Weekly Photo Challenge: The Golden Hour

I took my husband over to the ER last Wednesday to see about why his feeding tube apparatus was coming apart. We were there for 8 hours (not including the hour drive each way to get there) at the end of which they recommended that we go back to Portland where they had installed it because they weren’t familiar with this type and so couldn’t say whether it could be repaired or not. Or even what was going on specifically.

But the drive home was pretty 😛

Rainbows

I try to do my small part to eliminate stereotypes. Any stereotypes, but the one I’m most familiar with is gender.

One thing that is often talked about is the colors. Boys get blue and girls get pink. There is a strict division along gender lines in everything you can find in a store today.

One thing that blogs I follow (like Pigtail Pals) often say is that colors are for everyone. For instance, my son has pink shoe laces. If we wanted to reinforce these gender stereotypes, we might deter him from them.

But, colors are for everyone.

I really do believe that.

Except.

As an artist, the truth is that all the colors are for me.

And some days it’s perfectly okay to keep all the colors for yourself.

Like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Self Portrait Saturday: Brave

I think I mentioned a while ago that I was having my photographer friend, Erin take some photos of me. She did a fabulous job for me, and while the main impetus for the pictures was an art project I’m working on, she took some great photos that  turned out even better than I’d expected.

So, in the  interest of my journey toward self acceptance and confidence through self portrait, I am going to share them here.

 

 

 

 

 

In the interest of full disclosure, I will say that some of these have been photoshopped just the tiniest bit. And I only mention it because I am adamant that while photoshop is a wonderful tool, I think it is highly abused in the media. To the point that I think it’s criminal. But that is a rant for another day. So here is the original for the top one, which has the most changes. They are not over done and I love the pictures.

Labeling

I’ve been taking an History of Photography class. It’s been really cool because I love photography. I take pictures all of the time. And not just of the kid either. I was always kind of hard pressed to describe what type of pictures I take. I take a little bit of everything. Landscapes. Portraits. Fine Art. Mostly just things I like that have a cool shape or form or look interesting or funny.

Last week in class we learned about a type of photography that I’d never heard of: Street Photography. When the camera became more mobile, photographers did as well. They were interested in the truth of what was there. Not a lot of editing in the darkroom. The seeing is the thing. and not just on the Street. It can be anywhere, as long as you are looking around at what’s there and capturing it.

I am so happy to finally have a category! So I went right out the next day and took a gazillion more.

Here are a few:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chasing the Moon

Yesterday I was chasing the moon home and managed to sneak a couple of cool shots.

As the sun was setting behind me…

The moon had risen ahead of me.

~*~

1,2,3.

Lighted.

Time and Tide…

Obscured.

Tickle.

Perspective.

Modern Landscapes

I take a lot of pictures. As it happens, I live in a picturesque place. Beautiful mountains are definitely camera and canvas fodder for any artist in the vicinity. Including me. But as I take all these pictures, I stumbled across an interesting idea, which I am probably going to develop into a series as I come across them. Here are a couple photos from my (soon to be) Modern Landscape Series:

The Three Sisters

Our landscape has seven major peaks in it’s skyline. Three of them are grouped together and known as the Three Sisters. This is a picture of them.

Dawn’s Early Light

Rise and Shine

The Remains of the Day

Day is Done

Photos of Phorms

or fotos of forms would work alternately, I suppose. here are a few pictures I’ve taken in the last while that mostly have to do with shape and form.

 

 

 

 

 

The Camera’s Focus

I take a ton of pictures. I mean, really a lot. For example, I received a new camera for my birthday in March. It keeps a running tally of the pictures and numbers the photos accordingly. We are getting really close to 9000. I thank my lucky stars that somebody invented the digital camera. I would not be able to feed my camera addiction without it. Aside from the prohibitive cost,film cameras from shot to print was always too many steps for me to get done. I will say in my defense that a lot of those pictures happened because I take a lot of pictures of Child C playing sports. I set my camera on continuous so it will keep taking pictures as long as I hold down the button. That way I can maybe get a shot of the action. But I get a lot of extra shots, too. The ones right before or after the one good one. But I was always frustrated by missing the shot and this way I don’t nearly as often.See?

What you don’t see is the seven more shots of the splash that continued after this. So I claim the 9000 number to be an inaccurate portrayal of my picture obsession. (Let’s not bring up the fact that I also take photos on my phone, ok?)

Having a camera, for me, can help me to bridge a gap that I might feel in a social setting. It’s gives me something to be doing besides making small chat. Or, it can give me something to chat about so I don’t have to think up something else. Occasionally, it gives me an excuse to offer an invitation to friend someone on Facebook when I otherwise might not have the nerve to ask them. It can give me a little breathing room as well. Offering me a filter through which to view things when I need a little space. I’ve known that the camera I carry is more than just a picture taking machine for me for a while now.

I just realized last week, however, that I also use this device in another way. Last week I forgot my camera at home (the horror!). I found that it was really difficult for me to keep my attention on the game the whole time. It was just too long and there were too many other things going on for me to keep from being distracted. When I was younger, I always had a book in my hand in case I needed something to do. Now I carry a camera or (and) a smart phone to fill the same need. (Scrabble for Android, I’m talking to you.) I realized that I borrow the camera’s focus so that I don’t miss the game. I know that sometimes I don’t see everything when I’m looking through the camera lens. The world is a wide open space and the viewer box cannot see all of it. But I think it’s a fair trade to put on some blinders to be able to see what I need to focus on.

 

 

The ocean, me, and the family.

Here are some pictures from mom’s memorial two weekends ago.

 

 

 

 

 

That’s the sand memorial my aunt spent all day building for her sister. We helped, too. But she started at around 9 am and went until around 4 when we left. My son’s sculpture is still there in this shot. He later moved it over by his little sand castle area that you can see him building up there in the left hand corner.

That is Rusty, mom’s dog, in the box on the left. My salt sculpture in the center. Mom is on the right.

 

I think I’ll stop there.

For now.

Fireworks at Home

Until I moved here, I always lived in places where home fireworks were essentially illegal. I remember as a kid we had “snakes” which hardly move at all and short “sparklers” which are cool, but fairly safe as well.

I remember hearing about people going to get illegal fireworks from the Reservation, but never knew anything more than that about it.

Here you can have fireworks at home. I think they aren’t supposed to come off of the ground. (Do you hear me, neighbor?)

Last year it was so windy that we never got to light our fireworks. Nearly every year we do them late because of the wind.

This was probably the first year we actually did them on the 4th. I was also excited to learn a couple tips for taking fireworks photos.

So without further ado:

This one was before I remembered to change the setting on my camera off of “Sunset” mode. Sunset=saturated colors. Turned out kinda cool.

I♥this one. Especially how the sparks formed a heart 🙂

Hmm…this one looks familiar somehow….?

This may be why. 😀

Sometimes less is more.

Stop staring at me.

pretty.yep.
ooh!

aah!

The End.