I love it when the sun looks like a ball! And through a tree is even better. :-)
47/365: Ball of Fire
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Tag Archives: photography
Distorted Views
I took this picture today as we were driving across the Main Street bridge, heading south.
Those cut-outs in the concrete railing, which appear diagonal because of our speed (which, Kevin assures me, was not above the limit), are in reality vertical.
Weird, huh?
It makes me think…
Sometimes I’m careening through my days at what seems like ten times what must be the limit.
I wonder what that must do to my ability to assess reality and how many poor decisions I’ve made simply because I acted on my distorted view.
37/365: A Retina-Burning Sunset
One of the many things I love about my DroidX is its awesome built-in camera app. It’s easy to use (just click!), has a number of scenes to choose from (like macro, steady, and night scenes), and it takes good pictures (as good as my Canon digital).
I’m getting into the habit of taking pictures more and more, too. (Of course, this commitment to post a picture every day hasn’t hurt any. ;) I try to keep it handy, and if I have the feeling good photo ops are coming up, I’ll open the app and hit sleep, so when I push the button, the camera is ready.
One day last week, we were stopped at the light at the corner of Witt Road and Highway 29, headed home after picking up the boys from our sitter, Susie’s, and — BAM! — there was this eye-blasting sunset behind the trees. I had just enough time to snap the picture before it calmed into a blur of still-beautiful color.
You can see the rosy spots on the picture. They make it seem like that flash of light was just too much for the camera.
It reminds me of really early Aretha Franklin recordings. She’s belting it out so big that the recording equipment just can’t contain it. Chills!
Up a Winter Tree
If I were a squirrel would I still love the view up a winter tree?
Or would I, having always known it, never even really see it?
31/365: Laying Down Trophies
We used to sing that old hymn, “The Old Rugged Cross,” in church.
The chorus goes like this:
“So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross, Till my trophies at last I lay down; I will cling to the old rugged cross, And exchange it some day for a crown.”
When I was taking the scenic route home from school today, checking out houses listed for sale on my Realtor.com app, I drove down a dead-end street. As I was backing around to three-point-turn myself out of there, I noticed the trash pile at the street in front of the last house on the left:
Trophies. Big, shiny trophies. All laid out for the trash truck.
I wondered about the person who decided those trophies had lost their value. Did he work hard for them? Did she love them when she won them? Has he now died and left them to someone else who didn’t see them as valuable as he did?
I thought about the trophies that I’ve won, the awards and books and ribbons. Many of them are stored in a big plastic box that’s nothing more than a huge pain to move when we finally do (and we will). Why do I hang onto those things? Are my memories not enough?
When I read this to Kevin, he said it ties in with the words of his patron saint, Juan de la Cruz, that have been ringing in his ears all day:
“In order to arrive at possessing everything / Desire to possess nothing.”
The trophies, along with the status and prestige we “earn” through the years, hold only the value that we place on them, nothing in themselves.
And when we place value on these things and qualities, we distort the very reason we exist: to praise God every second of every day.
30/365: Boys in the Woods
My boys spent some time in the woods today.
They crossed the creek, braved the briars, and skirted the snake. And they returned to me full of energy, with a renewed bond between them and bearing new “Indian names.”
Kevin is “Badger”; Lucas is “Wild Cat”; Atticus is “Stalking Wolf”; and I am “Spirit Moon Water.”
More on the Native American theme later. ;-)
26/365: Sleet on Main
At least, I think it was sleet, anyway.
And since there’s been a lot of talk today on both Facebook and Twitter about all the different types of icy precipitation, I have cause to ponder it.
First, it was icy, so it couldn’t have been freezing rain, since that freezes only after it hits the ground.
Second, it seemed like a stream of icy/watery stuff. Streaming diagonally. I don’t know what conclusion this leads to.
And there’s no third.
I’m going with my initial estimation: sleet. Enough of it to get us out of school an hour early today and two hours late tomorrow, if there’s no additional ice or snow tonight.
And what do I know anyway?
I’ve never even heard of thundersnow until today.
(And guess what? That red squiggly line tells me that neither has Firefox.)
24/365: White Oak Mountain
I think I could live with waking up to this view every morning.
23/365: Now, That’s Cold!
We saw this frozen fountain while we were driving around town this afternoon. I downplayed the car in the background in Photoshop with a Gaussian blur.
19/365: Turtle Rock
I took this picture in June 2008.
We were headed to Grandfather Mountain from gorgeous Blowing Rock, N.C., where we stayed at the Hemlock Inn for a long weekend that also included a day at Tweetsie Railroad.
I’m so glad there was a pull-off at this rock! The road was much too curvy for us to have stopped for a picture without one.