Hallelujah

Joni Mitchell, Mama Cass, and Mary Travers singing I Shall Be Released in 1969. Amazing.

via the sphinx & the milkyway

2012

I keep hearing and reading wishes for 2012 to be better than 2011. I'm with you wholeheartedly - 2011 was a very challenging year. My take is a little different though...There are always going to be challenges. Big ones, little ones. A challenge-free life might actually be pretty boring - and it sure wouldn't hold the opportunities for self-realization and growth. I accept there will be challenges in 2012. We're only seven days in and there already have been! What I ask, what I wish for this year and forever more is not less challenge, but greater wisdom and ability to meet the challenges in the most appropriate ways.

Check back the end of this year. We'll see how I do with that!

And a photo, just to remind myself to roll with it...

Way Back When 2

The second day of the photography workshop, we photographed around Chico Airport. We shot in the afternoon of a very, very hot day in open sun. The focus was on how to get good portrait photographs in harsh lighting situations. There were two models - both professionals and all glamour.

My camera was giving me trouble all day. The lens wouldn't focus and the light metering system was acting hinky. Added challenge! The models were such pros and so beautiful, even with a hinky camera I couldn't go wrong.

Way Back When 1

Back in June (of 2011), I took a photography workshop put on by a couple of incredible local wedding photographers. I learned so much and realized how much more I have to learn. Part of the workshop was a photography session with a local models. The first day was with one model - not a professional. She was a wonderful - and very beautiful girl. It's difficult to take bad photos of beautiful people! I suggested they hire someone like me to model for them. That would be a real test of skill!

The focus of the shoot on both days was glamour portraiture. The most important thing I learned is that glamour photography is not my thing. I prefer a more photojournalistic style where the personality of the people being photographed comes through. It was still a great experience.

The first day we shot at Chico State University in very, very hot weather in early afternoon. Here's a few photos I took that day.

Giovanni

Well!!! My nap - my little break - turned into a full-blown hibernation! I wish I could say I am in a better place than I was in July. I can't. I'm older, fatter, my health is worse, and it is ever more difficult to hold onto that thing with feathers that resides in my heart. So, why did I come back?

I began this blog for three reasons:

1. To have somewhere to express myself. I am mostly by myself (well, there are always cats...) and other than the photographs I post in the void of Etsy, never-to-be-seen-again, I have few ways to share my creative self with others.

2. To reach out and hopefully connect with others. In the very small town I live in, I am considered different and odd. I didn't grow up anywhere near here. I am liberal politically among a very conservative majority. I am new age spiritually in a religiously traditional area. I am probably the oldest mother to a six-year-old in this town or the next. And I am a cat rescuer and animal communicator in a community of hunters. There are no mistakes in the Universe, but I do wonder what I am doing here!

3. To create a journal filled with words and pictures that might someday show my precious J who her mother was other than just Mommy. This is by far the most important reason to me.

These reasons still hold. They are why I came back.