A Day Off

Yesterday I took a day off from my to-do list. I know I am retired, but I keep pretty busy with photo group work (editing a monthly newsletter, photo club decision making, meeting, more meetings, creating presentations, taking and editing photos) and genealogy (leading a group, more presentations, and actually researching my own family). I’ve had some computer issues lately which have taken a boatload of time as well, so, after finishing 3 recent projects, I decided to take a day off (Labor Day!) and do whatever I wanted to do in the moment. I did some genealogy, but then opened Lightroom and started looking for photos to edit.

Somehow, this is what I came up with- very different from my usual creations!

To explain- I am fascinated by space and regularly view the latest images from the James Webb telescope. And I have absolutely NO understanding of any of it. That’s OK with me, because the mystery of the universe is what fascinates me. This started out as an image of the inside of the dome of a church in Kansas- and somehow evolved into the image above almost before I knew what was happening! I added the sunset I photographed a few days ago, an ICM image of Alaska clouds and rain, and some photoshop brushwork.

It is what it is- however you want to interpret it.

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On the Outskirts of Oz

We stayed in the charming small town of Wamego, Kansas when visiting with Lonnie’s stepmom, Laura a month ago. Our first night there we stopped for ice cream after dinner at a cute little spot on the main street (I had the BEST root beer float!). Everyone knows everyone in town, so of course the owner knew Lonnie’s stepsister. The sun had gone down when we left and cast a magical light over this cute little town which seems to border Oz itself.

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Ascent

This abstract image was created from one shot of the pipes of an organ in a Kansas church. I was fascinated by the array of pipes arranged by diameter (it seemed…) and height in ascending order and took the photo with the intention of creating an abstract. I think there will be more- perhaps in different colors and perhaps not ascending. Stay tuned!

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Lost in Kansas

A couple weeks ago, we spent the weekend in Wamego, Kansas visiting with Lonnie’s beloved stepmother, Laura, who at age 92 is in poor health. The two full days we were there, we spent time in the mornings and early evenings with Laura and her daughter, Sue, caregiver extraordinaire, but in the afternoons we went out on some adventures. We drove to Manchester to visit the family graves and the site of the old burnt out family home, as we always do, but this time we decided to add an additional cemetery to the itinerary. Lonnie’s great-grandmother Carrie Funk Wolfe, who died when his grandmother, Irene, was only twelve years old, was buried in the Catholic Cemetery in Vine Creek, only 7 Miles from Manchester. I don’t remember how long it took to get there (an hour? 2 hours?), but what were listed as roads on Google maps, turned out to be narrow rutted dirt roads. Despite us having been raised in Kansas (Lonnie) and small-town Chico (me) and living in Arizona, which is full of dirt roads, we felt like city slickers in this area. The closer we got to Vine Creek, the more confused we became, but we got there! However, we chose to go a different way back (why?), and the directions on Google took us to a road not really there and a road ending in a gate. We basically followed our noses and eventually found a main (dirt) road that was familiar and took us straight to Manchester and the highway back to Wamego, only a half hour late.

I love the scene above which shows the beauty of Kansas farmlands. I took it to my weekly photo group and talked about converting it to a black and white, which everyone agreed would not work. Because I have been working with black and white film recently (details eventually in another post), I have been experimenting with converting more photos to black and white, as well as editing my film photos- so here is my moody version:

I think I like it better in some ways than the color version, although the color image is certainly more true to the scene.

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Tern in the Rain

When we were in Alaska, we managed to get out as often as we could despite the rainy weather. We strolled along the wooden walkways at Potter Marsh and were thrilled to see this Arctic Tern perched above the water. From time to time it would fly down to fish, but was mostly hunkered down on this stump, as the rain grew more intense. I had only seen one in the air, never on land, so it was a thrill to be able to get a photo, even this far away. I was also amazed that you can see the rain in this shot; the rain was intense!

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Prairie Castle

We will be heading to Kansas soon, which sent me back to images I have created in the past. I have a slight obsession with grain elevators and silos, and fantasize about taking a road trip through the midwest and Canada to see some of the old historic relics that are still standing. Sometimes referred to as Prairie Castles, these huge structures are visible for miles over the flat prairie. The image above started as a working grain elevator operation in Kansas, but with multiple exposure and the magic of Photoshop, I have reimagined it.

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Rainy Day on the Turnagain Arm

We have just returned from a trip to Alaska to visit our daughter’s beautiful family. Like on our first trip eight years ago, it rained most of the time. My husband and I love the views of the Turnagain Arm along the Seward highway, so did not let the rains stop us from driving on the beautiful stretch of highway between Anchorage and Girdwood. We stopped at Beluga Point and Bird Point as usual, but the rain started getting more intense and it became more and more difficult to get good photos and keep my camera dry. I ended up using the Slow Shutter app on my iPhone to capture a series of ICM images through the car window as we drove along. The raindrops on the window added interesting patterns, and I ended up being very happy with the resulting impressionistic images. This one is one of the least abstract and is one of my favorites.

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Ashes of the Past

When we visited Kansas, we drove out to the tiny farming community where my husband’s father grew up and where my husband spent large chunks of his childhood. His grandparents had died forty years before, and we had heard that the town had fallen on hard times and was no longer the same. What we discovered as we drove by was that the family farmhouse had burned to the ground and all that was left was the detached garage. I was thinking about this recently and ended up creating this composite of the garage and a photo of my father-in-law as a young teenager- with the 1940 census layered over. Just a few years later my father-in-law was off to the Navy and World War II.

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