Lens-Artists Challenge #243 – It’s Tricky!

April Fool’s Day in the US is over but all entries to Donna’s challenge are still ready to stretch our imaginations and strain our credulity. As the old advertisement says, “Is it live or is it Memorex?”

The combination of wind and bokeh provided the trickery in this first shot, giving the illusion of the plant head is completely untethered.

Every so often I like to play with editing even though I only have free editing apps. Here I’ve applied an edit to a leaf. I recently deleted the editing apps from my iPad because I hadn’t used them and I can’t remember the name of this one and can’t find it in the App Store. Sigh.

Reflections can cause you to wonder at least briefly what you’re actually seeing or which of what you see is the original.

Sometimes the trickery simply involves lining up the shot so that it shows a seemingly impossible thing. Or maybe this only happens in Arizona.

Our minds create the illusion in this next shot, convincing us the teddy-bear cholla are as soft and cuddly as their namesake…

…while a closer look disabuses us of that idea!

It’s fun to find a photo that makes it tricky for people to figure out what’s going on as here where the magnetic bit of the discarded top of my electric toothbrush stuck on the side of the empty wastebasket partway down. It made me laugh…and get my phone, even though it’s not the best photo I’ve ever taken..

Finally there are the shots that make it tricky to determine what the photo shows, photos taken just for their unique qualities and looks. These shadows at the visitors center at Saguaro Nations Park fall into that category. When I take these photos, I just want to you look at them and say, “I don’t know what that it, but I love it” because I did when I took it.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #240 – The Road (most often) Taken

The photographic road we tend to travel most often is what John is asking us to share with you this week for the Lens-Artists Challenge. It’s a challenge that require some introspection on my part but I do know that my overall road runs mostly through nature, although within that milieu I consider myself to be eclectic. My motto? Perhaps this…

“Nature, especially wilderness, has a calming effect on the mind” – Percy Fernandez

or maybe this…

“Nature never goes out of style”– Unknown

My road is slow and quiet…with time to stop and look. There’s a reason people in a group or on wheels rarely see wildlife.

I love to take inroads to see the little things that perhaps might be missed and share them through a photo.

“Sometimes you can tell a large story with a tiny subject “– Eliot Porter

My road can be literal and I’ve been down this one many times for most of my life. I plan travel it as long as I’m able.

“The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

My road means wanting to see things no one else has seen or, if seen, have not really noticed as special. I want them to say, “Why didn’t I ever think to make a picture of that?”

“Taking pictures is savoring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.”― Marc Riboud

Sometimes my road even includes the city with all its distortions of nature and sees them as beautiful, yet I always yearn for the road back to and into nature to center me and bring me peace.

“Always seeing something, never seeing nothing, being photographer”
― Walter De Mulder

Wherever your road is and whatever it looks like, be prepared to taste the sweetness of life when the opportunity arises.

My overarching motto as a photographer is expressed perfectly in this quote I discovered while creating this post. It instantly smote my heart:

“When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice.” ― Robert Frank

Thanks to all of you who take time to view my photos, to “like” my posts, and most of all, to take the time to tell me what you like about them, how they touch you . That is soul food in the finest sense. ❤

Perhaps Jo will forgive me for also linking this to her Monday Walk challenge as it is indeed a walk, albeit a virtual one, through the philosophy of my photography and blogging.

Lens Artists Challenge #236: East Meets West or North Meets South

East Meets West or North Meets South are the two choices Amy offers us this week for the Lens-Artists Challenge. I say “Game on!”

The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. In this first set of photos they meet, even though the sunrise is in Arizona, the sunset in France. Sunrise is my time of day, the filling of my heart to meet whatever might come. Sunset allows for thinking back on the day, planning for the next, slowing down for the upcoming night. Sunrise is an inhale; sunset an exhale…sunrise a drawing in; sunset a letting go.

