The March blog circle theme at Share Six is CONTRAST. I started shooting SLRs, processing my black and white film, and spending countless hours (and – later – all-nighters) printing my images in darkrooms nearly 30 years ago. My love for contrasty images is very closely aligned to those days, but I have brought that love to color digital images as well, albeit to a lesser extent. I generally process my fine art images with the full range of tones, from pure black to pure white. I use histograms to help guide this aspect of editing, but there’s always an element of artistic license, as well. I am a bit of a purist in my photography work, and never shoot or process with HDR, and I rarely blow any value out of an image, other than the occasional bright sky. I think balancing the tonal values and artistic vision associated with contrast in an image is as delicate as any balance – and certainly as worthwhile. I was very tempted to pull images from my all-time favorites for this post, but decided to stick with a goal of shooting new ones, in the location, time, and light available for creating this blog post.
As I write this post, I am preparing for one of the busiest and most challenging weeks of sessions I have ever had, so I had to *make* time to shoot. We’ve had a few recent days that smiled upon us with the promise of Spring to come, and my family took advantage of one such day to explore a new-to-us hiking area. The images from this post are from an hour there, finishing about an hour before sunset. Shooting when I did presented me with harsh light that I often struggle with, but generally love for its contrast and dramatic conversions to black and white images.
As always, I hope you will follow my blog, as well as follow me on Facebook and Instagramto see more of the work I share. I also hope you will take the take the time to link around the full blog circle of talent. You’ll find the next link and details about how to submit your own images to be featured at the bottom of this post.
I sincerely appreciate you dropping by to check out my take on CONTRAST.Next in the blog circle is the highly-talented It’s Still Life Photography! Please link over and see the blog postElizabeth has generated for our theme. For a chance to be featured at Share Six, please submit your CONTRAST images to the Share Six Facebook and/or Instagrampages (tag #sharesix_contrast) by April 5th.
The February blog circle theme at Share Six is COLOR. I’ve been very busy with clients and rebuilding this website (How do you like it!?), and not shooting for pleasure, otherwise. Thankfully, I made sure to shoot some great, colorful, historic signs along Route 66 in Albuquerque, Gallup, and Grants, NM just a few weeks back. It was hard to curate it down to just six – and, I failed. =) I am sharing seven, but there will be more sprinkled around my various sites, in case you want to see them. Along with subscribing to my blog posts here, please follow me on Facebook and Instagramto see more of the work I share.
As always, I hope you’ll take the time to link around the full blog circle. You’ll find the next link and details about how to submit your own images to be featured at the bottom of this post.
West Theater, , Route 66, New Mexico
Pat’s Lounge, Route 66, New Mexico
Sands Motel, Route 66, New Mexico
Grants Cafe, Route 66, New Mexico
OFFICE, Route 66, New Mexico
Downtown Parking, Route 66, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Colonial Motel, Route 66, New Mexico
I sincerely appreciate you dropping by to check out my take on COLOR.Next in the blog circle is the highly-talented Ceri Herd Photography! Please link over and see the postCeri has generated for our theme. For a chance to be featured at Share Six, please submit your COLOR images to the Share Six Facebook and/or Instagrampages (tag #sharesix_color) by March 5th.
The January blog circle theme at Share Six is WINTER LIGHT. As you may recall, I took a spontaneous road trip to Wyoming and Northwestern Colorado over Thanksgiving, from which my last Share Six post was derived, for WONDERLAND. Thus, it may come as no surprise that I was on yet another spontaneous road trip and shooting for the current theme when blogs went live on the 6th – except mine. I am tardy, but I hope you won’t mind, once you see this month’s beauty below. As always, I hope you’ll take the time to link around the full blog circle (next link at the bottom), and then submit to the Share Six Facebook and/or Instagram pages for a chance to be featured.
Christmas came and went, but I still had 11 days to figure out before my children returned to school. So what’s a girl to do but take a spontaneous road trip – leaving less than 24 hours after deciding to do it? This one took me to New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and the Western Slope of Colorado. I re-visited a number of beloved places and went to lots of new ones, too. I could have easily posted a hundred images for this blog post, but I just rolled a dice to decide which ones to use – almost! Below, you’ll see beautiful, soft, warm winter light play on adobe structures in Ranchos de Taos and Santa Fe, as well as golden hour shots in Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. I love the warmth of the light – especially on adobe walls and red rocks, as well as winter’s long, deep shadows. Follow me on Facebook and Instagram to track my adventures in something a bit closer to real time!
