Lightning Storm

 

Tonight the crickets were singing while a distant storm illuminated the sky. I captured my first lightning shot. Years ago I took a night photography class with my Pentax K1000, but I haven't tried anything with my digital camera before now. The forecast is for rain, but it looks like it has passed us by again.

Stand By Your Tree

Thanks to our son and his wife, Farmer Rick received a wonderfully thoughtful Father's Day gift of this sweet Pomegranate tree. This evening we potted it up into a clay pot and will attend to the tree's needs in the shade until fall, when we will plant it in the Earth.

Today's high was 106 (again!) with a heat index of 109 degrees so we don't want it to go into shock.


We are very glad to see it is drought tolerant!

Sunday Stills: Silhouettes

This is a photo of the historic school ruins taken from my prairie at sunset.

This one was taken of my husband at a rock shelter pointing out Indian pictographs on the Devil's River.

This Middle Eastern teapot was found in an old barn, and has been the subject of many of my paintings. I like how it looks against the lace curtain.

For more sihlouette photos, visit Sunday Stills.

Sunday Stills: Powerlines and Landscapes

Because I live in an extremely remote place where there are only 4.4 people per square mile there are not a lot of powerlines other than the ones that directly supply us and our handful of neighbors. At first I didn't think I could come up with anything for this challenge. In shooting I realized how much I have blocked them out and subject matter was there after all.

It's been such a strange week, I decided to be experimental with the photography. We've had some rain, so the clouds made it all the more interesting. These were all shot around sunset.

I knew that the lines would not photostitch smoothly, but I kind of liked their angularity and how abstract this pano of them crossing the road turned out. I'm taking an abstract quilting class next spring so some of these could be useful as ideas.

Here, the powerlines and clouds work together drawing the eye into the trees. The next three I ran through multiple filters.




This is the clear cut for the main lines bringing power into the community. I had never noticed it before and I have walked the dogs by it every day for almost a decade. It's amazing how a camera can help you see!

You can visit all the other interpretations of this challenge at Sunday Stills.

Brown IS a color

Years ago, I worked as a botanist for a public botanical garden specializing in native plants. This meant we celebrated the flora that had grown in our area for thousands of years prior to European settlement. It also meant we did not have the tedious task of laying out petunias in varying colors each month to resemble quilts or the American flag.

In the fall and winter, brown was often the predominant color. Occasionally visitors--expecting something else--would ask for a refund of their entrance fee because nothing was blooming and the landscape was "colorless." Although they were accommodated they were also educated that brown IS a color.

Admittedly, I use a lot of color in my art, but I choose to ground myself with furnishings in the muted colors of the Earth. Brown has the added benefits of blending in the ever-present dust and pet hair, and supplying a neutral background on which to make my art shine.

In architecture, I love spaces where the delineation of "inside" and "outside" are blurred. Using brown in my living room and eliminating curtains has helped to achieve this. The trees are just as important an element of my spaces as are the furnishings.