Category Archives: Photography
Finding the Images to Inspire
I like changing the cover photo on my Facebook page, often. Lately, this has taken the direction of adding text to images taken that day. I will be out with my camera and start framing an image in my mind. In framing the image prior to capture I remember that my profile photo will take a portion of the left hand side of the cover photo. I adjust for this almost automatically, now.
New Beginnings
What many do not know about my history as writer and photographer is I created a website for trucking families on my graduation from Northern Michigan University in 1997. The website was homeroad.com and I ran the website from my living room near Gwinn, Michigan. I eventually sold the website to layover.com and came on board as their managing editor. With layover.com, I traveled as a photojournalist taking photos with the ‘company camera’ at truck shows in Dallas, Las Vegas, and Louisville. This was my first experience as a photographer in a professional manner. I knew absolutely nothing, but I was developing an eye for what worked, what drew interest, and fell in love with color, light, and contrasts.
Life threw me some curve balls and due to a divorce, I walked away from my life in trucking to work on healing my soul. I worked as an AmeriCorps worker in Gwinn schools, attended massage school, and returned to my interest of nutrition and natural foods. Along with healing, came a new relationship to a man who hiked trails with a camera. On hikes, I would bring along a disposable camera and click carelessly exhausting my 27 images long before the end of hikes. I eventually purchased a digital point and shoot, then a bridge camera, and finally a big girl DSLR. I was discovering a new genre, photography.
Love of the trails led to becoming a trail runner. I often ran with a camera. But as I healed my soul, and gained fitness, I also began collapsing after races. Irony, as I healed my soul I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder, Celiac Disease. Try as I may to heal my body I was reaching roadblocks. I now had to learn to listen on a deep internal level to the needs of my health. I stepped away from running the trails and back to hiking with my camera.
As this autumn approaches, I am feeling the strength of brining my journey to others, to bring words, photos, and story together to help heal others thru my experiences.
Opacity on Our Periphery
Seeking opportunities for scholarships and/or artist-in-residence opportunities. I’ve been pondering “opacity…the in between worlds, the structures in our periphery that guide us but of which we are not fully aware.” I am looking for “time” to explore in poetry, writing, and photography these concepts.
If you know of other artists, books, resources please share as I take on this new journey and study.
Up Thru the Atmosphere
A rare opportunity to fly over Marquette, Michigan arose on Sunday July 17, 2011.
(I will write more about this soon).
Let’s Get Summer Popping!
I’ve been practicing new techniques in photo post-processing. Just a beginner with some of these processes. But I like how this poppy photo turned out, taken in my backyard this evening after working the day-shift. Mike was beating on my brakes. Morning doves were resting on the grape arbor. Baby birds were making a ruckus in the deep lilacs. I was working on floral captures. It was a good end to a work-day and a good start to my one-day weekend.
Being Selective
This is a thimbleberry blossom. I attended a car show with Mike and I ended up entranced by thimbleberries, indian paintbrush and dandelions. That deep inner voice was telling me to be selective. And I recalled how this week I will have ups and downs. Even my day planner forecasts this as my shifts vary from one day to the next. I do not have two days off in a row and I will be pressed to find the time to train for the next race and take care of my health. Selective. Look for small blessings. Look for lush renewal in tiny places in the in-between worlds. Like the blossoms of summer.
Let’s start this summer off WILD!
Memorial Day weekend I travelled to the west end of the Upper Peninsula to a ZOO! The DeYoung Family Zoo is a different place and quite an adventure. I spent part of Saturday taking a nap on a picnic table while listening to lions and tigers. The day was warm and full of sunshine, a slight wind kep the bugs down (it is the Upper Peninsula ya know, eh?). Mike and I enjoyed ourselves and tried our best to fill our camera’s memory cards.
Storm-Chasing
Mike and I attempted a little storm-chasing on Sunday Night. We both had our Canon S5 IS cameras set up on tripods running CHDK scripts to try and capture lightning. But the storm fizzled here in Marquette, Michigan. The night as no a loss, though. Dramatic weather makes for great color and a different view on our everyday life. Some photos were taken with a small Casio camera that I run trails and races with–it fits in a tiny pocket.
Fairylands and Forty-Seven
Photo by Mike Hainstock
I’m blessed to live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and to have The Wilds so readily at hand. Saturday I worked a 3pm to 11pm shift followed by the morning shift on Sunday 7am-3pm. I only managed 4 hours of sleep between the shifts. I think I surprised Mike when I came home and said, “Grab your camera–let’s go!”. So Sunday, around 4pm we headed out, guided by our intuition, and landed down a gorge near a waterfall in Fairyland where I fell in love with this tree. I could have taken a nap and listen to it whisper secrets!
Photo by Kim Nixon
Sunshine is like the equivalent to “the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down” allowing me to sing in the face of negativity and danger! And I’ve been focussing on spreading joy and disconnecting from the negative that tries to swamp us down. Imaging and Imagining the life I want to lead is key!
Photo by Kim Nixon
Blossoming and branching and keeping that sense of discovery is important. What will sparkle in the sunlight under trees near flowing waters? You’ll never know unless you venture down into the gorge. Facing fears and trying new things isn’t so bad. The last time Mike and I visited this particular bend in the Carp River I was very afraid to walk over a log bridge. My fear of heights and falling so irrational. The creek is really only a foot or so deep, come on fall in I dare ya! (I can laugh now). I walked over it twice with ease on Sunday. Magical!
Photo by Kim Nixon
I am forty-seven and it is a magical age. I’ve having another spring and I can unfold, blossom, soak in sun, and enjoy the wind. I’m going to grow, heal, learn. I feel like singing often. I listen to my intuition and I can hear the little magical beings of the deep forest calling.
Create With Kim 
You must be logged in to post a comment.