The Reality of Life and Death

I was fortunate enough to cover an interesting program the other day. It is called Shattered Dreams and it is a dramatization of a teen drinking accident. It includes injuries, fatalities, arrests, police, EMS, coroners and parents. Students wearing microphones act out the part of teens out driving after drinking. I was so caught up taking pictures I didn't realize until afterwards that it really affected me on some level. I was off just a bit the rest of the day.

Dogwood from Below

We have had some beautiful skies lately. I got lucky today when I decided to get out and take some shots of our beautiful dogwood tree. I had to climb a ten foot ladder to get up high enough to shoot down on some of the blooms and then I decided to shoot up and capture the flowers against the blue sky. The tree is covered with blooms and will probably be gone by weekend with storms predicted. I always love this time of year because this tree mystifies me. If you have never seen a dogwood before make it a mission of yours. These blooms start out as small petals already in the shape they end up but much smaller. I can never figure out how the get wider since they are already a small version of what they end up as. Each day the flowers get a little wider and rounder until they reach this size. It almost always blooms around Easter and is a symbol of the cross with each petal having a brown indention like the nail holes of the cross. Our dogwood is one of the few things in life that is very predictable.

A Cat Wedding

I got the call from some of my nine year old friends today that they were having a wedding for two cats. Of course I couldn't pass it up. I arrived just before the ceremony, signed the guestbook and walked in just behind the groom who was acting a bit edgy as most grooms do on the big day. Kitty, the groom was dressed in an orange knit polo as were his two groomsmen. After a quick photo session with the groom I found my way to the bride's room where one of the wedding planners was putting the final touches on Ginger Juno Gotts' wedding attire, a flowing powder pink gown that streamed from her collar. I made my way back downstairs to the beautiful backyard setting for the ceremony. As the bride was carried to the official ceremony table, the groom's owner, who had been pulled into the whole scene at the last minute, stood there holding Kitty who jumped out of the owner's grib and made a run for it. Kitty took off down the side yard, losing his shirt in the bushes as it became evident Kitty was not in this relationship for the long haul. Like any top wedding planner worth their fee this planner had a back up plan, she reappeared with a kitty webkinz and the ceremony went on as planned. Ginger was a bit confused as to where her strapping husband to be had taken off to and who the fuzzy black and white creature was that was standing in but she took it all in stride and went through with the ceremony even having her new pink wedding collar placed around her neck. She dined on fine cat food instead of her regular dry cuisine and the guests toasted the happy couple and enjoyed the rest of the festivities. With the wedding behind her Ginger can focus on the next chapter of her young life, raising her kittens, due any day now, as a single mom while the good for nothing daddy spends his days in the lap of luxury in the warm house across the street.

Fog and My Mind

It has been a crazy few weeks, a quick trip out to the LA area, a wild household with early depatures, ill mornings and fog. Lacking my regular sleep the fog that uncharacteristically blanketed our area until nearly 10am was really amazing to see. I have been wanting to get out and capture a cool fog shot but never am willing to miss my morning slumber. Usually the fog burns off as soon as the sun rises but not this day. I was lucky to hit an appointment and still have fog hanging around just long enough for me to try to fill my minds need with a cool shot. A man walked right through this scene while I was shooting and looked off into the fog, turned back to me and said, "It looks like infinity." I have to agree with him. I will get up early next time fog hits our burb because I can see things I want to do differently next time but here is my first fog shot for your enjoyment. (One of these days I am going to figure out how to get my photos just where I want them on this blog.)

Looking at Life Differently

I tend to get into a rut and I am trying to shove myself through it. I spent the last week challenging myself to shoot differently. Some of my approaches worked great, others failed miserably. I know this is sort of elementary but I had honeslty never seen a pool with such beautiful water and the colors amazed me. Water polo is an amazing sport to watch, I had never seen it played before, very rough.