Standing quietly by the fence,
you smile your wondrous smile.
I am speechless, and my senses are filled
by the sounds of your beautiful song,
beginningless and endless.
I bow deeply to you.
~Quach Thoai (describing the appearance of a dahlia: Thich Nhat Hanh, Fragrant Palm Leaves)
Tour de Fat
Michelle challenges us to find a little irreverence in our world within the theme of cheeky. I must admit it is a bit difficult to silence anxiety–as fires rage in southern California, the number of employed homeless increases, the possible financial impact due to an inequality of federal tax burdens, children in Yemen starving, and the list goes on and on and on–long enough to shift my focus towards something “impudent or irreverent, typically in an endearing or amusing way.” Tour de Fat…a day filled with bikes, costumes, music, friends, and family.
looking delicious
the snow falling softly
softly
~Issa (www.haikuguy.com)
Nikon D750 f/5.6 1/200s 300 mm 100 ISO
those snow days…blanketing the earth and gifting us with silence, before snow shovels and snow removal trucks, serene
Let’s spend a few minutes listening to…The Sound of Silence, Simon and Garfunkel.
No matter how much things change, they still remain the same.
Nikon D750 f/7.1 1/25 s 35 mm 100 ISO
an experimental perspective
The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will. No one is [master of himself] if he have it not. An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence. But it is easier to define this ideal than to give practical instruction for bringing it about. ~ William James
The rules of this three-day quote challenge are to post a favourite quote every day for three days, and pass on the challenge to three other bloggers. You can do this at any time you like – even next year – and you can also say, “No thanks.”
While I’ve enjoyed being challenged by others, I find it difficult to invite one blogger over another, so if you would like to join in please accept this invitation to share your favorite quotes. Thank you Amy at The World is a Book for extending an invitation. It eases all those times in the playground when I was among the last to be chosen to be on a team. _()_
This original raw image was created during the golden hour. It was my intention during this photo walk to photograph with a 35 mm prime lens and practice being inconspicuous as I photograph people.
Raw image
Nikon D750 f/7.1 1/160 s 35 mm 400 ISO
The post processing of the above raw image included adjusting the white balance, contrast, sharpening, shadows, and highlights as well as tweaking the exposure warnings, saturation, clarity, and structure. I also used Nik Effects Dfine to address noise and Vivezaz to lesson the shadow of the two young men. The horizontal field was slightly adjusted using the building in the background before cropping. I thought that including the path’s curve would be more likely to allow the image to breathe and to invite an imaged story about the family.
I have found that adjusting for sharpness, clarity, and structure requires a bit of attention to highlight and shadow adjustments. When I read Raj’s explanation, “the white balance of a camera is a setting where you tell the camera what actually white color” reminded me about past tutorials that have recommended using the color picker to set the white balance from a grey color or color natural area. Grey to create white?
The cropped monochrome image (processed within Nik’s Color Efex Pro 4) below is an example of the sharpness of the 35 mm lens. I found that the closer cropped image invites me to image a story more about the two young boys than the family and reminded how I found myself smiling as I watched them engaging life as the sun settled in the west.
Thank you Raj for this amazing opportunity to explore and expand my understanding of photography.
Tokiwa Mountain’s
pine trees are always green–
I wonder,
do they recognize autumn
in the sound of the blowing wind?
~Ono No Komachi (J Hirshfield & M Aratani, The Ink Dark Moon)
Nikon D750 f/14 1/30s 28mm 100 ISO
a peek of autumn with Ono No Komachi
Rounded, created with iPad
Nikon D750 f/7.1 1/1000s 300 mm 100 ISO
jump on over to Paula’s to participate in this week’s challenge: fall
Nikon D750 f/7.1 1/800 s 35 mm 400 ISO
jump on over to Jen’s to participate in this week’s photo challenge, glow
Nikon D750 f/7.1 1/80s 50 mm ISO 400
jump on over to Paula’s to join this photo challenge.
a meditative journey 
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