a little affirmation

Excavate the depths of my photo files and you will find that most of them are of children.

I love children.

I love to capture their littleness.

I love to capture them unaware, just inhabiting their space.

I love to capture their profiles.

I love to capture their goofy sides.

I love to capture my reflection in their eyes.

I love to capture the proof of their infinite beauty and uniqueness.

So is it any wonder that I am forever trying to throw my photographic arms around them?

This past week my Picture Inspiration assignment was to do a little excavation, to look back at my assignments and show you all what I have discovered about myself through my images.

This assignment was more of an affirmation than a discovery. (Is this really a surprise?)

So today I am showing you what continues to be an affirming, resounding, "yes" in my creative heart: given the choice between a flower, a landscape, a family, a wedding, a baby, or a child, my photographic heart will always draw nearest to the face of a child.

I am a magnet, drawn by the force of their innocence, and charm, uniqueness, and wonder in an unquenchable thirst to capture their worth.

(This is my "niece". She is a ham. A close second to my Bean who is her competitor. She was insistent on me photographing her "O" mouth. So I made sure to get that for her.)

stuff I want my kids to know: don't settle for the monsters everyone else is making

Kids,

I know it may not be the easiest path but...

Don't settle for the monsters everyone else is making.
Explore the reaches of your own creativity.
Push yourself to create rather than copy. Innovate rather than mimic.

"Gelatin Monsters" are waaaaaay cooler than the standard martians because you thought them up and chalked them into existence.

I can speak from experience as to how frustrating it can be when you take the longer path of exploration, when you bump up against the limits of your present self. But if your set your mind to the work you will be rewarded with the discovery that you are far more more capable and gifted than you first believed.
 
Do not settle for the false satisfaction that imitating will feed you.  

Do not settle for the monsters everyone else is making.

xoxo
Mom

moody

My Picture Inspiration assignment was to capture "moody".

We could take it in any "mood" direction we wanted, but we were to pay attention to light and composition in a way that would evoke a mooooood.

Hmmm...I might have added an extra dimension by literally capturing "mood". I didn't set out to do this, it just kinda of evolved.

Extra credit?


(And yes, I did make up that word "attitude-y".)

seeing double

What is like to wake up every morning to your own face smiling back at you?

To never be alone, be without a friend?

To share a birthday?

To have people (or...ahem...someone like me) confuse your names?

To out-number your big brother when you gang up on him?

To struggle for your own identity...or take comfort in the similarities?

To share a closet full of clothes...or want your own closet full of clothes?

To share the same messy room...or clean room?

To share experiences with someone who will be a back up in case your memory fails?

To know each other better than any one else could?

Tell me girls, because I have always wondered what it would be like to be a double of someone else. Two humans formed from the same mold; replicas with intricate and subtle differences. I wonder if you take comfort in your doubleness or if you seek ways to individuate. I guess it might be different for every set of doubles and yet, I will never know. I share no mirror image with another. I am me, and I am all I have.

So tell me, what is it like to be a twin?

******

My Picture Inspiration assignment this week was to photograph "a coupling". Two subjects, together, identical or not, but somehow fitting of each other. I chose to capture an identical coupling in human form. How could I pass up this opportunity? If you had a photo assignment such as this and there were twins standing in front of you, wouldn't you be begging/bribing them for a photo too?

I see you sitting there in front of your computer screen, nodding your head "yes".

Thank you.

roller blading (and a little addiction of sorts)

Do you remember summer evenings when you were little? I do. In my little world and era, we used to bolt outside after dinner and spend the extra hours of daylight riding our bikes, building forts, and roller skating. When the sun went down we would tumble through the door in a sweaty mess and gulp down a sweet dessert because we had burned through our dinners and our blood sugar levels were super duper low. Good times.

So yesterday evening when I stepped outside after dinner with my camera, to get to the business of completing my Picture Inspiration assignment, Bean followed me out and donned her roller blades. The weather was beautiful, the sun was out (finally!), and she and her brother enjoyed those extra daylight hours.

Clinging to Daddy for support...

As she rolled towards me she gave me her photographic poses...

My Picture Inspiration assignment this week was to capture "double vision" in the form of a diptych. A diptych is a photograph that is comprised of two different or identical images, that are placed side by side to form one image. The "one image" then makes its own statement.

When I first saw the assignment I had to smile. My instructor had no idea how much of a diptych girl I am. I am a bit obsessive with them as they can be addictive. There is something about them that can convey detail and story in a way that one image cannot. I love to pair photos, and if you have been around here for any length of time, you will know that this is true. :)

I love to put similar photos from the same moment side by side to convey a little story. Below, Bean is in her Paris Hilton camera moment. (I seriously thought she would out-grow this phase.) I loved putting these two images together to embrace this one moment, this one part of the story of our evening.

