are His words, not mine, that I want to convey for mine are empty and weak on their own and this, after all, is what He had planned for me.

What I do, be it helpful or hurtful will continue to move forward
Touching others who had no idea one person could bring such joy or sorrow
I underestimate God’s reach because I underestimate my own, which has nothing to do with anything and everything to do with where I want to go which is where He wants me to go.  It’s a choice, it always has been and always will be.

He knows what He’s doing although I often question Him
I suppose the humanness of myself cannot simply take a gift as a gift but must question it and examine it to see if it can be trusted, not having faith enough to just take it for what it is. But at the end of the day when I give thanks for my blessings I remember to thank Him for the day, irregardless of what it brought, because it was for His glory, after all.

The journey I am on changes daily
As I surrender all I am to my King
But the journey doesn’t end when I close my eyes to sleep
The difference that I’ve made in His name, be it good or bad, encouraging, discouraging or indifferent keeps rolling on …

Romans 12:1  (my favorite chapter) … I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

~ read this verse, search your heart and soul … if you are satisfied, then carry on … if you are left wanting, seek Him … He’ll light the darkness… I read it often and each time, i’m either closer or further from Him … we are not perfect and Jesus, irrelevant of His perfectness,  understands that.  God bless and keep you all … not everyone believes, but there is no harm in praying … no harm at all …

Lightning over Big Moccasin

Oh Lord Jesus, I pray that someone, somewhere for reasons that only You know has been uplifted by You through me this day … Though there is much I would like to have,  there is nothing I can ask for that would bless me more abundantly. Amen.

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Posted in believer, blog, christian, Encouragement, faith, God, Jesus, Life, Photography, spiritual healing, Time, worship

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