Dandelion Treasure

A quick post to add a link to a treasury on Etsy called make a wish.  

Liz Hutnick very kindly included one of my photographs, but check out some of the paintings that have been included - I want them all!!

Water, water everywhere...

 

I saw this insect today in the garden. It may be something quite common, but none the less I have no idea what it is.  If anyone recognises it, please let me know.  It did look a little freaky to me :(

Yesterday's  Creativity Boot Camp phrase was "heavy metal" and today's is "grow".  

Both challenging and very good at making you "think outside the box".  I found yesterday's the most difficult so far, probably because of the musical connotations (I REALLY don't get the music) and also partly because I kept thinking of "heavy water" (I may have watched the "Heroes of Telemark" too many times).

Anyway, after thinking on and off most of the morning and afternoon, and repeating the phrase to myself under my breath, because that really helps (!), I came up with this

(semi) heavy metal

I found metal buttons decorated with anchors, that have been around the house for years.  I thought if I put them in water I would get some interesting reflections.  I did NOT expect one to sink and one to float!  The result was a little more abstract than I expected.

Today's prompt was "grow" and because I photograph a lot of plants and flowers, which were my immediate thought, I wanted to do something different.  So it was "grow, GROW, grow, gro-o-o-w" all morning (under my breath, thankfully).  

I got to thinking about what makes anything, in particular plants,  grow and finally came up with this shot

It's a shot of my favourite bowl filled with water which is rippling in the breeze outside and reflecting the sunlight - water, oxygen, sunlight - what makes plants grow!  Soil is the fourth requirement and that's what the bowl is sitting on!  No, not cheating.  

This shot turned out to be very abstract, much more than I had intended, but I liked the colours and refractions so this is the one that's been posted to the CBC Flickr group.  It's well worth a visit to see the many interpretations of the various prompts and also to see some outstanding photographs. 

One of my favourite blogs is Vision and Verb which I read everyday.  There are such a variety of interesting, thought provoking posts there, with some great pictures.  I was very surprised and really honoured to be invited to write a guest post for them.  With a mixture of excitement and trepidation I agreed; it's been sent off and I really hope that it is up to scratch. Time will tell......

Thanks to Marcie for issuing the invitation and if you haven't visited the site, it's really worth a look.

A lot of hens?

Boot camp Day Three and the creativity muscles are getting a fine workout!

The theme for today is "multilayered" and it took a little time to think about how I could interpret that.  

People immediately came to mind because we all have layer upon layer that rarely get completely peeled away.  Having a teenage son was very helpful - someone who doesn't reveal himself very easily as well as actually dressing in many layers of clothes.  So both a literal and metaphorical interpretation!!  I have to thank him for posing so patiently (I used a shot where he isn't rolling his eyes).

I also apologise for the terrible joke in the title although part of me (the part that watches Carry On Films) still would like to submit that shot - hens....multilayers....geddit??

Boot Camp Report

Day 1 -  Ivory

Thanks to a link on Maisey's Attic I found out about the Creativity Boot Camp.   

In the introduction, it says that this course "will be an intensive two week course designed to deepen and enrich your creative spirit. You will be asked to perform outward projections of creativity as well as examine your inner creative soul."

Now, I'm born and bred in Belfast and although times are changing, these are not expressions that come naturally!  However,  I loved the idea of facing some challenges and combining that with taking photographs, which I do every day.  

You can get so far by yourself and then you need a little outside input to help you move on to the next stage.  The course is free, lasts for 14 days and is a safe, friendly, nurturing place to try to kick start the creativity which, I'm sure, is in all of us.  I'm excited about taking part :)

The course (second day today) has involved creating, in whatever medium you have chosen to use, images that show some aspect of a particular word.  There are also written exercises that are, of course, much more difficult!  I don't think that I'll be sharing much of the written work - whenever I finish it of course - but the photographs will be appearing here. 

The image at the top is for Day 1 - Ivory. The reason that I chose this particular subject for the theme is perhaps not very easily explained, other than the colour of the papery skin and stem. 

Day 2 had the theme of picnic and my photograph of an indoor picnic is below.  

 Day 2 - picnic

I'm aware that there is not a lot of food on offer, but wine is good too.  The fern like plant is actually fennel so that could be eaten if neccessary.

Check out the Boot Camp - it's fun!

In the right light, at the right time...

 In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary

Aaron Rose

Extraordinary things can be large or small, vital or unimportant.  It all depends on how we see them at any given time. 

