Looking Out Of The Window

"Enlarge your windows till you get a window where you can see the whole universe with one look!"

~Mehmet Murat ildan

I reached all the way back into the archives for this photo! It's from, 2006. I was at my psychiatrist's office, and we were having a good session. Actually, let me fix that, I was having a good session. We implies she needed to be in therapy with me, but she, of course, didn't need to be in therapy with me, at all. Anyway, it was April, a weird month for me to be doing well, because I can't stand spring, and lets face it, April is dead center in the middle of spring, but for whatever reason, that I can't remember, it was a good day. I was having a good day. How do I know it was? Well, because as I was tip-toeing through the photography archives, I found a different version of this photo, and it was titled...

 "On A Good Day"

I was still pretty inside myself back then. I had the camera, and a blog, but I still didn't feel like engaging with anyone who didn't live in a little box on my desk. But I realized looking at this photo, that as inside myself as I was, I still saw everything in the world in living color. The trees, the house across the street, life on Durant street in Berkeley was in full living color. That was big, in that I had been dealing with Anhedonia in the previous years. Anhedoina is painful, if you live for photography. In my case, I couldn't match colors, everything appeared in black and white. Well, that's not right, see, I saw the colors, they just didn't make any sense to me. 

I couldn't make colors go together properly. Nothing looked right. But by the time I took the photo above, I had been healed. I saw colors again, and understood their meaning. Green trees. Red trees. A blue sky. All things I saw, while I was ill, but couldn't comprehend. It was there, but it wasn't. Anyway, it was a very good day, the day I took that photo. I was happy enough to take a photo of an open window, on a sunny day, in Berkeley, California. And I kept taking photos, but it was all different, because I can pick up the camera on good and bad days now, and the only variable is my energy, and will, to do so and therein lies my continued struggle.

I took these photos, on the same good day, all those years ago, and they still make me smile. Hair is my favorite movie, so it was a lot of fun to spot the soundtrack to it, in a window, in Berkeley. As a matter of fact, it was also out of my therapist's window, on a different side of the office. I thought it was such a strange place to see the soundtrack of Hair! In Berkeley. In a window. In 2006! I wish I could have gotten a clearer picture, but I was dealing with the two windows, a fair distance apart, but it's kinda awesome to me all the same. I snapped the photo, and smiled most of the rest of that day. God, life is mighty strange sometimes. Take my advice, look out of more windows... even if you don't feel like it!

The universe was definitely speaking to me that day.

Side 2. Song 1.

Where Do I Go?

Sung by John Savage

"Hair"

~Mood: Quiet

~Me

 

Eurasian-Collard Dove

"Quotes are echos of voices transporting

 wisdom, humor, and love. 

Returning again to the human condition,

 fleeting once more as a dove."

~Ryan Lilly

I spotted this gorgeous, Eurasian-Collard Dove, last June, but just didn't get around to posting it until now. I am not sure why, but I guess I was hoping to get a closer shot, or one with perhaps a better background, but I just didn't spot another one before the end of last year. So, click the link below, to learn a little more about this gorgeous dove, including the sound of it's cooing! It's so pretty, I almost couldn't take my eyes off of it!

Eurasian-Collard Dove

June 10th, 2018

Stockton, California

Nikon

                                                 

Mood: 

~Me  :)

I Am A Very Active Shutterbug... 2586 Seconds

"When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence."

~Ansel Adams

2586 seconds. Going all the way back to 2005. Those seconds actually became more minutes than I can count, if you factor in editing, and posting, and searching for the exact quote to fit with the picture, that set the mood for my postings here on Ellipsis. I kept that Flickr account for folks who would rather look than read. I understood that preference. Sometimes I didn't really want my blog words to overshadow the point of my photography. And sometimes I just didn't have the words. Sometimes it's the photo that needs to be what make the point, and if you've truly captured a moment that can yell louder than words, then you've accomplished something as a photographer... well... at least as... "a would be, hopeful, semi-professional photographer."

That quote was from The Stepford Wives. It was the character of, Joanna Eberhart, explaining to the local welcome lady, who also had her own column in the local paper, where newcomers to the village were introduced to the community, that that was who she was as a person. But even after that quote was given to the columnist, Joanna was still described in the paper as a... "newcomer to Stepford, and very active shutterbug." When I watched that scene, I realized that Joanna and I both shared the same dream, the dream to be remembered one day, through our photography. But as it turned out for Joanna, that would never happen. I don't want to give away what her husband had in mind when he moved them to Stepford, in case you are one of the 4 people who doesn't know the story, but here is a hint, Walter Eberhart, like the rest of the men of Stepford, suffered from deadly case of chauvinism. Deadly for Joanna, that is!

