I started this photography journey 5 years ago! Hard to believe how fast time passes by! When the covid pandemic began I decided to take a photo a day and post on Instagram. I was trying to figure out how to use Instagram without posting the same thing as my personal Facebook. What I discovered is a whole new exciting world of photography and photographers who post a photo a day! I thought to myself how perfect during the pandemic lockdowns!
I started by taking photos of birds in my backyard! I expanded to taking my camera with me during my day and doing landscape photography. I’ve since upgraded my equipment and after 5 years have found a few great things about it all.
First, I love the chase! When I see a weather event happening I’m after it! I’m not a serious contender in the weather chasing business but in my little world it’s pretty fun! I love to find what nature creates for us and find a photo angle that expresses the amazingness about it. For instance take a look back to my previous post about the Lake Wissota Island in the fall and the story is pretty classic me.
Secondly, the thing I’ve discovered over the years is that what I was doing for myself actually is appreciated by many others. Instagram changes their algorithms every so often and it's hard to keep up with what the secret is to gaining viewers (I’m social media techy challenged it seems!). But I keep plugging along and enjoy when people find joy, too.
What posting a day on Instagram has taught me has become apparent over the years. When the day is hard and I’m not finding anything, I can always find something! When the day is uninspiring and I need to push to find something I always do. And I’ve learned so much from other photographers who post a photo a day. Relating that to life shows us that we can do it, one step at a time! The trick to it is to just go out, take the first step and get started.
Then it all comes together! When the day is good, great and perfect, getting the photo is satisfying and freeing. What a superb day that is! And it usually sprouts out of my frustration at needing to find something. There it is!! Amazing things happen in nature all day when you stop to notice!
Taking the small steps everyday always leads to producing something even if it is small. It may not be much but it’s something. Taking the small steps everyday is doing the small things that matter. The small things add up to the big things. Pretty soon you realize you’ve got some accomplishments! For me it was the portfolio of photographs that all comprised my book.
What are you waiting for? What have you done today to make you feel proud?
Category: Photography Blogs
Nature’s Resilience Show’s Us Strength!
The purple coneflower is a symbol of nature’s resilience! The flower's strength teaches us about endurance and surviving challenges. As it’s associated with the herb echinacea it represents wellness and recovery with its anti-inflammatory properties. It helps us to understand negative energy or illness and uses its strength to focus on the good and to not only survive, but to survive well.
What a better plant and flower to pay attention to! Flower photography has been something I’ve completely enjoyed every summer. Getting the perfect angle to make a flower stand out a little better. I grow both purple and white coneflowers in my flower garden. They are the highlight of the suns rays and flourish. They also get many visitors including bees and butterflies of all kinds. When the flowers turn to seeds later at the end of summer you will also find Goldfinches busy grabbing the seeds. When you stop to notice you’ll discover a very busy bug land all summer!
It helps me to ground myself to notice what nature holds for us. I’m constantly trying to find the balance between living the life I want and not pushing my MS into a flurry. Being steady and even keel are the keys to winning at life when living with MS. MS can rear itself easily if I’m not careful. And the ramifications are big if I push myself too much. Most of my relapses I’ve learned over the years happen after I pushed myself too hard. I crave to feel normal. But sometimes normal is too much and I don’t want to awaken the sleeping giant within me. So I need to be aware. It can cause anxiety and concern when a MS symptom arises, did I go too far? What do I need to do to help myself and settle the giant back down? It causes me to stop and assess where I’m at and what I’m feeling. I take action by resting and eating right and staying hydrated and then more resting. I do my photo editing on my computer when I’m in rest mode. So my life’s schedule works very well being a photographer between capturing the photo and then resting and editing.
For moments of chasing the butterfly or bee with my camera in the garden, I can lose myself in something that’s completely positive and gives me a photo result that I’m hopeful I can share and make people happy. At the time I took the photo, I was completely content and being in the moment.
When you look at my book, that was the inspiration I had. I’ve been taking a photo a day since covid began in March 2020 and posting them on Instagram. And every photo captured has been a joy to get because it takes me to just that present time. What a gift! I forget about all the issues that plague my body and go after the photo. So the chase is important and just like the purple or white coneflower with the bees and the butterflies, it represents strength, beauty and resilience! And that’s where I find joy in living and finding the good! I hope you do, too!
To see my book and purchase a copy you can head to my main webpage! I’d love to send you a copy showcasing my work! Let me know what you think, too!
The Legacy of the Orange Tiger Lilies
My Great Grandpa passed away when I was young. I remember his strength at 90 years old when we played keep away as he sat in his chair in my grandpa’s house. That’s probably my biggest memory of him! Little did I know at the time how my future decades later brings it all back to him!
My Great Grandpa Joe was born after his parents immigrated to Kansas from Sweden. Joe grew up in Kansas and attended business school at Bethany College. His sister was getting married to a traveling lutheran minister from Illinois. My eventual grandmother, Ada, traveled to Kansas from Illinois for the wedding which at the time was a big trip by train. Ada met Joe at his sister’s wedding and I’m envisioning some hearts were moved!
