nature

lens artists: summer daze

After we moved into town I roamed through a backyard that extended south to the Yampa River, north over the creek and up the hill behind our home, and to the eastern and western edges of town.

During that summer the only concerns she expressed were to be home before dark and to wait an hour after eating as I [joined] a group of friends on the dirt path to the Yampa river with worn, faded, and tattered bath towels draped over our shoulders. Black inner tubes of various sizes dragged behind us filling the air with the pungent scent of faded rough rubber. The sounds of splashing water and laughter would fill the air as we gathered along the river bank and swam to the sandbar. No parents…no supervision. Freedom.

My mother gifted me freedom. (cited: My Mother Came to Visit, b c kofford)

A Summer Daze

… the repeating tic-tic-tic swoosh of the water sprinkler’s voice with its tiny fingers of ice cold water drops … tickling and awakening goose bumps.

… the freedom of bare feet — bare feet freed from school shoes and rubber boots … running across fields with their dandelions, clover, and tall wild grasses; bees, butterflies, and dragonflies; as well as, unknown caves filled with magic carpets, hidden treasures of gold and diamonds, and invisible sailing ships. Coming into the house and instantly hearing my mother’s voice, “Go wash those feet! Who knows what dirt and germs you have picked up!”

(Translation: You are home … a home filled with a mother’s love and care)

… weekend trips to the library … books lined upon shelves … filled with the richness of words … brought home to bring to life stories slumbering within pages and creating imagined adventures out of treasure boxes filled with rummy-sale clothes and trinkets.

“No! You may not build a raft to float down the river, NO!”

… an aging self looking back for long ago summers … an aging self, locked into a present, fatigued by the absence of summer’s afternoon showers and drained by summer’s drying heat … missing, wishing, for those Sunday drives to Never Summer*

*Designated in 1980, the Never Summer Wilderness area is located mostly within the Arapahoe National Forest. Situated to the west of Rocky Mountain National Park, the Never Summer Wilderness area, including the Never Summer Mountain Range, provides a beautiful backdrop for the famous mountain vistas from Trail Ridge Road.



lens-artist: adventures

Leya (to see a world in a grain of sand…) has invited lens-artists to share “adventures we remember – from long ago or lately … big or small.” With this in mind, I set myself out for a small adventure … through the community gardens with a Richo set on macro. Hum…what interesting things will I see…what challenges will I encounter?

There is an awe-ness that awakens when seeing unique geometry spirals.

It was exciting to see the dapple light created by the morning light as it created patterns on the leaves. This dapple light is known in Japan as Komorebi – the mesmeric effect created when sunlight filters through the leaves of trees, casting dappled patterns of light and shadow on the ground

Smiling when the magic of a macro image opens the door to imaginative fantasy … searching for Thumbelina.

Thank you Leya for the motivation to set out on an adventure that opened up a new perspective of the world outside my window.

lens-artists: looking back

On The Water…

This week Wandering Dawgs looks back into lens-artists’ history to July 3, 2012 – John’s challenge #151: On the Water – and invites photographers to “show anything on the water.”

The magical moment of seeing a wasp dance on water was one of the images posted for John’s On the Water challenge.

Being on water are moments of energy …

and quiet reflection

Thank you Beth for your invitation to review and reflect on past moments of time “on the water.”

the waiting room

Were there someone

in the world

who feels as I feel,

we would talk all night

in this grass hut. ~Ryokan (Trans: K Tanahashi, Sky Above, Great Wind)

As I watch the eastern horizon’s transition from the black of night to first light’s opaque colors and then to sunrise’s pastels, I find myself asking,” “What is it that you are waiting for? Or, are you, unknowingly, waiting for someone?”

The morning news filters into my consciousness, blinding me to what is now, and another cycle of searching and editing of words … sentences … meaning begins an undeclared battle with internalized others; fragmented, abstract, vague, absent others.

the field outside my window…

Outside my window looking eastward is a field …once a hay field that silently told stories of seasonal changes. My favorite was during time of haying as it awakened childhood memories of harvesting … especially of those times of baling.

All of this ended when the construction of a new housing development began with dust and noise and then the absence of the hawk soaring through the late afternoon sky. After that it became a time of remembering when I was 7, and the sense of okay-ness to wander over to work sites accompanied with childhood curiosity, “what ya doin’?” during the beginning stages of construction.

Then … the clock towers ... of importance, of course, was the building of the tower right across the street and questions about possible blocking of the eastern horizon’s dawn. So a shift from my year long photo project from …

the morning’s sun north to south – south to north travels to a focus on a section of the horizon – away from the clock tower which began to look like a prison guard tower.

Yet, this morning as I pulled the drapes open with joyful anticipation suddenly silenced by …

contemplative photography – flash of perception

“… sudden gaps in the flow of mental activity … suddenly you see …

“When the flow of ordinary mental activity is interrupted, mind and eye stop … your surroundings appear vividly. This is what we call flash of perception. …”*

*Andy Karr and Michael Wood, The Practice of Contemplative Photography

autumn sun

December 1, 2025, Monday morning … last night’s snow powder left by the season’s first snowfall … mystery creating mist …

First snow! I see it young every winter, 
Yet my face grows old 
As Winter comes.

~The Diary of Izumi Shikibu (1002-1003 AD)*

*Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan