My online journal sharing interests in photography, nature, coffee life, journaling, fountain pens, bicycling, spirituality and asking deep questions.
I had a pretty quiet 4th of July but a busy one. An early bike ride to the coffee shop for a bit of reading and writing. I worked on some shots I took the night before. Did some shopping and bought a second pair of shorts as my older ones have shrunk. I spent a couple of hours at the CSU Trial Garden for some flower photos.
I know this image is not very good but I decided to post it anyway. It is heavily cropped, grainy and not very sharp. So, why post a dud? Because it also reminds me of why I get out to shoot just as much as one of my better images. Paul Lester mentions why he presses the shutter in one of his blogs. He states, “Sometimes I don’t know why I click the shutter, but I just have to. And when that feeling hits, nothing but the click will do.” Man can I relate. I shoot and post images because of the change that occurs in me when I press the shutter. Words like therapy, healing, rejuvenation, quiet time, beauty, getting in touch with nature, getting away from the hustle of city life and pollination. Pollination? Yes, pollination.
Wikipedia defines biotic pollination as the process by which pollen is transferred in plants, thereby enabling fertilization and sexual reproduction. This process of pollination requires pollinators: organisms that carry or move the pollen grains from the anther to the receptive part of the carpel or pistil. Okay, so what does that mean to me?
The birth and growth of my photography is similar to biotic pollination. The pollinators are the scenes found in my viewfinder. When each one of those scenes touches me, I grow as a person, as a photographer. Each time I venture out a scene enticing me to press the shutter will present itself. So, I’m being fertilized by scenes around me.
Nature is always changing and presenting us with surprises. This bumble bee is an example of such a surprise. I was in Blendon Woods park playing around with my white balance preset, you know the adage, practice makes perfect, when this bee decided to get in the image. As a photographer, I had no problems with that.
Life is also constantly changing. Big and little surprises enter our lives on a daily basis. How do we handle the surprises in life? do we accept them or fight against them? Do we run away from them? I kinda like surprises, myself!
Did you ever notice how bumble bees are a lot like the Energizer Rabbit, they just keep on going? They have a mission in life to pollinate and then go after it. Wish my body could keep up that pace but alas the age thing is taking its toll. I’m posting this image because it was taken with the new Nikon 35mm f1.8 lens. I got as close as I could get with the lens then I’ve done a major crop in Lightroom 2, tweaked levels and a bit of saturation. That’s it. I think the lens performs well, especially for a $200 price tag. It’s a keeper and the lens stays on the camera most of the time. It’s a lot lighter to carry around, another one of those age things. 🙂
So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable. Christopher Reeve