Along the edge of the trail yesterday, I noticed the wild iris blooming. I love these small, delicate flowers. They are like the quiet cousin of the typical varieties you see around in gardens.
I got up close and personal with my iPhone, but the images just weren’t capturing the essence of these beautiful little flowers on a gorgeous spring morning.
So I looked for the light… and there it was.
Hello, spring.
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes well you just might find
You get what you need
— Rolling Stones
I’m not a big Rolling Stones fan, but the chorus is running through my head on an infinite loop this morning.
You see, yesterday I went for a walk. It was a gorgeous day, and I took a walk around the little lake on the property where I work. Inspired by my Singapore lily pad images, I wanted to see what I could capture with the water. I desperately wanted to get closer to these lily pads, to get rid of all off the surrounding stuff, but without hip waders or a zoom lens that was not going to happen. Frustrated, I took a couple of frames with my iPhone and moved on.
I realized this morning: I couldn’t get what I wanted, but I got what I needed.
Beauty, peace, tranquility. The perfect image to edit and share today.
I hope you all have a great weekend! If you have a chance, come over and say hi to me and the Bhoomies today.
Since I started to explore mobile photography and app processing, almost immediately I heard the question: “Kat, are you going to teach a class? I would love one!”
“Not yet,” I would answer, “I’m still learning myself.”
That worked for a while. Now, I am still learning for myself, but the teacher in me just can’t be suppressed. When I love something, I want to share it! So there are a couple of ways I’m reaching out to teach what I’m calling “Smartphone Art.”
As a regular contributor on the Seek Your Course blog this year, I’ll be providing tutorials on Smartphone Art. The first one, Smartphone Art I: Getting good photographs with your smartphone, is available today! You can get a short introduction to taking great photographs with your mobile device.
But, no matter how hard I try, I just can’t squeeze all of the info into a few blog posts, so I’ve got a new workshop in the works!
Smartphone Art will be a one day, on location workshop first held here in Corvallis, Oregon on August 10. You can get all of the details on the workshop here and register here. In the one day, hands-on workshop, we will start with the basics of getting a great photograph using the camera on your mobile device, and by the end of the day you will be combining apps to create unique works of art. Sound fun? Yeah, I think so too. I absolutely can’t wait!! If you don’t live close by, don’t worry, I’m sure this material will eventually makes its way into an eCourse, but I’m inspired to teach it on location first. Contact me to talk about bringing it to your local area.
I’ll also be teaching A Sense of Place as a two-day workshop here in the local area this summer! Join me June 8 and 9 to explore your sense of place through photography. I’m running this workshop a little bit differently since I’m not travelling, with the classroom instruction portion on Saturday morning and then an image review and discussion on Sunday afternoon. Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning will be on your own, “homework” time. It will provide a really great opportunity to learn, practice and integrate the material. You can get all of the details on the workshop here and register here.
As I mentioned yesterday, these workshops are part of my shift to “local” that’s been going on over the last year. I look forward to meeting more of you close to home!
The light on the trees caught my eye. That beautiful winter-almost-spring sun, warming the world around us. That sunlight encouraged us to go out and enjoy the world. Everyone nodding and smiling at the others on the path we walked. It’s amazing what a little sun will do for your mood.
There is much that draws me to this image. The fine detail of the branches against the softly colorful sky. The lines of the trees, pulling me in and through the scene. The contrast of light and dark. The colors of green and blue and gold — my colors of late.
But I keep coming back to the light.
A light of strength. See how it shines on those branches? It highlights the thin yet supple, strong beauty of the tall trees.
A light of hope. Even if the sky is a bit dark in places, it is not gloomy. Far from it! While the sun is shining, there is hope.
A light of future. It is still winter, but spring is coming, and with it, the light. And while I will miss some of what this winter has brought me, the warm sun that will come more often brings something else beautiful and new.
It’s not long now. You can see it in the light.
I think I say this every month, but this month it was really hard to select my Photo-Heart Connection. By the numbers, I created much less in February than I did in January. By the quality though, I had several images I truly love with strong connections to my heart.
It was hard, too, because as I got it down to the last few images to decide between, the house went crazy. My son was getting ready for school and upset that there didn’t seem to be any food he liked. My husband was sitting there talking to me about one thing or another, tossing the ball to the dog who was scrabbling around on our hard wood floors to catch it. How can you hear your heart in all of that noise and distraction? You can’t. At least I couldn’t.
So I took a break from the process and came back to it again later, when the house was quiet. When I had the space to myself and peace to hear myself think, everything came together and I could finally feel the heart-connection in this image above all others. Just like many things in life, we often need time and space to clearly hear the messages of our heart. It we want to live a more heart-led life, then we need to intentionally create that peaceful space more often.
How about you? What time and space do you need to complete your Photo-Heart Connection practice? How does that translate into listening to your heart in other ways in your life? I’d love to hear, so share in the comments so we can all learn from each other.
You can link your Photo-Heart Connection for February in below, through February 7th.
Winter allows us to see a tree’s inner beauty
I wrote that phrase as I posted this image to Instagram today. It just fit. What I love about this image is the shape of the tree. Not just the beautiful outer curve, as you would see when it is full of leaves, but the inner beauty of the limbs as they twist their way outward into smaller and smaller branches. You can see the beauty of the whole tree, not only what’s on the surface.
And it got me to thinking… Life is like this too. Often it’s the quiet patches, the harder parts of life that really show what we are made of. It’s the difficulties and the down times that can reveal our true strength and inner beauty. It’s how we discover who we are at the core.
Just as we would not appreciate light without darkness, we wouldn’t appreciate summer as much without the comparison to the winter cold. And winter reveals an inner beauty, all its own.
I woke up Monday to the sound of the rain. It figures, I thought to myself, It would be raining the first day of my new plan to go hiking regularly. But this is Oregon, and if you didn’t ever go out in the rain you would be stuck indoors for months, so I got out the rain gear and headed to the woods.
It was everything I had hoped for: peaceful, beautiful, solitary. Oh yes, and wet. But the sun came out several times, and I experienced a true joy to see the light dancing among the trees. Had I stayed at home, I wouldn’t have noticed the sun.
By the end, I was breathing deeply. My shoulders had relaxed, coming down from my ears to a more natural location. My body was tired but refreshed.
This is what I’ve been craving. It was hard to break the habit and walk away from the computer and the To Do list. But Day One of Project Forest Walks was a success. Today will be Day Two.