Phoneography and Non-SLR Digital Devices Photo Challenge: Nature…Leaves

After an infinitely long (two week) break while our hostess-with-the-mostess went on a well-deserved vacation (hope you had a great time, Sally), the Phoneography and Non-SLR Digital Devices Photo Challenge (aka Phoneography Challenge) is back.  As we’ve entered a new month, our first-Monday theme is “Nature.”

Nature will bear the closest inspection.  She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf,
and take an insect view of its plain.
~Henry David Thoreau

Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore.  There is always something to make you wonder
in the shape of a tree,the trembling of a leaf.
~Albert Schweitzer

I believe that a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.
~Walt Whitman

A leaf fluttered through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun,
a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the task of coffee, joy accompanied me as I walked.
~Anais Nin

Phoneography and Non-SLR Digital Devices Photo Challenge: Nature (Lettuce Alone)

Another month, another first Monday.  That means the theme of the Phoneography Challenge is .”Nature”  The challenge is open to anyone who takes photos with non-traditional cameras, such as phones or iPads.  If you want to play, click on the highlighted words and join us.  Since many of us are welcoming spring, or at least waiting for it hopefully, this is the perfect time to immortalize nature by taking some photos of its beauty or to share photos of nature’s beauty past.

(All photo editing was done with Picasa 3.)

Phoneography Challenge: Nature…around two lakes

Welcome to March and the excitement of spring in our hopefully not-too-distant future!  In our family it’s also birthday month, time for celebrations of both nature and family.  Outside, though, winter still laughs, wags its finger at our anticipation of spring and reminds us it might have a few tricks left up its snowy, chilly sleeve.  During a time when white is often the predominant color, a look back (or ahead) at past springs when color rules makes a good way to start the week.  “Nature” is the theme for the first Phoneography Monday of the month, so click on the link to find all the entries or to participate.

Walks around the lake
Lead us to discoveries
Time for holding hands

Around the lake near our house                   (Boost from Picasa)

A misty morning on the lake outside our daughter’s house       (Vignette from Picasa)

Around the lake near our house                  (Boost from Picasa)

Phoneography Challenge: Macro (from the desert)

If you follow my blog, you already know I’m on vacation in the Phoenix, Arizona area with limited internet access.  My first entry for “Macro” is from one of the cactus plants in my parents’ natural yard.  The spines don’t deter the birds, however, and there’s a next not far from my photo of one of the cactus fruits.  Serendipitously,  the location of the spines reminds me of some bizarre (is there any other kind?) of costume Madonna might wear or a space alien who clutches victims to her voluptuous bosom, stabbing them with the poisonous spines.

The second, more prosaic but still beautiful, photo is of the buds of a hyacinth that I didn’t get out of the pot and into the ground in time and which decided to bloom again during the winter.  Both photos were taken with my iPad and only cropped.

Phoneography Challenge: Nature

My entry in this first Monday Photo Challenge, Nature, of 2014 is a labor of love, stress on the labor. I wanted to edit the first photo but because I can’t figure out how to simply make a copy of a photo in my iPad’s photo stream so that I can not only edit but add text, I ended up downloading Picasa, then trying to figure out how to get the edited photo somewhere on my laptop that it could be found and uploaded into WordPress. All this happened while “watching” the Orange Bowl and took an enormous amount of time. Ultimately, the only editing I did was, once again, simply cropping. But it felt as though I created something completely different. 🙂 I hope you find the results pleasing.

OK, I played around with Picasa some more and here’s an effect I like.  This is the uncropped photo with Lomo-ish applied.

Phoneography Challenge: Nature’s tree-ts

Over Thanksgiving, we made the approximately 12-hour trip between Chicago and Philadelphia twice (once each way).  On the way out, “the big storm” was slated to hit.  Fortunately, we followed it the entire trip, picking up only some snow and the aftermath of rain in Philly.  Since Ohio and Pennsylvania have so much forest, we had a wonderful opportunity to see trees in a variety of winter beauty.  Because of the dearth of leaves, we were able to see the many nests of birds and squirrels as well as the ice and snow lending the trees a festive, seasonal air.  Thus, trees are my choice for the “Nature” theme of today’s Phoneography Challenge.

All these photos were taken from a moving car, so you see what we saw while driving, and have only been cropped. I hasten to add that I wasn’t driving when I took the pictures!  I can do that one-handed with a small digital camera, but not with an iPad!!

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.
e. e. cummings

What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives?
E. M. Forster

God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.
Martin Luther

Phoneography Challenge: Nature– The Milkweed Paradox

As the fall season progresses, I’m enthralled by the beauty and longevity of the milkweed that grow abundantly around the small lake near our house.  They’re a fascinating combination of hardness and softness, rigidity and grace, spikiness and translucent feathery-ness.   From the spiny case come ethereal wisps of white, that cling to the shell with all their might, even when buffeted by wind.

Check out more Nature.

Phoneography Challenge: Nature 10/7/13

Another first Monday, so our photos today are from nature. Nature’s one of my favorite subjects, making it difficult to decide what photos to use. I went back a few summers to a day when I was meandering around the small lake near our house. It’s a wonderful place to get a bit of nature in the city but if I walk for exercise, I don’t take my iPad or camera because I stop too often. When I go for pictures, I know it will take some time to work my way around the lake.

I spotted the bird (probably a crane) and s/he was nice enough to stay put while I took some photos. The second photo is one of my favorites, my “Monet’s Lilies” picture. They’re both unedited and taken with my iPad.  I like the not-quite-sharp, slight muted quality of both the shots, although it wasn’t something I did intentionally.

A happy Monday to you!

Phoneography Challenge: Macro…a sci-fi beauty

It’s the second Monday of the month, which means the Phoneography Challenge is “Macro.” Any photo you take with a phone of any type or with an i-Thingy is eligible and it’s a nice group of wonderful photographers, so feel free to join in the fun. You can find the “rules” and this week’s entries by clicking on the word “Macro” in the opening sentence.

As for my entry this week, I have no idea what plant this is but its sci-fi-style of intricate beauty  drew me to it as soon as I spotted it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. My disclaimers–the photo was taken with an iPad and hasn’t been edited at all.

Phoneography Challenge: Nature

For this week’s Phoneography Challenge, I chose three iPad photos of skies at various times of day and in various moods.
The photos haven’t been edited in any way.

This first photo is one of many beautiful sunsets we experienced at Cape May, New Jersey last Thanksgiving.

The day this photo was taken, I was coming home from the store as the clouds became more and more dramatic. This wasn’t long after I’d had my iPad and I felt a little silly standing in the street in front of our house, trying for just the right shot. The clouds were moving so quickly that every shot I took looked very different.

This picture reminds me of the pictures depicting the glory of God streaming down from heaven. But after all, what is nature but God’s glorious handiwork displayed for  us to see?

To see the other entries in this week’s challenge, just click here.  I promise you it will be worth your time.