Autumn Leaf Of The Day #16

 

"Love the trees until their leaves fall off,

 then encourage them to try again next year."

 

~Chad Sugg

 

 

 

The Sand Between My Toes

"The beach is not a place to work; to read, write or to think."

~Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift From The Sea

Last Wednesday was an extraordinary day with the cameras. The whole day was a study in light and shadows. It was a perfect day for making mistakes. I really stretched my creative muscle, and just relaxed. I stopped here first. Point Montara State Beach, which is on the California coast, just south of Pacifica. It is just north of my favorite lighthouse at Point Montara. Isn't it lovely? And everything was coming together to just fill my soul. The air, sigh, so clean and cool, and the gentle waves were just touching my toes, but it was the sand between my toes that felt the best. It's a funny kind of magical when you can bring all your senses into your photography. Just remembering it right now, makes me feel, well, warm and happy inside. It was a good day.

Mood: Very Happy

~Me :)

Art About Town: Pleasanton, California "Special Friends"

"Special Friends" By Artist, Carol Dunford-Jackman
Pleasanton, California
January 29th 2014

"One eye sees, the other feels."

~Paul Klee

 

Yesterday, Sunday, was a bad day. When I chose the subject of, Art About Town, for today's blog post I thought my mood would be embracing all things creative and fun. It was not to be. I had a nightmare, one which allowed me to oversleep by 4 hours. Talk about a double edged sword. I got some much needed sleep, but my oversleeping meant Joey didn't come out to play until very late. In case you are new here, Joey is my new kitten. I can't let him out with the other cats I own full time, until his integration into the family is complete.

Anyway. The nightmare was silly and I have let go of it. But before I got out of bed, I found out actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman passed away. I was going to say tragically, but I think I am too pissed off to do so right now. Heroin... really? You have the world in the palm of your hand, three beautiful children, and a comfortable place to call home, and that isn't enough? Really? I suppose it is the anger stage of grief talking, but I feel like my admiration of him was seriously misplaced, because clearly he didn't find much to admire about himself.

We won't talk about the Super Bowl. 

On the other hand, as I sit here bitching away about how bad my day was, I am keenly aware of how lucky I am to have heard the pounding rain on the roof as I woke up. I woke up. I saw yesterday. I will see today. I will be able to touch someones life for the better... if I want to. Words of encouragement take the same amount of time that words of discouragement do. I want to be that person.  I want to be the person who sees that hard work in another person's labor. Especially the artist.

I think that is one of the reasons I enjoy Public Art so much. An artist sits down, considers a concept and works with their hands, sometimes for years, to bring it to existence. Then I, the viewer, gets to gaze upon that work and feel inspired to see the beauty in a sunset, or in a child's face. It's life affirming! Art creates a joyful noise in the soul, and inspires us to pass it along. Suddenly one doesn't feel so empty inside. Life is so short. Whether it is of our own making it so or not. I think I will focus on all the beauty, and be grateful for all the days, and remember to not take time, love or appreciation for granted.

Coda Gallery
Carol Dunford-Jackman

"Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone."

~Pablo Picasso

 

Seeker Of Light

"No one lights a lamp in order to hide it behind the door: the purpose of light is to create more light, to open people's eyes, to reveal the marvels around."

~Paulo Coelho

I have been thinking about my friend Steven lately. I am not sure exactly why, maybe because we are in the middle of winter, and I know he would already be anxious for spring. He loved the color green, but he loved it when flowers burst forth with every color imaginable. He liked to photograph flowers, and butterflies, and he was amazing at it! His photos could absolutely take your breath away! I remember once, not long after we began our friendship, I told him that I was going to have to stop leaving comments on his blog, because I had ran out of adjectives.

He laughed.

And I, of course, continued to leave comments that never really conveyed just how impressed I was with his photography. 

I can't quite believe that it's been nearly 2 years since I learned of his passing. He died in October of 2009, just a week or so after his birthday, but I hadn't learned about it until 3 years later. People on the Internet come and go out of your life for a million different reasons. Some get tired of blogging and one day find themselves with nothing more to say. Some have busy lives, and make the decision to let real life lead them. Some, like my friend, pass away. 

I still think about Frank. What a force of nature he was. We didn't know each other long, but he made a big impression on me. He was so funny. So easy to talk to. Nice. He was a nice man. I still wish he would have listened to us and gone to the doctor! Pam. She died of lung cancer at 50. Well, she turned 50 just a week earlier. She was a great lady. She took time to help you if she needed it. She never made me feel unwelcome. She liked to cook, and she only used lower case i's because she said she didn't care enough to correct them! LOL. She had a way with the camera as well. Her death hit me hard, I think because we were close in age. Or maybe because she was my friend. Not sure which really. Maybe both.

