A profoundly inspirational video.

A guest photographer I'd never heard of, but won't forget, made this video rather than write a blog on Scott Kelby's blog as Wednesday's guest blogger.
The video is about 8 minutes or so. Watch it all the way through. I hope you too feel just a little bit better after watching it.
http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/2009/archives/3433

I have been in another computer crash funk, only the 2nd in the last 5 months. I've put my life on hold trying to get my life back. Funny how my life is now on my computer.

Keep it simple. Right.

And.....a little drum roll please......Welcome Katya, to the world of blogging!

Check out Katya's blog

http://persianprincessinnoho.blogspot.com

Another Blogger joins the ranks!

Karen has started blogging. Karen's blog is another honest, from the heart, daily blog to help her stay accountable with her Ideals in 2009. Check it out.
http://onewomanonamission.blogspot.com/



Taking a photo, rather, getting a daily photo with some interest is hard. I think I've fooled myself last year with the everyday photos I posted. Last year's daily photos (not my online class or workshop photos) were really just snapshots, without much thought. I see I have my work cut out.

I picked this photo out of the shots I took because it was the best of the 25 shots of subjects I took in the little time I allowed myself.

Between my regular life, trying to eat right and now seriously trying to shoot a daily photo (with some thought), I have very little time left over. Something has to go and today it was exercise. Hmmmmmm. Not good.

Progress not Perfection.
4:20pm setting sun on two backyard cactus.

Woohoo! Stat counter hits 10,000 views.

I started this blog September 23, 2007. Today the stat counter reads 10,000 hits. I must say I am surprised and delighted that you would find what I choose to blog interesting enough to come back and follow along on a consistent basis. Thank you. I’m sure many of you have no idea about the fear I’ve always had of others reading my writing.

The first time I ever had the courage to allow my writing to be viewed online was when I hiked the PCT in 2002. I hand wrote daily trail journal notes every night. In towns I mailed off the notes to my sponsor Debbie, who typed up and posted them to a website I started just for the hike. I was terrified everyone would find out I was a terrible writer. My motive for writing and posting these online trail journals was twofold: First, to keep all my friends and family apprised of my whereabouts and happenings. Second, to help future hikers like previous online backpacker’s journals had helped me. I was ok after a while knowing others were reading my journal entries because this writing was for a purpose while hiking.

I first started keeping another online blog, not this one, (just for fun – i.e. – for no purpose) It was December 11, 2004 when I started this secret online blog. No one knew about it. The blog was for my eyes only. I still had way too much fear of what others might think to allow anyone to read my thoughts on the page.

Then on September 23, 2007 I started this current blog you are reading.

Recently went online and took a peak at that old private online journal, the journal I kept before this current blog. I found the last entry I wrote on that site before I changed over to this public blog journal.

Here is a portion of the last entry I wrote at 10:32pm, June 20^th, 2007:

I'm almost 20 years in my program. The 2nd step suggests I come to believe in a Power greater than myself.

This next year I have high hopes I will experience physic changes as the result of possibly seeing some pretty ugly embarrassing things about myself. I'm hoping I’m on my way to finding and relying on a Power greater than myself. Then, I do want to try and live according to how this Power wants me to live.

I'm tired. Tired of trying harder. I want to learn to relax, learn to enjoy my life, not try harder to be better, do more-All so you will think I have value.

I'm done trying to make you see me a certain way so I will feel accepted or feel I have worth…….. So I'll feel ok with myself and you. This over dependence on what you think of me is exhausting and it’s none of my business. I have to keep raising the bar in what I do to impress you.

Here's my pledge: from now on - what I think of me is all I'll care about……. From today on and forever.

Fun. That's my ideal for living. To learn to have fun and relax. What do I want, what do I think, how do I feel?

Do I like and enjoy my choices in a day? Am I doing something because I believe I'm expected to do it? Am I doing it because I want to, for me, or for you? If for you, is it a good motive, is it to be helpful and to give...or is it a bad motive....to get.....to influence....to impress so you'll like me and want to be around me...

I'm so done thinking about how I come off to you on a daily basis so I'll feel ok. Done.

Really done.

Well, something has happened since this writing in the private journal entry in 2007. I do feel freer. Less self conscious. Believe I deserve. Know what’s good about me. Worry more about what I think. And………I believe a lot of this change I feel in myself is the result of doing what I’m afraid to do, like writing in this daily blog.

