This month’s theme is not that difficult and yet it is. I feel like I almost always shoot with shallow depth of field, so that’s easy. However, I feel that I have exhausted my creativity. I’m not going to lie, this time of year is difficult. I love taking photos of nature, however nature is shedding it’s color and beauty and is entering into a monotone and drabby season. For me there is a lack of inspiration when everything is turning brown and lifeless.
However, once again, I am so thankful for this photography group. It has made me get out and find beauty even in this dreary transitional period of the seasons. I was pleasantly surprised at what interesting things I found and how beautifully they photographed.
Here are my images:
A few of these images are some of my favorites I’ve ever taken of this nature. I’m glad this group gave me the push to get out and capture some beauty and create art. I hope you enjoyed my images.
Next up in the blog circle is Arthurko. Head on over to his blog by clicking HERE. You won’t want to miss his amazing images!!
April’s theme is macro. This is one genre of photography that I really enjoy and don’t tend to feel is much of a challenge. So this time I decided to use some flashes to create some different lighting and give myself an extra challenge.
I played around with light placement and different methods of diffusing the lights. I tried some backlighting as well as some side lighting and two lights for some images. I also did some shots on a white backdrop and some on a black backdrop. As you can see, the lighting and different backdrop can really change the mood of an image.
Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed my take on this theme. I know you’ll love our other contributors’ interpretations on this theme, so head on over to Sharlene’s blog by clicking HERE to continue through the blog circle!!
September’s theme is Intentional. I think it’s a great theme and very fitting for where I’m at in life right now. I’ve always tried to be very intentional in everything I do, however I’ve noticed that sometimes I get depressed and then get lazy, or I just lose my focus. Over the last few years I have been sinking into depression. Certain life circumstances have been beating me down. I’ve noticed that I’ve lost motivation in almost every area of my life. Nothing really brings me joy and so I’ve lost the motivation to be intentional. However I have finally decided that I need to pull myself up by the bootstraps and make myself do things, make myself live life. It may not pull me out of the depression, but it will have to help me in some way.
A few years ago when my son had Lyme disease, we overhauled our diet and our lifestyle. I felt so much better. So that is one thing I have decided to be intentional about again. I’ve started to neglect my health and I want to be intentional about getting back on track.
A few years ago, I started a Facebook group all about living a healthy lifestyle. I wanted to create a community where we could share recipes and share healthy tips. I have recently been heading up some health challenges through my group. For the events, I’ve wanted to have some nice header photos. So those images are my Intentional images.
As is the story of my life, I haven’t been feeling well for the last two weeks and my son just came down with Covid, so I was only able to take two images this month. I’m going to try to get at least one more image tomorrow and then I’ll add it to this post.
This first image is the image I took for my 100 mile walking challenge.
This second image is the image I created for my intermittent fasting challenge.
Thanks so much for stopping by my blog! Make your way through the blog circle and see everyone else’s awesome pictures. Next up is Elizabeth. Click HERE to see her amazing images.
I feel like a broken record as I say it every month, but my goodness! Time flies! How is it that we are already in April?!? I’m not complaining though. I’m loving the fact that everything is turning from brown to green, and that the windows are open and we can breath in fresh air.
This month’s theme at Share Six is Growth. As usual, I had several ideas on how I could possibly interpret this theme….I could show the growth I have experienced in my photographic skills, I could somehow show the growth I’ve experienced personally (especially this last year), I could show my children’s growth (my 14 year old son is now taller than me!! How did that happen?!?!), but I ended up going with the more typical interpretation though and photographed some of the beautiful plants that are budding and growing.
Several years back, I was given a TON of hostas. It was a huge blessing as we were able to do some pretty landscaping around our deck and in the front of our house. Every spring they are one of the first plants to break through the ground. So seeing their little points sticking up out of the soil is very exciting for me. It means beautiful weather is on its way.
This year, in the flower bed in front of our house, a lone daffodil bloomed. I’m quite confused as I never planted one there, but it is a lovely surprise. I’m not sure if someone planted it there to surprise us, or what, but it’s absolutely beautiful.
We have a lilac bush out front that my husband gifted to me a few years back and it has buds all over it. I can’t help but get excited at the thought of the sweet lilac aroma that will soon fill the air!
