On Closer Inspection

Look closely at the ordinary; it is exceptional.

When you are out and about be sure to have your camera, even if you are out and about in very familiar surroundings. There is always something new to see.

What you see from a distance is not the same on closer inspection. Use those feet of yours and your knees too if you have to, to get in close and see what there is to see. The ordinary weed or bloom about to burst open is really an exceptional sight!

For this shot, I used my 60 mm prime lens with settings of 1/125 and f2.8. There is an obvious texture layer over-top but I was careful to make sure it was not over-the-top - less is more and more is less, yes?

Enchanted Garden

Barriers

Barriers can be perceived or real. One might argue that perception is reality and maybe for a time it is.

Sometimes the barriers are not permanent. They might just require increased effort or stepping back to see the bigger picture in order to get around them, under them, over them and sometimes even through them. Sometimes it is more about timing. We might need to rest, be still, before the path is cleared and we can move forward.

At times the barriers we encounter can be actual barriers, closed doors, that can point us in a different direction.  If we turn around and look in a new direction, the path may be clear.

Barriers don't have to mean stuck.

I took this picture a couple of years back and do wish I could return to take another shot with a greater depth of field and better focus on the leaning tree. At the time I thought it was a great shot and if it weren't for the things I mentioned it would be better shot. Like life, that is where I was at the time in my photography. I took what I knew and used it, lived life out of what I knew. Not giving up because I didn't know what I would know two or three years later was choosing not to be stuck behind the barrier of limited understanding.

Today I am aware that what I know now might seem like nothing in a few years time. I do have so much to learn and not just in the area of photography! So on I go.

Seeing

Sometimes we need to see things from a different perspective to see things at all. Here is a good example. The gaps between the bricks on a wall are home to sprouts of moss. Looking straight on, it looks like green grout and the assumption is made that mossy mounds fill the valleys. On closer inspection, they are not mounds at all. The sprouts reach further than we think. We see each one growing and reaching, instead of just as a mound or mass of, well, green.

Perhaps we can learn a thing or two from this. When we see groups of people do we make certain assumptions that stop us from looking closer to see the individuals? Or do we notice that each one is growing and reaching and living? They are not just one thing. They are not just green.

Tenderness

Learning

There is so much more to this life and living than I know. There are many things I will never understand while I live on this earth but heaven forbid I quit trying, quit learning.

Sometimes something will happen to immediately stretch my thinking. Sometimes it is a conversation with a friend, sometimes a comment on one of my posts, sometimes it is a truth in the Bible that shines light on my life in a way it had not before. Sometimes it is the act of photography.

Taking a photo of the moon this morning reminded me of my smallness and creation's grand scale. It enlarged my capacity, even if only for a short while, to imagine how much more there is to know, to learn, and made me hungry to grow.

Bend

Sometimes we need to bend a little. It is rarely fun. It is often hard. In the end, it makes a difference in our lives and maybe someone else's too.

Spotlight - Spring's Breath