Tag Archives: winter

Alternating Rhythm

I love the winter.

I love the snow and the cold, the skiing and the sledding and tromping about in a winter wonderland.

But I also love the long nights with the extra time inside to play games, read by the fire and even catch a little extra sleep.

When I was outside trying to capture the alternating rhythm in the light on the field for this week’s photo challenge, it occurred to me that maybe part of why I love winter is the alternating rhythm of my days.  With daylight hours spent up and moving in the cold weather and nights reserved for recovering by the warm fire, winter days acquire a rhythm that those long days of summer never do.

Or, maybe, it’s just that I like it when my boogers freeze.

 

 

Sun on Snow

Photographers Choice, week 5 of the Dogwood Photography Photo Challenge.

I didn’t quite capture the real warmth that the evening light leaves on the snow.

I can’t quite see that feel the evening has when the snow looks like it’s glowing golden alongside the cool blue shadows.

I missed the wintry wonder of being able to see the warmth of the sun even as your cheeks stiffen in the cold.

But that’s okay, we finally have a winter wonderland outside again and I’m happy to try again tomorrow!

Quiet Moment

Quiet Moment, week 4 of the Dogwood Photography Photo Challenge. 

I briefly entertained the idea of taking a photo of a quiet moment in my house.

There was a dog sleeping peacefully in a sunbeam.  So I snuck up with my camera to capture it. But the beep of the camera caused the dog to leap up, other dogs to run to me from all directions, and a few cats to get stepped on in the process.  The kids yelled to see what I was doing, pigeons flew in all directions, a duck got trampled in the commotion while the geese honked, the smoke detector sounded off, the radio blared and the chickens flew in circles.

Or something like that…

In reality this photo, captured outside, wasn’t that quite either, but I think it looks like it might have been, don’t you?

 

Looking Through The Lens

(It wasn’t an outright question so much as a raised eyebrow of disbelief. But you see…) 

There is a shift that my brain makes when taking pictures, where it goes from what catches the attention of the naked eye to what can be captured through the camera lens.

Some times the shift is hard to make.

It takes more concentration than I have if I’m talking or multitasking so I don’t often take many pictures in a group of people. Instead I make the shift most often when I’m on my own.

When there is no one to tell me to hurry up (except the dogs and they never mind if I fall behind) and nothing to distract me. Then when my focus shifts I can find hundreds of tiny details and shapes that I want to try and capture.

I fiddle with my camera as I experiment with the best ways for it to help me catch the possibility I see in my mind.

I bless the digital camera gods as I snap and review, fiddle and adjust, and snap some more.

Once I’ve started looking through the lens everything seems photogenic if I can just catch the right light, angle, focus, background…

When it comes time to review pictures on the computer there are more misses in my captures than keepers.

And many pictures like these geometric shapes that caught my eye…

…still look just like the rabbit poop and dried corn leaves that they really are.

(And that, Honey, is why I took a picture of rabbit poop.)

 

Color Harmony

John is color blind. Not terribly so, just enough that sometimes he tries to argue that a green sweater is grey or can’t immediately appreciate the beauty of a group of cardinals at the feeder in the snow.

John is also my editor. He proof reads, tells me when I’m not making any sense, adds lots of commas and pretty much every apostrophe you’ve ever seen on this blog (Ooo! except that last one, that one was all me!). Occasionally he helps me pick pictures. Because when you like taking pictures (I do like taking pictures) and you have a new camera (I do have a new camera) it’s easy to take 500 million pictures of a leaf and then get lost in the choosing just one process because you are so excited to show off the focal range of your new camera (true story).

Tonight I was looking through my pile of pictures to choose the picture for this week’s dogwood photography challenge.  It’s about color harmony, pairing opposites on the color wheel, mixing warm and cool colors and I had too many pictures, I needed my editor… my color blind editor…

But there is more to a picture than color, and so between all the pictures of the dead leaf stuck in the evergreen tree, and the grapefruit tree with the red watering can and a pillowcase with blue beads (and yes of course there were multiple of each) he choose this as one of his favorites. 

And it does have warm and cool colors.

So I’m going with it.

And I haven’t over thought it even a little…

Nope.

Not me.

I’ve got a color blind editor, what’s to overthink?