Ellycat has been so super snuggly lately. It’s getting just a bit chillier around here (yes, my northern friends, it was about 60 degrees this morning–brrr!) so Elly is my new best lap buddy.
She also loves it when I leave my dresser drawers ajar and will leap in and nestle in my skivvies.
PurrrPurrrr…..
From the courtyard garden at the Beacon Hill Friends’ House.
Some flowers and fruit from the side of headstone.
I don’t have any ambitions to own a big home someday. But I have to admit that I was rather jealous of the dining room of the home we stayed at in Boston. Can you just imagine the great dinner parties we could have at such a table?
And we could probably have, like 5 gameboards of Ticket to Ride going all at the same time.
:)
Happy Monday everyone!
The undergrads have arrived on our campus (as of yesterday). Our community will be all hustle and bustle until they stop attending classes (in, say, three weeks or so….). The beginning of the schoolyear always brings such excitement….
Lately I’ve been thinking that I’m getting some pretty good results with my flower photos. So I thought, just maybe, I could make a bit of money off of them, selling them as “stock” photography (the types of pics that publications purchase). So I went to iStock.com and began the application process.
I was about halfway done when they gave a list of all the types of photos that they don’t want, because they have too many. Flowers were at the top of the list along with pets. Humph.
Well I went into a bit of a funk. Feeling like what I do with my camera is so ‘common.’ Of course GS’ and Sara’s recent praise of some of my photos made me feel a bit better, but at the same time I was thinking, “what a waste of time.”
Then this morning I went to the garden (sans camera) and thought some more about it. And I came to a few conclusions….
I don’t take flower pictures (or any of my pics, for that matter) because I expect that I have more talent than any of the other billion flower photographers out there. I take them because the process brings me joy. I love the ‘chase’ of merging the good lighting with a unique angle and a gorgeous flower. It’s that moment that’s the fun part. The alchemy that happens when I am with plants (and critters) and I am seeing them in a new way through my lens.
Then I love that I can return to that moment when I upload the pics to flickr and then share them with you.
Like the photo above. I took it as I was absorbing the morning sun on the balcony of a courtyard garden in Beacon Hill. It was a choice moment–thinking about the gardener who planted the fruits and veggies in the urban space, with historical buildings all around (and I was so thrilled to find nasturtiums in Massachusetts–I had no idea that they would grow in such a cold place!). Reveling in the bright new day. Feeling completely at peace. And in awe.
Now I know I didn’t capture all of that in this one photo. But maybe it reflects just a smidge of what I felt then. Or maybe you, when seeing this picture, have you own happy thoughts about spending the morning in a garden. Either way, I feel some success. Knowing that my photo just brought you some of the joy it brought me, that it reached out across the ‘net and touched you. And that makes it all worthwhile.
“If you think you’re too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito.”
— Anita Roddick, the founder of the Body Shop, who died Monday at age 64 of a brain hemorrhage.
A photo taken by John, at the Beacon Hill Friends’ Meetinghouse.
This sweet statue graces the courtyard in the garden outside of our window here in Beacon Hill. Lovely :)
PS: sorry for the graininess…better photos coming soon, I promise….
These rose blossoms are no bigger than your pinky fingernail. It’s amazing that such beauty and perfection comes in such a small package!
Again, another one of my windowsill arrangements. :)