Here she is trying to use Daddy's car for support...

My obsession is not limited to diptychs. I often play with similar images until my eye is pleased with a grouping. I guess this would be called a triptych? (Must google.)

The PI assignment however, was about using two images to capture something at different angles. I knew right away that I wanted to capture Bean's roller blades so I purposefully attempted several perspectives. In the end I paired these two images because I loved the detailed close up, eye-level image of the roller blades contrasted with the wider angle shot from above. This way we could actually see Bean in the roller blades, and in the motion of using them. This is one of my favorite ways to use a diptych: a detailed shot alongside a wider angle, contextual shot. 

So there you go, my addiction has been outed. Though I figured it would not really be a surprise to any of you. But, admitting it is the first step right?

Now go try a few yourself, and then you can blame me later should you discover your own obsession with them. Here's to more beautiful summer evenings, and diptychs!

looking up

They spend the first part of their life constantly gazing up at the adult world above them. Dwelling in a land of giants is all they know until they outgrow us. Their bodies double in size by the time they are two. From then on they are on the long stretch of growth to double their body size again, which reaches the finish line at adulthood.

Until then, they are continually looking up to us in more ways than we care to admit. Physically, they are looking up to us as they toddle and reach for the hand we extend to them. Emotionally they are looking up to us as well. Yet we are often talking down to them, condescending in our words, because we have this need to remind them that we know better. Oh how easy is to look down from our proud height, take advantage of their small size and abuse their vantage point. 

I think the greatest thing we can do for our children (or any child) is to work hard at being worthy of their gaze upward.  Which means that we offer a hand of respect and a reassurance of their own worthiness in return. In other words, our "looking down" upon them should only be in the form of a tender smile, a loving pat on the head, a heart-felt praise.

Because it's true, sometimes we do know better. For a while. And we should act and behave as the more mature one should: with the wisdom, respect and love of someone who has earned her right to be looked up to. 

One thing I know about children is that they give of their love freely, unconditionally. They are riding on our feet, clutching our legs, chatting at us, wishing to be a part of us, wishing to be just like us. Their love knows no judgement, until they learn the ways of looking down from us. 

So in that respect, I think sometimes we have much to learn from them when we gaze down and see their open smiles, their affection, their devotion. 

They do not even know how much they can teach us. We realize this when we learn to stoop down from our high vantage point, look at their example, look up to them. 

*******

My Picture Inspiration assignment this week was to capture a photo from above, from a birds-eye view. If you know me, you know I love me a good birds-eye view. This one was easy as Bean straddled my shoes and hugged my legs and offered up her sweet sweet smiles. 

one image: perspective

lens: 50mm 1.2

shutter speed: 1/125

fstop: 3.5

ISO: 200

Most of us are casual photographers, aiming at the life in front of us from the vantage point of where we are standing. We shoot at eye level, capturing the events and milestones unfolding around us from this level because it is quick and easy and most comfortably how we witness them...literally...at eye level. Any trip to a touristy spot will reveal a million people standing around, holding their cameras up to their faces, aiming at life. 

There is nothing wrong with this. This is how we gather memories. I do this to catch those quick moments at family gatherings, school events: lift, aim, shoot.

Lift, aim, shoot.

The problem is that we get stuck in that perspective rut because it is comfortable and easy. We do not know how to see life from any other vantage point because we have never taken the effort to see it any other way. (I'm tellin' ya, photography can be a great life teacher.)

My Picture Inspiration assignment this week was to capture a picture from "the ground up." Our teacher pushed us in this area for this very reason: to get out of our comfortable rut, to see life from a different perspective.

So yesterday I risked staining my white cardigan sweater, stretched out on the grass underneath the play structure and caught this little lady peering over the edge from my "ground up" perspective. 

I have always liked shooting from the ground up, but I have to tell you, I had to be mindful about this one. I was tired, ready to be home, and wished I could just lift, aim, and shoot.

I am so glad I chose to be mindful, become one with the ground.

I would not have caught the leading lines of the ladder taking my eye up to her's. 

I would not have been able to include the beautiful woodwork, compose the lines of the railing and the ceiling and the ladder into a way that settled my eye. 

I would not have been able to place her above me with her hair falling around her face, her one blue eye becoming the target of my focus.

I would not have captured what has now become one of my favorite photos I have taken lately. 

Yea for my PI assignment!

