2020 – A year behind glass

Hey there 2020, I’ve spent so much time silently glaring and swearing at you it’s hard to believe we’re almost at the end. Like many of you I’ve read and followed each ugly news story knowing I need to stop the doom scrolling but it’s tough to turn away from so many stories of sorrow and outrage. I’m taking baby steps toward more positive online interactions, dipping my toes back into Instagram and reaching out to friends I’ve not connected with in far too long hoping the simple exercise of looking for share worthy moments reminds me things weren’t terrible and frightening all the time.

One thing stands out to me today is how much of this year has been lived behind or viewed through glass. Windows, electronic screens and yes, even wine glasses have become our new connection points bringing both joy and frustration while also framing of some of my favorite photos from the past 12 months. In classic Northwest Frame of Mind style let’s take a look.

February 29th, Leap Day, was the last time John, Ryan and I attended a large gathering, spending the afternoon at a wine tasting event filled with fresh food, live music and plenty of lovely wine. COVID was a nervous whisper in the background, no one was sure if it would really change things, but we were starting to consider stocking up on a extra groceries and maybe staying home for a few weekends just to be safe.

Three months later we were still home every weekend watching the world transform into a strange and scary place. As essential workers our days were condensed to quick commutes (no traffic) and changed workplaces filled with the new norms of masks, sanitizing stations and very few coworkers. All of this left me with very little to see that was new so I turned my gaze back to happier days and picked some favorite photos for artistic makeovers. All editing done through a screen on my iPad.

By July a few areas of our state reopened for small gatherings and we decided to risk a trip to the islands. We rented a house, filled our car with a weeks worth of groceries and took the quietest summer ferry trip I’ve ever experienced. A normal travel year meant 3-4 hour waits to board a boat, then windswept walks along the outside upper decks while sailing to our destination. This year there were no lines, half empty boats and loudspeaker recordings announcing we weren’t allowed to leave our cars for the duration of the trip. The silver lining was a front row position where we could watch the water through our windshield. Safe in our bubble, behind the glass.

We had a lovely week, sleeping in, hiking on quiet trails, skipping rocks on empty beaches and on our last night away I took this photo from the car window as Ryan drove us back to the rental for one final sunset BBQ.

We remained close to home for the rest of the summer, avoiding crowds and trying to make simple life feel fun while hoping we could escape the small circle of our new reality for some fall hiking. Wildfire season put a stop to that as you can see from this photo, taken from my dining room window at noon on September 12th. With air quality ratings in the very unhealthy/hazardous range our last month of potential PNW sunshine was spent inside, in front of windows and more screens.

The end of summer meant election season was front and center and with it came more changes, this time to my volunteering plans. I usually spend hours in September and October phone banking and canvasing for favorite candidates and in 2020, with so much on the line, we had planned to spend most weekends in October getting out the vote. I still logged plenty of volunteer hours but this time they were spent virtually as a member of both national and state level digital outreach teams. Yep, more screen time. Most of our chosen candidates won their races though and on November 10th John, Ryan and I toasted Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as they were announced President Elect and Vice-President Elect.

My final image is the December photo that inspired this year-end post. Once again I was inside looking out but an evening of couch time, quietly editing photos on my phone while John and Ryan watched tv left me with one image I really liked. Thoughts of a years worth of views filtered and compressed through lenses, windows, mirrors and screens came together and here we are closing 2020 behind two layers of glass, facing forward with the past in a mirror. Cheers to a brighter, clearer, safer and happier 2021!

Lisa22 Comments

2019 The Year of Small Surprises and Second Chances: Weeks 14 & 15

The year of small surprises and second chances… To be honest I think this might be how I approach the rest of 2019.  Embracing those sneaky, small surprises and allowing for second chances.

