Few Personal Favorites

Below, in my earlier posts, I shared with you two of my images most popular on flickr maybe the world's largest photo sharing site. Now I want to share with you, whoever you are, some of my personal favorite images. It is one thing to capture a thing of beauty, like a sunset or an antique entry and a whole other thing to discover beauty where there had seemed to been none. That discovery is one of several aspects that I love in the process of looking at my world through a lens. 

Heavy Equipment in soft early morning light can look amazingly beautiful, and believe me, that was a revelation, a true eye opener, after all I am a woman with zero interest in mucho macho male tools or toys.

I would pass our pottery studio many times, but with this image below, for the first time ever I noticed the sun and chose an advantageous time of day for my image that to me shows beauty where so often I had seen none before.

Light is of the essence, certainly in photography. One early morning my neighbor, by chance, invited me in to her home with my camera, free to snap away. Nothing was arranged, nothing was planned. Miss Pearl, as I like to call her, thinks of her home as rustic, I would call it artistic.

Claire de Lune meanwhile claimed inability to live without beauty. Something about  having captured two very different works of art of her choice together, shows also something of the essence of the home owner. Something of her fierceness, despite her advanced age, yet soft vulnerability, along with her common sense that lets her so to say 'chop wood and carry water' and live on her own in her own gorgeous, I might ad round home.

Finally, for now, the next image, one of my first takes with my then brand new Nikon, I almost missed, almost passed by, but instead I back tracked, took a good look and snapped away, Isabella was still a puppy on lead in my one hand, camera in the other. I had been accused of sitting on the fence. This image makes it plain that fences can be reasonably comfortable and might be preferable to charging ahead without proper foresight. This dragon never fails to make me smile. To be able to seize an opportunity, to stop, look (and listen to the inner response) to be present to what is and surrounds us are skills to be practiced by any mensch, much less photographer, ad infinitum.

Garcia Street Entry

Take Refuge in Beauty

Solidarity

It's all about framing

flickr final part 4

My 'Goddess with an Attitude' was my very first upload, here post-processed with tools I then had not yet discovered. The first of more then 3,800 images that total almost 133,300 views.

I realize that an image alone no matter how beautiful is never as relevant to me as an image that holds meaning, has something to say, maybe tells a story, or somehow gives new insight.

In this light I invite you to check out some of my favorite photostreams on flickr starting with BuckarooBob from the Oregon Coast, a master story teller, prior photo journalist and human being of the very first order:

"I'm a seeker and a believer, a pilgrim and a pirate, a dreamer and a schemer"

Prabhakaran from Chenai, India will charm you too, I bet, with his delightful presentation of his world seen through his beloved Canon. I particularly love the insights he provides in to the culture of South India, along with his sweet poetic spirit coupled with a great sense of humor.

Vol-au-Vent or Kiki, from France, but always a Swiss at heart, is my queen of soulfulness, one can not help be enchanted by her presentations. She has a knack for finding the perfect quote, followed by personal and intimate expression, set to her image to express charmingly what is in her heart and thereby touch another's soul.

Keith from Australia is a closet film maker to my mind, a thinking photographer, highly attuned to the interplay of light, dark and shadows. His images are not the cute, warm and fuzzy kind, but the stunning, capture of poignant moments in time, like this one here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/xpatscot/3793590223/sizes/l/

Finally the cutest pet images ever got to be of Earny the Terrier and Toby the calico cat:
ttp://www.flickr.com/photos/jobee59/sets/72157603571959871/
from the Australian bush via Jobee59

flickr anniversary part 3

Here comes the tricky part, expressing my complex, sometimes difficult feelings in relating on-line and through mine and others creative efforts. I decided early on that flickr is one of my modes of self expression rather then my advertisement! Meaning I never intend to cater to an audience. My hope is that you might be moved by some of my posts and might even respond, but I will not hold my breath for that to happen. If I sound defensive, I am afraid I am. The truth is that I did hold my breath despite my best of intentions. Going public means seeking interaction, who am I kidding. There is a reason I do not keep my images to myself. I can't get my friends to look at them, what do I expect? Nothing and everything, but anything other then generic, polite responses, pleaze! And spare me the devastating critical kind or the dubious silences. Whoever said silence is gold is a liar. Silence is a killer, fosters uncertainty and doubt. Benign neglect can be lethal. But who takes the time for constructive criticism? Who knows how to give such? And anyhow I keep reading how flickr is about "fun" - really?

I never been big on gratitude and yes, I ought to be grateful for all the attention my images do get while I am so blissfully ignorant of the true art of photography The truth is that I have hurt many a time over many an overlooked dear image of mine. I guess it is unavoidable considering everything, but it hurts nevertheless. What is dear to me does not (yet?) translate in to dear to others and that is what distinguishes the successful artist, right?

Flickr does embrace that which is cute, no doubt. I like cute too, up to a point. At first I kept my activity to pet imagery, how odd for me, but hey I got one, then two, then three furry ones and pets seemed saver to explore, god forbid I should come upon explicit sex images, which I am happy to report I really have managed to avoid. So how come there rarely is a dog baring it's teeth? Dogs piss and hump plenty, but rarely do I find an image of such realities of life, why? Might it be offensive to a young family member?

