Oh my... inspiration!

Maybe it's a song, or something a friend said.  Maybe it's something you read or a smell drifting across your path.  There are so many things in life that inspire.  Like a child's enthusiasm for the little things in life... inspiration is something that I'd like to just bottle up so I can experience it now AND later.  I love photographic inspiration because you can do just that... save it for later too!  Here is some recent inspiration courtesy of a walk (in the wrong direction) and my iPhone.  If I owned a garage in downtown this is DEFINITELY what it would look like.






Simple Color...

When in photo school we participated in an exercise designed to help us describe our photographic style.  We each printed a series of images that we had taken (and connected with most) and passed them on to our peers who came up with words describing our work.  This was such a great opportunity, as in the art world your work has to stand alone for each person to interpret for themselves.  Some of the words that fellow students came up with for my collection of images were simple, clean, and colorful.  I thought this modified image from my last episode of Camera 911 (ring around the moon) reminded me of just that.  PS - And to all my talented Hallmark peers who made class exercises memorable... I miss you!







Ring around the...

MOON!  Wasn't it an incredible phenomenon?  I looked up in the sky early in the evening to see what I thought was a ring but it was way too early to diagnose.  It wasn't until I got a 10pm call from my weather-savvy friend (you know who you are) that I took another look.  Her grand entrance to the conversation was something like "quick, get your camera, the moon".  I've taken pictures of quite a few things in the last year but never been commissioned with such a sense of urgency!  It was a bit like and episode of "Camera 911: When you're iPhone just won't do the trick".  All that being said, I spent some time roaming the neighborhood with my tripod and DSLR in the dark (hoping that the neighbors wouldn't call me in as a prowler).  Here is my favorite shot from this episode.  Tune in Monday for the series continuation...



All you need is your fourth grade notebook...

I remember it vividly.  Mrs. Dame's fourth grade class.  Learning my multiplication tables via flash cards and "time tests".  Making friends in a new town.  Recess on cold days was filled with laughter at the outcome of our Mad Libs workbooks (filled with adjectives we could barely spell).  And then there was creative writing time.  Each week Mrs. Dame would start a simple drawing on a page in our notebook.  Maybe it was a series of triangles or perhaps a squiggly line but she gave all each of us the same start.  Then it was off to our seats to finish the drawing in whatever way made sense to us.  The catch was that once it was finished we had to write about it.  Some days the story came before the drawing and at times it was the other way around.  It's not unlike the way photography comes to me.  Sometimes there is a story in my head when I go to take a picture and other times I take the picture and find a story.  The latter is true today.

















Here is my drawing for the day.  I'll let you write your own story...

Up before the dawn

I've always admired those people who rise in the morning before the sun's first rays appear over the horizon.  My parent's are early risers and they claim that it gets earlier the older they get.  After 33 years of living I can honestly say that I wasn't blessed with that habit.  There are only a few things that can pull me from a deep sleep in the hours before dawn... the chance to travel (red-eye), the promise of a great iced tea, and my camera.  Here is a shot of what Nags Head, NC had to offer this early riser...






Just a thought...

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