Soft Focus, Gentle Gaze

Making Michigan Magic with Kim Nixon
April 1, 2012
In my own backyard
Apple Tree Budding

Today is cool and misty, fog blows in off the big lake. I am coping with back pain and must make do with a couple of shots of the backyard. I hope that spring will not pass me by.

Making Michigan Magic with Kim Nixon
April 1, 2012
In my own backyard
Grape Hyacinth

The trees are getting soft with young leaves. My life feels misty and out of focus. I try to look at what’s unfolding with a soft gaze, not judging, but letting it blends with my psyche. I try to exhale.

Creative Every Day–April 17, 2011

April seems to be getting away from me. But I stop often enough to notice the robins in the backyard. Today, the birds are rioting in the crab apple. Mike helped them out by placing a lid to 5 gallon bucket and filling it with seed. The birds have put up with two days of spring snow. The cowbirds fill the apple tree by the fence. Everything is coated in snow.

11/17 AEDM–Frosted Glory

I was on the run yesterday, Monday. Literally, running with early morning appointments, a run after work, a meeting to 9pm and running cross-town home. I never took the clothes off the line on Sunday. I hung them at 2pm on a day, cooling fast. But the dryer was not cooperating.

These photos were taken Tuesday morning. Chill. Somewhere around 28 degrees. I left them to thaw and arrived home tonight after dark. Yes, they are off the line. Still damp.

Fall leaves me short on time too often.

You can view these images (full size) and more of my Art Every Day set at Flickr.

Pink Peonies–We All Fall

The muscle spasms continue and I manage to function, head to work, hold grandson, cope with headaches, and yes, create. I pray for balance in my neck, shoulders, life.

Super Macro–Skeeter Eaters

Robin Finds Abundance

This photo was edited during a migraine and muscle spasm event.

Recovery Mode

You can only do so much and if fatigue is effecting your day keep your to-do list small. Don’t cut out playing with photos as they help your soul heal. I was drawn outside (before work) by a gold leaf wet and dangling from unkempt roses from last season. Tonight I played with the image in Photoshop. For the full size images check-out the GoldLeaf Set at Flickr, which includes six differing images all of the same capture.

Got Bees?

My garden has bees and the bees are intoxicated. Some late blooming plants had bees congregating. I could put my lens right on the bees and they were oblivious. I am allergic to bees and if they were showing any aggression I would have been out of there. But here they were, late season, sucking it up. (photos taken September 15, 2008, Marquette Michigan).

John Burt House, Marquette Michigan

This home is just down the street from my house. Days liek today when I cannot concentrate I can be found heading downhill, past the John Burt House to the waterfront, Lake Superior and it’s blue waves. Marquette is full of contrasts, red rock, sandstone, iron and blue water. The textures creep into everyting artistic.

The John Burt House is directly downhill from my home. On days like today when I have a difficult time sitting still and concetration is sketchy at best, I will head out for the waterfront. Marquette is full of contrasts, red rock, sandstone, iron ore, and blue waves. The textures pervade and influence all artistic media.

In My Own Backyard

In my own backyard. . . where I know the bugs will eventually drive me back inside, I write.  The gardens are lush from rains and the wood ticks are plentiful, if only that was a wanted abundance, but it is not. Tall thunderhead clouds mount, blowing slow from the highlands of Ishpeming to the Marquette’s lakeshore where earlier I practiced taking shots with my new Canon s5.

 

I’ve promised to move forward with my life, build something (anything) before I tear down this love. How to choose a passion? Maroon iris, deep purple columbine, chamomile and poppy, not still enough to shoot in super macro with out a tripod. My off-axis-tilt as extreme as the Earth’s on this solstice, longest day of the year. Hip pain. I’m twisted.

 

I needed movement to sink my feet in sand, walk careful steps and so I headed out for vistas along Picnic Rocks and McCarty’s Cove. Power plant to lighthouse and everything in-between. Corona bottle chilling and sparkling in wet sand. Dirty seagulls on unnatural slabs of rock sticking up from calm blue water.

 

In my own backyard ( that really isn’t mine own backyard), I scrawl words in the margins of Poet and Writer’s Magazine too fearful of interruptions to fetch a notebook ‘cause this is the first time words have come natural in years. And if I don’t sit here smelling dog-shit and chamomile while no-see-ums hang under the brim of my straw hat I might just make a bad choice of passions.

 

Disturbing, I practice healing arts while weeding, trying to heal a man…