I have never known a minute, or second of that. For most of the 2586 seconds that it took to create those photographs, Alan was right by my side. He was the one who put the camera in my hand, and drove me anywhere I wanted to go, just so I could create something, anything, that would replace the debilitating psychological pain I was in. I went through one of those life changing events, that some folks don't come back from. At one point I had sunk so far into despair, that I ended up with Anhedonia, and it was at that point, he encouraged me to step outside myself, and into the seconds that go by. And, as it turned out, it was all those seconds adding up, that gave me my heart and mind back. It was hard as HELL to find something to care about, but we took it slow, and after a while I began a blog on AOL Journals where I could put words and pictures together, and within a year or two, I was well on my way to healing.

After AOL Journals folded up, I migrated over here to Blogger, along with several of my AOL friends, and also to Flickr to display my photos. I am still in contact with several of them, but we lost my friend Steven, back in 2009. I loved him, and he was an amazing friend and mentor when it came to my photography. I wouldn't be nearly as good today, had it not been for his encouragement and help when it came to some of the technical aspects of taking a decent photograph. I miss his friendship, and I think about him often. He was an amazing photographer, and he had a gentle soul. He and Alan both guided me along with the healing that needed to happen. Alan in real life, and Steven in my Internet life. So, unlike Joanna Eberhart, it wasn't the men in my life that held me back, instead it was the men in my life that helped me flourish as a photographer, and as a person!

But back to why I have that picture posted. It seems that the free Flickr accounts will only be able to display 1,000 photos, beginning on January 9th. That meant I needed to download my my collections or risk losing them. So I have been a bit busy the last few days, and I will continue to be busy for the next several weeks as I bring them over to Google Photos and arrange them in some sort of album groupings that make sense. And yes, one day the bottom will fall out of that as well, but you see, "I am a very active shutterbug" and therefore it's just something I have to deal with. It's tough being a "would be, hopeful, semi-professional photographer." But when all those seconds add up, its more than worth it!

~Mood: Happy/Thankful

~Me  :)

Memento Mori

"All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person's (or things's) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt."

~Susan Sontag

Memento Mori

(Remember You Must Die)

It's time to close 2018. It's so strange how every year has the same amount of days, with the exception of leap years, and yet each year can seem to defy reason and science, by appearing to go by faster or slower than what the calendar says. That's always been a true phenomenon, but never like the last few years. There is time and then there is Trump Time. Trump Time... where days seem like months, and months seem like years.

Trump time is exhausting, and kinda scary. I feel myself aging at a much different rate, but then again, maybe I am just feeling my age more as I grow older. I am not sure how I will feel when this mess is finally over with, and I am not even sure it will ever be over with, so all I can do, is the best I can do, to hold onto my sanity, and thank God that my camera helps me do just that! It helps me process what needs to be felt and done to move forward with life.

In looking through my photos for 2018, I found I had a lot more good days with the camera, than bad. This year was eye opening, in many ways, but nothing was more eye opening than having a Stockton Police officer, knock on your door, LOUDLY, at 7:30 AM, as they chased two carjacking suspects through your backyard and into your pool house! SHIT! At first, I thought it might be the Secret Service, pounding on my door, because of some mistaken remark I made online, led to an investigation of me for threatening the president! Had I gone and done it this time? Had I finally been too damn mouthy on Twitter? Was that third time calling the president a SHITGIBBON going too far? Was this, finally, my arrest?

It, of course, wasn't, but I can imagine the day that it could be that happening. Not that I go around threatening Trump, but what's in my head doesn't matter, it's how he chooses to interpret things, that matters, right? That's another scary, surreal thought, that anything that one says online, could be used against them in such a frightening way. I had to be dead, because everything was just surreal! It made for a bad day, but that day was a necessary evil, because that scary day finally got it through to me that I wasn't dead, and that everything happening in the world was, indeed, real. Including a carjacking suspect, hiding out in my pool house!