What with all of the warm weather, the grass has started to grow and the distant hum of lawnmowers has begun.
Last but not least, these are my irises beginning to grow. I love how the light was illuminating the rims of the leaves!
Thanks so much for stopping by!! We greatly appreciate you checking out our blog circle. The amazingly talented Janet Douglas is up next. To check out her blog post, click HERE!!
Until the last few days it’s been a frozen tundra here in the Midwest. Almost every week we got dumped with snow, and with temperatures staying well under freezing, the snow had no chance to melt. This made for perfect conditions in which to do my favorite cold weather activity: hike to the ice falls. Last winter we didn’t really have a long enough cold stretch to completely freeze the creeks and falls, but this winter we did. It was so great to get outside and see the falls!!
One of my favorite things about the ice falls is the color of the ice when the sun is shining through them.
This next picture is from a series of pictures I took of my daughter. It was snowing the most beautiful big, fluffy flakes, so we hurried out to our backyard to grab some pictures.
My next image is of a beautiful snow covered tree that was illuminated by the street light. I spotted it as I was driving into my daughter’s school’s parking lot one evening on the way to pick her up from theater rehearsal. It stopped me in my tracks and I had to get out and get a picture of it.
This next image I took a few weeks ago when I decided to take a drive down to the river to enjoy the sunset.
We have woods behind our neighborhood, so after the most beautiful snowfall that left our neck of the woods looking like Narnia, my son and I had to go explore the winter wonderland. The snow didn’t last long as the temperatures were too high, but it was absolutely stunning while it lasted.
These last two images are a little throwback to previous Share Six challenges. They were two of my favorite images, and what with the theme, I couldn’t help sharing them again.
Thanks so much for stopping by!! Next up is Janet Douglas. You won’t want to miss her amazing images!! Click HERE to see them, and then continue on through the blog circle to see all of our other talented contributors’ interpretations.
Well, what an interesting year 2020 was! While for many people it was a terrible year, I tried to have a positive outlook on it. I hoped that by people having to stay home, it would bring families together and would cause people to slow down and notice their neighbors. While I don’t think that happened as much as I hoped it would, I do believe that it did happen for some people.
This past year I tried to focus more on living in the moment. Those of you who have been following along with my blog posts have noticed that a lot of my blog posts this year have been pictures I’ve taken with my phone. See, while photography is still my passion, it’s also my business. So when I’m not doing sessions or houses, I want to be living in the moment. I don’t want to be focused on dialing in my settings on my camera or getting that “perfect” shot. I want to soak in every detail of my life by simply living it. So I find that I’m whipping out my phone to snap a few pictures, and then I put it away and just revel in the moment. I mean, I want to document the memories, but I also don’t want to be so busy documenting them that I’m not living them. As much as I love photography, I really don’t want to always view my life through a lens. It’s just not the same as being completely present and watching things with your naked eyes.
So, once again, I have decided to share some photos I’ve taken with my phone. They aren’t going to win any awards, but they will most certainly bring more lasting enjoyment to me than any award could ever do. For they are a visual reminder of precious, fleeting moments….moments I will only get to live once.
My son has been doing backflips on our trampoline for quite some time now. I’m in awe of how brave he is. I’ve always been too scared to try to flip. This is one of the many details of his childhood that I want to document.
Late spring we decided to camp in our backyard. I strung lights in the tent to give it an extra cozy and fun atmosphere. This was yet another memory I wanted to etch in my mind and document.
We social distanced for a week during the summer at our favorite remote little cabin. The sun and the water did us all some good.
After getting dumped with the most beautiful snow last week. My son took on a project. He made himself a snow tunnel complete with a window and a door.
In high school, my friends and I loved going sledding in the evenings. The hills were normally empty and there was something cool about sledding in the dark. So my kids got the idea they wanted to sled after dark, so we made it happen. I’m all about making memories. It was a super foggy night as well, so we brought headlamps too.
Since we got the most beautiful snow, ice and fog frost, it has been a most breathtaking winter wonderland here. So my daughter and I decided to go out and try to get some pretty pictures. While primarily looking at landscape style shots I could compose, my eyes kept coming back to this tree and the ice that had encased it…such a lovely winter detail.
