2019 The Year of Seeing Green: Week 12

The year of seeing green?  Living green?  Sharing green?  We try for all three here but I still had a hard time settling on one for this post so after a day spent typing and deleting variations I finally acknowledged my best days happen when I can see something green so “seeing” it is.  Of course time with family, a good book, meal etc will brighten any day but everything just feels easier for me to enjoy when surrounded by pretty shades of fresh green life.

Is there a color that makes you happy every time you see it?  Or does the absence of a certain shade make joy harder to find?  I’d love to hear your favorites,  or maybe even a little story about what color means in  your life!

This set of seven photos were all taken with my iPhone and edited using the following apps: 3/17 & 18 – Stackables, 3/19 – VSCO + Word Swag, 3/20-23 – VSCO.

Lisa12 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 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

A Tree, A Search for Quotes and Chief Seattle

All things share the same breath – the beast, the tree, the man… the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.  Ted Perry

Raise your hand if you’ve read this quote before.  It’s typically attributed to a speech given by Chief Seattle, See-ahth in the Lushootseed language, in 1854 however it was actually written by screenwriter Ted Perry for Home, a 1972 film about ecology.

I came across it today looking for quotes about trees and air since I had a photo I wanted to post but was having a hard time settling on what to write.  I often use quotes as a writing prompt and I thought the sentiment was a good representation of my thoughts but one of my personal rules about using quotes is to never feature one without reading about the author first.  Using a quote out of context can be tricky and while the few short sentences might work to illustrate my photo I never want to misrepresent someone’s work.  This particular search led me down a long, winding trail of PNW history and in the end I decided I still wanted to use the words but couldn’t do so without explaining a bit of the story behind them.  A writing prompt at it’s best.

In truth Chief Seattle (c. 1786-1866) lived a remarkable life leading his people through a period of tumultuous change and was widely recognized as a great speaker, diplomat and warrior however the extensive quotes and texts of speeches and letters you see in books were all written by someone else many years after his death.  Some famous passages attributed to Chief Seattle were in fact the words of men who recorded their memories of a speech 30 years after the event  and many are no more than fiction, referencing events and inventions that occurred long after his death.

If you’d like to read more about Chief Seattle, this period in history and the story of an undocumented speech follow the links below.  If you continue your search and find more interesting documentation please share in the comments below!

Thus Spoke Chief Seattle:  The Story of An Undocumented Speech

Featured Article About Chief Seattle From History Net Magazines

 

 

Lisa6 Comments
Porthole view on a Washington State Ferry

I Knew Who I Was This Morning…

I knew who I was this morning, but I’ve changed a few times since then.” Lewis Carroll

A quick scroll through my posts makes it pretty clear my approach changes from day-to-day.  Sometimes I want as little to no change and other times I enjoy playing with color and shadow to create something new from my original photo.  There is a time and place for each view here and usually I know which look I want to go for but this morning I ran into a little dilemma. Too many choices.

I’ve gone back and forth with these six images all day trying to pick my favorite and finally decided to just give up and post them all.  If you have a chance to click inside the gallery to see each image full size I’d love to hear if you’ve got a favorite!  Each photo is labelled for easy voting and I’ve included a poll below so we can all see the results.

Porthole 1
Porthole 2
Porthole 3
Porthole 4
Porthole 5
Porthole 6
Porthole Unedited

The final image is the original, unedited photo for a good before/after comparison.

Lisa10 Comments