Last week I took a much-anticipated trip to visit my mother, connect with a dear poetry friend, and show the city of Seattle to my daughter. It was a feast for the photographic eye. Please join me for a series of posts (6 total) exploring the Pacific Northwest and let me know if you have a favorite photo.
“Believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.” —Rainer Maria Rilke
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These photos were taken with an Olympus OM-D and edited with ON1 Photo RAW.
As I carefully walk toward the rippling water my shoes sink in the soft mud. You tell me to listen to what the frogs are saying. I try, but I don’t know how to be still enough. A small patch of yellow flowers grows near the shore and I struggle to get closer to them. What are they saying? The Worm Moon bursts out from behind the clouds shining a spotlight across the water. Everything seems to be calling out. I swallow my words and listen harder.
“The gold tree is blue, The singer has pulled his cloak over his head. The moon is in the folds of the cloak.” —Wallace Stevens
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For my third attempt at full moon photography, I visited Folsom Lake at sunset. It felt magical and different. My daughter drew a moth in the sand. Spring is here.
Let me know if you like these and if you have a favorite. These photos were taken with an Olympus OM-D and edited with ON1 Photo RAW.
you are almost obscene without petals alien green bulbous body too many waving yellow arms yet you appear honest dare I say brave
once, scared nobody could love me I did this to a flower it could have been a relative of yours a great great great grandflower I didn’t think about what it wanted what my actions would change only if I could be loved if I could be chosen
I tore each delicate petal off love me love me not until a pink pile lay at my feet wasted beauty for something like answers
seeing you now I wonder what answers you hold first full and now bare and why naked truth still scares me
“If we surrendered to earth’s intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees.” —Rainer Maria Rilke
I’ve been sick for two weeks with a terrible virus. It started with a fever and ended with a horrible nonstop cough. I stayed in bed, minus a trip to the doctor, but barely got any rest. It was one miserable day after the next. It made me appreciate my health and fully understand the word surrender.
To celebrate returning to the land of the living (maybe a bit dramatic), I dusted off my camera and visited the local plant nursery this morning. The bees, the colors, and the sunshine all did wonders for my mood. I hope you enjoy these photos and please let me know if you have a favorite.
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These photos were taken with an Olympus OM-D and edited with ON1 Photo RAW.
You aren’t here with me in these blue woods. I’m alone. Hands hanging loosely at my sides, I track the full moon until it peeks through the dark silhouetted branches. The sky morphs from cold white to warm gold and back again. A breeze blows gently and my skirt dances around my knees. It feels like butterflies and Spring, but it’s still February. Still winter. Snow falls softly in the nearby mountains.
My mind forgets and remembers things as I walk, a circle of thought looping and playing. Soon a song cuts through and clears out everything else. “All this joy, all this sorrow.” Maybe I hummed it then, alone in the woods on the night of the Hunger Moon. The night I was missing you. Maybe you did too.
“We’re both looking at the same moon, in the same world. We’re connected to reality by the same line. All I have to do is quietly draw it towards me.”—Haruki Murakami
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This was my second attempt at photographing the full moon this year and it was nearly as frustrating. There were a lot of clouds and I found myself more interested in the trees than the moon. I wonder if I’ll tire of this project or stretch my photography skills further. Time will tell.
Let me know if you like these and if you have a favorite. As is usual, these photos were taken with an Olympus OM-D and edited with ON1 Photo RAW.
find me where winter waters flow honey thick. where ferns weave baskets cradling colored stones. listen for songs dripping down cave walls, tiny fairy feet dancing delicately on crushed shells, soft foamy voices calling your name. follow them. do not despair as earthen gravity releases you. let go. reach through murky darkness until our fingertips merge. hold tight as our toes taste stars. I’m beside you watching our bubbly breath connect inside and outside. beautifully untethered.
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”—Heraclitus
Our bodies hold onto pain and memory. We can feel it take root within our bones and we can either address or ignore it. I’ve spent the last five years ignoring it, but recently I’ve taken up swimming daily. This practice is slowly returning me to my body. No longer a stranger, we are becoming one again. Pain and all.
I share this and these photos as part of the journey of rediscovery. Look closer. Look again. You might see something different.
I’d love to know if you have a favorite image. I secretly have my favorite. Can you guess?
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These photos were taken with an Olympus OM-D and edited with ON1 Photo RAW.
it can look selfish this way I’m living looking for love through a camera lens through the way my thighs move when I dance through the way my chest rises when I sing but it’s survival like the lone daffodil blooming in January a waning moon at dawn the first dandelion puff the cluster of fuzzy buds on the bare peach tree we are all looking
These photos were taken this morning in my yard with an Olympus OM-D and edited with ON1 Photo RAW.
Bridgette Tales 