photography

Honoring Michelle

/ Tracy Abell

Today Zippy and I went to Berry Patch Farms in Brighton, Colorado.

Michelle’s mother and sisters arranged to have a bench and stone placed there in her memory, seeing as it was one of Michelle’s favorite places to visit with her young daughter.

 

At the top of the stone is a quote from Michelle: “Now this is what a strawberry should taste like.”

Note: the rooster windchime on the tree was there before Michelle’s bench. Can you say SERENDIPITY?

On their frequent visits to the farm with the old red barn, Michelle and her daughter would watch the chickens and roosters.

They’d pick berries together and take home bouquets of cut flowers.

Today, Michelle’s mother, sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces, nephews, and friends gathered in her memory. For the past two weeks or so, the weather has been uncharacteristically cold and rainy, but today the sun was shining in a blue, blue sky. The morning was lovely, and I suspect Michelle pulled some strings to make it so.

It was bittersweet being at the farm without Michelle, but here I am warming her cheery red bench along with three of the Writing Roosters, the critique group she lobbied to include me in its membership. Michelle’s generosity lives on.

Jenn Bertman, Tracy Abell, Jen Simms, Laura Perdew (Vanessa Appleby & Claudia Mills were unable to attend)

Americana

/ Tracy Abell

It was my turn to choose our “date night” activity, and I chose the AMERICANA juried exhibition at Colorado Photographic Arts Center.  CPAC is Denver’s only nonprofit dedicated solely to photography.

There are 32 photos in the exhibit. Images include a man holding a Confederate flag, groups of people at small town parades, dead coyotes in the back of a pickup adorned with a U.S. flag, a girl and her goat at the county fair, and cell phone towers that are camouflaged as a eucalyptus tree in one photo and crosses outside a church in another (two of my favorite photos in the exhibit).

This powerful photo (Alister & Sherie) is from Michael Joseph:

Zippy chose this as one of his favorites, should a mythical Uncle Mortie show up with a blank check to buy one of the photos. I, too, admire this image, but don’t think I could summon the emotional courage to look at it every day.

A second spring

/ Tracy Abell / 3 Comments

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.
~ Albert Camus

I stopped during my run this morning to stretch my calves and as I leaned against a post situated at the edge of the open space, looked down to see that glorious display. Those leaves aren’t messing around. They are seriously red.

American Crow for president

/ Tracy Abell

Solitary crow seen through my kitchen window, December 2015.

Every time I see or hear a crow, I smile.
I stop what I’m doing so that I can watch what it’s doing.
Because, crows are smart.
How smart?

Crows sometimes make and use tools.
Examples include a captive crow using a cup to carry water over to a bowl of dry mash; shaping a piece of wood and then sticking it into a hole in a fence post in search of food; and breaking off pieces of pine cone to drop on tree climbers near a nest.

Crows are that smart.
Wouldn’t smart be a nice change?
Also? Crows maintain extended families and communities.
And wouldn’t responsibility to community feel really nice right about now?

Painted Lady invasion

/ Tracy Abell / 4 Comments

Yesterday, as Zippy and I walked Emma around our neighborhood, we noted a larger-than-typical number of butterflies. We wondered if we were in a migration path. Sure enough, when we got home and looked in the backyard, we discovered this:

Rather than orange and black like the monarch butterfly, the Painted Lady is orange and brown. Migrations are also happening elsewhere. It was awe-inspiring to be in their lovely company as they soaked up the sun and flowery nutrition from the rabbit brush.Another generous gift from Mother Earth.

 

 

Finding my focus

/ Tracy Abell

That title is a little play on words.

Why? Because the closer, larger sunflowers should be the focus of the photo.
But instead of being the sharpest images, they’re the most blurred.
Anyone looking at this photo must search for my focus,
which is something I find myself doing more and more.

So, welcome to the club.

Solar Eclipse or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Shadows

/ Tracy Abell / 4 Comments

Zippy got up at 2:45 this morning to drive north to Torrington, Wyoming, so he could experience the total solar eclipse. If I could’ve been teleported back home, rather than sitting in gridlocked traffic after witnessing the eclipse, I would’ve gone with him.

I chose to stay home. When I spoke with Zippy after he arrived in the little town of Torrington, I felt pangs of regret for missing out on what he was experiencing. Why didn’t I go with him? Why didn’t I have those special glasses?

But it was too late. Peak eclipse around here was at 11:47, so I busied myself building a pinhole projector. Then while I waited, I played around with a colander.

As the peak moment approached, I watched in my pinhole projector.

NASA-approved viewing apparatus

I was momentarily confused when the sun spot appeared to be getting larger rather than smaller. Was it possible I wasn’t clear on the whole eclipse concept??? Then I realized that my progressive eyeglass lenses were distorting the image and if I held the projector farther from my eye, I could see the diminishing sun. So then I tried photographing that projector image.

As you can see, I was nowhere near aiming my camera phone at the correct angle. The lighting was really throwing me off and I couldn’t see what I was doing. But don’t get me wrong, I loved the eclipse lighting! Rather than being the usual mid-day harsh lighting, it was subdued and trippy. I had so much fun looking at my plants in the yard. It was like being on a psychedelic trip.

My absolute favorite things to look at were the crescent-shaped shadows from the maple tree. 

My brother called me about 20 minutes before peak eclipse to verify I had special glasses. When I told him Zippy had taken our only pair, my brother urged me to jump in the car and drive to his house. I opted to stay put, and I’m so glad I did. While I couldn’t look directly at the sun to see what millions of people saw today, I thoroughly enjoyed my backyard eclipse experience. The sky was off-limits to me, so I focused on all the cool details down below.

Every creature fast and small

/ Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

Every creature is better alive than dead,
men and moose and pine trees,
and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.
~  Henry David Thoreau

Over the past weekend, we were in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. My two sons, Wildebeest and Zebu, got into a lively debate over running ability and were finally coerced by those sick of listening to that debate into running a short race. While their uncle got ready at the finish line with his camera to capture their final steps, their father (Zippy) lined them up at the starting line. But just before Zippy shot the proverbial starter’s pistol, he saw a tiny creature on the race course:

Horned Lizard aka Horny Toad

After moving the Horned Lizard to safety, the race commenced.

 

(NOTE: Wildebeest won by a slim margin, pulling a quad muscle in the process. The two agreed to switch “lanes” and run it again, and that time Zebu won by a whole bunch. I’m guessing the Horned Lizard is as happy as the rest of us that the two of them have, at least temporarily, moved beyond that whole running debate.)

Sunflowers and Hailstones

/ Tracy Abell / 5 Comments

These cheery flowers typically raise their faces to the sky, seeking out the sun’s warm embrace.

Here, they hang their heads and avert their gazes from the hail raining down on them.

Fortunately, the storm has already passed through and they’ll live to smile another day.

The male muse: an unaccountably rare thing

/ Tracy Abell

The male muse is an unaccountably rare thing in art.
Where does that leave female artists looking for inspiration?
~ Kate Christensen

Well, I’m a female artist currently working in close proximity to my male muse who is apparently lost in thoughts inspired by his whiteboard-muse. Inspiration comes in many forms.

Gotta respect the process.