What comes to mind as I am thinking about how this month has flown by at lightning speed – how time, in general, lately, seems to have been speeding up and flying by - is John Lennon’s quote “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans”…how true that is! Very often there are times when I have plans to do one thing and then life just blithely steps in and dictates something totally different and there I go - heading off on a completely unexpected tangent…
I have been getting a bit better at handling this though…not in changing the complete lack of control that I seem to have over my life – just in getting somewhat better at accepting it…even my horoscope that came this week from Rob Brezsney seems to point to this – both the chaos aspect and the acceptance of it…
"PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Congrats on your growing ability to do more floating and less thrashing as you cascade down the stream of consciousness. I think you're finally understanding that a little bit of chaos isn't a sign that *everything's falling apart forever omigod the entire planet's crashing and evil is in ascension* . . . but rather that a healthy amount of bewildering unpredictability keeps things fresh and clean. My advice is to learn to relax even more as you glide with serene amusement through the bubbling and churning waters of life."
I have been taking photographs every day…417 so far…and that observance part of my brain is enjoying the waking up and coming back to life that this exercise has stimulated…there have been days when I have been so busy that by the time I have a chance to even think about taking a photograph, it is dark and I am tired and frustrated from a long day of working or running around doing those things that I hadn't planned on doing…but still, I have taken a picture…thank goodness we have so many animals – I can always fall back on a pet picture!
I have learned, though, that of our 4 cats, 2 dogs and my younger daughter's puppy, I am not able to photograph all of them in the same way…for example, the black cat is a real challenge, as is the black and white one...the other 2 cats are easy and willing models...and one of our dogs requires certain circumstances in which to photograph him with any amount of success – he was hit by a car when he was young and had some spinal cord damage, so he almost always has his head down…the only place that I have managed to take good pictures of him…so he doesn’t look all ‘hang-dog’…is at the cottage – where I can get down off the boardwalk so I am below him, or to be ‘down-rock face’ from him…or I need the space to lie down on the ground and photograph him from his level…like so…
I have usually managed to spend some time each day looking at and being inspired by some of the other’s photographs in the Project 365 and the 365 Community groups on Flickr…these communities are an endless source of encouragement and inspiration…just like looking at art inspires me and fills my well, the same applies with looking at photography…
I have also been learning things that I didn’t know about before…like Bokeh, for instance…I had never heard of Bokeh before…but wandering around Flickr I was seeing it more and more…
Dictionary.com gives this definition: “a Japanese term for the subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of a photographic image”…
Wikipedia expands on that to include: “the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light"…and “Bokeh is often most visible around small background highlights, such as specular reflections and light sources, which is why it often associated with such areas. However, bokeh is not limited to highlights, as blur occurs in all out-of-focus regions of the image”…
Then I went looking some more…Flickr has a bunch of groups dedicated to bokeh…including at least one where no bokeh is allowed! Further searching came up with some more information (this is how I can get lost for a whole day just wandering around in cyberspace!)…Ken Rockwell talks about bokeh and DIYPhotography.net tells you how you can make a lens cover to create your own bokeh…
The other evening, while I was stopped at a traffic light, it had been raining and I looked out the van window to see a bokeh shot…not that great a one…but a couple weeks ago I didn’t even know what bokeh was!
Of the 417 pictures that I have taken so far this year, I have used 27 for my Project 365...I haven't always been happy with what I have to choose from for the day...but, there have been days when I have ended up with more than 1...I am hoping to put together a collage shot of the month each month for this project and also to put up some of my out takes from the month as well...hoping to get a chance to do that at month's end!
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