blooming garb of spring

Spring has sprung! Yes, I know it's still February, but things warm up early on the coast. I've been ooh-ing and aah-ing about how perfect everything looks and feels around me right now. A hymn we sang in church today reminded me, though, that all that points to something greater.

"Fair are the meadows, fairer still the woodlands, 

robed in the blooming garb of spring: 

Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer

who makes the woeful heart to sing."

Amen.

texture fun

I browse the work of lots of photographers and have long been fascinated by how many of them use "textures"to enhance their photos. Basically, these are just images that can be layered with other images to create the illusion of texture. I got Pixelmator for Christmas (thanks, Mom!) and now have the capacity to play with layers myself! AND I recently won a set of free texture images by Life-n-Reflection (who sells her fabulous stuff here)! What luck! Here are a couple of things I've done with them so far.

 

I took this first one for Miss Match when the theme was "loss." It's a house that was destroyed (mostly) in Katrina. I love how "FEMA" is front and center, and I thought the texture added to the messiness. It also makes it look like an old picture, which seems fitting since this house has obviously looked like this for years and seems to have been forgotten or left behind.

I took this second one on Thanksgiving Day in Gloucester, Virginia and didn't especially like it before, but it seems to have a sense of dreaminess now that makes it a bit more interesting.  I definitely haven't mastered this texture thing yet, but it's a fun new possibility.

What do you think? Should I put either of these in my shop?

steps haiku

he says right now, and

he says hurry, but I say

one step at a time

 

abandoned haiku

i am curious:

what did this place used to be?

will it be again?

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