Images
You are the sky…
Created for Beyond, Beyond with Kim Klassen. Processed using Kim’s “violet” and “isobel” textures.
I have always loved clouds. I love that they are always changing and moving. They don’t get bogged down — they just move on. This morning the sky was clear blue when I looked up. Later on, it was covered with small puffs of cloud. Now it is clear blue again.
When I was a girl, I was in Girl Guides (same as Girl Scouts in the U.S.) I was really into getting badges for baking and orienteering and making fires and stuff. One of my favorites was meteorology. We had a neighbour, Mr. Brown, who was a meteorologist at the airport for Montreal. He kindly offered to teach us what we needed to know for the badge. We learned all the names of the different cloud formations – cirrus, cumulous, nimbus and all the permutations and combinations.
Now as someone who lives on a boat part of the year, I spend a fair amount of time looking up at the sky. Knowing what the weather is doing is an important way to keep safe.
Sometimes our internal weather is stormy. It can help to remember that we are not our turbulent emotions and our troubled thoughts. At our essence, we are like the pure blue sky beneath all the weather — still, calm and care-free.
Finally, in honour of my father, mother and sister and a memorable trip we took to the Bahamas in the seventies, here’s Joni Mitchell singing Both Sides Now. Enjoy.
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Weekly photo challenge: Lunchtime
What better lunch on St. Patrick’s Day than Irish Soda Bread? It’s a bit different making it on a sailboat, but just as delicious…
Happy St. Paddy’s Day! Today, we’re all Irish.
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Beach living…
Hutchinson Island beach
(Processed with Kim’s “Violet”.)
Linking to Kim Klassen’s Texture Tuesday, Wise Words edition and Tuesday Muse.
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A wider view…
View of Manatee Pocket from the canal beside the marina.
It so often happens that I want to get more into my image than I can, especially when I’m around waterscapes. It occurred to me that I could use the panorama feature of Photoshop to capture some wider vistas. So I decided to do a bit of experimentation earlier this evening.
This image is composed of the following two stitched together.
24 mm
24 mm
It’s vital to keep the exposure and focus and white balance exactly the same in both images to make this work. You need to overlap anywhere from 20 to 40%. And the alignment is critical of course, which is not that easy, even with a tripod. But it’s quite fun to press the photomerge button and see the images combine into one. Now I need to get out there and get some more practice with larger panos…
Here are some easy-to-follow tips from Scott Kelby on creating panoramas.
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Early buds…
Back home, I love trees that blossom — magnolias, cherry trees, apple trees, plum trees and crabapple trees. I love trying to capture the delicacy of their small blossoms. The other day I saw a tree in blossom that reminded me of a magnolia, but it wasn’t. It was blossoming with no leaves (like a magnolia), but it had a thick waxy bark, unlike any tree I’m familiar with.
I spotted this beauty in the yard of one of the houses bordering the marina. I didn’t know what it was so I asked the very friendly homeowner, a retired physician. He offered me a piece of the tree to take home but he couldn’t remember the name of it. He referred me to his wife, who told me that it was a frangipani and that its flowers are used to make leis in Hawaii.
She had three different specimens in her yard, each with a different colour flower: pink, yellow and white. She was generous is allowing me to take all kinds of photos of the tree and she offered me a bud to take with me. It has the most divine fragrance — sweet and light and not at all cloying. These trees usually blossom later in the spring, but the unusual and variable weather here in Florida this winter has confused them and they’re budding early.
I felt the sweet, soft buds and blossoms lent themselves to a dreamy, painterly French Kiss texture.
If you’d like to learn more about this tree (Plumeria), click here.
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Simple black and white…
Click on the image for more details…
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Vessel on a vessel…
The morning light on our sailboat is indeed wondrous.
As it falls on the table, it illuminates everything…including our newest vessel, a bowl in my very favorite colours, watery bluey-greens. It undulates in a way that suggests soft waves — a perfect vessel for a sailing vessel, I think.
Processed with Kim Klassen’s “linda”.
I hadn’t planned to create something for Texture Tuesday this week — The Free and Easy Edition — but when I saw the luminous vessel, I couldn’t resist.
Does light ever do that to you — change your plans?
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Weekly photo challenge: Lost in the details…
We are not a drop in the ocean — we are the ocean in a drop.
Rumi
Hutchinson Island, Florida
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Guardians of being…
I got my first dog 14 1/2 years ago…a wonderful little Westie we named Angus. Angus is with us now on the sailboat, along with Charles, who we rescued two years ago. (They have made several appearances on this blog.) These two little guys have taught me so much, and have opened me up to a love of dogs that I did not have growing up. There is nothing to compare to the connection I have with my boys.
The lovely boy below is named Virgil and he is a gentle companion to a friend of ours in Florida. I spent part of one night recently trying to capture Virgil on camera. I have chosen this image for Kat Sloma’s Photo Heart connection for February because it symbolizes a heart that has opened more and more to dogs.
Eckhart Tolle calls dogs “guardians of being” because “the dog keeps you in touch with being — the innermost core. You can look into the eyes of the dog and see that innermost core. ”
“Just be alert as you watch a dog, playing, resting; play with a dog…you can learn being present from an animal. Your dog can teach you to be present because the dog is ready to enjoy, celebrate life any moment…the Now. The dog is in the Now so it can teach you or remind you. When you become burdened with problems, look at your dog and see how the dog is always ready to celebrate life.”
Tolle believes that dogs play a vital role in keeping many people sane right now in this alienated and alienating world we live in. I don’t know about keeping me sane — the jury is out on that one 😉 — but my two definitely remind me of what is truly and deeply important every single day. What does your dog bring to your life?
Sherrygaley.com 