Beach plant

This is one of the things I love most about photography: when I’m going about my life doing any random thing, and suddenly, magnetism. There’s something calling to me that I must shoot.

Last Friday I was lounging lazily on the beach when I stumbled upon this eye-catching, cotton-like wild plant. No idea what it is, but it does grow around here a lot. I’d never seen it at the beach, though.

I remember being in the midst of one of my bad allergy attacks when I got to the beach (I desperately needed to get out of my house or I was going to go insane sneezing every two minutes.) Maybe those people who say allergies are strongly influenced by psychological factors are right after all, because by the time I got home I’d altogether forgotten that I was supposed to be sneezing compulsively. The wonderful, healing powers of photography :).

Still nature: tomatoes

I never thought I was going to do one of these (I hated painting still natures in art class, even more than I hated painting in general – which I did because I’ve never been able to draw anything beyond an awfully misshapen tree), but I was up early today so I dropped by my grandma’s, and there we were, talking about life, when I saw three totally shootable tomatoes sitting on her countertop. Can you believe these things grow in her backyard? I amuse myself; I love shooting living things, but I can’t make them grow for the life of me.

I burned the background a little bit in Photoshop, to make the fruits stand out (yeah, I’m one of those dorks who know tomatoes are actually fruits, not vegetables). I don’t have a DSLR, but I get by all the same.

Sunset peace

My goodness, what a day. I’ve had a somewhat crappy week. I’ve been sleep deprived for days and I accidentally spilled a glass of coke on my keyboard (yay for first times), which resulted in my DVD drive getting stuck (if only it’d been water…), and I thought I had a virus in my PC… Gosh. I couldn’t be happier for Friday to come at last.

Today things got better. The coke dried and I could clean my DVD drive with a wet cloth, my computer works just fine, I got like ten hours of sleep last night… But the absolute best, I went down to the beach and took some sunset shots. I love taking pictures, but sunset ones are definitely my favorites.

I also love feeling the way I do when I’m out there shooting, the complete calm and joy of it. Knowing that, no matter how awful my week has been, all will be well, problems are not so serious, and my life is great, because I get to do what I love.

My crappy luck did try to follow me to the beach, though, and I got a lot of lens flare in my shots. But I chose the best ones, cropped them a little, and what you see is what came out of it. I like them, lens flare and all. And I’m torn, because my L16 didn’t have this problem, but I like the colors I get with the L20 a lot more. I know if I get my L16 back, I’ll end up carrying them both around, looking like a madwoman. Good thing I’m getting a DSLR sometime soon.

Have a nice weekend! I know I will.

Promise of a flower

She’s not a flower, yet. She’s the promise of a flower.

feeling

so much

too much

warm light

imploding

 

and all we have to decide

is what to do with the time that is given

to us *

 

* Last three verses are by Gandalf, “The Lord of the Rings. The Fellowship of the Ring”, John R.R. Tolkien.