Into the Unknown

The thing about intentional camera movement is that you can’t exactly predict what your image will look like- and for me, that is what makes it exciting! I play with shutter speeds, aperture and filter strength and try different movements with my camera, but I am often surprised by the end result.

In case you’re wondering… although I have been taking and editing many photos, for some reason, I haven’t been posting. I definitely am not giving up photography and am actually in five photo groups (four are meeting this week!). I will continue to post to this website- once a week? twice a week? once a month? All I can say is it will likely not be to a set schedule.

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Wild Iris

Summer came late to Alaska this year. The usual fireweed was just getting ready to bloom while we were there last month, but we were consoled by the beautiful wild iris. This multiple exposure was taken along the shoreline of Crooked Lake, where my daughter’s family has a cabin.

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Tumacacori

I don’t know why we had never visited this beautiful old mission (founded 1691) before our Tucson trip a few weeks ago. I’d seen photos, but perhaps I didn’t realize how close it was to Tucson, Tubac etc. Even on that blazing hot day, it was well worth the visit and gives you such a sense of how Arizona is connected to Mexico, with its shared history of indigenous people and Spanish colonization.

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Forest Lights

We have just returned from Alaska, where we had a delightful visit with our daughter’s family. Our grandsons are growing up- almost 13 and almost 16! Photography was not a focus of this trip, but I did manage to get some photos of the boys and some multiple exposure abstracts while we stayed at their lakeside cabin.

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Doors, flowers, color. . .

and don’t forget HISTORY! Tucson’s Barrio Viejo is a magnet for Southwest photographers and never disappoints, even with construction happening. Many of the historic buildings have been updated and restored but keep the character of the original barrio. This is a multiple exposure of two houses, still with their cracks and imperfections.

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Wildflower Impressions

I love the impressionist effect created by moving my camera while the shutter is open. It is easy, if you don’t mind taking dozens of photos to finally get a keeper! There’s a bit of skill and a lot of luck involved. This image of poppies and lupines was taken a few months ago near Saguaro Lake.

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Nesting

I took this in-camera multiple exposure several months ago. The bird was gathering nesting materials and going back and forth to the hole in the saguaro. I wasn’t sure about it as a multiple exposure at first, but it has grown on me.

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Colors of the Barrio

Last week we took a mini-vacation to Tucson and stayed in a rental right on the edge of the Barrio Viejo. Despite the heat, we took walks and spent time admiring the colorful old houses in the neighborhood. Today’s abstract is a multiple exposure tribute to the colors of the Barrio- I think the only color missing is purple.

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FYV Summer Exhibition

The Stillness, the Dancing

I am part of Find Your Voice (FYV), an online expressionist photography group created by the amazing and inspiring photographers, Valda Bailey and Doug Chinnery. I say this with absolute humility, because the majority of the group are talented and accomplished artists who exhibit and sell their work in galleries, and I am one of the new kids on the block, learning as I go.

FYV’s summer exhibition opened today! We could submit up to three images in response to TS Eliot’s poem, Wait Without Hope (see below). Valda and Doug chose which of our images to include in the show.

Because the online group is spread out across the globe (mostly UK, Europe, and US, I think), the exhibition is virtual. You can view it here: https://artspaces.kunstmatrix.com/en/exhibition/11861520/fyv-summer-exhibition

It takes a few minutes to get the hang of “walking” around the gallery. I recommend clicking NEXT rather than clicking and dragging; at least it worked best for me. Please visit when you have time to browse- there is some amazing art to see and inspire you!

Wait Without Hope

By: T.S. Eliot

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.

T. S. Eliot, East Coker

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