Okonomiyaki is one of the most delicious ways East can meet West, the capital letter East and West! When our younger daughter studied Japanese, we were introduced to this easy to eat but-hard-to-spell-or-pronounce dish which I was thrilled to find in Chicago at Little Goat Diner. I went with a co-worker from the place I was working as well as the owner. We tried each other’s choices and it was 3 of 3 voting for my okonomiyake, which was absolutely fantastic. From the menu:

Okonomiyaki (Pronounced Yum)* Osaka street food with pork belly, scallions, poached egg, kewpie mayo, crunchy tempura & bonito flakes, sweet soy

Okonomiyaki is a Japanese savory pancake containing a variety of ingredients. The name is derived from the word okonomi, meaning “how you like” or “what you like” or “favorite,” and yaki meaning “grill.”  ~ The Spruce Eats

North and south in my life are full of contrasts. My heart’s home lives in the mountains of Wyoming. I’ve described it as if my life were a puzzle missing just one piece. It looks just fine and presents a beautiful picture but when that one little piece is found and popped into place, it’s whole. I can live and live well without going to our Wyoming cabin, but it’s the little missing piece that fulfills me.

“We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us.”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

Yet our Arizona home, so different, is also filled with beauty, ready to embrace us, albeit with rather prickly arms. To feel at home in such opposite places is truly a blessing

“The extreme clarity of the desert light is equaled by the extreme individuation of desert life forms. Love flowers best in openness and freedom.” ~Edward Abbey

And of course there’s the contrast everyone thinks of when thinking of north and south: cold and heat. “Aren’t you glad to be away from winter?” people say to which I reply, “I actually miss winter.” Snowbirds (of the human sort) fly north in the summer to escape the heat, then return to the south when winter arrives. The seasons in each place are opposite: summer in the south is like winter in the north, the season that people try to avoid. Although I can’t say I’m a fan of 115 degree Fahrenheit temperatures and I do miss the winter, the contrast makes me appreciate each more. What’s not to like about that?

Although all sorts of metaphors could be drawn from these meetings and contrasts, the thought I would like you to take away is that differences are often what make life (and people) interesting. Don’t just stay in your same place, your comfort zone. Find beauty and joy in other, contrasting places and your life will be much richer.

LAPC #235: Shadows & Reflections in Monochrome

For the first Lens-Artists Challenge in February, Patti’s looking for shadows a/o reflections but in monochrome. Although we tend to think of monochrome as photos in black and white, strictly speaking:

A monochrome or monochromatic image, object or palette is composed of one color. Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale or black-and-white. ~Wikipedia

So let me start out with an example of monochrome that isn’t black and white/greyscale. It’s also an example of both shadows and reflections.

I love reflections so let’s start with those. Reflections can show a true picture of the thing being reflected or a distorted one, something to remember when reflecting on people and situations. Here I’m reflecting on the reflections experienced in Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Room in Chicago’s WNDR Museum, a museum filled with experiential exhibits. It was a mind-bending experience to be surrounded by so many reflections and I would have loved to have spent more than the minute or minute-and-a-half each person or group was allowed in the room.

I often enjoy reflecting over a cup of tea. Coffee with friends is a wonderful time but you don’t get reflections when the barista has created a work of beauty on top of my mocha. 🙂

A lake in Wyoming, one of my summer pleasures, provides both reflections and shadows, the latter from trees outside the photo.

Black-necked stilts continually supply wonderful reflections and they’re already in black and white. 🙂

This reflection in downtown Chicago illustrates one of my favorite things about skyscrapers. When we were in New York City some years ago, despite all the things there were to do and see, I was reminded once again that I prefer my canyon walls to be made of rock, not buildings!

You can’t leave Chicago without a look at the most interesting, iconic reflections in The Bean, as Chicagoans fondly call Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate. The Bean is endlessly engrossing. If you’re inclined to be helpful, you can, as I did, offer to take photos of people with The Bean behind them. I always enjoy doing that wherever I go.

Since it’s hard to top The Bean, both literally and figuratively, let’s switch to shadows, the first a winter view from my bedroom window in Illinois. The shadow in the middle/on the right is from part of the deck in the back of the house, the one on the left from our neighbor’s fence and trees.

from “Shadows” by Thomas Durfee

How much of earth’s beauty is due to its shadows!
The tree and the cliff and the far-floating cloudlet,
The uniform light intercepting and crossing,
Give manifold color and change to the landscape.
.

I’ve shared this photo before but in color, a special capture where the deer and rabbit lined up just perfectly. I have so many photos of this view but none that ever were quite this good.

“My Shadow” ~Robert Lewis Stephenson

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

Patti, thanks for letting us have fun playing with shadows and reflections. Enjoy the weekend, everyone.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #157: Getting Away

Today’s challenge is “Getting Away”, something I enjoy doing as often as possible. However, we aren’t the only ones who like to get away.