One day at a time, I’ve written. I‘ve posted my photography work. I have no secrets. You see it all on the page. I’m not hiding anymore and the sky hasn’t fallen. Actually, I’ve never had more self esteem and less fear. Who’d have thought change would come as the result of doing the things I fear.

Thank you readers. Thank you so much for your kind words, continued support, compliments and fun comments.

Much love and gratitude,

Linda

p.s. During my morning walk, wearing 2 layers of fleece and full rain gear in this atypical strong rain we are having, I took the photo above. Look at the view of our condo from the other side of the lake in the photo. What a great place we live in.

Sychronicity.

An hour ago, I was drawn outside with my camera and tripod by the vision of billowing, backlit, cumulus clouds over the San Jacinto Mountain range. A phone call distracted me from taking more than 3 photos.

Moments ago I went online to see what exhibitions were at the J. Paul Getty Museum, hoping Sandi and I could catch the end of a photography showing while in LA Tuesday. Online checking out the exhibitions now at the Getty site I found a photo from the Landscape photo exhibition named "Songs of the Sky". (shown here)

Alfred Stieglitz was a great promoter of Modernism in America and an advocate of photography as art. He began pointing his camera skyward in 1922. His images of evanescent clouds were meant to express his own fleeting emotional states and reflect the dynamism of a world in constant flux.

Originally Stieglitz titled these cloudscapes "Songs of the Sky," but he later came to call them "equivalents of my most profound life experience." The works focus on abstract qualities of proportion, rhythm, and harmony, presenting pure form as music for the eye.

Now lookie here at two of the photos I snapped off around 5pm tonight.



And here you have my "pure form as music for the eye".

p.s.
syn·chro·nic·i·ty Listen to the pronunciation of synchronicity
Pronunciation:
\ˌsiŋ-krə-ˈni-sə-tē, ˌsin-\
Function:
noun


The coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality —used especially in the psychology of C. G. Jung

Sitting at Borders.

So Ray and I stayed at the Marriott last night. Now I'm at borders for an hour. I turned on my computer and couldn't get wireless internet at Borders. Hmmmm. Funny I couldn't get internet at the Marriott last night. When my computer asked me if I wanted to repair the problem while at Borders, I found my wireless radio hadn't been turned on. So, no wonder I wasn't getting internet last night. I wonder how the radio got turned off. It's always something. Glad it's not my new computer.

Went for a hike up killer hill in Tarzana this morning with Craig, Ray and Alex. Oh it felt great to be back at my old playground, the Santa Monica Mtns. I'm still not over my cold but I enjoyed getting the exercise. Had nice talks with both Craig and Alex separately. I love it when someone wants to come hiking with me. I miss hiking Killer hill with Tina and Cindy like we regularly did before Ray and I moved.

While at PG last night, we think Ray's car was broken into. The driver side door handle had some paint chipped from where someone attempted prying open the door. Today when I went to look for my small evening handbag camera I couldn't find it. Ray couldn't find his overnight bag either. I think the thieves were kids because two packs of gum and a bag of fire Jolly Rancher candies is missing too. We still aren't sure anyone actually got into the car as both our memories aren't great and Ray might have forgotten his overnight bag at home. I'd decided not to put the small camera in my evening bag last night when I got out of the car and remember throwing the camera back in the car. Maybe when I opened the door after the meeting the camera fell out. And lastly, maybe we finished off the gum and candies! Anyway, this is still a mystery to us that we are both missing things and there definitely is damage to the driver door.

In a half hour I'll meet someone at El Rancho to go through the Book. Then at 5pm I meet two other ladies to read more of Chapter 7. Tonight is Lena's 13th Birthday. I'll see Lena and other ladies for dinner at 6pm, then the meeting, and then home and back to the desert.

No photos today. Sigh.

Photos I took in Half Moon Bay and just submitted.

Last week Ray and I were on the go non stop. Wednesday we drove in to the San Fernando Valley where I spoke. We spent the night over and Thursday, also in the SFV, we attended our home group meeting. Friday we attended the Just the Black Print Meeting Ray and I started here in Rancho Mirage. Then after the meeting we had dinner with some friends who driven out to the meeting. And Saturday we again drove in to the SFV to attend a friend's 20th birthday. All last week I felt sick but now I'm home really sick with a full blown cold.

This week's schedule was on the heels of having been away 8 days up in Half Moon Bay attending a loosely structured class with 11 other students, Norm and our teacher, Carol Leigh. Our assignment was to photograph the character and feel of HMB. By the way, I had an incredible time setting up my tripod and camera at 5am to shoot the setting full moon and later rising sun. The Beach Hotel where I stayed had a balcony that suited my early morning shooting needs without having to go out into the scary dark of the morning on the beach or pier.

