Icy Orchard

Dearest friends,

I know, I know, I know that it is difficult to see stark, wintry, icy photos, at the very moment that so many of us are desperately holding our breaths for spring to come. I promise that I will make it all up to you, tomorrow, with some lovely views of corn chowder and flowers!

First day of....???

What does one do on the first day of spring when it looks like this, outside?

Buy a bouquet and celebrate spring, anyway.

I love the transition between the seasons - Winter into Spring!

when we feel frozen

I took these photos, back in January, when I had a tremendous cold. I was staying home from church and was supposed to be cuddled up in quilts - resting! Who could resist a brambly lilac hedge, covered in ice, though?

I took these photos and, really being quite a bit 'out of it', felt clumsy and awkward with my attempts. When I showed these to a few people, their response was on the negative side. They suggested that they'd already seen photos of branches like this, before, from me and it was really time for me to move on. How discouraging! I hid these and, quite honestly, have hid myself a bit, too. The thing is, I'm still looking to find something in shots like these.

I had some wonderful advice from an online friend of mine who is a photographic mentor for me:

Well, so far as I know, no-one told Ansel Adams to stop taking pictures of Half-Dome and Yosemite Falls. He photographed them many, many times.

If the comment is about 'we've seen the same image before' then that can be a constructive criticism. But people need to explain what they mean. Taking the same subject again is part of the learning process. We learn about lighting by taking the same thing at different times of day and in different conditions. I would agree that producing exactly the same thing is not what we strive to do. But, do you think that's what you've been doing? I'm not sure that it is.

If you do take what some people might think of as the same shot, then you probably need to explain what you are doing and why. For example, it would be perfectly legitimate to have a project to build a portfolio of icy branch images. None would be exactly the same, but each would follow the same theme.

So - keep doing what you do.

While I'm still exploring and trying to figure it out, I really like how these look like subtle illustrations from a book.

I wonder if any of you can relate. Doesn't it take courage, for some of us, to be bold enough to believe in what we're doing - especially when it's something new?



....and, then,.....

a {Blogging friend from Australia} listed me in her top five most inspiring photography sites for the week. WELL! That is sweet!!! =] Thank you!


....and, yes, yes! I know! No more winter, please.....but, do you see how the buds are swelling under the ice?

I've lived in Vermont for almost eighteen years, now. I grew up in very sunny and warm Pasadena, California. As my first winter, approached, I was filled with warnings and stories of how bad winter can get, around here. It sounded dire but, since everyone else seemed to have survived, I figured that I would, too. (and, you know,....I never really believed the stories about the snow snakes.)

Well, winter came!

I was the only one who wasn't surprised by how harsh it was. The magnified stories that I had been told, came true, that year. Our first snow was on Halloween and the ground disappeared in November and wasn't seen again until well into April. It was a brutal winter. The average temperature, that January, was 8 degrees Fahrenheit (-13 degrees Celsius)! Usually, there is a thaw at the end of each winter month - not so, that year! We were disappearing under layers of fine, silty snow that never melted or seemed to evaporate.

It was sometime in March that I was sitting in a big puffy chair, entirely engrossed in reading Jane Eyre when I had the strangest feeling. I was just aware of my heart beating and this vague happy feeling. I looked up, wondering for a moment and realized....

I realized that it was raining!

I hadn't heard the sound of rain drops for, at least, four and a half months!!!

It sounded unbelievably wonderful!

Saturday, I had just written a post about how long the winter seemed to be going with no relief in sight. I was feeling like I had been under the most glowering, oppressive cloud. Silly me! It started raining, that afternoon, and, after twenty four hours, it's still raining. It's the most delicious, cozy, happy, soothing, strumming sound! It's the sound of the snow being washed away! It's the sound of SPRING!

Saturday, I, also, took these white roses, put them on some music that I'm working on on the piano and spent a few minutes in the soft, diffused light, snapping away with my camera.

Rain, spring, whites, light, Mozart = sheer happiness!

By the way, you should have seen the moment, that year, that I stepped outside and the leaves had just "popped" out on the trees and I heard them rustling in the wind for the first time in six months. I was gripped with an urge to write poetry and couldn't quite work out what was making me so ecstatic.


Little things that we take for granted.....