• Black and White,  Candid Portraits,  People/Portraits,  quotes,  street photography

    A couple of questions to ponder…

    October 20, 2022
    New York City – 2008

    “I’m a child of God, and being a child of God, I’m essential, and no one has the right to limit, or the power to limit, my ability to be somebody.”

    Ruby Sales

    “What would our world look like if everyone believed and were given the ability to be somebody?” Please spend a bit of time with that question. Which then leads to the next question, “Does our inability to believe we are essential lead us to think of others as inessential and treat them as less than?” I find it important to ask myself those questions and then how do I live the answers to those questions? Sorry but I actually asked three questions. 😁

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  • architecture,  Black and White,  Photography,  shadows,  window

    I have a feeling…

    May 25, 2022
    Morning light entering my bedroom, casting shadows across the wall.
    I see this almost daily and never tire of it.

              I have a feeling
                       That through the hole in reason’s ceiling,
              In Heaven you can perch,
                      Without ever going to church!

    Courtney Milne

    I really did not know about Courtney Milne until this past week. I am impressed with his photography. I was also surprised to find he has published 12 books from the conventional to the abstract. One source I read says his photos are a celebration of the world’s “sacred places,” and a seemingly endless meditation on the beauty of the natural world. Sounds like my kind of photographer. Why didn’t someone tell me about his work? One of his best-selling books is Sacred Earth, which I just ordered a used copy of. Seeing his books makes me realize how little a collection I have of other photographers books.

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  • Black and White,  Mary Oliver,  poems,  poetry,  Self-portraits

    Temple of Thought

    May 19, 2022

    Not quite four a.m., when the rapture of being alive
    strikes me from sleep, and I rise
    from the comfortable bed and go
    to another room, where my books are lined up
    in their neat and colorful rows. How 

    magical they are! I choose one
    and open it. Soon
    I have wandered in over the waves of the words
    to the temple of thought.

                      And then I hear
    outside, over the actual waves, the small,
    perfect voice of the loon. He is also awake,
    and with his heavy head uplifted he calls out
    to the fading moon, to the pink flush
    swelling in the east that, soon,
    will become the long, reasonable day. 

                           Inside the house
    it is still dark, except for the pool of lamplight
    in which I am sitting.
                      I do not close the book. 
    Neither, for a long while, do I read on.

    Mary Oliver, her poem The Loon from What Do I know?
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  • Black and White,  coffee life,  coffee shops,  haiku,  journal,  writing/reading

    Simple Life but Full

    May 10, 2022

    new poetry book
    words offered to the soul
    old chipped saucer

    ms

    Bright sunny morning here in Colorado. It’s 51 degrees but the 7 mph breeze makes it feel cold to me. Coffee time and writing at Bean Cycle. Reading a book from a new-to-me poet called named Ted Kooser and his book called Delights and Shadows. Meet up and catch up with friends later today. I live a simple life but full.

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  • Black and White,  John O'Donohue,  quotes

    … the lantern

    April 16, 2022

    One of the most exciting and energizing forms of thought is the question. I always think that the question is like a lantern. It illuminates new landscapes and new areas as it moves. Therefore, the question always assumes that there are many different dimensions to a thought that you are either blind to or that are not available to you. One of the reasons that we wonder is because we are limited, and that limitation is one of the great gateways of wonder.

    John O’Donohue

    If asking a question does offer a new landscape, then altering how I ask that question, even slightly, offers a new landscape in thought. This is a wonderful metaphor for landscape photographers. When I move 10 feet this way, or lower my perspective, I change how the camera sees the landscape. It’s good to always be asking questions.

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  • Anthony de Mello,  Black and White,  People/Portraits,  quotes,  Self-portraits

    wiser today…

    April 14, 2022
    Self-portrait

    “When you come to see you are not as wise today as you thought you were yesterday, you are wiser today.”

    Anthony de Mello

    I like this quote and have felt for the past few years that anyone with the answers was not someone I wanted to hang with. However, I must confess there was a time when I thought I thought I knew the answer(s). It has been through the experiences of living my life that has taught me the range of life’s grayscale goes way beyond St. Ansel’s black and white zone system of 10. I’m just not as wise as I think I am or I think I should be. (Notice all the “I’s” in that sentence?)

    As I look out at the world I see it only through my eyes, not yours. Therefore, my wisdom is often times different than someone else’s due to life’s experiences, culture, upbringing, lessons learned, or not, in each of our lives. Just knowing that will makes us wiser today.

    And, if there is anything I would change in de Mello’s quote, I would replace the exclusive word “you” in his quote with the inclusive word of “we”. But, I’m wise enough to leave it alone. 😁

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