Absence.

I have neglected this blog over the past few weeks. After losing my fiance in March, I have been uninspired to say the least. I don’t have a lot of followers, but I value all of you and apologize for the lack of content.

I’m heading out of town for several days next week, and I am hoping that this will clear my head and ignite some of the passions I had before his passing. For now, I check in and admire the work you all present each week. I hope to join you on a more regular basis soon. I just need to heal my heart a little. It’s tough.

A Trip Away

This past weekend I packed my teenage daughters in the truck and headed north, the need to get far away from home was impossible to ignore. It is just barely getting warmer here in western Massachusetts, so there is not much in the way of green on the trees or flowers blooming. But that’s okay… the warmer air and bright sunshine was inviting.

We drove north into Vermont with the intention of going to The Vermont Country Store. Once we crossed the state line, we stopped at the Vermont Welcome Center and saw an advertisement for Billings Farm in Woodstock, Vermont. One thing in particular stood out to us….

They. Were. Having. A. Baby. Farm. Animal. Celebration.

Excuse me for a moment while my head explodes. OHEMGEE BABY ANIMALS.

We totally HAD to go. I mean, really. Who goes allllll the way to Vermont and then doesn’t stop for baby animal celebrations??!! Not me, that’s for sure. So, we went.

And it was precisely what my broken heart desperately needed.

Note: I am trying desperately to teach myself to use a camera, without any training or guidance yet. Any constructive criticism is greatly appreciated. I have zero idea what I am doing. With that said….

On to the babies!!!!

Freakin squee, dude.

WPC: Rise/Set

This weeks photo challenge at The Daily Post is “Rise/Set”, where you are encouraged to explore the colors of the sunrise and sunset. This is a favorite past time of mine. I am in love with nature and weather, and fascinated by the way the light dances across the clouds at the beginning and end of the day. Here are some submissions from me.

Here are the sunrises….

And the sunsets…..

Now I do realize that not all the sunset pictures are of the actual sunsets themselves… but I really loved the way the setting light brought out features of other things in the area so I focused on those to sort of play off that light. Sunrises tend to illuminate and make some amazing cloud coloring, so I tend to focus my eye upward in the mornings.

Thanks for checking these out!

WPC: Favorite Place

This weeks Photo Challenge over at The Daily Post is “Favorite Place”. Share an image of your happy place, a secret spot you love, or a faraway location you return to again and again.

My submission is Weekapaug Point in Westerly, Rhode Island. As a child, my family would spend a great deal of time in the Mystic CT area, and often we would cross over into Rhode Island to visit Misquamicut State Beach. If you drive east a little way down Atlantic Avenue past the state beach, you come to Spray Rock Road, where there is a small parking area on the side. You can park your car and climb down a short path and venture out onto a quiet rock beach. This is my happy place.

Sitting on the rocks, watching the tide and hearing the continuous crash of the waves against the shore centers me. It allows me to forget nearly everything else in the world, even for just a little while. It doesn’t matter what the weather is like (although I do prefer it to be warm), there is always something that soothes the soul at this location.

 

 

 

 

I love this place so much that I shared it with my fiance, in the hopes that he too would find it as magical and healing as I do. He went there several times with me, and once on his own, and he confessed that being there did him a world of good. He loved the rock beach… so much so that we went one evening late at night and sat on this very rock, and he asked me to be in his life permanently. This rock beach is now more than just my happy place. It holds memories of so much more.

It also helps that this place is full of birds, so there is at least one in nearly every photo I take there. On the way out of the area, there is an amazing field with really awesome rock walls. I have a thing for rock walls and I don’t know why. I just think about how much effort it took to put them there. Someone took the time and put in the hard work to make it happen… and it endures. They fascinate me.

Weekapaug Point in Rhode Island is absolutely my favorite place.
I hope you see the beauty in it, too.

WPC: I’d Rather Be…

Photo Challenge: I’d Rather Be…

As dark as this is… it’s the only thing that fits today. On Monday, my fiancé and best friend, was found dead in his apartment from suicide. I am so absolutely lost and broken, and I don’t know what to do anymore. My entire life revolved around, and was saturated, with him. So… the only thing that fits for this photo challenge is this photo of him when we were in Acadia last fall. He was trying out all sorts of different light tricks during some night photography.

This Wednesday, every day before and every day here after, I’d rather be with you, Alex. I’m so sorry that you couldn’t stay here with me. I love you. You were all my reasons.

WPC: Story

This weeks Photo Challenge from The Daily Post is “Story”. The challenge is to be a visual storyteller with your photos. I absolutely love the theme this week, and hope to put up a few submissions. This is the first…

October 8, 2018 – group day trip up into Vermont for some leaf peeping and to let my daughter try out her brand new Nikon D3400. We traveled a lot of back roads on the way to our ultimate destination – The Ben & Jerry’s Factory up in Waterbury, Vermont. It was a lovely day despite the clouds. The trees were gorgeous, covering the mountains in reds and yellows.