Moon Over the San Francisco de Asis Mission Church, Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico
Canyon Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Arches National Park, Utah
Arches National Park, Utah
Turret Arch, Arches National Park, Utah
Mesa Arch, Canyonlands National Park, Utah
I sincerely appreciate you dropping by to check out my take on WINTER LIGHT.Next in the blog circle is the unparalleled Ceri Herd Photography! Please link over and see the post Ceri has generated for our theme. For a chance to be featured at Share Six, please submit your WINTER LIGHT images to the Share Six Facebook and/or Instagram pages (tag #sharesix_winterlight) by February 5th.
The December blog circle theme at Share Six is WONDERLAND. I hope you’ll take the time to link around the full blog circle (next link at the bottom), and then submit to the Share Six Facebook and/or Instagram pages for a chance to be featured.
As is the case for many others, the fall/winter holidays often leave me feeling a bit lonely and blue. This year, just 3 days before Thanksgiving, I got ahead of those feelings and began a plan to spontaneously leave the very next day for a quick trip to visit wild horses and Grand Teton National Park. I mean, it had been almost three whole months since I last went – ha! It was the best decision I have made in quite a long time. Not only did it prevent holiday blues, but it was, in fact, one of the best short trips of my life. The wildlife in the Tetons was far more abundant than it has ever been during the past 17 years of summer trips – including moose, my favorite animal to see there. And talk about a winter wonderland! There certainly could have been a lot more snow around – and there was – but rain on the day I traveled melted much of it. Still, it was still beautiful around Jackson where most snow was melted, and the snow remained in the actual park. I refer to snow as “the great equalizer” because it makes even the brownest, drabbest landscape beautiful. Of course, the Tetons are gorgeous without snow, but it does add a touch more magic everywhere. Winter wonderland all around, indeed.
I kind of like the saying, “Math is Hard,” just because it sounds silly, but I am so pro-math that I can hardly joke with it… Still, my six images became twelve this month. #sorrynotsorry All of these images were taken in and around Jackson, Moose, Kelly, and Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming over the 2017 Thanksgiving weekend.
Several of these images are currently listed in my Etsy shop as prints, and all of them can be purchased. I will also be adding photo jewelry, key chains, magnets, and ornaments options in the near future, and have already made several pieces featuring these images.
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Colter Bay, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
Grandy Teton National Park, Wyoming, November 2017
Moose in Snow, Kelly, Wyoming
Red Fox in Snow, Grand Teton National Park
Bull Moose, Kelly, Wyoming
Grand Tetons, Wyoming
Grand Teton National Park in Heavy Fog and Snow
John and Bartha Moulton Home, Mormon Row, Kelly, Wyoming
Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
Grand Tetons, Wyoming
I sincerely appreciate you dropping by to check out my take on WONDERLAND.Next in the blog circle is the unparalleled Ceri Herd Photography! Please link over and see the post Ceri has generated for our theme. For a chance to be featured at Share Six, please submit your WONDERLAND images to the Share Six Facebook and/or Instagram pages (tag #sharesix_wonderland) by January 5th.
The November blog circle theme at Share Six is HARVEST. I hope you’ll take the time to link around the full blog circle (next link at the bottom), and then submit to the Share Six Facebook and/or Instagram pages for a chance to be featured.
I have lived almost all of my adult life in cities and when I have gardened, it has been in small raised beds or mixed in with flower beds. However, as I tell people, I grew up “gardening by the acre.” It’s in my blood, but I am far from a legitimate farmer these days. Still, I want to ensure that my children know where food comes from and that they have a certain measure of self-sufficiency when it comes to growing and preserving their own food. The images I am including here include home-grown carrots, lettuce, and rhubarb. There’s also an image I shot at my childhood home, as my daughter learned how to crack open walnuts from the walnut trees there on the property with a hammer, just as I did as a child. And I’m not sure I could get away without a couple of pumpkin harvest shots! I haven’t grown pumpkins as an adult, but we grew them a lot when I was a kid, especially “Tennessee cooking pumpkins” which are great for pies, but less brilliant orange for jack-o-lanterns. Of course, we carved them up, too, and also toasted the seeds for snacking.
