Tag Archives: wondering

Some days it’s ‘HEY!’ and some days it’s ‘pssst’

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Subjects for the camera talk to me.  Not in so many words, but they do seem to communicate about how desirable they would be for image making.  Keeping in mind that this is a metaphor rather than what passes for ‘reality’, I’ll continue to describe our interaction as a conversation.  On some days, some subjects are pretty insistent in commanding attention.  It is as if they are yelling ‘HEY!’  Today was at the opposite end of the scale, subjects were whispering.  That is not to say they were intrinsically less interesting, they were just more subtle.


I could as easily have stepped on these leaves as notice them.  But once noticed they speak quietly and don’t repeat themselves.


Moving water doesn’t repeat itself either.


Same rock, slightly different cropping and different water.  The water is always different.

I’m listening to Joan Baez sing ‘I wonder as I wander‘ as I am writing this.  It’s a little easier to wonder if the conversation with the subjects is quiet.


Less is said.  More is heard.  And seen.


Good day to be out.  Good day to go wondering.

First shoot in awhile

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Becky and I went out with our cameras this morning.  There were little rain squalls from time to time but not enough to worry about.  At first we thought we might go downtown Indianapolis, then we switched to maybe the Indianapolis Art Museum – we had gone there last New Year’s Eve day.  We were going across the Butler University campus and the fountain said ‘stop here.’  So we did.

Using it for a background was as close as I got to photographing the fountain and being happy with the result.

Reflections in the ice were interesting.


The leaves are dead but not altogether gone.



And there is a bell tower.


A very satisfying morning.

A trip to New Harmony

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Ellie and I recently spent a few days in New Harmony and enjoyed it immensely.  On the way down, as is her wont, Ellie needed to go to a quilt shop.  This is not something we do on every trip out the door but Ellie does comb her sources for these places and when we have time we stop.  This time the shop was The Village Mercantile in Boonville, IN.


As a seasoned escort to Ellie on these trips I know that I have to find ways of entertaining myself while she does whatever she does in there.  A camera is very useful in this respect.


The pigeons were wheeling about and that made a fine subject.  Ellie pronounced this a good quilt shop and we continued to New Harmony.

New Harmony is a beautiful and quiet place, excellent for meditating and sorting things out.  That’s the main reason we go there.


As you can see, there are birds there.  We were out for a walk along the Wabash River and I was composing a shot of the sweep of a bend in the river when Ellie exclaimed ‘There’s a bald eagle!’  ‘Where?’ I asked.  ‘Right over your head!’  Ellie doesn’t always speak with exclamation points but this called for them.  Sure enough, there was the eagle.


Continuing the bird theme,  they’ve added a metal sculpture of St. Francis and the birds behind the New Harmony Inn.  Here’s a night shot with a small chapel dedicated to St. Francis across the small lake.


Most of the lake had a thin coating of ice.


Photographic opportunities in the area are good any time of the year.

Highly recommended.


A special day: Afternoon

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When I got back from shooting yesterday morning there was a message waiting saying my friend Sally was ready to go shoot.  Was I ready?  Yes.  We went over to Fort Harrison State Park.  A World War II re-enactment was going on so we chose a different part of the park.


We walked up along Fall Creek and, as was the case in the morning, there were lots of opportunities.





I wonder what today will bring?

A special day: Morning

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We had our first decent snow of the year yesterday, I suppose it was three or four inches.  I got out to shoot three times.  The opportunities were so many that I am dividing this post into two parts.


I had gone to see my mother fairly early and stopped along the way home.  This was at the bark park where we take our dogs.  I like how the falling snow is angled parallel to the trunk of the tree.





All of these images will receive a lot more attention before they are ready to print.  I brought them in this morning to celebrate the season.   But wait, there’s more.

Looking for the light

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Composition in photography requires a compelling subject shown in ‘good’ light.  Good light for one subject might not be the same as good light for another.  But in any event the light is hugely important and photographers work at finding the right combinations of light and subject.  Some photographers would even argue that the light is the subject.

Sometimes the light comes from the side.


And sometimes from the back.


Obviously it can come from the front as well.  Yesterday I stumbled onto a different kind of light, at least different from that I am accustomed to using.  I was walking along Fall Creek (that walk is where all these images came from) and I walked under the bridge supporting I465 to get to some small waterfalls I like.  There are drains in the bridge to prevent puddles of water from building up and there is a course of rock under the bridge to catch the dripping water and carry it to Fall Creek.  The bridge here is more than eleven lanes wide so the area under it is something like a wide tunnel.  It is quite shaded under there and as I was crossing the course of rocks, I noticed some leaves down among them.  Since I had my tripod I could work in the dim light and I was curious to see what images of leaves against rocks would look like.  I was impressed.


The exposures on these shots range from a half second to a second in duration.  The light is mostly diffuse but somewhat directional and I spent a few minutes shooting.


This next one is an HDR shot (a sandwich of three shots – overexposed, underexposed and metered shot) which allows a wider range of exposures to be compressed into a range that can be shown on a screen.


I’m impressed and I will be going back there.

Don’t expect too much

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I find that it is best not to expect too much when I go out to shoot.  It narrows the focus and I almost never see exactly what I had hoped to see. 
I had gone out to shoot the emerging berries and ended up shooting mainly the leaves.  That was the other day and this is all I have to show for it.

