Sorry to show you something from last week, but I’m on deadline! It will all be over soon. I’ve been experimenting with my camera and will have new things for you.
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I Love Words, a poem by Craig
I Love Words
I love words but when I need them most
They dance away like playful ghosts
They sit at the edge of my awareness
With an outward show of how they care less
And when I stop trying to find them
They return to me and let me bind them.
And in the end they get stuck to a page
Forever recalling a sunset or sage
To be set in a pattern of order and form
Restricts their freedom and chaos deforms
Like plucking the wings off a beautiful fairy
Or laughing to tears at something real scary.
In the end it changes the nature of a thing
To conform and recast the very stuff of being
Words disassociate, now mated for life
In ways each a husband, each a wife
To bring alive ideas, memories and sights
Into bittersweet, arcane and wondrous light.
Allegories, perjuries, poems and songs
Vistas and sisters and outright “come alongs”
The contents of a heart, one’s gut or head
The date of death, the prayers being said
The stale life without respite or flight
The endless possibilities late in the night
To all of these and oh so much more
We bind up our words over and over
Trying to find the right combination
And steal a piece of original creation.
But sometimes its best to leave them be
To let them just dance away so free.
-Craig Engen-
Landscapes and macros
Not much different here in terms of technique yet. But the mix of sun and cloud created such beautiful effects out my window that they actually moved me out of my writer’s chair, a hard thing to do these days! This is my fave despite the power cable.
The sunlight on the rain-washed oranges was lovely.
Lest you think I can grow roses, these are the neighbor’s trailing roses.
I don’t know how to get the leaves in the background to blur so I just cropped the photo! When I had a regular SLR camera in high school, we had these tubes you could attach to the lens and they really made the macros work. I wish I had that now. They were just plastic tubes, low tech.
Landscapes
What can I say? I love landscapes. I’m not quite as thrilled at how they come across in my photos. What’s hard to capture in all its glory is the third distance level, the misty mountain. I’m most pleased with the first one. I think the framing really worked. I did crop it a tad to bring the mountain in closer. But that’s all. I’ve sworn off white balance for the most part.
Here’s the same one from a lower angle. You can’t see the mountain, but I like the arrangement of houses.
This was my favorite view of the day because of the long vista and the layered fore-, mid- and background. But it is also the one where the misty mountain feel most failed in the photo. I cropped and cropped trying to bring it out. But I think it was a case of “you had to be there.”
Another long shot for you and then someone’s fabulous garden.
So… these people have a lot of tulips. There’s also a row up by the house, which didn’t come out in the photo. Here’s what’s so great to me about the tulips. They are a sign of patience, foresight and laying the groundwork for a bright future. Then reaping what one sows.





























