On the Farm

I’ve been revisiting and editing older photos since we started staying at home during the “new normal”. I’m getting the itch to go out and shoot some new photos, but realize that for now any new photos will likely be limited to flowers, still life and maybe a hummingbird if I’m lucky.

I was so happy to find this image from last years stay at the lavender farm in New Mexico. I have a great love for photographing barns and silos and don’t get the opportunity too often. So actually staying on a lavender farm and having the time to wander around with my camera was heaven!

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Sunset Drive . . . and Banana Bread

The light was beautiful as we took a drive by the lakes last evening. We stopped for a few quick iPhone shots of Willow Lake, and then headed home for some banana bread I had baked earlier. Our last instacart order had provided us with 5 bunches of bananas instead of 5 single bananas (I’m not complaining- we’re ALL frazzled…), and yesterday was the day they were ripe enough for baking and freezing. We now have an abundant supply of frozen bananas for smoothies, pancakes, and baking!

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Easter Quail

Last night as we were getting ready for our Easter dinner, I spotted a quail kind of hunkering down in a clay pot near the patio. I grabbed my camera and took a series of photos through the window as he fluffed his feathers to warm himself in the wind. When I looked through the resulting photos, I realized that he had gradually made himself fluffier during the quick photo session. My photographer friend, Carol, had recently informed me that a fat bird is called a BORB and a fluffy one a FLOOF. So my Easter quail had transformed himself from a borb to a borb that is also a floof in a matter of seconds- your Fun Facts for today!

This was a fairly mundane image, so I decided to try some creative edits to create an image to submit today to my photo group. I have been working on creating textures for the last few months, so I made a custom background for the quail, starting with a copy of the original image and adding a painted texture and a Topaz Impression chalk drawing filter. I finished it off with a clipping mask border, another skill I’m working on.

 

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One or the Other

I love the smooth water color look of the reflection contrasted with the tangles of the weeds on shore. These days my brain sometimes feels like those tangled weeds- a million jangled thoughts and worries. But I do prefer the watery reflection.

We are doing fine, trying to stay calm like the water. I hope you all are doing well!

Captured at Watson Lake here in Prescott- and edited as an abstract.

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Be the Light

 

I’m joining Kim Klassen’s Texture Tuesday again to share a photo I took in January with a new edit using textures she sent out just last night.  I am also using Kim’s words as my blog post title.

So everyone, let just be the light!

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Muted

Although there were signs of Spring in the blossoming of fruit trees, Winter still had us in its grip last week. Days were cold with a few snow flurries, and the bare branches gave little evidence that it is Spring according to the calendar. The muted colors of this scene off the Peavine trail at Watson Lake reflect our muted lives these days, as we adhere to social distancing and develop new routines in our individual houses.

For me, these days are revolving around connecting with friends and family through phones and internet, planning and eating meals, hand washing (washing everything, it seems), ordering groceries online, editing photos, doing some organizing projects, and streaming and binge-watching TV series. It’s still a good life- it’s just pared down to the basics.  So each day we choose to practice gratitude, appreciate our loved ones, focus on the positive and enjoy life as it is right now.

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Flattening the Curve

Like most of you, we are staying home, trying to avoid getting exposed, and only going outside for occasional walks or drives. We are getting into a routine of exercising at home, doing a few clean-out projects, planning and eating meals, keeping track of our supplies, communicating online and by phone with family and friends, watching the news (Lonnie), editing photos and doing genealogy, and streaming shows at night. This whole thing would be so much more difficult in the pre-internet age- there’s lots to be grateful for!

 

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Nature Heals

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread,
places to play in and pray in,
where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.

                                                             ~John Muir

Kim Klassen, my very first photography mentor and whose video tutorials taught me Photoshop nine years ago, has brought back her Texture Tuesday linkup! When I saw the announcement last night, I leapt at the opportunity to download her free textures and participate! I have gotten away from still life and have ventured into other areas of photography, but am so, so grateful to come back to Kim’s special world, especially NOW! Thank, you Kim!

https://kimklassen.com/texture-tuesday-2-o-is-here/

 

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Social Distance

Today’s photo was taken on February 27 on Newport Beach, and how things have changed since then! Even then, we were very aware of the looming health crisis and had brought hand sanitizer and lysol wipes with us to California, but how quickly things have escalated! We barely leave the house ( have gone on two walks), and we have never felt so far away from our children and grandchildren. We are keeping busy with projects that have been long-postponed- mostly going through boxes of photos and videos- trying to put some order to a an almost 50 year collection of our photos and movies and another 50 year collection of my parents’- and then the photos from earlier generations and extended family. We are avoiding the stores, but at some point will have to risk it, I guess.

When I first edited this image a couple weeks ago, I saw it as a peaceful beach scene- but now I see it in the context of social distancing. The mother and child are each looking out of the scene- at other people? at the empty beach? I added a slight frame to emphasize their containment within their own little 6-10 foot space.

My hope is that we all emerge from our separate spaces into a kinder, gentler world- and are truly grateful for our families, our health, our friends, and our planet!

Be safe and well, my friends! And stay home!

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