• clouds,  landscape,  quotes,  storm clouds

    The Spell of Clouds

    March 16, 2024
    Storm clouds from March of 2014

    A cloud is a spell against indifference, an emblem of the water cycle that makes this planet a living world capable of trees and tenderness, a great cosmic gasp at the improbability that such a world exists, that across the cold expanse of spacetime strewn with billions upon billions of other star systems, there is nothing like it as far as we yet know.

    Maria Popova

    What an amazing statement she makes, “there is nothing like it as far as we yet know.” Something to ponder. I’m not sure I was as fascinated with clouds when I was younger as I am today and maybe due to my indifference, lack of interest as a youth. I know photography has changed my view of the world. I also know that as I draw closer to taking my last breath I see this world with eyes of attention, interest, respect, feeling and wonder. Having said that, I must confess all clouds have a spell on me and I’m okay with that.

    Now that the snowstorm has past, today has offered us a cloudless blue sky with sunshine and warmer temperatures. The quickly melting snow has filled the holding ponds outside my condo. The geese and ducks sound excited about that. If tomorrow’s weather is the same as today, the remaining piles of dirty plowed snow will quickly disappear. Hope you are having a good weekend. Enjoy your St. Patrick’s Day!

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  • Creativity,  quotes,  winter scenes

    Where We Become Who We Are

    January 18, 2024

    Creativity is at bottom the combinatorial work of memory and imagination. All of our impressions, influences, and experiences — every sight we have ever seen, every book read, every landscape walked, every love loved — become seeds for ideas we later combine and recombine, largely unconsciously, into creations we call our own. The most wondrous thing about these seeds is that, when they first fall into the fallow ground of the mind, we have no sense of what they will bloom into years, decades, and selves later, what alchemic cross-pollination will take place between them and other seeds in the dark underground of consciousness where we become who we are.

    Maria Popova
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  • Candid Portraits,  coffee life,  quotes

    Empathy and Compassion

    November 22, 2023

    It says something about our species that we have eradicated smallpox and invented vaccines and antibiotics for yellow fever and the Black Death, but war continues to plague us; that in the past century — this supposed pinnacle of enlightened modernity — war has claimed or maimed more of our children’s lives than any virus or bacterium. It says something about both our immense imagination and our immense blind spots: Our species’ failure to eradicate war is a failure of the imagination, a failure to imagine what it is like to be anybody else, without which there can be no empathy and compassion — those vital molecules of harmony, the other name for which is peace.

    Maria Popova

    Maria’s quote is spot on. Could it be that much of our world is unable to imagine what it is like to be anybody else, find our similarities, because we are trying hard to be somebody we aren’t rather than accepting who we are. I love her idea that molecules of harmony, empathy and compassion, will bring peace.

    About a month ago I posted a quote by Vincent Van Gogh which I liked. Just after I posted that quote they put up this new mural at Starry Night coffee shop. I had to have a photo the moment I saw the mural and quote. It’s interesting that as a photographer we can draw people’s attention to things they have not yet seen while sitting right next to them. You can see how the one woman turned to see what the silly photographer was pointing his camera at. Happens all the time! I’m off to meet Mark for breakfast and conversation.

    May you have a wonderful day and may what you do in love today be done well!!

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  • clouds,  fountain pens,  grass,  horizons,  journal,  landscape,  natural areas,  Pineridge Natural Area,  Plants,  quotes,  writing/reading

    Who I’m Becoming

    September 7, 2023

    … the truth is that we simply don’t know — we don’t know where life ultimately leads, we don’t know what we want or what to want, and we don’t really know ourselves. 

    Maria Popova

    I’ve mentioned before my belief of how little I think I think I know. Yet there are times when some sense of knowing does rise within me. This knowing is not about having an answer or solution to a problem. It’s a knowing that somehow changes my perspective on life, this world, people, and myself. I find this knowing to be one of the adventures in life, a place of growth. I am slowly learning small bits of who I’m not and who I’m becoming.

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  • Art,  clouds,  Creativity,  landscape,  natural areas,  Pineridge Natural Area,  quotes,  sunrises

    A Second Post…

    July 23, 2023

    Poets have always been the ones to see most deeply into the human soul, because they are the ones most unafraid of knowing their own depths.

    Maria Popova

    Yes, this is my second post for the day. Nature is like a poet in that it is not afraid to show its depths and knowledge as an artist using the sky as a canvas and clouds as its medium. This image was taken about 50 minutes after the previously posted image.

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  • landscape,  natural areas,  Photography,  Pineridge Natural Area,  quotes,  sunrises

    Frames of Reference

    June 6, 2023
    Final image of what my eyes saw

    To be human is to continually mistake our frames of reference for reality itself. We so readily forget that our vantage point is but a speck on the immense plane of possible perspectives. We so readily forget that there are infinitely many kinds of beautiful lives.

    Maria Popova

    Yesterday, I had lunch with someone who’s frame of reference of themselves is different from how others see them. They are frustrated and also hurt because others to not see them as they do. I’m also aware that people who have had the same experience in the past, such as a car accident, will remember it differently due to their frame of reference. The reality each of us experiences is definitely not the same. The same is true of the reality my eyes see and what my camera sensor can see.

    As I watched the sunrise this morning I was fascinated with the dewdrops clinging atop each blade of grass glowing in the sunlight. When looking at the scene on my LCD or through my viewfinder I could barely see those dewdrops. This is because my Fujifilm X-T3 has a dynamic range of around 9-10 stops of light while the human eye can see up to 24 stops of light. However, I know the sensor is able to capture a bit more detail than the limited range of the viewfinder or LCD are showing me and know that my editing software will be able to increase the dynamic range, drawing some of the details out of the shadows. This allows us to see the glow of those dewdrops closer to what my eyes see. So, I press my shutter button with confidence. This reminds me how our frames of reference for reality differ. 

    Straight out of the camera

    The second image is what the LCD showed me and the top image is what my software was able to pull out of the data captured by the sensor. If you click on each image you will get a larger view. And if you click on that image it will give you the full size image. You will also notice a couple of dust spots in the second image that were removed in the final image.

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  • Arapaho Bend Natural Area,  Art,  clouds,  landscape,  natural areas,  quotes,  reflections

    Power of Art

    June 4, 2023

    “This is the power of art: The power to transcend our own self-interest, our solipsistic zoom-lens on life, and relate to the world and each other with more integrity, more curiosity, more wholeheartedness.”

    Maria Popova

    Heavy rains this morning as I sat in my car at Pineridge Natural Area enjoying, listening, watching and journaling. I sat there for an hour as nature received it’s gift of life sustaining rain. We have had several days of 30-70% chance of rain which has provided beautiful skies. This image was taken Friday morning at Arapaho Bend Natural Area. I wonder if the power of art Maria is referring to in her quote is our observation of art, the partaking in the making of art or both. I am of the belief that I must be present to experience the power of natures art and thus be a part of it. Enjoy your Sunday!

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