The first set of images is a throwback to my 2016 photo project when I took one image per day using Hipstamatic’s “shake to randomize” feature.  I chose the subject, shook my iPhone to activate “randomize” mode and let the app make the editing choices before I could see the final results.  I committed to posting what came out of the camera and in the spirit of fun came back to give it another try in 2019.  This time around though I made one small change and decided to keep shooting in the randomly chosen combination if I liked the settings.  The end result being I had several new photos from each day but could only use one for the post…

So, I was consistent with my photo taking but daily life was a little more time-consuming than I had planned for and my final, wrap up post just didn’t happen.

Faced with this I decided I had two choices:  skip the week or give myself a second chance and write a longer post by the end of the next week including all 14 images.  Since I liked the photos and didn’t want to pass over them just because I was too busy I decided to pick the second chance option.  One thing led to another and my entire next week was structured around second chances.

I started with a favorite 2014 Washington coast shot reimagined in soft pastel Hipstamatic.  The second image came about after a customer asked if I had a color version of my popular black and white forest trail poster.  I went back to the original 2017 photo and worked with colors until I found a combination that made me happy.  You might recognize the next shot of Finn, it’s a re-work of the black and white photo from the first set of images and the rest are all additional photos left over from my “shake to randomize” week.  I hope you like them!

As with previous weeks all photos were taken with my iPhone and edited on my phone or iPad.  If you have specific questions about the editing choices ask a question in the comments.  I’m happy to share!

 

Lisa8 Comments

2019 The Year of Black and White: Week 11

While the easy title for this week’s post was “Black and White” I could have also added something about it being the last full week of winter, or how my earliest memories of enjoying photographs were with books full of black and white images.  All of these would have been accurate but sometimes simple is best and that’s how I ended up with the title we see today.

As for this being the last full week of winter – yay!  I am so happy to turn the corner into spring that if it means the return of allergies and weeds in the yard and I’ll gladly take them in trade for longer days, warmer air and lots of pretty colors bursting out all around.

As for why I chose a monochrome theme it’s simple; black and white images capture and keep my attention in a way that color doesn’t quite match.  Many of you know that I take and post most of my images in color because the seasonal palettes of the Pacific Northwest really shine in vibrant, natural shades but when it comes to quiet storytelling or a photo to think about after you walk away black and white gets me every time.  As an early reader my favorite storytelling books contained pretty color illustrations but I also spent hours of self-directed, non-fiction book time at my Grandparents house engrossed in their Time Life book collection studying photographs of people leading daily lives long before I was born.  The decade volumes that interested me most were the earliest ones that included photographic illustrations because they were a first hand look at how people really lived before I was born and they were all in black and white creating a mysterious feeling of strangeness blended with familiarity.  I puzzled through the text as best I could and then “read” the photos filling in the blanks with what I thought was happening.  I can still remember my favorite pages and if I close my eyes I’m sitting on Grandma Emma’s living room floor in front of the fan with root beer and popsicles ready to learn about a new decade.

The photos above weren’t meant to be just like those old favorites, instead they’re quiet little moments of people and places that I thought benefitted from monochrome’s simplicity.  I’ll continue to post black and white weeks once or twice through the year and hope you’ll enjoy them as much as my big, bold color collections.

All photos were taken with my iPhone and editing apps used are Hipstamatic, VSCO and Stackables.  As always, if you have any questions about techniques or filters used please ask in the comments below!

Lisa8 Comments

2019 The Year of This and That: Week 10

Have you ever had a week that felt busy in the moment but didn’t result in a list of accomplishments?  My best case scenario for a week like this is that everyone made it through without any major problems and each busy day lead to something good later so by this metric I’ll call last week a success.  Yay!  I took steps toward bigger goals, put out plenty of fires and used my photo sharing time to feature some favorites from the past year that didn’t fit into an overall weekly theme.  In other words “a bit of this and that.”

My photo choices were little glimpses into things that made me happy; some pretty garden flowers, a forest road, a hiking trail, fluffy white clouds and an iconic PNW beach scene filled with driftwood logs.  All images taken with my iPhone 8+ edited in Hipstamatic or VSCO.

