I came back from Las Vegas on a night with a full moon and a total lunar eclipse. The event known as the Blood Moon. Despite setting an alarm, I couldn’t bring myself to get out of bed. I woke up in a panic at 6 a.m., raced to a local park, and then discovered I had the wrong lens.
Despite a hard week, I rose early yesterday, faced the rain, and spent two hours in a nearby park capturing bird photos. Creeping through the grass without a sound, tucking my camera into my rain jacket for safekeeping during downpours, and focusing only on the birdsong offered unexpected joy. It’s comforting watching the world through a lens, away from anything but the sounds of nature.
A crane sat staring at the moon. I couldn’t stop my van to take its picture because several cars were behind me, but I saw how it lifted its elegant white neck to show reverence. A few minutes later I found a spot to pull over and startled a field of crows who took off noisily, letting me know I’d disturbed their quiet sunrise.
My camera helped me worship the full corn moon, to capture it sitting on branches and bobbing between power lines. I was struck by how much of an outsider I was to this scene, but also how much I long to remember my connection to all things.
As the bright moon faded into the blue morning, the sun took over the sky. It blinked over the horizon blinding me temporarily, and my eyes fell on the plastic Superman dangling from my rearview mirror and it reminded me I’m doing my best. We all are.
“That is where you’ve always been wrong about me, Lex. I am as human as anyone. I love, I-I get scared. I wake up every morning, and despite not knowing what to do, I put one foot in front of the other, and I try to make the best choices that I can. I screw up all the time, but that is being human, and that’s my greatest strength. And someday, I hope, for the sake of the world, you understand that it’s yours too.” —Superman
Let me know if you have a favorite photo and I hope you have a fantastic day.
“You can frame a moment. But you can’t frame life.”—Armin Houman
This week my assignment for the 52 photo challenge was to fill the frame with the subject. As I tend to take a lot of macro shots, I wanted to challenge myself to find something different to fill the frame.
As I started out this morning it began to rain, a wonderful surprise, so I decided to take a drive. The tree above and the first seven photos are all from around the Lincoln area and taken from my car. The rest of the photos are from my yard. Let me know which one you think best fits the challenge and if you have a favorite. Hope your week is wonderful!
Also, you may remember last year I was writing a short story a week. It just occurred to me it might be fun to see what story I was writing this exact time last year and include a link with these Monday photos. So, here you go:
“Anything is grand if it’s done on a large enough scale.” —Donna Tartt, The Secret History
This week my assignment for the 52 photo challenge was to capture a sense of scale. After finding an old photo of my dad in a rice field for my Shoebox Poetry series, I wanted to take photos of my daughter in a field. I figured it would do two things—show a sense of scale and give us a chance to recreate the image.
We found a field near my sister-in-law’s house filled with bright yellow flowers. It was muddy and a bit difficult, but I’m extremely happy with these photos. I hope you like them too! The rest of the photos were taken driving around looking for cranes. We found a few, but they were never quite in the right position. The clouds ended up being the star of the day. Let me know which of these best fits the assignment or if you have a favorite. Have a wonderful week!
Note: These photos were taken last Thursday. I’m currently on an emotional trip moving my mother to Washington state. I’ll post more about it later this week.
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Photos were taken with an Olympus OM-D and edited with ON1 Photo RAW
If you want to join the 52 Photo Challenge, you can find all the information at nicolesy.com