Photo credit: My 15 yr old daughter A.

Photo credit: My 15 yr old daughter A.

Random barns and farms along the way.

Wish it was a sunny day, but I’ll take this regardless.

We ended up on this weird gravel road somewhere out near Plymouth – on some random off-shoot from Route 100.  A “short cut” according to the GPS. I’ll admit, I started to get a little nervous because this was very much the backwoods of Vermont now, and I was expecting the car to suddenly break down and for there to be banjo music playing in the distance and we all get kidnapped and hog tied and an assortment of other terrible things. My irrational  fears start to get the better of me, so I decide to look out the passenger side window and there is an animal parade happening in a field next to the road. A FREAKIN’ ANIMAL PARADE. 

Here’s the creepy banjo road.

And here is the TOTALLY AMAZING and completely random, naturally occurring PARADE OF WICKED AWESOME ANIMALS!!! Cows! Sheeps! I can’t even!

Oh em gee… sheeps.

Mama cow! Baby cow! I can’t deal with this!

SQUEE!!!!

We totally made eye contact. He is my spirit animal.

Anyone who knows me, can vouch for my total loss of control when I get around animals. Dogs. Cats. Bunnies. Cows. Pretty much every animal, it doesn’t matter. I am fascinated by them. To look out the car window and see this group of farm animals just marching along through the woods instantly made my brain melt. I took about a hundred photos (most of which were blurry because I was squealing too much) and I sooooo didn’t want to leave. This… this right here was MY Ben & Jerry’s. I no longer needed ice cream. My life was now officially complete. Day = made.

The cherry on top? We went to drive away and there was a group of FREAKIN TURKEYS crossing the road in front of us.

BEST. PARADE. EVER.

Wordless Wednesday

WPC: Out Of This World

I am so horribly late on this. The entire week has run away from me. I had so many great intentions of trying to explore this theme and see what I could make of it. And yet, here I am, with one photo that isn’t even terribly creative. Sigh. Perhaps I will make it a short term goal to explore this theme in my free time.

So… for now… here is my submission for The Daily Posts Weekly Photo Challenge: Out Of This World. It’s something familiar to me, yet looks nothing like what it normally would if you looked at it as a whole.

It’s my bed. And if I am honest, I do not spend nearly enough time in it lately as I would like.

Butterflies!

“The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.”
-Sydney J. Harris

I took a trip to Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory this weekend up in South Deerfield, Massachusetts. The past few weeks have been tremendously stressful so I was in need of some “time off”. What a wonderful place this is. They have a lovely little gift shop and a food service area. Then you get to go inside a huge greenhouse type building and there are butterflies flying around all over the place.

It was a tiny bit overwhelming when you first walk in because instinct dictates that you swat at or try to get away from flying insects buzzing by your head. But after a few minutes, you see how absolutely beautiful they all are… and you spend the rest of your stay praying like hell that they will land on you.

Magic Wings is an interesting playground for photographers. So many gorgeous butterflies, beautiful trees and flowers, some water features with koi fish, a parrot, some lizards and a bunch of little quails dashing around in the bushes. We spend over two hours there, and I finally was able to shut down all the work and life noise… and just exist. It was amazing, and sorely needed.

Here are some shots from our trip. If you are ever in that area, it is well worth the price of admission.

 

WPC: A Face In The Crowd

This weeks photo challenge over at The Daily Post is “A Face In The Crowd” —

“Create an image that represents being “a face in the crowd.” Explore silhouettes, shadows, orientation, and other ways to mask your subject. As you hide the defining characteristics of your model, notice which traits continue to stand out. Without facial expression, can you tell how someone is feeling? Without color, does your impression of that person change? If portraits aren’t your thing, get even more creative with your use of shadows, reflections, animals, and patterns to represent a sense of anonymity.

Explore the use of anonymity to express both that which is common to all of us and the uniqueness that stands out even when the most obvious parts of us are hidden. Just as all of us can oscillate between conformity and individualism, allow your photo to do the same.“

Here are my submissions so far this week. I plan to head out at some point and try to explore the other suggestions beyond the anonymous crowd photos I have here. The reason I chose these photos is because they show a great deal of anonymity, yet all the while you can see how collective the experience is. You cannot distinctly see anyone’s faces or features, but I believe the photos accurately convey the intensity and captivation in the room.

I can’t wait to try and capture the rest of the suggestions. Thanks for checking out my first submissions for the week! Be gentle… I’m a fresh-out-the-box newbie to all of this. Working on it though!

A Trip Away

This gallery contains 6 photos.

WPC: Rise/Set

This gallery contains 6 photos.

WPC: Story

This gallery contains 4 photos.

Butterflies!

This gallery contains 3 photos.