I don't know how many photos I shot. Tons. We were told to select 20 photos for submission to our teacher. She'll take 3 photos from each students' submissions and put together a book. Thank goodness my computer waited to crash until I was home. (I am now the very proud and happy owner of a new T500 Lenovo IBM, a 20" Mac external monitor, Lightroom 2.1 and am waiting for Adobe Photoshop CS4 which is supposed to arrive this week. Lots of learning curves.)

Here are some of the photos I submitted:

Out on the docks, looking at Pillar Point Harbor Pier.

Silver pumkin outside the Mill Rose Inn B&B.

An attempt at photographing color at a local pumpkin farm.

Looking back at the Beach Hotel where I stayed.

So many students photographed great shots at the many pumpkin farms. We had great sunny days, but had hoped for clouds which make for better photos. This was a another attempt at a pumpkin festival shot.

This was one of the first shots I took before sunrise. I'd never shot with so little light before. Pillar Point Harbor.

We all called this Norm's Pier. I don't know the real name of it. It's located at the northern end of the Half Moon Bay Beach. This was the first of two times I visited this pier for sunset shots.

Early morning shot looking north from my balcony at the Beach Hotel.

Reflections of dock pilings at Pillar Pt. Harbor.

A wider view of the dock.

An uninteresting boat that caught my eye because of the light on it.

First full moon rise I've ever shot. I was so excited and focused on the moon, I neglected to notice and avoid a big ugly dock feature in the lower right hand corner of many of the other photos.


First time I ever shot a setting moon. It's hard to not blow out the moon and retain detail.

A point at the northern most beach of HMB.

A view of the house at the end of 'Norm's' Pier.

Another moon shot over a hotel along the shore in HMB.

Pigeon Point Lighthouse. I arrived and started shooting a half hour before sunrise. As with all these shots, I used a tripod.




I turned around and shot the rising sun. Can you see two of my classmates?

A shot of the lights of the northern most land and naval equipment.

Ocean beach bluffs photographed on my return from Pigeon Point Lighthouse around 8:30am.

Shot seconds before the sun rose.

I was asked by my doctor if I'd bring in two framed photos from this class to hang in his office. Which two do you think would be best together?

I'm back. Here is a pick-me-up video.

http://pixsylated.com/2008/10/the-best-web-video-ive-seen-in-a-month-no-ever/
I'm sure LR needs a break to watch it.
Enjoy, as I did.

p.s. Once you click on the link don't forget to read Matt's story linked on the blog.

4th Assignment - Office Art Critique

While up here in Half Moon Bay I went online and noticed I'd received the critique on Office Art. I did not like this assignment. I have trouble with setting shots up.

I'll be leaving Half Moon Bay where I've been for the last 5 days to head over to my sponsor's house in Concord, CA to attend her Baby Meeting on the Concepts. Tomorrow I return to the LA area and will be at my Home Group Meeting Thursday night and Ray! Can't wait. I've had a great time up here photographing Half Moon Bay but it's time to return home to Ray and my regular routine. I'll be posting some of my favorites I shot this last week in a day or two.

1. CRITIQUE: Linda Jeffers
Office Art
CALLING CARDS

Good idea for a photo -- lots of photos
of YOU! I like how you have them all
fanned out, and how you've created a
repeating pattern, not only of yourself,
but with all the words and letters and
the individual cards. You've effectively
pushed our eyes around the frame,
checking everything out. Well done. I
also like your limited depth of field.
There's just one "Gottago" that's in
focus while the rest blur out. It's a very
good technique -- shallow depth of
field so that everything's soft except for one little thing, or one little "slice" of a shot.
Your exposure, focus, composition -- all are good.
The only thing I'm wondering about is the bit of
background showing in the lower left corner. Is it a
distraction? Your picture's all about repeating
patterns, repeating words, repeating forms. To have
something completely different and unrelated lower
left could be a distraction. But, frankly, it's not a big
one. I just needed SOMETHING to talk about! :-)

