early bird

I'm a member of an Etsy "street team" called the Female Photographers of Etsy (fPOE), and it has been such a great experience. I have learned a lot from these ladies and am consistently inspired by their talent and creativity. One of the coolest parts of fPOE is the Miss Match diptych project. Each week, themes and partners are assigned, and we create corresponding photos. I have participated six times now, and it has been such fun challenge!

This week, my partner and I had the theme "early bird." I had never experimented with self-portraits too much, but I decided to go for it, and here's what I came up with:

I wasn't so sure how I felt about it at first, but it's growing on me. I would love to know what you think of it!

(To find out how the diptych turned out and find out more about the project, check out the Miss Match blog.)

lighthouse: before and after

I think I like editing pictures just as much as taking them in the first place. More, maybe. I took this photo in Bermuda on my honeymoon in June:

 
There's nothing wrong with it, but it wasn't one of the ones I loved from the trip. It didn't speak to me. For whatever reason, I came back to it today and decided to play with it a little (or a lot.) I LOVE the result!

I love how dreamy and dramatic it looks now! If you do, too, you're in luck: I just listed it in the shop! :)

yarn haiku

some people can knit

but I am content simply

to photograph yarn

trees without leaves

I took this one from the Rite-Aid parking lot. I think that's what I love about photography--it doesn't require a studio and free time and lots of materials and expertise. I don't have to set aside time for photographing; I can just do it as I go along my regular life that includes boring things like stopping to get more Halls after work because I'm coughing my brains out.  Right in the middle of that, I can find beauty and stop for a moment to take it in.  Lately I have been drawn to the look of naked trees against the sky. You don't see a lot of that here in Mississippi because so few trees are deciduous. I never thought about that much until my most recent trip to Kentucky for Christmas, during which I kept finding myself in awe of the wonderful patterns branches make when leaves aren't in the way. I snapped this one just outside my Mamaw's house:

Neither of these are in my shop yet, but I'm thinking I should change that. Do you agree?

back again (again)

It's a little late for a New Year's Resolution, but here I am again.  I've been thinking a lot about this blog and what to do with it. If you've been following me here for a while, you know that I used to write a lot about my internal (spiritual, emotional, intellectual...) life as well as about what was going on in my every day (external) life. It was very therapeutic for me. Then I went to graduate school and began struggling to express myself freely through writing (due to doing lots of school writing that felt very constrained and sometimes dishonest.) I felt really bad about that and tried to get back in the habit of writing about my real self well. I still wasn't good at it (anymore) though, so this blog started to be mostly about my photography and my etsy shop. But for some reason I felt guilty about that and didn't want it to be that way. So I didn't blog at all. Some super important external life events have happened (marriage! finishing my Master's degree! getting my first "real" therapist job!), and I still didn't write.

Well, here's what I've decided. If words aren't naturally flowing out of my soul anymore, SO BE IT.  I forgive myself for that. It just is what it is.  The other day I was watching Julie Andrews on Oprah, and in talking about losing her amazing voice due to illness and beginning writing children's books, she said that her daughter comforted her by telling her she didn't lose her voice, she just found a new way to use it. Well, I think that happened to me too. Writing wasn't a joyful thing for me anymore because of graduate school (or whatever), and photography became my new voice. Of course I can still write (like I am right now), but the way I feel connected to God and the world, the way I transcend the humdrum of everyday, the way I feel creative and free and alive, is through images. That may change, but for now, I'm going to accept it, appreciate it, nurture it, and yes, blog it. :)