As usual, I hope you enjoyed my take on this month’s theme. Head over to Janet’s blog, by clicking HERE, to see her awesome interpretation! And be sure to make your way through the entire circle. You won’t want to miss all of the amazing images!
When I first saw what this month’s theme was, I immediately wondered if I could do six pictures of myself. If you looked up the word imperfection in the dictionary, there would be a picture of me right there. Now don’t interpret this the wrong way, as if I’m saying some sort of self loathing statement. No, instead it’s more of a self realization type of statement.
You see, I’m an OCD, SPD, introverted, perfectionistic people pleaser. I always have been and probably always will be. Now, I was never diagnosed with OCD or SPD, but if I were growing up today, I most definitely would have been diagnosed with those disorders. I know I have them. I always knew I was different. I knew that I struggled with certain things. I needed rules, structure, order, schedules, etc. If something upset the order, or if people didn’t follow the rules, I felt unsettled. Clothing had to feel just right or I couldn’t wear it. Certain noises drove me absolutely insane.
Being a perfectionistic rule follower, I was often called a goody two shoes. I even had people tell me I was perfect. What’s funny is that they couldn’t see how terribly imperfect I actually was. They couldn’t see how much internal turmoil I was, and still am, going through.
You see, when you have OCD, SPD and are perfectionistic, you need to feel in control of your world. Try being in control of your world once you get married. Try being in control of your world once you have kids. Try having everything perfect when you are trying to be a wife and mother. It just doesn’t happen. I mean, my goodness, try being in control just in general. You can’t control other people. You are ALWAYS at the mercy of other people and just circumstances in general. The only thing you can honestly control is yourself…your attitude, how you respond to the circumstances around you. For so long, I have tried to control everything. Some things I have been decently successful with, others I have most definitely not.
The older you get and the longer you deal with the OCD, SPD and perfectionism, the more you realize how imperfect you really are. I mean, I never thought I was perfect, but I definitely tried to do everything right. I tried to follow the rules to a T. I tried to do everything to the absolute best of my ability. I tried to please everyone. You can only achieve those expectations of yourself for so long. At some point it all comes crumbling down, and it’s absolutely devastating. You see, while all along you knew you weren’t perfect and you honestly didn’t necessarily need to be absolutely perfect, the comments other people made just fed the OCD. People telling me I did something perfectly, only reinforced my internal struggle with feeling I needed to do things perfectly. The inner voice in my head said, “If you don’t do this perfectly, you’re a failure.”
You know what those expectations lead to though? They lead to complete paralyzation and utter insanity. I remember watching the first episode of Hoarders. I don’t quite remember why, but I decided to watch it. The narrator started out with saying that people would be shocked to know that the majority of hoarders are actually perfectionists. You see, at some point, they become paralyzed because if they can’t complete the tasks to their standard (which is perfect[ly]), they don’t even do them. Yikes!! That scared me, but I totally understood what they were saying. I could totally see myself getting to that point. It honestly made complete sense. I have so many unfinished projects because I get scared that I won’t be able to complete them to the standard of quality that I would like, so I just shut down.
So, now that I’ve pretty much written a novel, I’ll try to sum this up. Each month I agonize over what pictures I want to do for the theme. I agonize because I want to do them to the standard that I think I should do them, but I’m afraid I will fall short. So I put them off while I brainstorm. Then it gets to the point where I have just days or hours to complete my pictures and post and I’m completely overwhelmed. Well, wouldn’t you know, that’s what I did this month. I have no clue what to do for my pictures. I could take pictures of my imperfect self, but I’m not sure what variety I can show in 6 pictures. Maybe I should stretch myself and tap into the inner artist that should lie somewhere inside myself and figure out some creative way to photograph what I have just written a novel about, but alas, as I said, I procrastinated and my creative juices are quite low right now.
So I will leave you with some pictures I have taken in the past…pictures where things didn’t turn out quite like I planned, but they are imperfectly perfect. After all, our imperfections are what make us unique. Often times, when things don’t go perfectly like we planned, those imperfections are what make the memory that much more unique.