See what changing your perspective does for your soul when you realize all that you would have missed if you had not crawled out of your comfortable place of lift, aim, shoot?

mystery

Yesterday I ventured outside to tackle my Picture Inspiration assignment, which was to capture "mystery". I had little time, little energy, and little excitement but I set out anyway. So picture me wandering the park in my post work pj's, with my camera in hand, praying hard for something to catch my eye.  After fifteen minutes of finding nothing I looked up into the new spring growth on the trees and found my mystery! (Cue mysterious music.)  I spotted this mysterious issue, that you see in the above photo, plaguing a handful of trees. At first I did not notice it because the trees were swaying in a lushness of green, but hidden among the perfect leaves were a handful of these rotted, polka-dotted ones.

I am always curious about such things as I am the type of person who likes to get to the core of a problem. So as I inspected the oddly spotted leaves I knew that they were: one, expressing the symptoms of some mysterious illness that worked somewhere deep in their unseen internal life forces.  Or two, the victim of an unseen mysterious pest. And because I am not an arborist, the reason for their spotted appearance was indeed, a real mystery to me.

Okay, so I am a bit geeky about nature and how it mimics life so I immediately thought about how we often do not recognize our own disease (emotional, mental, physical) until it manifests itself in the spotted leaves and fruit of our lives. Then I thought about how too often we try to deal with our external symptoms in a vain attempt to heal (or cover up) the real problem.

Sometimes we can be so dense. I can be so dense.
Honestly, I think some of us are walking this planet in stupid awe (or maybe denial) over the spotted leaves we find sprouting from our limbs. For some, it ain't no mystery to those who linger under our shade. They are not fooled by the lush sway of green surrounding the ugly leaves and can spot our problems before we can. And then there are those of us who spend all of our energy trying to control the symptoms in ourselves and others without ever getting to the root of the problem. A total waste of energy, by the way.

I have always been a firm believer in the root bares the fruit. The external display of our leaves is merely an outworking of what lies in the soil and roots of our lives. You can do your best to orchestrate a magical display of smoke and mirrors, deflection techniques, etc. But eventually whatever it is will continue to eat away at your health like a small unseen, mysterious pest...

...Until you are vulnerable enough to go see an arborist who can sort out the mystery and look you in the face and suggest a course of action that will get you healed from the inside out.

I know from experience, that there are some things in life that are meant to be left a mystery. The source of your well-being, or ill-being is not one of them.

And that my friends, is my pep talk for today. All this from a little walk across the street with my camera, a curious eye, and a pluck of a few leaves.

Now off to google "yellow spotted tree leaves". This is one mystery I'd like to solve.

off in the distance

You know when you have a big "thing" ahead of you that's gonna take some serious energy and strength to get through and you feel exhausted and spent just thinking about that "thing" before it has even arrived?

Yeah, I feel like that.

I am taking over for Bean's teacher who is leaving on maternity leave this week. For the next three and a half weeks I will be a full-time teacher. I have not done that since the mid 90's folks. That was fifteen years ago when I was high school English teacher. But back then I was a newly married, pre-kid self that could come home to a quiet home and shut down for a few hours before getting up and doing it all over again the next morning.

Bean's class is a great class, their teacher a wonderful, organized, prepared teacher, so I am not worried about any of that stuff.

I am simply an introvert, looking at the vast, hot sandy stretch of beach that is stretched out in front of me, eyeing the horizon of summer.

Three and a half weeks friends. Three and a half weeks of a class room full of kids, end-of-the-school year activities, coming home to mom duties and after school appointments. Summer is a dot on the horizon and I will be focusing my gaze upon her until I meet her with an embrace of relief.

Blogging may be infrequent, just warning you.

Prayers greatly appreciated.

My Picture Inspiration prompt this week was to capture "distance". Last week we were walking this stretch of the California coast line and I meandered ahead of everyone to this open peninsula of sand that jutted out  into the ocean. When I turned around my family and friends were but a dot on the horizon, barely noticeable in the distance. I was in an introvert's paradise, just me and the birds and a little family of seals out a hundred feet in the waves. Glorious.

dishing

Picture Inspiration prompt this week: "from the kitchen"

Honestly, I wasn't thrilled about this prompt.

One, I do not have a creative, fun kitchen. It's nice and all, super functional, it just lacks any creativity or good light and so I am always jealous of people who takes these beautifully, softly lit photos of their breakfast table, or breakfast bowls of oatmeal. Also, taking pictures of kitchen stuff is not usually my go-to for inspiration.