These are some pictures that I have taken over the last eight months, through the autumn, winter and into summer, of things that I thought were extraordinary.  Most of the opportunities came as a result of being lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.    Some were as a result of just being lucky!  I could wish that the photographs themselves showed more skill, but hopefully with practice that will improve.  The subjects of the pictures are what interested me and experimenting with the camera is always fun.

The colours on the leaf shown above, floating in water (in an old bucket in the garden) were beautiful even as it started to decay.  The leaf below was frozen in the same water later in the winter.

One or two, like the one below, are down to sheer dumb luck - being in the right place at the right time and knowing how to point and shoot.  The cloud formation changed within a minute of this picture being taken; until I saw it on the computer screen, I had really no idea of the shapes that the light made.

 Raindrops  are tantalising - I've ended up with so many little glowing blurs on a variety of objects!

Fennel is one of my favourite things in the garden.  It goes through so many transformations throughout the different seasons and the colours are gorgeous.  The plant below is just starting to grow up the old stem.

The hypericum shown below grows in a corner of the garden that is quite neglected and overgrown.  Today I noticed that the buds are just starting to form; when they open,  the flowers are yellow and when the flowers die the flower heads form berries that turn from green to red to black.  The dried leaves are very aromatic.  It never receives any care, it just reappears year after year, with its beautiful display, in a place that you have to go to specifically to see it.  It is extraordinary, in the right light or not.

And in case you're wondering, the top picture shows the handle of the metal trolley that my husband uses to move boxes.  It was sitting in our hall on a Sunday morning, when it was caught in the sunlight along with its shadow on the wall.  This has had some processing after I downloaded (saturating the colours a little).  All the other photographs here are untouched, other than being resized.

A sunny box of treasures

I'm back again to give a link to an Etsy Treasury that I have put together - "Sunshine".

It's a mixture of Irish crafters and from further afield, but all with a lovely summery feel.  The screendump above doesn't show all of the items so click on Sunshine to have a closer look.

words that speak to me

"Vision and Verb" (click on the button to the right of this post - or left if you're behind the monitor!) is a blog that I have come to relatively recently, but that has brightened my mornings with the various posts and photographs it contains.  

At the weekend a post asked for our favourite quotations - the intention is to use these on Sundays throughout the summer to "hold space and give vision to the voices of others".  

I thought that this was a wonderful idea - the quote that I posted was from John Muir (visit the John Muir Trust here) 

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn."

Freedom in open spaces, fresh air, energy, peace and strength to face whatever comes next - these are the thoughts that come into my mind when I read this quote.  

The more that I thought about quotations after this, the more I realised that throughout my adult life I have had certain quotes that have stayed with me and that pop into my head in a particular set of circumstances.  

Not just the kind of inspirational quotes like the one above, but more practical descriptions like Chaucer's  "The smiler with the knife under his cloak".   This has stayed with  me since I studied english at university; it's a description that works either literally or metaphorically - sadly I've worked with people who fit this description perfectly, whose weapons were words to be used when your back is turned.

In a previous post I mentioned Tony Hancock's take on elections - "I'll....cross both their names out and write "get knotted" in!"  It would be a wasted vote, but how tempting!

Others that leap out at me are:

"Peter, you've lost the news!!" from The Day Today (The Day Today You Tube)  a programme that was almost prophetic in imagining how ridiculous some of the news programmes (and presenters) would become.

 "Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."  Mark Twain.  I realise that some politicians are good people, but I find it hard not to replace "congress" in this quote with Northern Ireland Assembly!

"I'm going to memorize your name and throw my head away" .  Oscar Levant.  Not that I would ever use this, but it's useful to remember just in case.

These, of course, are mostly for laughs and are getting further and further away from the kind of quotation that this post started off with.  I like them because they make me laugh and I do believe that laughter and healing are closely linked.

I'll finish with two that have been with me for a long time, and that speak to me loudly, giving comfort during really difficult times and instilling hope that things will get better. 

The first is  

  "Human pain does not let go of its grip at one point in time. Rather, it works its way out of our consciousness over time. There is a season of sadness. A season of anger. A season of tranquility. A season of hope."  

Robert Veninga

The last quote is about the strength of the human spirit, about how and why we can find it possible to carry on during the worst times. 

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer." 

Albert Camus

I have thought of this often over the years, and the thought of that spark of summer that exists deep down in the cold and dark has, at those times, kept me moving forward, when it would have been all to easy to go no further.