So I will continue to fight my perfectionistic tendencies and embrace the imperfection. I will definitely fail at times, but that’s ok.
This first image is of our imperfect house. While I crave order and perfection, my entryway has been laden with shoes, boots, skates, sticks, rocks, a skateboard and many other things for years now (also notice the dirt and scuff marks on the bottom of the screen door). It drives me nuts, but I try to remind myself that one day it will be perfectly clean and I’ll wish it wasn’t. Because that means my precious kids no longer live in this four walls.
My next image is of my son and me. We had taken a bike ride to the gas station to get a Reese’s to split. We wanted a picture to remember that moment. My phone case was scratched and dusty, so the image is hazy, but it’s imperfectly perfect. (Here’s another prime example of using the camera you have on you. Better to capture the moment than to be too worried about the quality of the image.)
My third image is of my kids lying under the Christmas tree. My son’s face is completely out of focus, but I still love this image and how it captured their precious little faces.
This fourth image is of my son. Let me tell you, underwater photography isn’t easy. I was trying to get a cute shot of him and he reached up to wave at me at that very moment. Once again though, it’s imperfectly perfect. I love his little pursed lips and puffed cheeks!
These last two are from a little Christmas session I did with the kids. I was trying to get some nice pictures of the two of them, both to frame and to give to the grandparents. The kids were being ridiculously silly. At first I was frustrated, but then I decided to roll with it. Quite frankly, these images captured my kids’ personalities better than any perfectly posed picture every would have.
So, to sum things up…don’t be like me. Don’t let your obsession with perfection, or your fear of failure paralyze you. Don’t let it keep you from enjoying the best things in life, which are the imperfect things.
Thanks so much for stopping by!! Head on over to Elizabeth’s blog, by clickingHERE, to see her take on this month’s theme. Be sure to make your entire way around the blog circle as you won’t want to miss all of our contributors’ images. Also, be sure to share your images to our social media pages!!
This month’s theme is green in honor of Lyme disease. I chose this theme because 1. it was only fitting as we have several family members with Lyme disease, and 2. May is Lyme disease awareness month.
Here’s a little intro to Lyme disease:
Lyme disease is a spirochete bacterium that is transmitted by ticks. It is the fastest growing infectious disease, and is 1-1/2 times more common than breast cancer and 6 times more common than HIV. If treated with antibiotic therapy soon after transmission, the probability of successful treatment is much higher. If it goes untreated, it can infiltrate a person’s body and wreak great havoc. Untreated Lyme disease is known to attack the heart and central nervous symptom. The numerous symptoms mimic other chronic illnesses such as ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), MS (Multiple Sclerosis), ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), Rheumatoid Arthritis Parkinson’s Disease, Lupus, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, as well as many others. Because of this, many patients with Lyme get misdiagnosed and go years not being properly treated, therefore furthering the progression of Lyme disease. Awareness of this disease is imperative, as there are over 300,000 estimated new cases of Lyme disease each year in the United States alone (according to Johns Hopkins Medicine). It was once believed that you always got a bullseye rash if you contracted the disease from a tick bite, but we now know that is not the case. Not everyone presents with a bullseye rash. Without a bullseye rash (and even with one), many people don’t connect their symptoms to the tick bite. The more awareness we can bring, the better people can understand and know what to look for when searching for answers to their health problems that were unknowingly caused by a fateful tick bite. Please join us this month in spreading awareness.
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So here’s a little run down. My aunt has Lyme disease, my mom has Lyme disease, my son has Lyme disease and I have Lyme disease. While my mom remembers her fateful tick bite and bullseye rash, the rest of us don’t. In fact, not everyone presents with a bullseye rash. We may very well have though, as my son and I are magnets for bug bites and have had our fair share over the years. Not to mention we have found numerous ticks on our dogs and belongings.
