Can you believe the beautiful weather we had over the weekend? I love this open window weather with the breeze ruffling through the house all day and night. Over the weekend I spent a lot of time outside enjoying the perfect weather, walking in the woods and hanging out on the deck swing.
And this morning! Oh happy days! The sky is blue and studded with puffy white clouds floating by. The temperature is cool and it’s another perfect day.
Saturday afternoon I hiked in my beloved Wolsfeld Woods. I saw few hikers on the trails but several runners. If I were a runner I can’t think of a more beautiful place to run than on the trails in these wondrous woods.
I didn’t bring my camera with me on my hike, only my iPhone. Still, I made numerous photographs of the woods. The images that captivated me most were little scenes on the forest floor. They were scenes of life, death, rebirth and hidden beauty.
It was only when I returned home and was looking at the photos I made on my hike that I realized that I had spent my hike
Seeing Wild Altars Everywhere
I am still fascinated with seeing little scenes that nature creates that appear to me as Wild Altars. And Saturday on my hike in Wolsfeld Woods I saw them everywhere.
You can see more of my previous Wild Altars HERE.
One of the things that I have learned from using both camera and iPhone to make photos is that the phone camera is great for little closeups but not nearly as good for large landscapes with a great deal of contrast. Since most of my Wild Altars images are small still life-like images, the iPhone worked well for me. Or perhaps I instinctively chose scenes that worked well for the phone camera.
Anyway, I felt freed to simply enjoy my hike, without carrying my heavy camera. I could put my phone in my pocket when I wasn’t using it to make photos, and simply bask in the sights, sounds, and scents of the woods.
It was a great way to spend an afternoon. When I began working with the photos that I made during my hike I found that I preferred most of them in black and white. It has been awhile since I worked in black and white and I enjoyed the subtle nuances of adjusting to highlight the contrast and details of the images.
A big part of editing photos is deciding what is important and where you would like the viewer’s eye to go in the photograph. Working in black and white simplifies that process to its essence. Color will not guide the viewer’s eye, only light and dark. Though I often prefer my color images to be light bright high key I tend to gravitate towards darker low key black and white treatments.
An interesting post
Yesterday I enjoyed reading a new Brain Pickings post called “Octavia Butler on How (Not) to Choose a Leader.”
There was a quote in the post from Octavia Butler’s two-part series set in the 2020’s that I found prescient (Octavia Butler died in 2006).
Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought.
To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.
To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.
To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies.
To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.— Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents
Because of the Brain Pickings post I became curious about Octavia Butler’s books and managed to checkout an audio version of the first of the Earthseed series of books in the library. I started listening but am not sure that I will continue. The series (written in the late 1990’s) is set in a dystopian 2024 future that is bleak and reminds me too much of what could happen all too easily to our world. I’ll try listening to another chapter tomorrow and see whether I can find some light within its darkness. I know that there is a lot of excellent dystopian future fiction and that a lot of people enjoy reading it. But I find it difficult.
Are you Earthseed?
Do you believe?
Belief will not save you.
Only actions
Guided and shaped
By belief and knowledge
Will save you.
Belief
Initiates and guides action —
Or it does nothing.— Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents
What are your plans for the week? If you are struggling, is there someone you can ask to listen or to help out? Have you set a creative goal for yourself or planned at least one activity that brings you joy? What actions will you do to support your beliefs?
May you walk in beauty.
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