2. BODIE TYPEWRITER

This is interesting -- both you AND Bruce Lloyd
submitted pictures of old typewriters. (I'm
wondering if we've got any "feet on old typewriters"
waiting in the wings! There have been more feet in
this class than I've ever seen!) Look at the difference
between your old clunker and Bruce's old clunker.
His had boldness because of the red/black/silver
color combination. Yours has boldness because of
the strong stairstep forms you captured.
Let me talk about that a minute. Look at the three
triangles you put together in this shot. You've got one up top with the typebars, another formed by the "wedge" of keys, and then a third formed in the lower left
corner. Everywhere we have triangles we have diagonal lines (and perhaps everywhere we have diagonal lines we have triangles).
Wherever we have diagonal lines, we have movement. And you've got a lot of movement here.
I like the dust and weathered metal -- they create an ambience that really adds to the concept of
your photo. Naturally, I wish it were sharper, but I
understand the problems we have when shooting
through glass, especially at Bodie. So all in all, I think
you did really well with this shot -- especially with the
composition.

3. TRASH CAN

You had a lot of decisions to make when setting up this
shot. What do you put it on? What do you use as a
background? How do you keep the reflections from the
metal non-distracting (i.e., how do you keep YOU out of
the reflection?). And then, how do you crop this? Do
you include the entire trash can? Or do you (as you did
here) decide to clip off one side of it? Set-ups can be
difficult, and this is a good example.
Overall, I think you did a good job with it, especially
with the exposure and with the reflections. There's
nothing being reflected that catches our eye and makes
us dwell on the reflection rather than the shape of the
trash can. And your background is clean and simple.
You put the trash can on a glass table that creates a
mirror-like reflection, which I think is very effective, a
very interesting touch.
You clipped off part of the right side. Does that look
like an artistic decision, or does it seem like an accident?
To me, it seems kind of accidental. Usually, when we
chop off something, we need to make it a really radical
chop (like in half) or we need to chop off something on
the other side. If we don't, we run the risk of appearing
careless with our photography.
So then the question is, if we're going to amputate, how
far should we go? Or would it have been better not to
have amputated at all? I think perhaps if you’d been able
to include the entire trash can in the shot, it would have
been better. We could have seen the form better and
we’d be less uncomfortable about part of it being
chopped off. Maybe a wadded up piece of paper at the
bottom somewhere would be a good touch to give a sense of size/perspective.
Thanks for posting these. We're just three hours away from getting together here in Half Moon Bay -- I should have done this in person!
Carol Leigh

Some photos from the last two days in Half Moon Bay.

Everyone in our class is here in town now. There are 12 of us students and our teacher, Carol Leigh. It's a good group.

At 2pm we met in Carol's room, discussed what we'd be shooting for the end product - a book representing Half Moon Bay. Thought I'd post some photos I showed today in Carol's room.

A great link

http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/2008/archives/1294

Scott Kelby is my newest read.

Reading his links in this link kept me up too long.

Santa Fe Group Photos with our teacher, Carol.

At the end of our 3 and a half days of workshop shooting, Carol set us all up and evidently gave us very specific directions on how she wanted us to pose for a memorable group photo, directions I obviously didn't understand. I've included the email Carol just sent to us all regarding the photos she linked us to:

I put both versions of our group photo in my album. What I want to know is, who is that standing behind Chris? Notice, too, how Linda Jeffers did NOT put her camera up in front of her face. And notice, too, that she's the only one with her lens cap still on! Tsk, tsk! Carol de Leigh

Here is the email I sent back to Carol and the group:

Carol, > > Ok, ok. At the time I think I heard the hold your camera part up (of > your directions for the photo) but I think it must have been Lori's > fault that I missed the rest of those directions. Lori must have been > talking to me during the last part of the photo directions..

..you > know, when you might have said something like.... hold the camera up > to your face and hide your face for the photo AND don't forget to take > the lens cap off. Darn Lori. (just kidding of course.) > > I'd like files of the two group photos please Carol. I know you are > probably thinking...."RIGHT. After you screwed up my shot? I don't > think so." > Well, I sorry. Really. See, this is just another example as proof as > to why I never got good grades in school. I've always had trouble > hearing directions the way everyone else does. Some things never > change. Now do you feel sorry for me? > > Now may I have the two files of the group shots????? > > Linda

And part of Carol's email response back to me and the group:

Excuses, excuses. But I applaud your blaming Lori for your not following directions. That's something SHE would do to you, so kudos for one-upping her.

\


This is a fun group and I can't wait for the Half Moon Bay workshop next week.

A few new great blog links....

My photography teacher's new photo montage blog.

AND......Katie has started an unbelievably good daily blog. Ray is addicted to reading it. I see by a comment left from Joanna that she is following Katie's daily journal as well. Here is the blog.