A fun side note:  posting so many hiking photos led me to design a new hiking T-shirt available now in my Etsy store.  All I need is some warmer weather and John, Ryan and I will be hitting the trails in style.

Northwest Frame of Mind on Etsy

Lisa13 Comments

2019 The Year of Mountain Tops and Flowers: Week 9

It’s sunday afternoon and the sun is shining but the air is still too cold for comfort and I am really ready for winter to be over.  I know the calendar says we’re a few days into March and warmer days are coming soon so I’m pinning new PNW hikes to my Pinterest page and when some of the mountain snow melts we’ll be off to new adventures and happy trails.

If you’re interested in PNW hiking, west coast road trips, easy but tasty recipes and plenty of fresh new cocktails there’s plenty to see on my Northwest Frame of Mind Pinterest page. Is anyone here on Pinterest?  I’m looking for new boards to follow and would love to join some like-minded pinners!

Since I didn’t travel to a beautiful mountainside this week I’ve resorted to perusing photos from last summer and editing my favorites in this vintage-look combination from Hipstamatic.  If you’re interested in which processes I used just ask in the comments, I’m happy to share my steps.

What do you do when the weather is too cold to enjoy being outside but you’ve got a bad case of cabin fever.  I turn up the heat, look through favorite pictures and make plans for our eventual return to outdoor living.

 

Lisa6 Comments

2019 The Year of Looking Back to Avoid Seeing Today: Week 7

Looking back to avoid seeing today… not something I usually recommend but every once in a while it’s a coping technique I can get behind.  We’ve been snowbound for weeks and while I’ve promised to post a photo a day I was tired of looking at icy pictures so after one final black and white I turned my back on the great outdoors and dove into some older picture files for inspiration.

The first photo of the week is the view down our street after the neighborhood worked in shifts to shovel off some of the ice, and the second is Finn coping with this chilly weather.  From here we travel to Bellingham, WA and a 2015 visit to the marina, I couldn’t get enough of these fishing nets and the picture perfect vintage Ford Truck.  The dancing goats are in front of an art gallery in Edmonds, WA and I took their photo along with the softly glowing lantern on Christmas Eve 2018.  My final photo is a look back at a sun filled day at the Oregon coast and, as I noted in my Instagram post, the best-selling print in my Etsy store.  Many of the photos you see here are also listed for sale there so if there’s something you’d love to have please let me know and I’ll send you a link.

All images were taken with an iPhone (5 or 8+) and I used three editing apps this week:  Hipstamatic, Stackables and Snapseed.  If you’d like more information I usually note editing details and filtering choices on Instagram or you can ask me a question in the comments below and I’ll be happy to share my process.

Lisa15 Comments

2019 The Year of Crisp White Snow and Icy Blue Skies: Week 6

What a change from last week’s soft pinks and rosy afternoons! This week passed by in a frozen shade of blue all due to a sudden return of winter.  We’ve had snow days, ice coated roadways and a first for this blog, icicles.  Brrrr

All the images above are from my yard with the exception of the icy road photo so I guess it’s no surprise I’m feeling restless and housebound when that’s what waits for me at the end of our driveway.  After two weeks of quiet rest I was ready to go out and resume life but instead I’m watching weather reports, trying to figure out how long this school year will be once all the snow days are factored in and feeling generally a little grumpy.

All is not bad though, we’ve got a warm house, plenty of food, stacks of books to read and some dry wood ready for a nice warm fire.  So instead of focusing on what’s gone wrong here let’s turn things around.  I’d love to hear how your week was!

Editing note:  All photos were taken with my iPhone and the first six images were edited with Hipstamatic using the Anne-Marie + Hackney + Cadet Blue Gel combination.  The final image was edited in Snapseed.