To give you a little history. My mom was bit years ago and was oblivious to the fact that she needed treatment. As the years went on, she developed what doctors thought was arthritis, fibromyalgia, and psoriatic arthritis (just to name a few). She went on medicine to treat those things, but saw very little successful results. There were days when she could barely walk. Fast forward several years…my aunt gets tested and diagnosed after developing weird symptoms and making the connection that her dogs had similar symptoms and tested positive for Lyme. My aunt reminded my mom about that tick bite so many years ago. So my mom goes in and sure enough, she gets diagnosed with Lyme. Guess what?? She went on long term antibiotics and all of her symptoms went away. She had so much energy, she could walk again, and her psoriatic arthritis cleared completely up. Unfortunately though, the doctor didn’t want her on antibiotics for too long, so she had to stop. After ceasing treatment her symptoms came back. She got a sinus infection and went on antibiotics for that. Guess what, all of her arthritis, fibromyalgia and psoriatic arthritis symptoms went away AGAIN. She felt like she had her life back. It is amazing what this disease does and it’s amazing how simple treatment can be for some people…if they could just find a doctor that is willing to treat.
My pictures for this theme are of my son, but I’m only going to go into his story briefly, as this whole ordeal that he as endured over the course of several years has made him very sensitive. He doesn’t really like people knowing about all that he has gone through.
In a nut shell, a few years back he was constantly getting sick. He kept coming down with mycoplasma pneumonia. He started getting horrible migraines. He also said his brain felt like it was on fire. He had one migraine that lasted for more than 4 days. The doctors were getting ready to schedule a spinal tap for the following day. Thankfully he woke up that following day and the migraine was gone. He started having short term memory loss, as well as some sensory issues and debilitating OCD. We had no clue what was going on. The recurrent mycoplasma continued as well. We stopped going to our homeschool functions and even went to church sparingly during the winter months because he caught every bug that was going around. We took him to doctor after doctor trying to get answers. Since I’m his teacher, I noticed all of the changes in his academic abilities. He lost some motor function, which was evident by his regression with his handwriting. He started to not be able to remember his math facts anymore. This went on for years. Thankfully one day my aunt suggested we have him tested for Lyme. So we did. We figured we didn’t have anything to lose. A few weeks later we got a call from the county health department needing to document his case. He had tested glaringly CDC positive for Lyme. You know what the kicker is? I heard nothing from his pediatrician. I called their office and asked if the doctor needed to see him so he could be treated and they said no. So we were on our own. I had to now research doctors who knew about Lyme and how to treat it. Meanwhile I was dealing with my own achy joints, legs and fingers that would randomly go numb. My legs would feel like they had dozens of bugs crawling on them at random times throughout the day as well. I developed an irregular heartbeat. My thyroid went all crazy and I’ve developed severe fatigue. I briefly got treatment along with my son, but our insurance plan is awful and things add up quickly. So for now I’m putting my treatment on hold to focus on getting our son to a good place. He recently had four weeks of IV antibiotics. With our infectious disease doctor, IV antibiotics are standard treatment for Lyme that is attacking the nervous system. Being that our son was young, he started him off with oral antibiotics, but they weren’t cutting it. He has finished his round and now we wait. We were told it can take 18 months before we see full recovery and know if the IV antibiotics worked. So now we wait. Quite frankly though, I’m sick of waiting. I’m sick of this being strung out for all these years. It’s so hard to watch your child be sick and go through what he has gone through. I’m just ready to be past it all.
Thankfully we were able to do his daily infusions at home (especially since his doctor is almost 2-1/2 hours away). So every day around 11, he’d get comfortable and we’d hook up his antibiotics. They took about a half hour to infuse.
Here they are taking out his PICC line. This was his reaction to how long it was.
I know I have not even remotely covered everything I should have, and even planned to cover. Honestly, I’m not even sure if you all would even read it, or if you’ve even read what I did write. I know this post isn’t my best writing. I’m extremely exhausted at the moment and can’t even think straight. It’s been a long several weeks. No, it’s been a long several years.
