Today is the first day of summer, and the summer solstice. To start off, I wish you all a wonderful summer full of warm sunshine, good times and memories to cherish forever...
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I'm feeling very random lately...won't go into why. What matters is I'm aware of it so I can try to contain my meandering thoughts. Maybe.
Yesterday I should have posted, the point of a daily blog is for it to be ...daily. Seems I've used that stupid saying before, but it's true. ONE of the points of this exercise was to create something that would force me to be consistent. But, yesterday I was out all day. By the time we finally got home, all I wanted was a glass of wine and my TV remote. Lazy much? Well, yes I can be. Here's an excuse:
“Consistency is the hallmark of the unimaginative.” - Oscar Wilde
Thank you Mr. Wilde, that's so true. And convenient. ----> This morning started at about 3am when pouring rain interrupted my sleep. Rain wouldn't usually cause me to wake up but given it's supposed to be summer and I'm at a certain age where the occasional hot flash comes around to torture me, I now sleep with the window next to my bed open. So when the rain came, it managed to waft in and splat me in the face. Additionally, our neighbors' cat, who we've come to love and have learned to occasionally live with, Max, came in to dry himself off. Yup, now I'm awake. What's on TV? Randomness in the middle of the night...
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Right now I'm reading a lot about photography and not doing much actual photo taking. This is CLEARLY a big PROBLEM for someone who has embarked on a photo blog. *mumbles, curses, bites lip* My excuse/reason is that I'm trying to fine tune my manual skills and find a way to be happy with my crap zoom lens. But, she asks herself, is it REALLY crap? The other day while looking around on Amazon, I saw that like a 'zillion' people who bought this same zoom lens are actually happy with it, which means I'm doing something incredibly wrong. Of course, they might all be tools who aren't interested in sharp detail but...dunno. I think it's me. Nothing but nothing chaps my hide more than a simple task that the rest of the world seems to understand and that I should be able to figure out but can't. I am not an idiot. I can read simple instructions and I have a few academic degrees which would seem to imply that I could easily figure out how to take a clear photo with a zoomy-type lens. Right? As a result, I am now obsessed with taking a proper photo with this lens. OBSESSED.
I am tired of photos of flowers, even though I really love them. I know it must be painfully boring to see me post nothing but flower, flower, flower...and flower. FLOWER!
So, I do have a photo for you today, but it's not something new. I am proud of this picture on many levels, mostly that I walked away from taking it without a painful bee sting. I had just taken delivery of my new macro lens (in Nikonese, micro) and was walking around the garden looking for something to photograph. I saw these cute little flowers and started to point the lens when I saw what looked like a clump of mud. Turned out to be a rather slow (maybe stoned on nectar) and friendly old Bumble Bee. He wasn't interested in flying or stinging me, he was doin' his own thang. I grabbed a stick and proceeded to lift up the flower stem he was weighing down and when I was kind of sure he wasn't going to sting, I started to photograph him.
Fast forward a month and a friend's boyfriend asked to use the photo to sketch. The sketch caught the eye of a woman who is doing an art book on insects and the next thing I knew, my photo was submitted for her consideration for publication. No money, money can't take the place of the feeling when someone enjoys your work. I was just happy she enjoyed the photo and flattered that my friend's boyfriend liked it enough to sketch in the first place.
This photo was, like many other good photos, part luck, part patience and a bit of editing. I aspire to produce more photos to be as proud of as I am of this; My Bumble. Most of you have seen it already, so that kind of sucks, but I'm posting this to remind me that this is the end goal, to be proud, consistently, of my work.
“The key to a happy life is to have accomplishments to be proud of and purpose to look forward to, and at the moment I had both." - from Dearly Devoted Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
So all of this blah, blah, blah... I'll shut up now. But a few things before I go...
I first of all want to thank you for reading my mental and verbal diarrhea and viewing a photo that you have probably already seen...sorry...
Secondly I'm going to end by asking you all this:
What are YOU proud of today? What are you working towards improving?
No need to answer, only to consider.
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