Photo a Day: Bright

Knowing that today's Photo a Day theme was "Bright," I was delighted to wake up this morning to a bright, sunny day with a clean coating of fresh snow over the old. From every window there is a glitter of white sun on snow. The sky is a clear, deep blue without a hint of clouds, and the sunshine is streaming through the windows, casting bright bands across the floor. There were almost too many opportunities for a "bright" photo. 

I wandered around the house, looking for options. I took a picture of blocks of sunlight streaming through the glass doors into the dining room, with bands of shadow cast by the door jambs. I took several closeups of icy snowbanks glittering. I took a few of bushes covered in snow and branches encased in ice. I took several of a leafless birch tree jutting up into the deep blue sky. They all illustrated "bright" very clearly. 

But in the end, I opted for the photo with the most interesting composition.

I love this photo not only because of the clear blue sky and the sparkling icicles, but because of the juxtaposition of curves and straight lines, of the blue color block of the sky and the white color block of the eaves, of the rough branches and the smooth roofline and window frame, of the interior wood and the exterior woods. 

I'm not much of an artist - I can barely draw a straight line - but I do have enough of an artistic eye to recognize a well-composed photograph (or at least, a decently-composed one). I consider myself a creative person rather than an artistic one, but photography is a place where, if I work hard enough and experiment a lot, I eventually come up with something artistically satisfying.

It may not win any awards, but I like it. It's bright.

Bright.

Photo a Day, Day 1: Fruit

For the month of November, I will be blogging based on daily photos with their subjects taken from a “Photo a Day” list that a friend posted on line. Today’s subject is simply, “Fruit.”

When I was looking for a subject this morning, I considered the bright orange clementines sitting on my counter. Their shiny, waxy skins and dimpled texture would make for an interesting photograph. But then I considered the bunch of purple grapes in my fridge, with their dusty coating and their ability to bead water in a fascinating way – another promising photographic subject. But then, hiding behind the grapes, I found a huge, red apple from the batch my kids had picked several weeks ago. It had been rolling around in the crisper drawer long enough to have a few minor dents and bruises, but it was still red and shiny. So I carefully set it up on my kitchen table and took a few test shots.

And then, as so often happens to parents of small children, I was called away to referee some minor squabble or clean up a spill or retrieve a toy from a high shelf or some such mundane task. And once I finished that task, I noticed a stack of laundry waiting to go upstairs, or I heard the buzzer on the dryer, or I stopped to put a new roll of toilet paper in the guest bathroom, and it was an hour or so before I heard my daughter tromping upstairs to the kitchen and I remembered about the apple.

So I followed her upstairs with my camera in my hand, only to discover that my subject was in the process of being eaten. Instead of smooth red skin, there were small white pockmarks all over, marking where little teeth had worked hard to get at the juicy flesh.

But then it occurred to me how much more beautiful an apple is when it’s serving its purpose. That apple was no longer sitting in a drawer, looking pretty but losing more of its looks every day, but instead it was nourishing a growing child, bringing her a love for healthy eating and an appreciation for the (literal) fruits of her own labors. And, based on her expression in this photo, perhaps even cultivating in her a curiosity for what food is and where it comes from.

Fruit: Showing its outer AND its inner beauty.

June 30 Photo: A Friend

Since I am a stay-at-home mom and there aren’t many preschoolers in our neighborhood, my son doesn’t have the opportunity to make a lot of friends that he sees regularly. Fortunately, being a very sociable and outgoing kid, he is content to make friends with any other kids he happens to meet, whether it’s at a playground or in a store or out for a walk. But he does have one friend that he sees nearly every week when Daddy runs at Fresh Pond: Katherine.

Katherine is a few months older than Ryan, but was much more shy and less talkative than he when they first met over a year ago. But between getting a little older and coming out of her shell a bit, the two of them are now best buddies. Every Saturday, they run around together before the race starts and again after it ends. They hold hands and run through the grass, they examine trees to look for bugs, they play follow-the-leader across the stone walls, and they greet friendly dogs. But their favorite thing to do together is play with the tools.

I love to listen to them explaining to each other what the various tools are for, or watch them helping each other find a particular tool. This morning when I went over to check on them, Ryan was carefully hoisting Katherine up in the air so she could reach one of the tools that had been looped over the top of the rack and was just out of their reach. It’s always good to have a friend around when you need a little boost.

June Photo-A-Day

A friend of mine has been doing a monthly photo-a-day challenge, and she recently posted the list of photos for June. I decided to take on that challenge and make it a part of my blog. Each day, I’ll post a photo I’ve taken for that day’s assignment, and then my blog entry will explain what that particular photo means to me. I plan on letting the spirit move me each day to some degree, but I’ve also looked ahead at thielist and thought about a few ideas of what I might use to represent each concept. Here’s the list, along with some of my ideas. I look forward to looking back at the end of the month to see how close my final results are to my initial ideas!

1.      Morning: Depending on what time the kids wake up, it might be a photo of the sunrise, or my coffee cup, or a sleeping child, or a rumpled bed.