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I sincerely appreciate you dropping by to check out my take on HARVEST.Next in the blog circle is It’s Still Life Photography by Elizabeth Willson! Please link over and see the post Elizabeth has generated for our theme. For a chance to be featured at Share Six, please submit your HARVEST images to the Share Six Facebook and/or Instagram pages (tag #sharesix_harvest) by December 5th.
The September blog circle theme at Share Six is REFLECTIONS. I hope you’ll take the time to link around the full blog circle (next link at the bottom), and then submit to the Share Six Facebook and/or Instagram pages for a chance to be featured.
Please brace yourself for the shorter version of a very long REFLECTIONS story, touching on my passion for National Parks, and Yellowstone in particular this time. This summer has been a whirlwind for my family – a good whirlwind, but a whirlwind all the same. My husband recently left his job and we launched another company. With that employment change, we found ourselves with a window of time just before school started back to take another trip. About two months ago, we loosely decided to go to Casper, Wyoming to view the total solar eclipse, but once we had the extra vacation time, we decided to go to South Dakota to visit Badlands, Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Wind Cave, Custer State Park, and more, before driving to totality, somewhere in Nebraska or Wyoming. However, as busy as our summer had been with other trips, and as fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants as we are anyway, when I started looking for campground availability four days before we were to leave, I discovered that nothing was available and we weren’t willing to wing it with first-come, first-serve campsite hopes for 11 days. I looked at the eclipse path and noticed the path of totality was right over our favorite campground in Grand Teton National Park and that we could literally watch it from the campground! We were just there last year, but jumped at the chance to return. We left early on a Saturday morning to try to grab a first-come, first-serve site that day, but went prepared to stay on US forest land until we could snag one, if necessary. Well, by 2:30 in the afternoon, we were sitting pretty in one of the last available – but very best – sites there! They filled up before 3:30 and the days leading up to the eclipse were a huge disappointment to many who arrived later, still hoping to secure a site. We count our blessings that things worked out for us to be there for the eclipse and all the other wonders Mother Nature offers in the area.
A huge piece of my heart belongs to the Tetons for its majestic peaks, wildflowers, days past when I camped in the back country there, and – I won’t lie – the moose! Still, my favorite National Park is so cliche, as it is Yellowstone. I love Bryce, Yosemite, the Tetons, Rocky, Acadia, Great Smoky Mountain, Arches, Canyonlands – I mean, it’s hard to go wrong! But I am a STEM girl (OK, STEAM!) and for the tremendous science, the fantastic geology, the spectacular colors, the Yellowstone Caldera, the wildlife, the fascinating variety of thermal features – Yellowstone wins. Yes, it’s crowded in peak season and I have yet to get there off-peak, but I ache to go in snow – soon! I am always incredibly disappointed by the lack of respect and care demonstrated by many tourists – including those who walk off the boardwalks, breaking the law as they enter the fragile thermal areas, and those who approach wildlife, far too close. Nevertheless, it is a truly magical place, full of so much to learn, observe, and appreciate.
Early in the trip, I got to talking with three lovely tourists from India, and their American tour guide as we watched a bull moose by the river below in the Tetons. I am not sure where the guide was from, but he seemed very attached to the Tetons, and was incredibly dismissive of Yellowstone. In my opinion, the two parks have very different vibes, but they are both phenomenal in their own ways. The guide had already taken the tourists to Yellowstone for one measly day, and he said that’s all you need there. He laughed at me when I said we were going up and asked if I had been before, which I affirmed. He then asked, in a very mocking tone, why I would return. Now, understand, this was not a negative conversation, per se, but my mind was blown by the question of why I would ever return. Even if it wasn’t for my own love of the park, I have small children, which he knew. The opportunities to allow them to grow up, seeing the park regularly, learn from tourists’ mistakes and others’ respect, and – most of all – to learn about the science there – are tremendous. Every time we take them, they learn more about nature, human nature, and our planet. They learn about wildfires, birth, renewal, and respect. So, Sir, wherever you are, I am sitting here, reflecting on the majesty of Yellowstone and your bewildering attitude that Yellowstone is worth no more than a one-day visit in a lifetime. I beg to differ, and offer some literal REFLECTIONS below for a very small peek into why it’s worth so very much more to me and to my family.
