"i heart macro"

I grabbed my camera this afternoon and ventured out into my backyard to see what I might find to shoot for "i heart macro" and "shoot.edit.submit." (links below).  Initially the Mexican Bird of Paradise didn't catch my eye as it doesn't have any of it's brightly colored flowers this time of year, but the more I looked at it my eye was drawn to the branches and the way the leaves hang down on them, so I aimed my macro lens at one, and liked what I saw.

The first picture is pretty much straight out of camera.  The second two I cropped and took some artistic license with using Aperture 3....I am continually amazed at the beauty found in such seemingly ordinary things!

 

The Creative Exchange: Yosemite

I just got introduced to "The Creative Exchange" through a friend, and decided it was timely to participate.  I like the theme, which is "your camera in one hand, your heart in the other."  Honestly, I don't think the two ever part ways when I take pictures, but obviously some photos have more personal meaning than others.

The 21st of this month marked five years since my dad passed away.  He had Alzheimer's, but thankfully what took him before being fully ravaged by that disease was a sudden heart attack - he was gone in an instant after returning from a walk with my mom in his beloved outdoors.

The pictures I am sharing were taken just this last Thanksgiving in Yosemite, a place very dear to my dad's heart from boyhood until he passed.  He was blessed to live nearby at the end of his life, and would go on weekly hikes with his "buddy Tom".  Alzheimer's took a lot from him, but never his love of Yosemite and being outdoors.  We just had a family reunion at my mom's at Thanksgiving, and one afternoon took a beautiful drive through Yosemite.  I will share a few of the images I captured that afternoon as sun and clouds shifted and played games with the incredible, ever-changing landscape where rain and snow had fallen just hours earlier....

I love and miss you, dad!

the road down into Yosemite valley

Bridal Veil Falls

fog shrouding the tops of granite walls

the sun breaking through and lighting up my dad's favorite tree to photograph

fall and the falls

the sun was shining on the valley floor, lighting up the fall colors while winter was presiding at the top

Half Dome was covered with clouds almost the whole trip, but suddenly the clouds cleared and late afternoon sun lit it up in spectacular fashion

low clouds started to gather again as we were leaving

as the sun was going down and it got cooler, mist began to rise on the meadow

a shot through the windshield of the rising mist

our last look back as we left, with mist rising from the meadow and the setting sun kissing the snowy peak good night...

i heart macro

Shortly after coming across "i heart macro" this week for the first time, I walked by my window and saw the morning sun illuminating a seed pod in it's fleeting light in my backyard.  I quickly grabbed my camera and ran out to capture what I saw a before the sun shifted and left the pod in the shadows again....

the mystery of wind-breath

eyes closed it is crystal clear,
vivid picture in my mind:
a small sturdy sailboat
her white sails bulging
taut with power
and mystery
the mystery of wind-breath.

...the Spirit breathes where he wills
and you hear his voice....
the Spirit breath-speaks;
am i listening?
am i positioned to hear,
to receive life-giving,
life-propelling mystery into myself?

his heart exhales,
pulsing breath-voice
whooshing softly to fill sails;
to guide this little vessel
sure and steady,
puff by puff
breath by breath.

without his breathing
i am stalled
dead in the water;
a dormant vessel
needing to reposition
sails again toward the wind
the wind-breath of the Spirit.


The wind blows (breathes) where it wills; and though you hear its sound, yet you neither know where it comes from nor where it is going.  So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." 
 John 3:8 (Amplified)