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.

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.

Dizzy

One Word Sunday: dizzy

Can’t leave black/grey without The Bean

Six Word Saturday 11.27.21 and Life in Colour: black/grey

Urban

for One Word Sunday: urban

Blob

for One Word Sunday: blob

Travel photo 1

These are challenging times and Su at Zimmerbitch has passed on a challenge to me: join her and other bloggers posting a travel photo a day for ten days. No explanation or back-story required, just an image.

Of course, challenges only get passed on if other people join in, but I, like Su, feel hesitant about asking people to join in. I’ll ask Ann-Christine if she’d like to participate, something to lighten the grey days in Sweden by escaping elsewhere. Also, she’s the one that asked me whether I was going to post more photos of The Bean in Chicago. So A-C, if you’d like to participate, we’d love to have you. If not, just enjoy my first photo.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #126: An Alphabet Challenge–Subjects That Begin with the Letter A.

Phew! Patti, I think you win the award for the looooongest title challenge to date, at least that I’ve seen.

I’m featuring photos from Illinois today and although I know most of you expect nature when you come here, what could be more iconicalyl Illinois than the Arcs and Arches of the Bean in Chicago? It’s a mind-bending Awesome Artistic beauty.

These Architectural features (and yes, you could say Arcs again) are found in the Art Institute of Chicago.

Let’s close with a two-fer: Animals in a nature Alley.

for Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #126: An Alphabet Challenge–Subjects That Begin with the Letter A.

Jo’s Monday Walk…the Windy City

Today you’ll be happy to be doing a virtual walk, as this walk was cold and windy, windy being a trademark of Chicago, and as I’m writing this, it’s also cold and windy. But you don’t even have to bundle up, whereas this poor lion in front of the Art Institute of Chicago was wearing nothing but a wreath. (He’s even blue with cold!) The enormous line of people waiting were bundled up a lot more.

We’ve seen part of the weaving exhibit at the musuem, but today we’re going to venture around the environs of the museum, heading toward The Bean, more formally known as Cloud Gate, in Millennium Park. But first let’s take a look at Crown Fountain, where the faces change regularly in all seasons, but no water comes out in winter. Wonder why? 🙂

One Word Sunday…vertical

for One Word Sunday, courtesy of the Bean, Chicago