Joe’s heart did move! He moved to Rockford, IL to follow his heart and win over Ada. They married and settled in Rockford, Illinois. It’s a good thing they did or I wouldn’t be here, nor would my mom or my grandpa! Joe was always interested in gardening and had a nice vegetable and perennial patch in the bungalow he and Ada had purchased. During the Great Depression the garden was ever so important! That is where the tiger lily story begins!
The tiger lilies began in Great Grandpa Joe’s garden! I’d like to think the seeds came from Kansas but that’s unknown. These tiger lillies have been alive and blooming ever since and I find that pretty amazing! The flowers bloomed for Joe at his bungalow where he planted them. After his passing the tiger lillies moved to my grandpa’s house in Rockford. When he had to move into an independent living apartment, the tiger lillies moved again to Madison, WI where I grew up and my family lived. My mom ended up staying in the area after attending and working at UW Madison. The tiger lily bulbs moved a few places with my mom in the Madison and Middleton area. She was sure to dig them up and take them with! When my mom moved to Chippewa Falls after we ended up there, the tiger lilies moved again! They are now in my garden and I’m proud to say they love where they are planted.
The thing about the tiger lilies to me besides their journey over the last 100 plus years is their color! It's significant as I was diagnosed with having MS over 21 years ago. Orange is the color that represents Multiple Sclerosis. The National MS Society and the ms group locally in Eau Claire, MS - Take Charge, all use the color orange in their logos and ribbons as its their color. And one of the photos I took in my garden is of Great Grandpa Joe’s tiger lilies that won an award at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair’s photography contest! As little as it seems, it's significant to me! He must be beaming with joy in Heaven! I’m the one with MS and while no one could’ve ever predicted it back then, our paths are laid out before us in purpose when you slow down to notice the significances!
The tiger lilies are about half up at the end of June now. They will bloom the end of July. I will be sure to update you all! And I know my Great Grandpa Joe and my Grandpa Bert are smiling down on the fact that these tiger lily bulbs have been nurtured and are thriving! Life is good!
Lake Wissota Island in the Fall Photo Favorite
Welcome to my Photography blog on my webpage. I want to spend time talking about photography! My favorite! Whatever comes to mind is the topic of the day and I hope you find it useful and inspirational and a good read!
One of my favorite photos is of the Lake Wissota Island in the fall that I took two years ago. I’ve learned over time that photography is very much in the moment. If you pass by a moment it may never happen again as you see it in that exact time. The Lake Wissota Island is a perfect example!
I always drove my son to school before he earned his driver’s license. I loved the drive and spending some time with him in the mornings. We drove by Lake Wissota that morning and it was encased beautifully in fog. The problem I usually had is that by the time I drove my son to school and had time to circle back most times the scene had changed and wasn’t dramatic enough to warrant the photo. The thought crossed my mind that it would be okay if he was late and I could call him in, but he would’ve hated that!
I had my eye on the tree at the end of the sandbar on the Island the autumn before. The tree gets this bright neon yellow in the fall and it only lasts for a week. And it stands strong in its beautiful yellow by itself at the end of the sandbar. One of the things I look at with photography is how I can make the scene or subject something that has a wow factor. Many people have taken photos of the Lake Wissota Island. I knew to get a wow photo I would need to capture that yellow tree. And I waited all year after I first saw it the year before!
When I raced back to the foggy scene after dropping my son off at school, I was in luck! The fog had not dissipated all the way and the morning sun was shining beautifully through with a touch of blue sky above. I had noted to myself that in order to get a photo of the angle with the morning sun shining on the tree I was in for a little adventure. Knowing the scene will go away and soon the bright yellow will fade, I did a u-turn and went back. There is no more waiting, this is it!
I parked on the side of the highway, hopped the car guardrail, crossed the railroad tracks carefully looking both ways, maneuvered over big rocks without spraining my ankle, went down an embankment with a few brush scratches to the edge of the lake. A nice little worn area was presumably there by a previous fisherman. The scene was incredible! It made me stop and just soak it in for a moment!
The fog was lifting gently. The bright yellow fall tree on the edge of the sandbar had light beautifully shining through the leaves and lighting it up. The blue sky was peeking through above and reflecting in the lake water below. I was gasping at my grand adventure and was taking photos at the same time. It was crispy cold out in the fall and I was thinking of heading back to my truck. I’m sure people passing by in their cars were amused to see me making my way to the lake with my camera strapped around me! Just as I realized my fingers were getting cold and I was probably not quite dressed appropriately for the colder weather, I saw a fishing boat ever so slightly emerge from the fog to the left of the island. Wow! It is the little treasure of the photograph that if you don’t look that close you’ll miss it.
I’ve used this moment as an example many times since then for my photography. That if I don’t stop, it won’t become a photograph. Photography really is about being in the right place at the right time and stopping time with a click. So when opportunity knocks, you take the snap! It's a good motto to live by!