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Morning Fog, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park
I sincerely appreciate you dropping by to check out my take on REFLECTIONS.Next in the blog circle is the fabulous It’s Still Life Photography! Please link over and see the post Elizabeth has generated for our theme. For a chance to be featured at Share Six, please submit your REFLECTIONS images to the Share Six Facebook and/or Instagram pages (tag #sharesix_reflections) by October 5th.
The August blog circle theme at Share Six is COLLECTIONS. I hope you’ll take the time to link around the full blog circle (next link at the bottom), and then submit to the Share Six Facebook and/or Instagram pages for a chance to be featured.
I struggled with this theme. The biggest reason was that I simply have way too much on my plate lately, and haven’t had time to plan and shoot for it. I pondered recycling some old images that might pass for the theme, but eventually settled on sharing images from my family’s recent trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We only spent 2.5 days there, along with another 12.5 days in the state, but it was just the second time my kids have been to the ocean, and they were too young the first time to enjoy or remember it. We covered many of the typical tourist sites (Currituck, Bodie Island, and Hatteras Lighthouses; Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum; Wright Brothers Memorial; and a brief stop at the Elizabeth II ship) – and hiked the dunes until we found wild horses in Corolla. Still, the best memories will probably be the simple ones at the beach. I am a lifelong mountain girl, but the beauty, serenity, and joy we shared there on this trip has me re-thinking my status! My take on COLLECTIONS is the collection of MEMORIES we created on this trip and – for the first time ever – I am not sharing six, but ten. Sorry?! As I write this, I haven’t even viewed all of my trip photos, yet I am packing to leave for another trip, so I decided not to agonize on the culling process. Cheers!
Oh, the FREEDOM at Jockey’s Ridge State Park!
Along the “trail” to the dunes at Jockey’s Ridge… Trying to avoid injuring any of the OODLES of tadpoles in the water.
Early morning on the beach, bedhead and all, and preparing to look for seashells.
They found part of a horseshoe crab.
Morning beauty and serenity.
Tossing something into the great beyond.
My hearts!
Fearless.
Sand play.
All the joy.
I sincerely appreciate you dropping by to check out my take on COLLECTIONS.Next in the blog circle is the wonderfully talented Ceri Herd Photography! Please link over and see the post Ceri has generated for the theme. For a chance to be featured at Share Six, please submit your COLLECTIONS images to the Share Six Facebook and/or Instagram pages (tag #sharesix and #sharesix_collections) by Septemeber 5th.
The July blog circle theme at Share Six is ARTIFICIAL LIGHT. I hope you’ll take the time to link around the full blog circle (next link at the bottom), and then submit to the Share Six Facebook and/or Instagram pages for a chance to be featured.
Just one year ago, as an almost-exclusively natural light photographer, I was quite intimidated by studio lighting. For years prior to that, I claimed (and believed) I hated flash photography. Well, I’ve come a long way, baby. Learning to control and position off-camera flash have been wonderful skills to develop, and they have made me a much better and more versatile photographer. I now regularly use off-camera flash in my photography studio, but also outside quite a bit, to supplement or balance natural light.
For this post, I considered blogging Independence Day fireworks, but quickly decided to focus on getting some simple, but nice studio shots of my son. He is eight years old with a silly streak a mile wide and zero attention span when his sister is engaging him, as was the case when I snapped these, all within the few minutes he granted me. I took some similar ones of my daughter a couple of months ago while he was at school, so I am especially glad to finally create a set of him. He seems to be in some in-between stage, but I suppose children always are? I am so very happy to have this record of him, with his mouth full of awkward adult teeth, too-long summer hair, Peanuts bandage, and sillies. When he simply couldn’t keep it together anymore, he sneaked off with his sister and they returned in various ridiculous costumes and fits of laughter. Those made for some good images to ward off high school girlfriends and to share at his wedding, should I feel a bit naughty!
I sincerely appreciate you dropping by to check out my take on ARTIFICIAL LIGHT.Next in the blog circle is the wonderfully talented KG Ledbetter Photography! Please link over and see the post Kathy has generated for the theme. For a chance to be featured at Share Six, please submit your ARTIFICIAL LIGHT images to the Share Six Facebook and/or Instagram pages (tag #sharesix and #sharesix_artificiallight) by August 5th.