Please learn from us. Learn the symptoms of Lyme, learn how to prevent tick bites, learn about proper treatment (a 10 day course of antibiotics is not going to cut it). We’ve been doing our best to spread the word and have even helped two people find the answer to their illness – Lyme. We have a friend whose son suddenly started losing his hearing after a camping trip. I thought it could be a long shot, but asked them if he had been tested for Lyme. He hadn’t. She took him to get tested and sure enough, he tested glaringly CDC positive as well. He’s been receiving treatment and has most of his hearing restored. I’m telling you, this disease is ruthless. The reason the symptoms are so different for people is because the bacteria is a spirochete with no cell wall and infiltrates wherever it feels like going. For some people it’s the joints, for some it’s the heart and for others it’s the nervous system. If you know someone who is dealing with any of these symptoms and isn’t getting answers, you may want to encourage them to get tested for Lyme. I will say though, EVERY doctor has told us, if you’ve had Lyme for a decent amount of time, your immune system can become taxed and stop producing enough antibodies to yield a positive test result. So just because you test negative, that doesn’t mean you don’t have it. Try treatment, see if that helps. You might be amazed.
On another note related to Lyme disease…if you find a tick attached, don’t pour anything on it, or light a match to get it to back its head out. Doing those things can agitate the tick and cause it to regurgitate whatever diseases it may be carrying, and those diseases will get regurgitated right into you. The best way to remove a tick is with needle nosed tweezers. Grab as close to your skin as possible and pull straight up firmly. You want to be sure to get the head out. You also don’t want to squeeze the body of the tick as that will cause it to regurgitate as well.
Well, thank you so much for stopping by. I hope you have learned something about Lyme disease. If you have any questions, please feel free to comment here. I’m more than happy to answer any questions you may have.
Head on over to Ceri Herd’s blog by clicking here. I’m sure you’ll enjoy her images. She is incredibly talented!!
Hello there!! Can you believe it’s already December?!?! Where has the year gone? It’s that time again where we announce our new theme over at Share Six. We are doing Bokeh again, and I was pretty excited to get out and try some different shots and techniques that I haven’t tried before. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get 6 images though, so I’m using two old images, and then the other four are ones I specifically went out and shot for this month’s theme.
For those of you who are not photographers and do not know what bokeh is….According to Wikipedia, bokeh is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in the out-of-focus parts of an image produced by a lens. Bokeh has also been defined as “the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light”. Being that we are so close to Christmas, I chose to go with the latter definition and use Christmas lights in my images.
Here is an image I took of my son two years ago. It’s one of my absolute favorites.
Here is another one I did for our bokeh theme two years ago.
For these next two, I decided to experiment some more with multiple exposures as well as using some off camera flash. These also happen to fit last month’s theme as well. This first one is a combination of 5 images exposed together in camera. You would not believe how long the last image (the silhouette of my husband and I) took. The flash behind us would not fire. I tried just about everything and even turned everything off and then back on. I don’t even remember what finally ended up working to get it to fire. I was so frustrated that I just gave up despite the fact that the image wasn’t exactly how I wanted it.
This next one is of an awesome client of mine who was more than happy to help out with only 45 minutes notice. I was envisioning this shot and really wanted to make it happen. This one is also 5 exposures, 4 of which were done in camera and the 5th I ended up having to join with the other 4 in photoshop. The in camera multiple exposure had one aspect that was bothering me, so by doing it in photoshop, I could remove that distraction.
The last two are of my husband and myself. I have to say a huge thanks to my daughter for standing guard by my camera, as my tripod has recently started to give me some problems as well. Apparently all of my gear is giving out on me…and just in time for Christmas. *sad and frustrated sigh*
Thanks so much for stopping by! Continue on in the blog circle by heading over to Janet’s blog by clicking here. You must see her lovely images!
Over the past few years I’ve really slowed down with the amount of pictures I take of our family. Years ago, I took SO many and I am grateful for those pictures, but I found that I was living life through the lens of a camera instead of seeing it with my own eyes. I wanted to be more present and not always have a camera in front of my face. Besides, my kids started getting sick of me always having my camera. They still have that frustration with my camera, so I really had to force them to go out and get these family pictures. All of our attitudes weren’t the greatest, and the dogs were being a bit ornery, but despite all of that, I’d say we got fairly decent pictures.
For the family picture I used my trusty tripod and the self timer. I loved my remote that I broke, but it’s actually more funny using the self timer because I have to run back and forth. It makes for some laughs and smiles. Although, all of the running made my scarf go awry. Oh well, I took what I could get. The fact that we even got both dogs looking is a miracle in itself, and the kids’ smiles are actually good. I’m going to call it a win.