This playful image of my Sumo-boy gave nightmares to a few but started a lively discussion. I adore this ferocious image of Sumo because it counters the assumption that little Sumo-boy, because of his size is a cute puppy rather then the adult alpha, independent, unafraid male that he is in reality.

Of course Sumo is cute, but his spirit is large and he does not need to be looked at as a baby or toy. He is a guy for real.

But this is not about Sumo or canine companions, but about my experiences with flickr. Just now I took a break to check a mail from one of my dear flickr friends. Turns out a stranger  by mistake somehow managed managed to upload an image to his stream. Now get this, none of his many viewers, many regulars questioned this odd image that so did not relate to his body of work. Rather the comments were complimentary on his choice of colors and design and so on! This is what gets me with flickr, these non-sensical, superficial responses, please! Who needs them?

It is time to honor the friends that I did find on flickr and that make flickr special. I love connecting over our creative efforts with folks from all over the world, from all kinds of backgrounds, cultures, religions, beliefs, tongues and nationalities.

to be continued ...

flickr anniversary part 2

Here I continue my reflections on flickr by considering my personal favorites of the thousands of images I captured and posted in these last 3 years.

This one is one of the very first images I took with my new Nikon D40. My camera sat there for a while before I dared approach it. I was walking my pups as I so often do and was passing by this very old, funky cemetery and almost missed this toy up on the fence. By pure chance the colors and sharpness of the image keep delighting me and so does the symbology of sitting on the fence, something I have been accused too often. Here I demonstrate that sitting on the fence can be o.k. and almost look comfortable!



This one is a bit similar in that I was focused on architecture and almost missed these cute tigers, really I am not a fan of cutesy toys, but I love this image and think the frame perfect.



Tractors and heavy equipment have very little appeal to me usually, but this one early morning the light shone upon this tractor and I love what became of it, an abstract of sorts. I really love it because it is so unlike me to be attracted to such. My world opens up looking through a lens and I come to love all kinds a things.

I love my pups and treasure capturing them in action, which is not easy. Here I was quick to reach for my camera when I spotted Howdy, a gorgeous Labradoodle pup. It was late in the morning the sun already washing out a lot of color and my aim was not perfect. I did a lot of finnegaling to achieve this so far my favorite version of the image.



If you care to check out more of my images you might like to view one of my favorite sets.
to be continued ...

flickr

My 3 year flickr anniversary is coming up September 6th. I joined flickr in the idea of enriching our on-line group of "phenomenal women" with an image sharing site. Word and image always made sense to me and make a larger whole, like the left and right brain that function together. In my profession as a bodyworker I was one of the first to my knowledge to employ a portfolio that showed beautiful photos of me at work along with a painful, to me, description of what my intentions in massage therapy really are. Massage can go so way far beyond relaxation, but few knew and know.

I am not one that had a long standing passion about photography. I bought my first digital point and shoot with the expectation of traveling to Ghana to volunteer for a month in an orphanage and kinda get a first whiff of Africa and a sense if I might want to spend more time there. The little Olympus Stylus with it's odd shape, that fit perfectly in to my hand seemed ideal for the purpose of capturing the likeness of some cute African kids unobtrusively.

As fate would have it, my Dad got sick the day after I had made my travel arrangements to Ghana and what I captured first was his hand in mine as I sat on his bedside and suddenly remembered my brand new camera still unused in my purse.

My Dad perked up when I mentioned Olympus as he had owned several, but of course none digital. It was sweet to see this old, frail man, mostly incoherent, on his death bed come alive.

Since then, 1995, I gave myself a Nikon D40, a beginners DSLR, as capturing my fast moving pups was simply too fast for my point and shoot, as they have a considerable length of lag time. But I am back to another Olympus Stylus, this time purple, to replace my first as they are just so convenient and surprising in what they can accomplish considering their size.

Flickr is a phenomenon and may well be the internet at it's very best.

To date I uploaded exactly 3800 images that garnered 24,550 views to my photo stream alone, a lot more in total, and certainly a whole lot more exposure I would have ever had of photos placed in to albums as I used to.



This entry, taken on one of my many walks with my dogs, is what flickr considers my most interesting and what the community made in to my most popular, most often viewed image. This photo made Explore twice in different versions.

It got posted 'illegally' somewhere by someone where it garnered overnight 1100 views. Personally I am not crazy about entries. What I do truly love though is discovering my world with new eyes.

This image of a young working girl in braces looking sexy, kinda, I am afraid circulates among an adoring anorexic crowd, I took it away from public viewing after a comment confirmed my suspiscions, but recently made it available once again and it is gaining exposure steadily.

Finally I remember vividly becoming what seemed like an integral part of a painting during maybe the most spectacular sunset I ever witnessed. It took me a while to consider even an attempt to photograph the spectacle and it was an unforgettable event. Until then I rarely ever attempted capturing a landscape. This image became by far the most often favored of mine.



To be continued ...