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Marking Time to Summer

Crashing down the hill, arms akimbo, I am sliding headlong toward long days and warm nights. I couldn’t stop the momentum if I wanted to. I am going to land in a heap, limbs twisted and gasping for air, on top of summer at the bottom of this hill. Ready or not, here I come.


Next week is the last week of the leadership program for work, wrapping the program up and freeing up more time and brain space. One final trip to Stanford. Six months gone, in a blur of work and phone calls and winter weather. Relief to be done yet sad to leave the world of higher education, where I could play at being a student again. It has been fun. I’m reminded I’m good at being a student. Too bad it doesn’t pay a living wage.

Closer to home, Brandon is nearing the end of school and final activities are piling up. After the finish line, even more activities impatiently await. Trip to Ireland with his choir, trip to Colorado to visit relatives. Best time of year in Oregon–summer is–and he will happily miss half of it. It’s a shame at the same time it’s fantastic. So many options, so little time.

Summer is coming, ready or not. 

We try to measure time, parse it out into usable packets of minutes and hours and days and weeks. We look ahead and think, “After this, after that…” Why do we hurry it along so? We are rushing toward the future at the same rate as time creeps along. Always the same. We can’t change the physics of it. 

What can I do to slow it down, speed it up? Because I want to do both, right now. I want to quickly move through some parts to spend longer in others. 

I want long summer days with my windows open, the sounds of lawn mowers and wind chimes drifting through. I want to wander the house with bare feet and painted toes. I want dry hiking trails and burrs in my dogs fur. I want my teenager to sleep until noon and laze about the house, getting bored and saying there is nothing to do. I want to put projects off because it’s just too nice outside to do otherwise.

Come on summer, I’m ready.

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The Color of August

Ah, August. Such a bittersweet month.

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The fields and forests smell sweet as they turn to gold.

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The light arrives later, making the shadows on my morning paths longer.

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All reminding me that summer is nearing its end. I must take every opportunity to play!

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And be grateful for this time, these colors. August.

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All images processed with my Bald Hill formula for the Stackables app. Download it here.

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The Trouble with Oaks

I’ve been having some trouble with oaks this summer. Nothing serious, like a branch falling on my car or anything, just photographic trouble.

You see, I’ve been working on capturing summer trees. I want them to feel light and bright and airy. Oaks are one of the many kinds of trees we have in the area, so I want them to be part of my treescapes.

Last year, one of the few summer treescapes I created was this one, called Summer Oak. It has the feeling I’m looking for.

Summer Oak Corvallis Oregon Kat Sloma Mobile iPhone Photography

I can’t get it to happen again. Over and over, I photograph the oaks. I try different angles and compositions, and nothing seems to work. I’ve tried editing them anyway, only to come up with images that are heavier. More solid. It just doesn’t have the same feeling, does it?

Summer Oak Corvallis Oregon Kat Sloma Mobile iPhone Photography

So I’d just about given up on the oaks. Until last week…

Last week there was a full moon. It hung in the sky above the trees, bright but too small to capture with the iPhone. Inspired, I worked with shapes and backgrounds and created a “moon” hanging in an autumnal sky. It was kind of boring on its own, just floating there, so I looked through my tree images to see what could ground it.

And there it was, the oak. It was perfect.

Harvest Full Moon Summer Oak Corvallis Oregon Kat Sloma Mobile iPhone Photography

Harvest Moon

It made me realize that I was going about the oaks all wrong. Oaks are not light and airy trees. They are grounded and well-rooted trees. They can hold the moon to the earth, they are so solid and strong.

There is no trouble with oaks at all. Just trouble with me, trying to make oaks into something they were not meant to be.

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Empty Space

I love open space. That’s no secret, huh? My art has lots of it…

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It’s just a little weird when the empty space is where where my kitchen used to be…

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Our kitchen remodel project started on Monday with demolition. We now have an empty room instead of a kitchen. It’s the beginning of the end of our kitchen story. Three months of waiting, now one month of construction to go.

Our refrigerator is in the garage, our sink is in the bathroom, and we’ve created a little kitchenette in the dining room. I see lots of microwave and crockpot meals, and likely takeout, in our future.

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It will be exciting to see daily progress. I can’t wait to have a fully functional kitchen again!!

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Photo-Heart Connection: July 2014

Heat. That’s what I feel in this image. The heat of summer, direct sun, scorching and uncomfortable.

And yet… the promise of coolness. Once you get away from the edges, move through that heat, there is a deep relief.

Tree Leaves Oregon Forest Summer Kat Sloma Photography

There is a saying people use where I work: “Run to the fire.” It speaks to the idea that you shouldn’t run away from challenging things, but run to them.

