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.

Monochrome Monday

This week I’m sharing random photos I’ve come across again while browsing through files. Just haven’ some fun. This photo was taken on a foggy day in Wyoming at one of the three lakes on the (shared) property. The perfect reflections fascinated me. I used the Holga-ish edit in Picasa and then lightened it just slightly, which I think gives it an other-worldly feeling that I really like.

Stop!

One Word Sunday: stop

Walking Squares 11.27.22

One

One Word Sunday 10.8.22

Lens-Artists Challenge #218 – Over The Hill

Donna at Wind Kisses, creator of beauty through photos and words, is guest hosting the Lens-Artists Challenge this week in honor of her joining the over-the-hill gang in the same week. 🙂 (That includes me, so I feel free to say that.)

When somebody says to me-which they do like every 5 years- “How does it feel to be over the hill?” my response is, “I’m just heading up the mountain.” — John C. Baez

Sometimes the path leads literally over the hill as it did here in Cape May, New Jersey quite some years ago. There’s something intriguing about a path that leads through a portal, don’t you think?

Sunset in Wyoming. I was down near the cabin when I decided there might be a wonderful sunset in the offing, so I ran up a very, very long, steep hill (at 7,000’+ altitude) that the horses take some time getting up. I wasn’t over the hill but the sun certainly was. I was simply exhausted but managed to keep the camera steady.

I don’t know how I got over the hill without getting to the top. — Will Rogers

Plants that are seemingly over the hill still may manage to keep their beauty. Of course diamonds always add to that!

Sometimes “over the hill” is a bit more permanent than just being old. This is being ancient!

These rock stairs invite you to go over the hill in Descanso Gardens in California.

One early morning on the way home, the Bighorns once again stunned as I drove over the hill (think mountain and very unimproved road) and get ready to put it in first gear and head down the mountain. You never know what view might await over the hill.

Over the hill means the hardest climb is over and the view is terrific.
~found on a coffee mug

Finally, we’re now in autumn and in many places leaves are now over the hill, aging gracefully and beautifully.

Got a leg up on you

Six-Word Saturday 8.27.22

Just FYI, we’ll be at the LA men’s rugby 🏉 7s tournament, the last tournament of the year and the one that will decide who wins the championship, both today and tomorrow pretty much all day meaning I’ll be offline most of the weekend. So you know I’m not ignoring you but just having a blast! I was hoping to have a sign made but that’s going to happen. 🙁. Look for a woman wearing a stylish woven brown sun hat and a light purple/lavender long-sleeved sun shirt, sitting next to a husband looking a little like Santa (just the beard) and rooting for South Africa. P. S. He finally trimmed the beard! Hurrah! No further clues right now but he’ll be wearing red Ohio State cap. .

Friday flowers…daisies

According to my Pl@ntNet app, these are alpine daisies or if not, another sort of daisy even though we usually expect daisies to be white. But as a friend says, “You never know, you know.”

Hi, neighbor!

Once the unpacking is done, it’s time to see what neighbors are in residence. Fair warning: not every photo in this post is perfect. For instance this first one was taken in somewhat of a hurry with my phone because this neighbor is always leery of spending time in close proximity to the rest of us. But this isn’t so much about the photos but about the story told by those photos, about shy but always welcome neighbors and inhabitants of the mountains.

Although it was hot and getting close to the end of July, I was pleased to see plenty wildflowers, many of which were hosting their own guests. These guests never overstay their welcome.

The first two neighbors, although always enjoyed, aren’t as rare as these next drop-ins. Since we moved to Arizona at the end of March in 2020, the so-called monsoon season hadn’t produced much rain at all. I felt we were getting a good rain if there was enough water so that individual drops melded into the wet pavement look. (This year we’re thankfully getting lots of rain; lots for a place averaging 9″ a year.) So I was thrilled to see more drops in this photo than our back patio sometimes got in rains past at home.

Once the walk or walks are over, there’s always the porch. I like porches a lot. Spanish-style houses don’t have porches; they have patios. Patios are fine but they aren’t porches.

There are lots of good sayings about porches. Here are a few I really like.

Nowadays, people are so jeezled up. If they took some chamomile tea and spent more time rocking on the porch in the evening listening to the liquid song of the hermit thrush, they might enjoy life more. ~Tasha Tudor

True luxury is being able to own your time – to be able to take a walk, sit on your porch, read the paper, not take the call, not be compelled by obligation. ~Ashton Kutcher

My ideal summer day was reading on the porch. ~Harold E. Varmus

I dream of land, cut only where streams glistened with birdsong wander through quiet hills burnt hard by the scrape of wind, and of a porch from which a single road leads only homeward. ~Nancy E. Turner

LAPC #213: Here Comes the Sun

“Here Comes the Sun” conjures up dawn and sunrise, my favorite time to be out walking and taking photos, so thanks to Amy for the theme, although it did make it hard to choose. 🙂 So I have to interrupt the retrospective of my Wyoming vacation to go for the sunshine.

This shot was taken on my way down the mountain in Wyoming as I headed home in 2017, the day of the eclipse. As you can see, it began in a stunning way, really more beautiful than the eclipse itself.

At the Preserve here in Arizona…

Sunshine inside the house…

In the morning in Illinois…

As backlighting…