The June blog circle theme at Share Six is DREAMY / DREAMS. I hope you’ll take the time to link around the full blog circle (next link at the bottom), and then submit to the Share Six Facebook and/or Instagram pages for a chance to be featured.
Macro photography feeds my soul. I passionately love looking at the world – particularly the natural world – from new and different perspectives. Although it may sound odd to some, macro photography reminds me of my snorkeling experiences, in that it leads me to observe things I simply don’t see everyday. I refer to my macro botanical work as “buds and bugs” as I also love witnessing life at the scale of insects when shooting macro.
For this themed post, I took a little time to shoot in my gardens, something I hadn’t done in recent months. As an aside, you know how when you go biking or running, you often become aware of hills you hadn’t noticed before? The same thing happens when shooting macro in nature and breezes. Those tiny breezes magnify so much. I say this to say the breezes – nay – the WIND – in recent days made several of the subjects I wanted to include unusable, for lack of focus as the plants swayed about! In any event, I love the abstract qualities and the delicious, dreamy bokeh in these images, and hope you enjoy them, too!
I sincerely appreciate you dropping by to check out my take on DREAMY / DREAMS.Next in the blog circle is the highly talented Ceri Herd Photography! Please link over and see the post Ceri has generated for the theme. For a chance to be featured at Share Six, please submit your DREAMY OR DREAMS images to the Share Six Facebook and/or Instagram pages (tag #sharesix and #sharesix_dreamy or #sharesix_dreams) by July 5th.
The May blog circle theme at Share Six is STREET. I hope you’ll take the time to link around the full blog circle (next link at the bottom), and then submit to the Share Six Facebook and/or Instagram pages for a chance to be featured.
When I got serious about my photography journey in the late 80s and early 90s, a great deal of my work was street photography, including people in larger scenes as well as close-up portraits of strangers. For that matter, much of my international travel photography throughout the years has been the same. For whatever reason, I haven’t tended to shoot local street scenes as much in recent years – most likely directly related to having small children. With them, I simply have less time overall, including time to just sit and observe, or to make my way to back alleys or the city at night. Sure, I love to photograph crowds at daytime street parades and street performers, but with children, I am currently less likely to photograph the truly interesting characters on the street. I would love to blog my favorite street shots, hand-picked from over the years, and perhaps I will. However, for this post, I am limiting my collection to my last outing, with the sole goal of street photography. I shot these images on Saturday, July 5, 2014, between 9:30-10:15 pm in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC.
I sincerely appreciate you dropping by to check out my take on STREET.Next in the blog circle is KG Ledbetter Photography. Please link over and see the post Kathy has generated for the theme. For a chance to be featured, please submit your STREET images to the Share Six Facebook and/or Instagram pages (tag #sharesix and #sharesix_street) by June 5th.
The April blog circle theme at Share Six is CONNECTION. I hope you’ll take the time to link around the full blog circle (next link at the bottom), and then submit to the Share Six Facebook and/or Instagram pages for a chance to be featured.
As noted in my March Share Six post, I am working towards better work-life balance. Part of that resulted in limited shooting this month, except during a family vacation and some gadget photos. The majority of the most special and intimate moments of late were captured only on my gadget or not at all, and that’s OK, as that is part of living more in the moment lately, even though I don’t have amazing images from those moments to share. In any event, I am pulling some of the images from as far back as last April, but they haven’t all been previously shared.
When I think “CONNECTION,” I think of my children more than anything else. As a parent, beyond basic health and happiness, my highest hope for my children is that they become and remain close friends for life. I work to nurture that every day and never plan to relent. Perhaps it’s because I lack that in my own life, or maybe it is simply natural for a parent to want that more than anything. Most likely, it’s both. In any event, my children are almost 3 years apart in age, and often into pretty different hobbies and interests. Like most (all?) siblings, they fight regularly, unfortunately. Still, I know in my heart that they truly, deeply, love one another. I don’t know if they would go to the mat for each other just yet, but I think in time, they will. Sometimes these authentically documented moments of them loving one another help get me through rough patches with them. They are visual reminders of the depth of love in their relationship, even when it’s a bit below the surface.
Hammock Time
I am tempted to say, “This is everything.” But it’s not, because the cumulative love shared here – and in all the images that didn’t make the final six cut – they are everything!