This image speaks to me of running to the fire. Of running to the heat, dancing at the edges where it is uncomfortable, seeing how far you can go. And knowing, always, there is a retreat to come back to. There is relief away from the hot edges.

I think you can’t fully enjoy the delicious respite of that cool retreat if you haven’t felt the heat. If you haven’t pushed yourself into the intensity of it, seen how much you can take, you can’t relish the contrast. Cool becomes cold quickly when you stay too long in the deep shade.

Run to the fire. Feel the heat. Relish the cool. It’s the contrast that makes life interesting.

It’s no surprise to me this would be my Photo-Heart Connection for July. My life is on the busy side lately, between taking on new challenges at work, in my photography world and a kitchen remodel. I’ve definitely been running to the fire, and, knowing what I have lined up, I will be hanging out near the hot edges for the next six months or so. There is a small part of me that views everything with trepidation, worried about my stress level and whether I can do it all. But there is a large piece of me that says, “Bring it on!” I know I love a good challenge and will rise to the occasion. In the end, I’ll be able to look back and see what I’ve accomplished, truly enjoying the respite of the cool shade. I am encouraged; my Photo-Heart Connection tells me I can do this.

What is your Photo-Heart Connection telling you this month? What message do you find in your images? Share it with us here, and then visit others. We all have much to learn through our photography.


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What You Don’t See

Ahhhh, summer.
Sitting in the backyard, watching evening come on.
A peaceful moment.

Is that what you see in this?

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I see that, but it’s not quite the whole picture. What you don’t see is that the fence is about to fall down, and it’s been that way for years. You don’t see the power lines and drive-through coffee place behind our house, along with the sound of the traffic on a busy street. You don’t see me, laying on the couch, binge-watching Arrested Development because I was so worn out from my seven mile hike that morning. Yes, I’m proud of the “seven mile” part of that, but the rest could all be cut.

So that’s what I did. I saw this potential photo out the back door and went out and framed it the way I wanted to see it.

I do that a lot. I focus in on what I do want to see, the good stuff, and ignore the rest. It helps me in creating photographs, because I’m always evaluating what should be in and out of the frame. The more I can get rid of distractions or unneeded elements, the better the photograph. It helps me in life too, because I focus on the many things I really want to do and the few things that need to be done regardless, and release the stuff that doesn’t really matter. The fence is falling down? OK. It hasn’t fallen down yet. It’s not a danger to people or property. So I’m not going to worry about it. When it does fall down, we’ll take care of it. It’s out of my mind otherwise.

Some might call this denial, or turning a blind eye to reality.

I call it a philosophy.

You see, I believe you can focus on the good stuff, and be happy, or you can dwell on the bad stuff, and be forever depressed. It’s all in where you choose to look, and what you choose to see. We always have choices. Sometimes I can’t help but see the bad stuff, and then I still have a couple of choices to make: Does it need to be dealt with, and does it need to be dealt with NOW? Sometimes, the answer is, Yeah, I need to deal with this now. But many times, the answer is: It’s not so important right now. Or even, it’s not so important ever.

This doesn’t mean I don’t see or deal with real, hard, painful, messy things, ever. I do… when it’s important. But it doesn’t have to be all the time. It doesn’t have to be “just because” it’s there. It doesn’t have to be a way of life, always down in the muck. Thinking, If I just do this one last, hard thing, I will be happy. That doesn’t work.

You have to be happy first, regardless of all of the muck. And to be happy, for me, often means ignoring the muck. I watched this great TED talk this week, which helped me realize my approach to life is not just denial but a healthy outlook. Take a quick watch – it’s 12 enjoyable, laugh-filled minutes:

Aha, I thought. I’ve shifted the way I frame the world over the last few years, allowing myself to focus on the positive, and it explains a few things. It explains why I’ve been happy at my job, while other people around me are swirling in the worry and stress of what might happen. It explains why I was so much happier when I stopped watching the news a few years ago. It even may explain why my art comes out the way it does – usually positive and showing the beautiful in the world around me – even when there is a fence falling down, or power lines, or a traffic-filled street. I just cut out the stuff I don’t want to see.

You might think I’m lucky, that this is just naturally the way I’m wired. I think that is partly true, but it’s also true that I’m wired for achievement. For accomplishment. For seeing the work that needs to be done and making sure I do the work first, check it off my list, and then focus elsewhere. It’s taken a conscious effort on my part to shift toward focusing on the good stuff first, and ignoring the muck.

I want to see the good stuff, so that’s what I choose to look for. That’s what I frame with my camera, that’s what I write on the blog, that’s what I share with you.

And what you don’t see? That stuff… it doesn’t even matter.

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