2.      Empty: This could be anything from the gas gauge of my car, to a clean plate, to (once again) my coffee cup.

3.      On Your Plate: I try to be creative with making lunches for my son, so there’s a pretty good chance this one will be some food item in the shape of a gingerbread man: peanut butter sandwich man, toast man, sliced turkey man, pancake man, scrambled egg man.

4.      Close-Up: If something pretty is blooming in my garden, it could be a flower or an herb. Or maybe a zoom into fuzzy baby hair. Whichever one is sitting still long enough for a close-up.

5.      Sign: This will be a good one to recruit some help from my son. He loves pointing out road signs, so we might just have to go for a walk until we find a good one. Unless the local Catholic church posts something witty on their signboard, in which case they’ll definitely win.

6.      Hat: Everyone in the family has at least one great hat, so it might depend on who’s posing most nicely that day. Although since my son has a collection of toy hats (a hard hat, a policeman’s helmet, a fireman’s helmet, etc.), there’s a good chance it will involve one of those hats instead.

7.      Drink: My husband is an awesomely creative bartender and will be recruited to assist with this one. It might take several drink options to get the right photogenic result. And it’s wrong to waste alcohol, so I’ll have to drink all the rejects. Let’s just admit right now that this photo is not real likely to be in focus.

8.      Six O’Clock: If we assume PM, I’ll be at the end of a long day and will probably have locked both kids into their high chairs for supper just as Daddy gets home, so Photo #8 may be very similar to Photo #7.

9.      Your View Today: On June 9^th, we will be attending my brother-in-law’s graduation from War College. No doubt my view will include a number of men wearing military dress uniforms. Yep, nice view.

10.   Best Bit of Your Weekend: On June 10^th, we will be visiting the husband and daughter of a dear college friend of mine who passed away recently. I suspect this photo will be a bit bittersweet.

11.   Door: Coming home after a weekend away, my front door will be a beautiful and welcoming sight!

12.   From a Low Angle: I have small children. A large part of my life is spent looking up from the floor. The possibilities here are endless. And probably all include dust bunnies.

13.   Art: I have a few favorite pieces of art in my house, including a soapstone sculpture of a pair of dancers and several hand-blown glass vases. We’ll see which piece inspires me on June 13^th!

14.   Time: I will probably be at Dartmouth College on June 14^th, and I know there’s a clock tower somewhere on campus. I love clock towers. I wonder if I can bribe someone into letting me climb inside and take a photo of the interior workings?

15.   Yellow: Will the golden day lilies still be blooming at Dartmouth? Will I spy a goldfinch on a bird feeder? Will a yellow sticky note on my husband’s notebook catch my eye? This is one I’ll just have to wait to see what I see on that day.

16.   Out and About: Going “out and about” with two kids is always an adventure. Could be as mundane as Costco or the grocery store or as cool as the local water park or playground.

17.   In Your Bag: My handbag tends to contain things like emergency diapers, baby rattles, snack-size bags of raisins or Teddy Grahams, and used Kleenex. Be very afraid.

18.   Something We Don’t Know About You: Now, if I told you about this one in advance, you wouldn’t not know about it any more, would you?

19.   Imperfect: This category is much too broad to choose in advance. Most of the things in my life are imperfect. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Perfect is boring.

20.   Fave Photo You’ve Ever Taken: Since my husband is almost always the family photographer, there aren’t a lot of recent photos that I’ve taken myself. But I do have a fairly hilarious one of my daughter sticking her tongue out that might just have to be the winner.

21.   Where You Slept: It will definitely be a bed. It will very likely not be made.

22.   From a High Angle: My kitchen window has a nice view over the back yard. I wonder what interesting thing might be going on in my back yard that day? Come to think of it, since the neighbors took that big tree down, I have a nice view of a lot of people’s back yards. I wonder what interesting thing might be going on in THEIR back yards that day?

23.   Movement: I have a 2-1/2 year old son. ‘Nough said.

24.   On Your Mind: I don’t know, because whatever it is isn’t on my mind yet.

25.   Something Cute. I have a 10-month old daughter as well as a 2-1/2 year old son. They’ll be duking it out for the cuteness award. Come to think of it, my husband's pretty cute, too. Might be a three-way tie.

26.   Where You Shop. I live at the grocery store. The one place I always have to go in the grocery store is to the lobster tank. (I mentioned that I have a 2-1/2 year old son, right?)

27.   Bathroom: Creepy Elmo faucet cover. Absolutely has to be the creepy Elmo faucet cover.

28.   On the Shelf: This one has a lot of possibilities – will it be clothes, books, cans of soup, detergent bottles, show T-shirts, liqour bottles, miscellaneous tchotchkes?

29.   Soft: My daughter’s crib is full of soft stuffed animals, but then my daughter herself has the softest skin in the world. It might depend on which of them is willing to stay still for a photo op.

30.   A Friend: I think this is another one that I’ll wait to reveal. Who knows – it might be you!