Broken Armed Photographer

My apologies to you who have been awaiting my next reflection.  I broke my right (dominant) arm a couple of weeks ago, and using a keyboard one handed has been a challenge not to mention many other aspects of life like brushing my teeth, cutting my meat and so on.  I’m learning a lot and among the things I’m learning are patience with the healing process and how much small kindnesses make a difference.

During this time, I have learned two photography related lessons.  I went to Cheekwood with a friend.  I didn’t take my camera because I couldn’t hold it.  While we were there she took out her iphone and started taking pictures.  I kept seeing things I wanted to photograph .  Finally I took out my iphone too.  Holding it in my left hand with my little finger supporting the iphone at the bottom and the first three fingers supporting it from the back, I could touch the shutter button with my thumb.  I hadn’t planned on making images but I had to take them.

The other thing I have noticed is that I still keep seeing beauty and lines and textures and light, even when I’m not making images.  I love the Dorothea Lange quote, "The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera."  So the photo for this week is the one you see with your own eyes.  May your life be especially enriched these next few days by what you “see”.

Abstracts

Often people who look at some of my abstract photographs ask, "What is it?" Although I am usually willing to tell them what "it" was, I also suggest that a better question might be, "How do you feel when you look at it?"  Abstract photography is not representational as much as it is invitational. It’s about what happens in you when you see it.

Having said that I must confess that sometimes when I see one of my abstract images for the first time that takes my breath away, I can't tell you what the specific feeling is.  I just know I really like that particular image. The feeling is more amorphous or perhaps nameless at least in the moment. But something happens in me when I see it. If I work at it, I can come up with the words to name the feeling or feelings.

I think about three major kinds of abstract photographs: realistic abstracts, camera movement abstracts and composites. This one is a realistic abstract in that it is an actual shot of something which because of the subject matter or way it is shot it seems to have an abstract quality to it. This image is that kind of abstract.  I like the colors and shapes, the shapes within the shapes and the sense of calm in it.

Next time I’ll discuss camera movement abstracts.

A Gift

What I especially like about this shot is it's almost stained glass feel yet with a softness of the colors.  I took it in the Conservatory at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania.  I had been setting up a shot of an orchid.  I looked through my viewfinder, saw this image and was absolutely blown away.  I clicked.  This kind of experience of seeing a view through my camera's viewfinder that I did not expect and that I really like is happening more frequently.  It feels like pure gift.  It's one of those times, as Dewitt Jones suggests, you yell at the top of your lungs, "Thank you!" I wonder if it would happen more often if I were more open to it.

What happens in your life that feels like pure gift?  How do you express thanks? How do you stay open to such experiences?  How many times each day, each week do we miss the gift?

Shades of the Palouse

The Palouse is the beautiful agricultural area in the south eastern corner of Washington state.  I learned on the internet that the average farm there is 4,000 acres and the main crops are wheat, lentils, canola and dried peas.  I was there for a week the end of June just in time to see some of the wheat turning from green to golden.  I saw in some fields the wheat on top of the hills had turned while the sides of the hills were still green.  It was intriguing, engaging and beautiful.

This particular image was one of my favorites from my time there.  It shows the many shades of color in the crops and fallow fields as well as those places where some of the wheat in the same field has started to turn golden while there is still green wheat too.  In addition to the range of colors, I also love the overall softness and calm of the image.

Mountain Reflections

Not too long ago I spent a week in the Canadian Rockies.  What a beautiful part of the North American continent that area is!  There were wide valleys where the mountains were farther away and narrow valleys where the mountains seemed closer and much more intimate even though they towered above.

There were lakes of incredible color depending on the water source and the particular glacial silt that flowed into each.  In fact the colors can be almost unbelievable.  So much so that someone asked me if I had raised the color on one image, but I hadn't.  The lake really was that color.

The question that kept coming to me was how the mountains--especially such huge ones-- effected the people who lived in the area.  How were their personalities influenced by looking at the mountains every day?  How was their souls influenced?  Did their outlook on life reflect their mountain heritage?  And then I had to ask how the humidity dense river valley and rolling hills where I grew up effect me.  Certainly what "home" feels like is influenced by my early  geography.  It seems to be a subtle influence but one nonetheless.

How does where you live influence who you are, what feels right to you and what feels like "home"? 

Where Wild Things Grow

This image was recently published in a book of poetry called Where Wild Things Grow by W. Craig Gilliam.  One of my favorite few lines from the book is from a poem called "Venus".

"... an invitation,
a slight tear in the vale between two worlds,
a different path through a land we once
knew so well."

For more information go to https://www.facebook.com/wherewildthingsgrowbywcraiggilliam or buy it at your local bookstore or on Amazon.  I hope it feeds your soul.

Church Window

Although I have been making images for several years, I had never been much into abstract art or abstract photography until recently.  Gradually I have developed a passion for abstract photo images, and I love making them.  Here is one of my newest.

I used the Burst Mode app on my iphone.  It was set to take ten exposures a half a second apart.  Of the ten exposures, I selected 5 to be combined to make this image. I like being able to choose which images of the 10 to combine rather than having to use them all.

There are so many colors, lines and angles.  I feel both excitement and a sense of containment.  It bends and moves and changes a lot like life does.