Photography this past week

I didn’t get to the drawing boards the last couple of days, but I did continue to take photos every day. I started a Photo-a-Day challenge in February 2016. It was only going to be for 100 days, but we were having so much fun, we’ve kept going.

The challenge came in handy after moving in 2015 and all the new house renovations in 2016. My art work went on hiatus and I was floundering horribly with my photography direction. The subjects I loved to photograph no longer interested me. Of course, most of those subjects were away from the house and I was staying home more and more because of the house renovations.

The photography challenge kept my heart in the visual creative field. It pulled my focus into subjects immediately at hand around the yard and I discovered it was like going on a treasure hunt. What joy! I never know what I’m going to find and I the smallest of details in leaves, flowers, old stumps, rocks, and such are intriguing. 

Ice formations in the rushing brook remind me of chandelier crystals

The brook, which can be seen out the sliding glass door, often catches my attention with its ever-changing flow. There’s something different to focus on every day. The view from the deck lets me look down on it. However, there are quite a few trees blocking making it difficult to get good pictures. The sound, though, is amazing! The roar as it tumbles over and between rocks is sometimes so loud I can hear it in the house and any conversation outside is with raised voices. 

Last week the warm temperatures melted all the ice, but this weekend with the returning cold, the water started freezing up again. The snow receded enough I was able to get down over the embankment. Gosh, that water was rushing! The new formations of ice were squeezing the flowing water into smaller channels between the rocks. 

I am fascinated by the ice crystals on the rocks. Some remind me of ice castle caves and others chandeliers. I took over 50 photographs trying to different views or the rocks, water, and ice. It’s fascinating how quickly it changes between one day and the next and morning to afternoon.

However, I am disappointed when I import the photos onto the computer. Once again, what looks fascinating in real life, doesn’t quite capture it in a small picture. The rushing water creates a blur when I focus on the ice crystals and if I focus on the water, everything else is blurred. 

What does this mean? 

One is that I need to make better use of the new camera. It focuses a lot slower than the old which is a nuisance when photographing wildlife. 

Two is the need to take more time while shooting the picture. I tend to be a hurry-up-and-move-on type of person trusting that I can use the computer to edit (most get deleted).

Three is to not let myself get too carried away in finding a lot of fascinating things to photograph. One the one hand, it’s, like I said, a treasure hunt, and how fun is that! But on the other hand, it’s time consuming to go through to delete and choose which to edit. 

All of this said, taking pictures brings me tremendous joy and I love sharing that joy. I post my one-photo on our challenge page and others I’ll post to my Facebook page so others can see. It’s my way of finding beauty every day.