Hanging out with squares

You could say I've been making the [re]acquaintance of squares ...

as silly as it sounds, Instagram might be to blame.  Which won't make much sense to

non-users so to clarify:  Instagram, the online mobile photo-sharing & networking service,

has the distinctive feature of confining photos to a square format.

If you want to post there your image must fit into a square

so if you didn't shoot it that way to begin with, it's resized to fit.

Remember the Polaroids of old?

Framing within the rectangular 4:3 aspect ratio almost exclusively for most of my life

left me, at first, fighting for elbow room within this equal-sided confined space.

But before too long, I wondered what was so bad about a little size challenge anyway? 

Surely this leap wasn't going to be as great as dumping my film cameras

in trade for digital?

That was enormously difficult.

Fast forward a year or so ...

Forward through a whole lot of practice/editing time

while commuting on the ferries,

forward through lots of "window seat" opportunities to try this, try that, ask what if ...

Alternative worlds were tried on - my app-aholic time, I called it.

It took a while to sort of tweak my viewpoint

but making the subject matter fit into a

perfectly

symmetrical

BOX

finally became not such a conscious struggle.

So what's come from all this?

A hefty file of ferry photos for one ...

During all weathers, ranges of light, in transit & not;

daytime, mid-darkness to ethereal at midnight; 

looking up, behind, out, across the rails or beyond -

laden with tourists in the high season,  deliciously empty & silent in the off ...

and at times, strangely decorated ...

My island wandercloth became a textile installation afloat

near Waldron Island

[yup, there's an app for that].

Somewhere along this mobile photography journey I began to follow an info-packed blog

called, "Art of Mob" compiled by Geri Centonze.  Wowza.  App reviews, tutorials,

fab interviews ... chock full.  I noticed Geri ran the occasional *challenge* on Instagram.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles  [any mode of rapid transit] was the chosen subject recently

so I thought, what the heck, I've got ferries ...

Twas the rope composition which floated me onto the  showcase

but I want to mention that I couldn't have done it without 

Distressed FX texture app ...

*  thank you  *

Now it seems the whole square option is sneaking its way into other aspects

of my once rectangular life.

'splash' went decidedly that direction without hesitation ...

and today's gathering of leaves got into the act ...

during the lineup for the seasonal portrait

they arranged themselves

just so.

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Kicking back

Been laying low ...

one moment at a time as they say while

my wonky tooth figured out what was gonna happen next.

I suppose one advantage to having a root canal during tulip season

is that driving to and fro across the Skagit valley

is nothing short of   splendid

and although I'm allergic to a large number of antibiotics

at least I am not allergic to Novocaine.

A  not-so-small blessing

that has kept me sane.

I stitched on the wishing cloth awhile

because there was calm in that

and admired the sea reflections having dance time in the belly of the boat.

But mainly I swooned over spring,

the miles of GLORIOUS color,

and although I won't be doing much of anything besides

watching my own grass grow the next couple of days

at least I tip-toed amongst them.

[apology to Tiny Tim for the lame reference]

What a surreal experience  ...  being ruled by a measly tooth.

: : :

See you a bit later.

I'm heading for the hammock.

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this moment :: two

{  this moment  }

A single photo

~ no words ~

capturing a moment from the week.

A simple, special, extraordinary moment.

A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

~ SouleMama

:::

*inspired by the Friday reflections at Amanda's

and Kim Klassen's 'Friday Finds'

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this moment

{  this moment  }

A single photo

~  no words ~

 capturing a moment from the week.

A simple, special, extraordinary moment.

A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

~ SouleMama

: : :

*inspired by the Friday reflections at Amanda's

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Texture Tuesday ... being clear

clear in our need

She never questioned her hankering for oranges, never

wondered why something in her palate or the deeper request

of her belly insisted on that handful of tart-sweet wedges.  The body is clever,

hearing so precisely its own call we don't stop to contemplate, What is this thirst?

No, we make a beeline for the fridge, find fruit, slice it open.  And yet,

this long pause before the other longings, as if these were any more

complex, as if the wild heart of our hunger couldn't possibly be met.

Isn't it enough to be clear in our need?  What else is there to know before

we reach our hand in?  What better invitation than the cells stirring from their bed,

shrugging from an old slumber, wanting, simply, to be fed?