Here’s what getting away looks like in McDowell Forest Preserve, Naperville, Illinois. I came around a corner of the trail to find both a fawn and a doe. I froze, allowing me to appear unthreatening for at least long enough to get some photos.

(I’m going to publish this post with four photos, the first of the fawn. But although all the photos show up in the draft, the preview doesn’t show it. I’ll see what happens and if it doesn’t work out, try editing the published version. Ahh, WordPress, why do you do these things??)

The doe was on the move at this point.

OK, I’ve tried everything I can think of to get that photo inserted but WP won’t let me do it. So instead I’ll use another one. This buck was happily standing in the path looking at me until a cyclist, out of my line of sight, came zooming along.

Getting away in Wyoming might look like this and it wasn’t even Thanksgiving! I love the expression the eye seems to have.

And getting away at the Riparian Preserve in Gilbert, Arizona might mean flying high. This guy seemed to have been carrying some sort of foliage with him.

Whatever getting away means to you, I hope you’ll be able to enjoy it as soon and as much as possible.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #146: Focusing on the Details

Patti’s given us some beautiful examples of focusing on details and asked us to do the same. So as Jackie Gleason used to say, “And awaaay we go!”, first to Queen Creek Olive Mill where I saw these shadow details one day while sipping a mocha and reading.

I found alien details in our backyard.

But details don’t have to be small or macro. This garden on Coronado Island in California has a lot of beautiful details that add up to a stunning large picture.

Lens-Artists Challenge #130: Close encounters

Yeah, this is what I do…or what I really like to do. Get up close and personal. See small things that others might miss. Look more and more closely. So you can imagine that choosing photos for this wasn’t at all easy although it was fun. After I hit five, I stopped. But I hope you enjoy the five I chose and thanks to Anne for hostessing this week.

Lens-Artists Challenge #120 – What A Treat!

Last week was a treat as far as my birding “career” goes, as I saw my first spoonbill and osprey at the Preserve. But I’ve already posted about them, so when I saw today’s theme/challenge, I was disappointed. However, I quickly realized I had more treats to share.

We’ll start again at the Riparian Preserve, my soul food walking spot here in Gilbert. While three birders with enormous lenses sat on their portable stools on the opposite side of the lake, I realized that if I followed the direction of their lenses, I could likely see whatever they were seeing but from a different and much closer angle. What I saw was this snowy egret primping. Try doing that on one foot at home!

While snowy egrets are a dime a dozen (yet still full of surprises and always worth photos), this was the first spotting for me of a Northern Shoveler trying to keep a low profile among a bunch of coots. Joni Mitchell may think you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone, but I didn’t know what I’d got until I zoomed in on my photos. Pretty snazzy gent, I’d say.

Final treat for that day, another sighting of the roseate spoonbill perched high atop a pole. Must be more difficult to preen when your bill’s spoon-shaped than for the snowy egret with its thin, pointed bill.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #114: Negative Space

I hate to be negative, but Amy’s asking us to go that way this week and I must comply. I actually use a lot of negative space when taking macros, so I had a difficult time deciding what photos to use even when only going through a couple files, trying for some variety.

Thanks for stopping by and hopefully you’re enjoying your weekend.

for Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #114: Negative Space

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #111: Everyday Objects

Patti today has set a challenge which for me is very difficult. One of the things I love doing with my photography is to take unusual photos of everyday objects, although often my objects are outdoors. Today, however, after spending a long time browsing through files and amassing way too many possibilities for the challenge, I finally decided on just four, plus a quote I came across only minutes before the challenge arrived but what I’d like to think inspires my photographic aims.

Above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it. ~Roald Dahl

Let’s start with a little something for the body as well as the soul.

Sometimes when cooking, or in this case baking, I have to quickly get my phone to take a photo. These are liquid ingredients for a recipe.

Years ago, my sister-in-law and I went on a splendid trip which included Vicenza, Italy where I found some beautiful perfume bottles which I managed to get home intact. 🙂

Finally a little something from our living room in Illinois, where nothing is free of the possibility of being decorated for Christmas.

One enjoyable sidelight of this challenge was seeing many photos I hadn’t seen in some time and was delighted to discover all over again. Thank, Patti.

for Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #111: Everyday Objects