The power of the pink moon wakes me. Stumbling out of bed, I wander barefoot through half-lit rooms looking through distorted glass while my eyes attempt to adjust. What if I let them stay blurry? What if I simply see what’s there? Maybe beauty does exist in the imperfections. The flowers tell me so. I follow the sounds to the beach and surrender.
“Oh moon, I have begun to envy you your terrifying powers” —Henry Virgin
#1#2#3#4#5#6#7#8#9#10
The fourth full moon of the year arrived on my birthday while on vacation at Dillion Beach. The moon proved elusive and all my photos turned out distorted. I had no choice but to embrace the imperfections and play with them.
Let me know if you have a favorite. These photos were taken with an Olympus OM-D and edited with ON1 Photo RAW.
“I can bench press steam, but not fog. I just have to wait until the fog lifts itself.” —Jarod Kintz
This week my assignment for the 52 photo challenge was to photograph fog or steam. It’s almost the end of the week and the only morning we had fog I was in the emergency room with my son (he’s fine). Sigh.
Last night, however, I went for a drive near our local casino and noticed a factory spewing steam into the air. I ran home and got my camera and these photos are the result. These are technically not great but I like them. There’s something in the imperfect almost abstract way they came together which speaks to where I am right now.
I hope you enjoy them and if you have a favorite I’d love to know. Have a wonderful weekend.
“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you insane your whole life.” -Anne Lamott
If you’ve been around my blog for a while, you may remember I started my photography journey this time last year by participating in the #100DayProject. It was a wonderful experience of growth and I appreciated how much feedback and advice I received throughout the process. I discovered photography was more than a passing hobby, it was something I love and will continue to do for the rest of my life.
When I saw it was time again for the #100DayProject, I did a lot of journaling about what I might do this year to grow as a creative. The idea of perfectionism kept coming up and my desire to think more out of the box. I’ve been exploring this idea of abstraction in my poetry, but I want to push myself further. As both my children did a lot of watercolor painting in their Waldorf education, and I’ve always admired how the colors blend across the paper, I decided to focus the next 100 days on exploring watercolors.
I’ve always been very critical of my lack of artistic skills. Embarrassed would probably be a more accurate word. Art, to my untrained eye, always appears to contain a fair amount of magic and natural ability I don’t possess. So, it was very important before starting this project to create some guidelines to work within. I’m not trying to learn skills or techniques, but rather to allow for exploration, stress relief, and self-expression. I’ve given myself a few guidelines:
be messy and imprecise
have fun with the process
don’t overthink
don’t plan
don’t judge the finished painting
be brave
This first week was challenging. I looked up images in books and online and when I tried to duplicate them found myself getting into the mindset of failure and comparison. It was only when I started painting my feelings and allowing myself to be silly, it started to feel more enjoyable. Each week I’ll share 3-4 paintings without commentary (other than perhaps this format of including a haiku). I hope you’ll enjoy watching me experiment with letting go.
Here are my offerings for Week 1:
#1 wiggly bright full moon shining in a pale green sky you grow lovely plants
#2 colors dance freely across the watery page revealing flowers
#3 hidden dark red sky delicate flower bouquets spring is almost here
#4 wavy broken lines colorful light bright puzzle what things do you see?
Bridgette Tales 