These kiddos are still little and thankfully their feet don’t stink (much) yet. They snuggle often and can’t stand to miss out on whatever the other one is doing, ever! If I am on my (better) hammock, both of them are on it, too. If one kid is in my lap, they both are. And so it goes with their own little special moments, too.
Halloween Day at my son’s school
After enjoying Halloween fun at my daughter’s preschool and then downtown, she and I headed to my son’s elementary school to celebrate there, as well. My Mommy heart swelled so huge, as my kids grabbed hands and ran ahead of me in the haphazard costume parade through other classrooms. Once we returned to my son’s classroom, I melted watching him welcome my daughter to work right alongside him, shoulder to shoulder, on all their fun activities – BINGO, scavenger hunt, and more. I mean, what little boy does that, when he has his entire class full of friends to play with? My little boy.
River Rock
This is the only image in the bunch that was posed in that I sent them out to the rock. Their adoring expressions as they hung out on the rock together, though? One hundred percent authentic, of course.
Soccer
They can be so boisterous and silly! However, they are also often quiet, caring, helpful, and loving. Here, my son is tying his sister’s new soccer cleats, which she just had to have because big brother had recently received some. (The same thing just happened here with roller blades, too.)
Saturday Morning Snack
I spotted them just like this, facing the wall across the room next to my office. I quietly grabbed my camera as quickly as humanly possible to freeze this sweetness forever.
Easter Morning
They were sharing a bedroom this time last year. They both slept in rabbit ears the night before Easter, then climbed into our bed the next morning. By this point, only my son was wearing his bunny ears, but have you ever seen so much sweetness between a brother and sister? Their connection melts me at times.
I sincerely appreciate you dropping by to check out my take on CONNECTION.Next in the blog circle is one of our newest blog team members, Claire Porter of Wilhelmina Photography. Please link over and see the post she has generated for the theme. For a chance to be featured yourself, please submit your CONNECTION images to the Share Six Facebook and/or Instagram pages (tag #sharesix and #sharesix_connection) by May 5th.
The March circle blog theme at Share Six is RESTORE. I hope you’ll take the time to link around the full blog circle, and then submit to the Share Six Facebook and/or Instagram pages for a chance to be featured.
My take on RESTORE is more introspective, raw, exposed, and broad than most of my posts. It is a multi-faceted view of renewal and restoration of many aspects of my life, including Spring’s return, physical and mental health, relationships, and my home.
Renovate
Being Major League DIY’ers, my husband and I have been personally, extensively renovating our homes since before we married. We are in our fourth home together, and the only one that didn’t succumb to our vision was our last one: beautiful, extremely well-built, only 10 years old and good to go. Unfortunately, there was no rational reason to renovate it in any way and thus put our own stamp on it. We lived in it for only five months before pursuing our current one. Apparently we require a project house at all times.*** I typically describe the course of action as, “We accidentally bought a second house in less than a year of living here.” In any event, our current home, known both as “The Tree House” and “our forever home,” is no exception to the renovation trend. The highest priority project at the moment is the master bedroom suite, shown here. We have been in this home just over a year and have never actually slept in our bedroom. Juggling all the crazy of every day life with kids, hobbies, and hands-on renovations keeps us quite busy!
*** In all seriousness, our first house in Fort Collins truly was a wonderful house, but it lacked the tight-knit community we wanted. When we heard through the grapevine that our current home would become available, in the neighborhood we originally wanted to buy in, it was not that we truly wanted another project house. Instead, it was that our forever home here is in “the village.” You know that saying: “It takes a village to raise a child.” We have two kids to raise and are finally living in that village we have longed for. Despite all the hard work we put into aligning our mid-century modern home with our architectural vision, we are living the dream in our fabulous neighborhood.