Two, I did not have much margin for time and creativity this week so these photos took me all of ten seconds to shoot while I was making dinner and my kids were watching iCarly on insta-Netflix. I just aimed up into my kitchen cabinets and caught what I saw. (Soooooo creative.) I wish I had been more mindful, or at least had picked a quiet, iCarly-free time to take my pictures.

However, after uploading them and looking at them, posting them here, I have to say that there a few things I do like about these photos.

One, they capture the dishes that have been with me since I first registered for them over fifteen years ago. These are standard Crate and Barrel Cafeware dishes and I still like them. I love that there is a small chip in the bottom plate (in the first pic) on the right. When I look at the photo I want to reach in and twist the plates around to hide it. It creates a little photo tension and I like it. Imperfection is sometimes good.

Two, that red bowl is one of four Fiesta ware bowls my mom gave to me a couple of summers ago after her trip to Homer Laughlin. She is a collector of Fiesta ware and I have taken a liking to it too. I love the vintage, yet modern lines and I love the colors (the pale aqua's are my favorite). As you can tell, when I was first married I thought that I wanted everything white white white. As I have grown older I have begun to favor color, especially when it is a simple addition to the neutral back drop. Get my drift?

Okay, so thus ends my PI rambling for the week.

On another note...
Friday is coming, and if you have been here before on the last few Fridays you know that I have been posting some umbrella pictures that have been hiding in my photo files for the last few months. I have jokingly titled my Fridays the "Random Umbrella Friday Posts" because it seems that everyone in the photo/blogging/flickr world has a special photo day of the week, and I have felt left out. (Totally kidding! Just poking a little fun at it all.)

So if you would like to join me THIS Friday in posting your own Random Umbrella Friday picture (with ramblings included), then please, by all means, join me! If you do, and you want to let me know, then come back here on Friday and leave a comment and I will post edit a link to your blog in my post so that others can see them over the weekend. If no one joins me that's okay. I won't cry. I just wanted to open it up to others who have mentioned that they feel left out too.

Let us all umbrella away!

let us observe

Yesterday was a beautiful California spring day. T-shirt and shorts kind of weather. The "lets get out and go to the park" kind of weather.

After a picnic lunch, these two were sprawled on the grass deep in inspection/discussion mode. It's what boys do: inspect, discuss, do more inspecting, do more discussing. (Ever been to an antique car show with males?)

Not privy to the casual observer was what, exactly, these two boys were inspecting/discussing.

Like me. The camera lady, attempting to complete her mindful Picture Inspiration assignment. Which was to "observe"...as in, "capture a sliver of a moment, without the photo subjects knowing that you are capturing them." You know, be a fly on the wall. 

So like, how easy was this assignment for me? I totally rock at being a fly on the wall. I pulled out my camera, set it on the grass, and hit the shutter button a million times. Observe, capture...it's what I'm made for people.

After a million clicks my son finally looks up.

Kid: So mom, what do you think? Do you think this bee might be hurt?

Me: (crawling over to now join the inspection/discussion) Uh, you mean the one that you are poking with that blade of grass over and over again?

Kid: Yeah. He just keeps rolling over and can't get out of this little hole and fly away so I keep shoving the blade of grass in his face.

Me: (silent pause of disbelief) If I were desperately trying to get out of a grassy hole and someone kept shoving a blade of grass in my face I'd have a hard time too. (infer the "duh" tone of voice)

(more silence, more poking)

Me: Let me rephrase that. So what I'm saying is that maybe you should just get out of her* bleepin' way, stop poking her, and let her get out of there on her own.

So. Picture Assignment complete. Lesson's learned:

1. I am pretty good at observing, and capturing. I have always loved being a fly on the wall.

2. No matter how smart our boys can be, it's moments like these that confirm that there is a short circuit in their ability to fully master the power of observation. (And thus, the ability to draw sound conclusions.) I am not stereotyping here, I am just observing what I see folks. I'm married to a boy and I have a son. I'm a female. Please refer back to number one. 

Girls, you know what I'm talkin' about right?

*99.9% of bees you see out and about are girls working hard to gather pollen. They are also the ones that make the honey, clean the hive, tend to the queen. The boys are at the hives attempting to mate with the queen, until they get kicked out or killed. They also do not have stingers. I'm not sure I believe in karma, but if I did this would probably be the tid bit that sealed the deal for me. How do I know this stuff?  Three years of preschool teaching experience, and a trip to the UC Davis Bee Biology Lab with twenty little three and four year olds. They all got to wear little bee-keeper outfits and helmets and let the boy bees crawl over their hands without the fear of being stung. Was all absolutely adorable.