Blog

What do you see?

Everywhere I look I see a haze of green emerging on trees and bushes. It’s the time of year when I can’t stop looking and asking myself What do you see? Everything is changing quickly now, and with the rain predicted for tonight and tomorrow, I imagine that the changes may accelerate even more. More green, more leaves, more spring flowers! This morning I took a walk at Big Willow Park in Minnetonka. In the marsh I saw two red winged blackbirds perched on last last year’s cattails, singing their territorial songs. Such beauty in a commonly seen and heard Read more…

By Marilyn, ago

Consider These Miracles

It’s mid-April and spring is rapidly creating new life all around us. The spring ephemerals are hurriedly blossoming before the trees unfurl their myriad of leaves and the world once again turns green. Consider These Miracles — the sprouting of a seed, life of a tree, migration of birds, honey bees sipping nectar, call of the loon! Spring is emerging all around us. If you go for a walk in the woods I swear you can feel the prana in the air. Concerning trees and leaves… there’s a real power here. It is amazing that trees can turn gravel and Read more…

By Marilyn, ago

Wildflower Wonder

Thursday morning I went looking to see what might be in bloom at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. And I found even more than I had expected! What wonderful Wildflower Wonder I felt as I explored and played with making photographs while walking the familiar paths of the gardens there. Listen, whatever you see and love— that’s where you are. ― Mary Oliver, Dog Songs: Poems I also saw one of my favorite wildflowers, bloodroot, beginning to bloom in the perennial gardens as well. So today I’m simply sharing some of my favorite photos from my rambles there along with snippets Read more…

By Marilyn, ago

Unexpected Visitors

Last evening while we were eating supper I looked out the window and noticed a pair of ducks swimming and diving in the pond. I left our dinner table and picked up my binoculars to see if I could identify these Unexpected Visitors to the pond. And I was able to immediately see that they were a pair of hooded merganser ducks. I believed that they must be making a dinner stop at the pond on their migration north. Sure enough they swam and dived, swam and dived for about an hour. Then they disappeared from sight and I didn’t Read more…

By Marilyn, ago

Photo Assignment

In the photography classes that I teach I give a Photo Assignment each week to the students in my class. In our last class I chose an assignment that I found in Bryan Peterson’s book Bryan Peterson Photography School. The assignment was: Choose a subject. Using a single lens (24-70 mm, 24-105 mm, etc.) place your subject so that it falls in the middle of the frame, allowing for a lot of empty space on all sides. Make a photo of your subject. With your camera still at your eye walk toward your subject. Every 5 steps make another exposure, Read more…

By Marilyn, ago