Maya Stein

: : :

This poem from Maya Stein is one from her  10-Line Tuesday  series,

a weekly poetry practice she started in 2005 ...

there's a beautiful backlog of them  HERE.

I often like to combine her prose with one of my pictures

and link up with Kim Klassen's  'Texture Tuesday'  set ...

texture lovers may want to have a peek  OVER THERE.

: : :

Photo recipe:

Shot with an iPhone through the jeep windshield

Dynamic Light app

Snapseed app

Romantic Photo app

Kim Klassen's texture,  framed

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Working in a series

You know how it is when you've been having thoughts, but

they're not living in the forefront of your mind ... just lurking,

tucked in the way-back and not getting much attention?

I realized after I made these photos on the ferry the other day

that this had been happening with my own ideas

about

working in a series ...

 working in a series with improvisational bead embroidery

on my hand dyed cloth.

How did these photos lead to that ?

The quirky photo app that created these ghost (mirrored) images was a

lens & film combination on Hipstamatic 

~ Salvador [for Dali] lens  and the just-released Robusta film to be exact ~

and as I sat in my jeep looking at the results of this same view

illustrated three distinctly different ways 

the idea came to me

to try it on some beadwork in process at home.

I couldn't wait to get back ...

I'm thinking there's something important to be said for having purposeful focus;

deliberate intent vs. just wandering [nothing against wandering, of course];

exploring aspects of a thing, in depth, until one knows it extremely well

and can express it with clarity, a sense of direction ...

These seem like sound reasons for working on a series.

There are six of these on my work table

and I'm going to think about them more deliberately - as a group, a series -

not only how they relate to one another, but what story they tell as a whole.

They are, after all, cut from the same cloth.

In the meantime, I'd love to read your comments about

what working on/within a series has done for you,

for your creative expression.

Has it changed how you focus?

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Putting one less-heavy foot in front of the other

We're easing into high summer ... plentiful sunshine,

zero rain (33 days & counting), warm temps and mornings influenced by

an abundant marine layer.

It's splendid being out on the water,

especially when someone else is driving.

The islands are crawling with tourists now but back on our own patch

it's dozing as usual ...

and chores

like watching the beans grow

and the wild blackberries ripen.

I made a little decision back in April - a decision that I didn't want to carry around

any extra weight anymore.  A monumental [gulp, or so it felt] birthday was

looming on the horizon, so I decided to give myself one of the biggest

gifts there is ... a lighter foot-fall. 

No one but me could give this gift.

It was high time. 

My mom struggled with her weight all her life.  We have similar small frames and

neither of us very tall.  She used to say that she imagined her extra weight as

holding 10 pound bags of potatoes ... and then she'd set them down

one by one as she worked towards her goal.

Here's my favorite cheerleader for most any venture.

So I've set down one and a half bags so far ... think I might continue on

till I'm back to my college size.  The  *lightness*  is addicting,

not wanting those spare pounds to have the better of me, a driving force.

'Specially when I need to push wheelbarrows uphill, heft pruners hither & yon

for more hours than I wish to count

and well, we won't even talk about that dang lawn mower ...

In the meantime, the front field is all ready for the Dog Club get-together

and the girlies are being put through their paces ...

good thing I left some of those potatoes behind.

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Finding the silver lining

All these many years later and I still remember something I heard

as a young student of photography ... 

Ansel Adams used to say - and I can't recall his exact words - that whatever you are focusing on,

 turn around, because the best picture might be what is behind you.

I still put those words into practice to this day

and that's what happened with this photo.

Riding the ferry, shooting the landscape from a rain spattered window

on an almost-empty passenger deck ... I turned around in my seat

and saw this sky.

Like I've done many times before, I thanked him and snapped this rear view.

And then I chuckled,

wondering what Ansel would have done with a phone camera.

:::

You don't make a photograph just with a camera.

You bring to the act of photography

all the pictures you have seen,

the books you have read,

the music you have heard,

the people you have loved.

~ Ansel Adams ~

:::

Linking with 'Friday Finds' over at Kim's place

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Looking back while moving forward

:::

how this image traveled ...

shot with iPhone,

cropped with Snapseed,

HDR effect added with Dynamic Light,

grunge & vintage added with ScratchCam,

taken into PSE for Kim's texture, 'embrace' and watermarked,

then joined the Texture Tuesday crowd over HERE

the "before" picture ...

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