Restore
As far back as anyone can remember – at least since I was 3 – I longed for a classic Mustang: red convertible with a white top and interior. I am not really a car person, although I know more about them than most of my peers. Still, there has just always been something about classic Mustangs. I love old muscle cars in general. OK, I like many old things in general, but Mustang-love may well be where it all started. A few years back, my husband surprised me with my dream car for my birthday – except that Ruby has a black top and interior, instead of white. Happily, I have found I actually prefer the black these days. We were living in Washington, DC at the time, and he had been late coming home from work a few times, always to my irritation, as I was anxious for help with the kids. As it turns out, he had been out shopping to fulfill my dream, often riding the Metro train out to the end of the line, meeting someone with a Mustang for sale. Each time I was upset about him getting home late, he sucked it up and provided a plausible explanation about working late – never giving up the surprise even the tiniest bit. I had NO IDEA. He pretty much won Husband of the Universe with all the stunts he pulled in securing and hiding this car from me until the big reveal at my birthday party! Ruby is a 1967 in show car condition, almost entirely original, never wrecked, and largely restored in the 90s. We have added a few safety features and kids’ car seats, with more tweaks to go, but she’s completely road-worthy (and awesome) as is. The unofficial deal at our house is: Ruby is my eye candy and joy ride, and my husband is responsible for keeping her on the road and running well. Maybe he drew the short straw, but I think he actually enjoys his end of the deal, too, if for no other reason than giving me the ongoing joy of having my dream car. This weekend was beautiful, so he backed Ruby out of the garage, fixed a leak of some variety, did some magic voodoo work on her power steering, did a few other maintenance things, washed her, and then sent me out to drive her around a bit. My first ride of the season was relatively brief, but awesome! #mylittlepony
Renew fitness
I have recently re-committed myself to physical fitness, after a long period of time where I simply fell to the bottom of the priority list too much to provide proper care for myself. For a whole host of reasons, fitness has been a lifelong challenge for me, but I have finally reached a point in these parenting years where I can realistically prioritize my health every day, and I am doing so. I can’t wait until great weather is more consistent and I can do nearly all of my daily cardio exercise outdoors through Fall. Until then, I am grateful for my treadmill, with a view of the Rockies, on the off-days. The downside to this fitness journey is that I am spending much of my former personal photography time working out, and I am not dragging my camera along on the trails and to the fields where I often take my kids, because I am no longer sauntering along with them. I have important work to do out there, and it doesn’t involve a camera! Once our warmer weather is in full force again, I hope to hike in the mountains with my camera more, and run on the trails by our home a bit less, so perhaps I will then strike a better balance and combine my photography and workouts more.
Revitalize
No successful physical fitness approach would be complete without taking great care to nourish the body with healthful, vibrant foods. We were in a rut at my house of making huge, one-pot meals, with a heavy emphasis on filling staples such as brown rice. Given that, I had sadly, genuinely forgotten how wonderful salads can be. With my priorities in check again, we are enjoying not only wonderful salads, but more homemade sushi, summer rolls, baba ganoush, and a wide variety of fresh, whole foods. My family is vegan, and preparing enough veggies and proteins to satiate growing children is no easy feat, but everyone seems to be enjoying our recent meals more – including a return to more thoughtful and visually appealing presentations of it.
Return of Spring
This time of year is everything to me. I absolutely delight in watching all the blooming lovelies make their appearance in our home gardens, even before we have our last snowfall. With Spring’s return, I also reflect on the parallels with my own health and self-care.
Rejoice new skills and new wheels
Spring is all about new things – new babies in nature, new buds, and – in the case of my daughter – a new life skill! She recently graduated from a balance bike to this pedal bike and she is slaying the trails as I jog along behind her. Meanwhile, my son has done the same with rollerblading. Alas, they are already outpacing me, and I am struggling to figure out how to continue sharing this great, quality, bonding time on the trails with them, while allowing each of us to become stronger and more capable in our various modes of transit. I am open to your suggestions! Right now I think I will get them unicycles. That should slow them down until my running pace increases enough to keep up with them, yes?!
I sincerely appreciate you dropping by to see my take on RESTORE and perhaps learn a lot more about the person behind the lens.Next in the blog circle is Mike Wade of Rural Life Photography, our guest blogger and winner of the recent {Music} theme. Please link over and see the post he has generated for RESTORE! For a chance to be featured, please submit your own RESTORE images to the Share Six Facebook and/or Instagram pages (tag #sharesix and #sharesix_restore) by April 5th! Especially for this theme, we welcome some back story on how your image represents the theme!
I was recently invited to interview with Dads in the Wild, sharing some more information about the main Dad in my life. I hope you’ll take a moment to click below to see the images and thoughts I shared!
Roots and Twigs Photography 