Photo 101 – Day Ten: Mystery & Lighting Effects

Today, share an image that creates a sense of mystery. Intrigue us with uncertainty.

Today’s Tip: To stretch yourself, manipulate the light available to you to create a particular effect — use it to cast shadows and highlights to create a moody image. Work with natural light, or find an artificial light source

When you’re lost and forever feeling too deeply
Open your eyes to a world of beautiful wonder,
The greatest treasures are found
On a journey in which those feelings are followed.

Follow your own path

 

Photo 101 – Day Eight: Natural World & Leading Lines

A good photographer is a constant observer: always watching and studying a scene, from patterns in city traffic to movements in nature.
A photographer notices big, sweeping changes — like the sky at dusk — but also the tiniest details, like the subtle bends in bare branches in the Nevada desert:
Capture the natural world with your camera: document a moment outside, big or small. From a panorama snapped during your morning hike to a close-up of a leaf in your yard, we invite you to document this wondrous world around us.

I read these words “A good photographer is…” for my next assignment and I froze. That ugly negative voice appeared in my head telling me – well — I won’t tell you what it was telling me and I rather tell you that I pushed those thoughts aside and went hunting. 🙂
This is my interpretation of my natural world, the natural lines the stormy clouds created with the sun behind them and the moon rising above.

Photo 101 – Day Four: Bliss

What is your idea of bliss? Is it an image of your family, laughing at the dinner table? A state of total relaxation, while lying on the beach? Your latest painting, drying on the canvas?

Bliss: complete happiness, great joy, paradise, or heaven.

 

How could I choose a single moment of bliss?

“I could no sooner choose a favorite star in the heavens.”

A refreshing ocean breeze;
A warm sunshine;
A drop of rain;
A wave of joy;
A captivating sunset
A glimmering moon;
A friend’s shoulder;
A child’s laughter;
A beautiful smile;
A soft whisper;
A lover’s kiss…

I simply cannot choose just one
Please don’t ask me to.

Blogging 101 – Day Four: Identify Your Audience

We often create posts hoping that someone in particular will see (and appreciate) our work. Today, publish a post you’d like that person (or people) to read — and stretch your blogging chops as you do.

Today’s Assignment: publish a post you’d like your ideal audience member to read, and include a new-to-you element in it.

My first impulse was to write that I don’t create posts hoping that someone in particular will see them! I even told my bestie that I was going to write how my blog is for myself, how I post for myself, not anyone else. Oh boy, I was going on a tangent.
Yes, I stepped on my soapbox and ranted away. My poor friend. 🙂
Then as I started to write, I realized that I do have someone in particular that I want to see my posts.

I will let my picture and words speak for themselves…

Photo 101 – Day Three: Water

We have different relationships to and stories about water: how it has saved or defeated us. How it reminds us of family vacations, outdoor adventures, or the hot summers of our childhood. How it might symbolize a place we’ve left behind, or a location we dream to go.

Oh, ocean
Take me away
Enfold me in your waves
Steal me away from the shore

Freeze me
Numb my pain
Let me drown
In your vastness

Let me sink
To the bottom of the ocean
Let me experience
All that you have to offer

Photo 101 – Day One: Home

When I hear the waves
When the sea wind kisses my skin
I know
When I am here
I am home…

Rare Glimpses

Our sunset is absolutely stunning
As I get a preview of your splendor
You leave me so I can shine bright

Even in the midst of the darkness that surrounds me
My stars always will tell me stories of you
And your day clouds will recite great tales of me

I really couldn’t ask for anything more
I will treasure those rare glimpses
When you are setting and I am rising.

 

Battle between feeling and not

Some days as I watch the sun set
I feel everything at once
Other days when I am at home
I feel nothing at all

I do not know what is worse
Drowning in the lake
Or
Perishing from the unquenchable thirst

It is a constant battle
A war between
Remembering and forgetting
Somewhere between happiness is found

The Sky Will Shine Again

Too say that I miss you would be too much
Too say that I love you would be too far
Too say I want your arms around me and pull me close would be too cruel

What I want… is not able to be given
What I need… must be put aside
As each day lingers and each night falls… I slip into a darkness

Much too dark to ever shine
Abandoned, desolated, forsaken
I collapse only to rise again

Fire in the sky

A golden stained sky Silhouettes outlined Against a horizon unbound As the sun bids A long goodbye Light dies a crimson death.