You see, that had been my assumption, since before Donald Trump became president, but especially after he took the oath of office! Every single day of his presidency has rolled from one surreal day, to the next, each filled with one FRESH HELL, after another. So one day, in a fit of exasperation, I said out loud to myself... "When did I die?" I felt in that moment that life had become so surreal, that I couldn't possibly be alive! And I went forth with that delusion until that fateful day, the carjackers went through my backyard!

Great! I'm alive. All This Is Real!

Well, autumn and vacation came around, about four and six weeks later, respectively, and it was time to pick up the camera again, for both my sanity, but for the love of all things autumn, which traditionally includes the annual cascade of leaves, our anniversary and our vacation. I couldn't have an autumn where I didn't search out leaves for my project,  and I felt like if I did skip a year, that it seemed like I would be giving up. I am not quite at that point yet, but I get tired, often, and just want to walk away and never look back! Stick my head into a book, and not come out. 

Never watch another news/political analysis show again. Never go back to Twitter. Never engage in the real world again, but I know I couldn't do that. Sometimes I feel stuck in reality, a place where being aware of life is a good thing, but in this case, is the last place I would ever want to be thinking straight. Fantasy, for too long a time isn't healthy. Reality, especially now, definitely isn't healthy for too long a period of time, unfortunately, that doesn't leave much time.

I guess photography is my best vehicle for surfing fantasy and reality. I did some photos this year that I really care about. Most of them done during autumn, but certainly not exclusively. I am going to try to do some kind of photography, at least once a week this year. It can be difficult to find the right subjects, so I am going to attempt some artsy photos of average, if not mundane, subjects around the house. If Andy Warhol can make art out of a soup can, why can't I?

 What I Saw In 2018...

In No Particular Order

Military Submarine Outlook Station 

Circa WWII

HWY 1 South of San Francisco

October 24th, 2018

The "Bijou"

Our home theater, finally finished.

July 15th, 2018

Rare Mammatus Cloud Formation

And A UFO?

December 24th, 2018

Stockton, California

There's No Mail, Like Snow Mail

Camino, California

March 2nd, 2018

My Favorite Autumn Leaf Portrait

November 17th 2018

Stockton, California

Beware Of Snakes In A Cemetery

Ione Public Cemetery

Ione, California

 October 24th, 2018

My Favorite Book Of 2018

"Fear" By Bob Woodward

Dippin Dots

Cannery Row

Monterey California 

October 17th 2018

My Favorite Autumn Sunset

October 24th, 2018

Ione, California

My Favorite Black And White Photo

June 10th, 2018

Stockton, California

My Favorite Leaf Of The Day

"Fleur-Di-Lis"

December 9th, 2018

Stockton, California

My Favorite Public Art Piece

"Peace" By Stephen Kaltenberg

 October 21st, 2018

Sacramento, California

My Favorite Church Photograph

Ione Catholic Cemetery

Ione, California

October 25th 2018

My Favorite Cemetery Photograph

Ione Public Cemetery

Ione, California

October 25th, 2018

 
Angel Monument

Ione Public Cemetery

Ione, California

October 25th 2018

The Old Frosty

Ione, California

August 25th, 2018

Blue Bunting

September 2nd 2018

Davenport, California

 Early Winter Sunset

December 24th 2018

Stockton, California

"Incoming"

Pacific Grove, California

October 17th, 2018

Art Deco Glass Panel

The Orinda Theater

October 11th, 2018

Orinda, California

Smoke From The Camp Fire (Paradise, California)

 Turned The Moon An Eerie Shade Of Red

A Bright Red Glow OF The Sun, Filtered With Smoke From The Camp Fire, Reflecting OFF The Bricks Of Preston Castle

November 11th, 2018

Ione, California

Happy Independence Day 

July 4th, 2018

Stockton, California

Open Window

October 24th 2018

Lockeford, California

And there you have it! The year 2018 in photographs. On to yet another year, but hopefully, the new year will bring a lot more good news, than bad, and maybe even some clarity and hope. You just never know what will be waiting for you. Maybe I will take my best photograph ever! Or perhaps I will be in the right/wrong place at the right/wrong time to capture an image that will be something truly unique or historic! Or maybe I will just continue to photograph things I love, and just try to make it through another year of my life. It's all good. But, I am reminded daily of, Memento Mori.

It's Life.

Happy New Year

2019

~Mood: Quiet

~Me :)