Below, Above, Through

Seeing below and above and what lies between, like that odd space between sleeping and waking, not quite dreaming and not quite thinking, when a sliver of light parts the curtains, blown just a bit by a breeze, or the cat's shadow as she leans in to my face and for a moment I think she's something else, just a shadow.

Learning from People I Don't Know

I posted several pictures to 500px yesterday, including a heavily shadowed photo of the art studio building. Almost immediately, a photographer whose work I've admired wrote, "Very nice minimal shot, love the hard shadows." Encouraged by his compliments and inspired by similar photos, I set out today intentionally looking for hard shadows. I found plenty.

When I chat with students about university compositions, I try to distinguish between reports and essays. I think I'm finally leaving "reports" behind, and I like it.

(Until odonate season.)

Light and Shadow

The double pleasures of a clear blue sky and winter sun.

Here Comes the Sun!

Sun sun sun, here it comes!

 And here's what it does.

Good day, sunshine! I feel good in a special way. I'm in love with a sunny day!

Going Up

Last time, J accompanied me for a routine medical test; this time, she had been admitted three weeks earlier. As before, I noticed people (the nice young man who wrote down the complicated directions to J's room, the helpful nurse outside it, the strong young woman moving what appeared to be a surgical bed and who told me she's "halfway through the second week" on the job, one which she enjoys); sour and sweet smells of floor polish and cafeteria food, coffee and sickness, fear and sorrow; overheard laughter and quietly explained medical information; shadows and reflections cast by sunlight and corridor light on the hall mirrors where I was to turn right for corridor D and go up to 9 and on the hallway stone at that elevator.

Only when I came back down and walked out to Parking Level 2 did I realize the city opened up on two sides of the garage, blooming just beyond my car like a promise of renewal. 

No guarantee, of course, but I'll take it.

I See One Thing and Think of Another

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Accidental Capture

I didn't mean to, but I photographed one of my favorite thingswhen I tried to snap BigAssCat.

I didn't see them until I downloaded the picture, and then WHAM!

Like the first time I saw them, I was gobsmacked.

I am gobsmacked every time the light is just right and the air is just still.

Dust motes.

A reminder of the plentifulness of the world's stuff, taking me back to childhood when, lying on my bed, I saw for the first time that air was not empty but full -- with tiny bits of fluff and me and everything else I see, all aswirl all the time, all composed of specks of matter and energy -- and sometimes, I see them and feel cosmic connectedness, even if only for a moment.

Sometimes What December Brings Is

darkness

and

light

and 

at

times

more

of 

one

than

the

other

Bill Paying

I paid the bill.

I drove away.

I shopped.

I visited.

I drove by again.

I went up a side street.

I came down a gravel road.

I parked.

I snapped.

I backed out the wrong way.

And headed home.

Let There Be Light

Magic Show

I need no calendar, no outdoor walk, no newspaper reminder that daylight savings is sliding to its end for another year (a year of drought descending quickly into earlier darkness and then even longer darkness) because chapel architecture tells the story better than any scientific journal or weatherman's prediction or farmer's almanac, the story told in light and shadow, demarcating glass, wall, wood, metal, and cloth into the geometry of time and space.

Fall Color ABCedarian: N

NICKEL

Seriously, Wiki How?

Coping with Acute Instances of Frustration

1. Learn your triggers. That's easy: trying to use a macro lens on teeny tiny, fast-moving odes in the shadows.

2. Avoid triggers whenever possible. W-h-a-t??? How will I get better and any less frustrated by avoiding the thing that I want to learn?

3. Practice stress-management breathing. Got this one. I can barely breathe when I walk with a camera because it's so exciting.

4. Manage your expectations. (I'll leave out the "of others" part since it's expectations of myself and my photography skills.) I pretty much expect to fail right now, so I've got this one.

 5. Check in with yourself. Ask yourself questions, like "Are things really as I perceive them?" Well, yes, the pictures aren't any good. "What might I be missing here?" Skill built from practice?

6. View frustration as "delayed success" rather than "failure." Got that: If I'm not frustrated, I'm not learning anything. (But. I sure as heck can't wait till I feel the flow again.)

To wit: Twenty minutes shooting this one flower and its shadow, never quite figuring out how to frame and focus the shot.

 

One more thing, Wiki How: didn't anybody ever mention that some frustration is a good thing and actually a lot of fun?

Sometimes the most beautiful thing I've seen all day

is right next door.

I went into a hallway

and this happened.

 

A Blank Wall Isn't Always Blank

Sometimes it's a screen.

Light and Shadow

1.
In art history I learned about chiaroscuro, the art of making something two-dimensional three-dimensional through the play of light and shadow. I have seen chiaroscuro at work. I have even been as close to a DaVinci drawing as I am to my computer screen, without intervening glass.

2.
Today, walking at Lake Dimmick, I moved from light patches into shadowed patches along a sinuous path, noting on the ground (where I looked for fear of stumps, roots, snakes) the sudden fluttering of a butterfly or sailing of dragonfly, recognizing them by their shadows.

3.
I found myself thinking about other images -- decisions that weigh, family losses, friends' crises, my own existential pondering (something that has shadowed my life for as long as I can remember) -- while I walked, lost in light too bright to focus and in shadow too dark to see the path's end.

4.
Shadow and light: sometimes a beautiful balance.

Water Music

Light and water and shadow: music for eyes and ears.