Blog

The Call

As spring ever so slowly arrives and the temperatures warm into the 50’s most days this week I feel The Call to go outside and wander in the yard or on the park paths in my neighborhood. What in your life is calling you, When all the noise is silenced, The meetings adjourned… The lists laid aside, And the wild iris blooms by itself in the dark forest… What still pulls on your soul?​ –Rumi The first spring wildflowers are blooming. Ducks, geese, herons, and egrets are showing up in neighborhood ponds. Grass is greening. And slowly the world is Read more…

By Marilyn, ago

The Power of Practice

This morning I decided to practice photographing wood ducks in the pond with my Canon 100-400 mm lens and 1.4X extender. My first photos were awful. None of the fast moving ducks I photographed were  quite in focus. I fiddled with my lens and my camera menu selections thinking that either my lens was not focusing correctly or my settings were incorrect. Then I took more photos and still had out of focus ducks. Finally I remembered, that instead of using aperture priority—which gives priority to the depth of field I set—I needed to use shutter priority—which gives priority to Read more…

By Marilyn, ago

Earth Week

Saturday was Earth Day and I missed celebrating it because of a tiny little virus that caused me to catch a common cold. But I’m finally feeling almost back to normal and wanted to continue the Earth Day celebration. So I decided to think of this week as Earth Week The first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970. I was in high school then and I’m sorry to say that I don’t remember that Earth Day. It makes me sad to think how we could have changed the world if we had started really caring for the earth back then Read more…

By Marilyn, ago

Heart Song

I was looking through old photos this week while taking it easy because I’ve had an old-fashioned sore throat, blowing, sneezing not feeling well cold. It’s been over three years since I’ve had a cold like this. And while it has not been my favorite week, I am content, despite how crappy I feel. I recently bought some software updates to my Topaz Denoise AI and Topaz Sharpen AI  plugins (they work with Adobe Photoshop) and a new Topaz plug-in called Topaz Photo AI. So I worked on old photos to see whether I could improve them using the new Read more…

By Marilyn, ago

Rainy Day Diversion

It’s looking gray and cold outside with rain predicted for much of the afternoon. Since I didn’t feel like going for a walk on such a gray morning I found a Rainy Day Diversion in my dining room. I’ve had a little blooming orchid plant for months now and it just keeps blooming. Recently I thought that it was almost finished blooming—the last two buds on the stem had opened. But a week later I noticed that the flower stem was growing and new buds were appearing. This morning the flowers looked so lovely that I decided to make some Read more…

By Marilyn, ago