Lisa23 Comments

2019 The Year of Comfort: Week 5

If you’ve read a few of these 2019 posts you’ve probably noticed each title begins with the same “2019 The Year of” then changes to a short descriptive phrase from the past week.  In the past I’ve tried to keep yearly project titles more consistent but my objective with this new year of photos and weekly recaps is to explore how many times my point of view changes in a year.  I may start a January project with the intention to focus on one motivation but it inevitable slips and adjusts as life happens and months change.  This time around I decided trust and record my first instinct as I began typing each new post.  Some titles may seem a bit odd but it’s been a good exercise to acknowledge what I actually thought of the past week instead of simply noting what I’d planned for it.

The comfort aspect to this week’s photos reflects my last week of quiet rest at home.  I was feeling better but still needed to conserve my energy so you see a focus on soft colors and comfort surroundings.  I went out for short walks and enjoyed some pretty winter sunsets, icy blue water, pretty flowers, boats all in a row and a wintry shot of Finn comfortable in his fleece bed.

Editing choices this week are all from Hipstamatic.  If you like the lens/filter/flash combinations above I usually try to list them in each Instagram post but you can also ask me a question in the comments and I’ll be happy to share the details.

As with past year-long photo challenges I don’t plan to post here every day, I’ll save that for my Instagram and Twitter accounts, but you faithful blog readers will get one weekly recap every Sunday.

 

Lisa8 Comments

2019 The Year of Changing Views: Week 4

This week has been a bit of change for me since I spent all of it at home resting so my photo choices are a mixed gallery of memories, sights from a typical work week, followed by a slow Saturday walk along the waterfront.  Changing views indeed.

We started the week with a fun image of street art on Decatur Island and then spent a few days with some of the contrasting views I see during a more normal week.  If you stop to look at what’s happening to traditional brick-and-mortar retail you see an illustration of the haves and have-nots.  I remain a strong supporter of small, independent shops but everywhere you look big businesses with cash on hand and access to credit are reinventing while those without are quietly shuttering.  The number of store closures will be in the thousands this year while only a small amount of our existing retail square footage will be renovated into new spaces adapting to consumers changing habits.  I’m not going to predict how this will all end but I do know that the volume and variety of in-store choices customers are used to today will be very different by year’s end.

I have plenty of photos of mall remodeling and store closure signs left but midway though the week decided I was done sharing them and was ready to look at something new.  Thank goodness I was able to go outside for a short walk Saturday!  I’m ready with a few new images and inspiration for a prettier week ahead.

As with past year-long photo challenges I don’t plan to post here every day, I’ll save that for my Instagram and Twitter accounts, but you faithful blog readers will get one weekly recap every Sunday.

Lisa13 Comments
Decatur Island, WA

2019 The Year of Sunshine, Soft Colors and Decatur Island: Week 3

Sometimes a look back at soft, summer pastels is a nice way to pass through the dark days of January.  Our warm winter continues but by this time of year the short days start to wear on me and I dream of long evenings outside until 10:00 pm enjoying the sunsets and visits with good friends.

Like this weekend in September on Decatur Island with Ryan, my friend Suzie and her daughter Naiah taking senior pictures.  Ryan and Naiah have been friends since daycare and we’ve shared more than a few vacations here in Suzie’s family cabin by the beach so when I got the chance to have the two of them together for official portraits I jumped on it.  They were great sports and we walked all over the island finding favorite locations and making new memories.

I you’d like to see Ryan and Naiah as little ones on Decatur take a look at one of my first posts here 6 years ago.  Forward

As for me this week has been a rush of working a few extra hours before attending to a long overdue matter followed by a stretch of enforced downtime.  I’m not one for quiet hours on the couch, or naps during the day so the thought of two weeks of doing nothing has been more than a little worrying.  I know plenty of people dream of something like this but I’ve actually been making lists of activities I can do while still following instructions and resting.  If anyone has a great book to recommend or a tv series/movie that I need to binge watch now’s the time to share!

As with past year-long photo challenges I don’t plan to post here every day, I’ll save that for my Instagram and Twitter accounts, but you faithful blog readers will get one weekly recap every Sunday.

