A Few Of My Favorites...

 

"You don't make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, all the books you have read, the music you have heard, and people you have loved."

~Ansel Adams

Photography means a lot to me, but I sometimes sacrifice the quality of my photos, so I can get a picture in the moment. Bird photos sometimes have to be taken, before you think about whether the opportunity will be for the art, or whether it will be to build your yearly bird list. I try really hard to bring the two together, but oh boy, there are challenges. Weather. Birds that seem to fly at the speed of sound. I am getting older, so I am having a bit of a tremor in my hands, which might be from arthritis. There are a lot of factors. But here I want to share the ones I got right, or at least, okay. There is a lot of emotion here. They reflect happiness, sadness, serenity, wonder. It has been quite a year, filled with, you know LIFE. Each year I try to get a photo good enough to enter into the Audubon Photography Contest. Hopefully, 2026 will be my year!

My Year End Favorites

A Place Of Rest And Refuge

"It is by far the grandest of all the special temples of nature I was ever permitted to enter."

~John Muir

"Yosemite Park is a place of rest, a refuge from the roar and dust and weary, nervous, wasting work of the lowlands, in which one gains the advantages of both solitude and society. Nowhere will you find more company of a soothing peace-be-still kind. Your animal fellow beings, so seldom regarded in civilization, and ever rock-brow and mountain, stream, and lake, and every plant soon come to be regarded as brothers, even one learns to like the storms and clouds and tireless winds. This one noble park is big enough and rick enough for a while like of study and aesthetic enjoyment. It is good for everybody, no matter how benumbered with care, encrusted with a mail of business habits like a tree with bark. None can escape its charms. Its natural beauty cleans and warms like a fire, and you will e willing to stay forever in one place like a tree.'

~John Muir

John Of The Mountains:

 The Unpublished Journals Of John Muir

This past week has been unparalleled in it's... tension. The election left me devastated. On edge. More unsure of my future than ever before. And I will say it... depressed. But, reluctantly, Alan and I decided to just get into the car and visit somewhere we had never been before, Yosemite. I wasn't prepared for the stunning beauty. The quiet loveliness that it almost had it's own song. and if it did it would certainly be a hymn. There is such a special spirit to the park, that it was healing just being among the trees, and the waterfalls. It was life, at it's best. It was like the whole Yosemite Valley said to us, "come in, I will hold your pain, at least for a little while." And it did, and for that I am grateful!

 Leaf Of The Day

November 12th 2016

Mood: Quiet

~Me  

Autumn In Yosemite

Half Dome Outlook

Yosemite National Park

 

"The magic of autumn has seized the countryside; now that the sun isn't ripening anything it shines for the sake of the golden age; for the sake of Eden; to please the moon for all I know."

~Elizabeth Coatsworth

Personal Geography: Almost An Autobiography

The head noise the last few days has been deafening. The noise from the political talking heads... has... been... deafening. Social media has been deafening. Life noise in general has been deafening! Alan and I needed a day of quiet. A day seeing new horizons. A day that was as far away from the fighting as we could get, so we picked a California destination we hadn't been to before. We chose Half Dome, in the Yosemite Valley. Not surprisingly, we weren't alone! There were many people, not really talking, they were just doing what we were doing, photographing the unbelievable natural beauty of our surroundings!

Truly, all the photos I have ever seen of Half Dome, have not done it justice, and I didn't manage to capture it's stunning beauty as accurately as I wish I could have. I guess I have lost a bit of my creative magic. I'm trying, but I am still dealing with yet one more broken heart in my life, and it's just going to take a while to find my inner happiness again. Personally, I have had my heart broken enough times that I know there is no rushing this process, the best I can hope for is that one day I will wake up, and it won't hurt anymore. It's a one day at a time process. But everything starts somewhere, and yesterday I began the healing at Half Dome!

Just quiet amazing beauty. So needed. So appreciated!

 Leaf Of The Day

November 11th 2016

Mood: Quiet

~Me :)