Today was different.  I had no expectations and it was a more satisfying day.



Those are insects in there.  It went down to 23 degrees last night, the first hard frost of the year.  They may have survived.


The last three shots were done outside an orthopedic veterinarian’s office in Franklin.  I had driven a friend and her dog down there.  The dog, 12 years old, had torn a cruciate ligament chasing school buses (inside a fence while the buses were on the street).  She won’t be doing that anymore but the other day the dog went for a ride, saw a school bus from in the car and barked at it.  So now she has a car and a driver, no more running after the buses.


Today the berries look fine but the leaves are wilted.

And then there is this shot, entirely unexpected:


I guess that is what wondering is all about.  If I only saw what I expected to see, what would there be to wonder about?

Wondering around outside home

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I could have titled this post ‘Wondering around our lawn’ but anyone who has been to our place would take exception with the term ‘lawn’.  So this, in its own way, will be a testament to weeds.  And leaves.  Always some leaves this time of year.


So I just ‘wondered‘ around outside to see what there was to see.  Perhaps I never grew up but I still can’t get over the beauty of little things right there in front of us.


What would it cost to have something like that created for you?


These berries belong to an exotic and will likely not be eaten but they are still striking in appearance.

Did you ever look closely at how leaves attach to branches?


And there are the spider webs again.  I seldom notice them except when I’m doing close up work.  I’m listening to E. B. White read ‘Charlotte’s web’ in the car so I do look closely when I see a web.  I found it interesting that Charlotte saved Wilbur by posting writing on the web.  I’m not up to her level but I’m trying with my own posts.  On the web.


I wouldn’t turn down a trip to Glacier NP or the Tetons but I really don’t need to go far to find satisfying subjects.

Little things.  There are lots and lots of little things and they would like to be seen.  Maybe it’s my job to do that and encourage others to look to.  Go out and wonder.   You won’t be disappointed.

How are you going to look at it?

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Autumn.  The time of the year when growth stops and withering takes over.

Plant life is now turning from the vertical to the horizontal and the ground will be richer.   Is this a matter of death or might it be life?  In each of these images, both answers are present.


Try getting down on the ground to get a shot and you might learn what I did today that while the plants are dead they sometimes offer gifts in the way of new plants in the form of stickers on one’s clothing.  Generous gifts.

They aren’t all stickers, some take wing.

And some are berries.  But all could well produce new life next year.

So is it death?  Is it life?  Yes.

A simple spirituality: Part 4

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Spirit and seeing, spirituality and photography.  I believe that each nourishes the other.  Right, but how does that work?  How do they fit together and nourish one another?

This is one of those things I know to be true but it is mysterious and I find it difficult to put into words.  I’ll begin by repeating what I have written before about the nature of spirituality.  Here’s the working definition:

‘the pattern of beliefs, attitudes and feelings about the Sacred and the world – a pattern that defines who you are at the profoundest level.’ (From Skylight Paths, Who Is My God?: An Innovative Guide to Finding Your Spiritual Identity, Skylight Paths Publishing; March 2004, p5)

This is essentially the definition of personality with the addition that the Sacred is placed at the center.  Viewed most broadly, an individual’s spirituality is always a part of what that individual thinks or does.  It doesn’t have to be a thought or an act with spirituality actively in mind, it is there whether we recognize it or not.  In an important way then, our spirituality as well as our personality colors and frames the way we think and behave.  Of course there are times when we don’t act according to our best spiritual selves.  The apostle Paul made this point when he wrote

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin.
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
Romans 7: 14-15

I would be surprised if all major religions did not share this lament.  So we don’t always act according to who we are at the profoundest level.

In my simple spirituality, everything is interconnected.  God is in all, all is in God.  So when I go out to shoot, there is a strong sense of wonder at God’s creation.  Looking through the viewfinder of a camera intensifies that sense of wonder.  I see this most strongly with close up, or macro, photography.

Getting close to a flower opens up a new world.  Flowers are small, and if we think of the distance between our eye and the bloom in terms of diameters of the bloom (e.g. this flower is half an inch across) we are almost always at least 10 diameters away and more often, when we are walking past them, perhaps hundreds of diameters away.  So when we are close we see a lot more of what the flower is about.  And there is more to it.  We aren’t just close, we are looking at it through the viewfinder which considerably restricts our field of view.  If we are close enough, we see just the flower and little, or nothing, else.   A sense of wonder is then all but inevitable.

But the sense of wonder is not restricted to just flowers.  A flower just provides one good example.  Looking closely at a flower readily gives rise to wonder in just about anyone.  Most things we see, hear, feel or otherwise sense can be a source of wonder.  The quote from Meister Eckhart in the banner at the top of this page says it very well:

This then, is salvation: to marvel at the beauty of created things and to marvel at the beauty of their Creator

What feeds wonder in me probably wouldn’t be the same as it would be for you.  That’s why we could stand next to one another with cameras and come back with different portfolios.

I believe that sense of wonder is an expression of spirituality.  It is God in me seeking God in the world.  So is it surprising that spirituality would nourish photography?  Or that photography nourishes spirituality?  I’ll write more on this soon.