It’s another beautiful day today. Though the wind made photography challenging this morning, I spent about an hour at the Lyndale Peace Park in Minneapolis with camera and tripod. Much of my time was spent setting up my shots and then waiting for the wind to pause for a moment so that I could quickly make a photo.
It was lovely slowing down enough to use my tripod and spending a lot of time on a single subject. I find that sometimes I like the freedom and simplicity of taking just my camera. Other times like today I enjoy coming equipped with tripod, extra lenses, and extension tubes (for closeups). Choosing to limit what I photographed today also led to a spacious and peaceful feeling as I worked.
Today I spent most of my time photographing a group of Japanese Irises while I enjoyed seeing a wedding party being photographed in the beautiful gardens as I wandered. I love the simplicity and grace of Japanese irises and I loved watching the happy bridal party being photographed.
Simple things make me happy
“I have never been drawn to luxury. I love the simple things; coffee shops, books, and people who try to understand.”
― R.Y.S. Perez, I Hope You Fall in Love: Poetry Collection
A key ingredient in the joy that I feel in life is my love of simple things. Sunshine, flowers, trees, clouds in the sky, smiles, a cup of darjeeling tea, the feel of a breeze on my skin, a good book, a purring cat, a song, fresh lettuce from my garden. These simple things fill my life with grace and joy.
Here is a photo that shows what the wind felt like to me today as it caressed my skin and moved the flowers and tree leaves.
I feel like I am in the middle of a creative surge right now with more ideas than I have time to work on. Not only is my creative life full, but my husband and I are also working on getting estimates for having new windows and siding installed on our house, new flooring in our basement, landscaping in the back yard and updating our estate planning. Whew! All of that, finding a new cat sitter for when we travel, and planning a short trip up north to photograph the Lost 40 and Itasca State Park are in the works.
What I’m Working On
I recently put together a new collection of images I call North Woods Spring that captures the feeling of living up north as spring arrives (including all of the waiting for snow to melt & new snow that falls just when you think it might be over for the year). Earlier I created a shorter video based on my Wild Altars book images and containing beautiful music composed and played by a dear friend. My plan for the North Woods Spring collection is to create a video that can be played in doctors offices and healing spaces. With a duration of about an hour, I hope this will be the first of many such videos. I’m also working on a Tree series and contemplating a Rivers, Lakes, Streams, and Waterfalls series.
This week I’m excited about the opportunity to create more Makers’ Hands images of 6 artists at work at the Franconia Sculpture Gardens near Lindstrom, MN. I’m a little nervous about tackling 6 artists in a single day, both from an energy standpoint (three hours of photographing is much more than I typically try to do) and also staying fresh, open, and interested. For me photography is intense and I can only maintain my focus for a limited period of time. It’s going to be an interesting day and if I find it too much, I will not schedule like this again.
App Recommendations
In my personal life I’m trying out a new software application that I’ve read good reviews on. It’s called Curable and it is designed to help overcome chronic pain. One source said this of the app:
Another source said this:
At a cost of $12.99/month (for a month by month subscription) and $5.99/month (for an annual subscription) I decided to sign up for a month and see whether I found it helpful.
I’ve only been using the program for less than a week so far so I cannot say yet whether I will find it helpful or not, but I can say that I’ve found it well-designed, research-based, and easy-to-use. There are three different types of exercises (Brain training, Meditations, & Writing) as well as well-presented information in 5-20 minute audio segments. So far, I’ve found the segments useful and enlightening and I’ve learned a few new things.
While I’m talking about apps, I want to tell you about the free application (or web-based) language training that I’ve been using for over a year. It’s called Duolingo. I can’t believe I’ve stuck with it for over a year! Parlez vous francais, anyone? Here’s what I like about the app: 1) it’s free, 2) I can learn at my own pace, 3) It uses different types of exercises for teaching. But it’s not perfect. I really need to be speaking with someone as well as using this application. Though I understand more and more French (especially written French), my speaking ability lags behind my understanding. Still, you can’t beat the price and I am hoping to eventually join a small French language conversation group.
What simple things make you happy?
May you walk in beauty.
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