Anyway, I don't mean to be maudlin. I am not sad really, in fact I was thinking the other day how much I have to thank Steven for, when it comes to my photography. His feedback and gentle guidance made me a much better photographer. I still have the hardest time remembering that he won't send me an email of encouragement out of the blue. He used to do that. Just out of the blue. I remember one day, back in the AOL Journals days, we in the community asked others to write a description of our blogs, from their point of view. Steven wrote mine.

 "Through the lens of Carly; wordsmith, photographer, and seeker of light."  

-Steven

I used that description on my AOL Journal header for a long time. Well, until AOL closed that service back in 2005. I used it here for a long time as well, and then one day I decided to change things up a bit. I know he would have wanted me to move on. Still, the other day I was thinking about how much closer I tend to look at the backgrounds on my photographs, and how attracted I am to the natural light. I know it was because of him. His love a light lives on when I see something softly illuminated, or I see movement in butterfly wings. Sometimes, all I have to do is see the color green, especially the first real green you see when the earth has begun to have enough of all the darkness winter demands we endure. 

It's that first green that helps me seek the light.




Mood: Quiet But Grateful

~Me

John Scalzi's Weekend Assignment #177: Feedback and Suggestions

"Remember, man does not live by bread alone: sometimes he needs a little buttering up."

-John C. Maxwell

Over the last month or so, there's been a downturn in the participation with the Weekend Assignments - enough so that I think it's worth taking a momentary break from the usual format to check in with you folks about your thoughts on the feature.

We've been doing the Weekend Assignments for over three years now, which is a good long time for anything to be going on in the blog world. But with any long-running feature, it's worth looking at it to see what can be done - or if anything need be done - to improve it.

Weekend Assignment #177: Are you happy with the Weekend Assignments as they are? Do you have suggestions on improving them? Should we continue the Weekend Assignments, or try something new? Remember, the reason I do the Weekend Assignments is so you'll have something fun to write about over the weekend. It's dependent on you guys, basically. I want to know where you are with it.

-John Scalzi (By The Way)

Dear Blogfather

I enjoy the Weekend Assignments very much, I always have. I look forward to stepping out of my own programed blog world, and stepping into each new challenge you provide us. I have always viewed the assignments as a learning experiment in what it's like to write on demand. Not that you demand anyone participate, but indeed you provide a way to stretch our writing wings a bit more then we would probably do on our own. :) The Weekend Assignments have been good for me. I think I have grown as a blogger as a result of doing them. And isn't that the goal of any challenge? To grow as a person in some way. :)

I have participated in almost every single one of the 177 Weekend Assignments, with the exception of ones with subjects I felt I may have already covered recently on Ellipsis, or if I feel that I have nothing in particular to add to the general theme of the assignment. Once in a while, it has seemed like you have repeated an assignment theme within what I felt was too close a period of time, but that has been a rarity. I can only speak for myself of course, but I want you to know that I look forward to the assignments, and the chance to sometimes have to research a topic that I might have perhaps not delved into, if left to my own imagination.

One great example would be when you asked us to write a Haiku. Oh my. Poetry has never been one of my strengths. I was really nervous about even trying to meet the assignment, but I gave it a try anyway, and to my surprise, I found I enjoyed it very much. :) Thank you for that. I am a happy camper with the assignments, but I would like to suggest new ways we could possibly do some assignments, just to shake things up a bit.

1. I think a monthly Haiku would be fun. There are million or so topics you could challenge us with.

2. How about one week out of the month, we could tie the Monday Photo Shoot, to the following Weekend Assignment of the same week.Kind of like, take a picture... write a story, either fictional or real, that ties in with the photo. :)

3. Remember when you asked us who our Super Hero alter egos would be? How about the flip side? Who would our dastardly inner villains be? There are a lot of assignments that you could offer us an either or option on.

There, I just presented a few ideas to consider. You know, I have been blogging almost 4 years now, and one trend I have seen consistently, was that my hit counter and comments always drop during the summer months. I really believe that is why you have been seeing a lower then average turn out for the assignments. It can be discouraging to put thought into an entry, and not receive any feedback or participation. It happens. Just hang in there, and know we are still out there, looking forward to each new assignment. :) Please keep bringing them to us. :)

Always, Carly :)

-OndineMonet
"Summer Smiles"
Santa Rosa, California
August 2, 2007
Afternoon