 

Lisa13 Comments
Lake Crescent Lodge

2019 The Year of Lakeside Dreaming in January: Week 2

As I type this on Saturday afternoon the sun is shining, birds are chirping and if I close my eyes I can almost pretend I’m sitting in the lovely sun room at the Lake Crescent Lodge in the Olympic National Park.  I’ve already written a few posts about our strange, warm winter here in the PNW and it looks like the trend will continue a little while longer.  In fact Friday’s 61 degrees set a record for the warmest January 11th in Seattle history.  Wow.

Looking through my picture gallery above you might wonder why you’re seeing images from September instead of views from last week.  Well, there were two main reasons I decided to take on another 365 photo challenge, one was to finally share some of the thousands of new images hiding out in my photo roll and the other was to push myself to start writing again.  Even if it was just little, chatty updates from my week the practice would be good so here we are looking back on a warm September afternoon while I type a post in January.

As for my week it was a busy one filled with extra work hours and long afternoons trapped in rush hour slowdowns.  Audiobooks are my lifeline in the car and thanks to our local library I can usually work my way through an author’s catalog from beginning to end.  This season I’ve been listening to a lot of Christopher Moore and by friday afternoon I’d finished The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove. There wasn’t a lot of opportunity for photography although I did take a few new images for use later and when I had a free minute I thought back to this trip with Ryan when we were beginning to practice portrait photography for his Senior Pictures.

As with past year-long photo challenges I don’t plan to post here every day, I’ll save that for my Instagram and Twitter accounts, but you faithful blog readers will get one weekly recap every Sunday.

 

Lisa13 Comments
Nightime at the Edmonds Fishing Pier

2019 The Year of a New Daily Photo Project: Week 1

Will 2019 be my year of living dangerously?  No that’s not it… a year of self-control, or reckoning, discovery, relaxation?  Sigh, I’m terrible with resolutions.  Honestly whenever I try to think of a theme or title for the new year all I come up with are overused movie quotes and sad memes.

In the end though while this leaves me with a descriptive problem it’s not really a feeling problem.  I always have an idea of where I want a new year to go even if part way through something turns in an unexpected direction.  Would a pre-selected 2019 theme effect any of this? Doubtful.

Why am I talking about this?  Well, if you follow me on Instagram I just posted my best 9 grid from 2018 and even though I spent the year sharing a variety of images the landscape and scenery photos were by far your favorites.  Which made me think, even though I felt overworked and tired all year-long there were plenty of beautiful days to remember.  Maybe I should look back and name the year at the end instead of trying before it’s even started…

Instagram BestNine

So I spent some time thinking about two year-long photo projects I shared in 2016 and 2017 and am now ready to give it another try.  My hope is that every week or month or season I can identify a theme among the shots to give me more of a picture of what really happened and where the year is going…  Are you up for watching my life unfold 365  images at a time?  There will be some fun times ahead, Ryan is graduating from High School and planning a gap year before diving in to college. We’re taking a family trip to Iceland and I have a big list of PNW hikes I want to explore so I know parts of the year will be pretty fun.  What else I’ll have to share, well we’ll just have to wait and see.

As with past year-long photo challenges I don’t plan to post here every day, I’ll save that for my Instagram and Twitter accounts, but you faithful blog readers will get one weekly recap every Sunday.  My week in all its glory. 🙂

After a long introduction, this weeks recap will be short and sweet.  We always start our new year on the beach and even though I had to work this year we made it to the waterfront before sunset.  There were several more early evening walks to enjoy as we continue a warmer than usual winter and my week ended with the company of a great friend and a nice glass (or two) of wine.  How was your first week of 2019?

I know my blogging has been light in the past year so many of you aren’t used to seeing much activity here but I’ve missed you all! If you feel like reconnecting and would like to follow along, or even post your own weekly images with a chatty recap feel free to share and link here.  I’ll update each post to include mention of your lovely photos.

Lisa19 Comments