So, for this week, Sofia challenges me to think of mood, and how to convey and create an emotional reaction to my shot. That can be accomplished by capturing situations or occasions, photography styles, or people and their feelings. Never forgetting how moods can be perceived in different ways by different people.
Loving
Silhouette at McKinley Park
On the dock in Old Sacramento
Helping
Can you please give me directions?
Comforting
Helping his son.
Teaching
Docent at the Sacramento Zoo
Docent at the Sacramento Railroad Museum
Learning out in nature
Alone
Local carnival
A bench in Berkeley
Encouraging
At a swim meet
Tired and Broken
Attitude
Not happy to have his photo taken.
Renaissance Faire in Fair Oaks, Ca.
Scary
Animal Moods
Smiling after a spa dayLaughing faceDinner yet? Hopeful
My Moxie’s sweet eyes.
This iguana was out for a walk with its owner. Looks happy!
What’s going on?
I imagined a story by watching these gulls on the beach.
Wolf’s Guenon shows affection, protection, and care.
I’ll end here with the hope that everyone’s mood is positive, polite, and caring.
Ann-Christine and Lens-Artists are looking forward to seeing my, “Alone Time” posts. What are my thoughts, and what do I use my alone time for?
Alone time does bring about challenges for me. So today this blog will be more than a photo blog. I will take this time to do some reflection on my life.
By nature, I believe I am more of an introvert and like my time alone. I have many things to keep me happily occupied. My photography is sometimes used to get me out of my shell, and ready to explore. But I can easily enjoy quietly looking back at my library, reviewing, cataloging, and creating my photo blog.
A lone leaf
Sometimes, I enjoy being an observer of people all around me. I am thinking about their solitude.
Catching up on his computerWaitng in New York CityDeep in thoughtNapping in the Rose Garden
I like to take walks. My neighborhood has 4 courts, and a private road so there is little traffic and some up-and-down elevations. At first, Moxie, my Golden Retriever, had no trouble being my companion. Once a noisy garbage truck stopped next to us and wanted to meet her. This frightened her, and it has been a bit of a struggle to walk past our court ever since. I have tried to get her used to truck sounds. So, like my last dog, if I want to walk I need to first drive to a park trail. Not as spontaneous. Maybe as Moxie turns 2 she will grow out of these fears. She is also trying to contain her excitement when we walk. She pulls ahead then realizes that I have stopped and comes to a heal position. So our walks are more training than solitude until we take our nap together.
In this recliner Moxie and I take our nap in the afternoon!
Walking alone on the shore
As a retired librarian I love to read.
I often find the subject matter ties into my family history. I am a child of two Holocaust survivors, and I am always reading historical fiction, memoirs, and non-fiction. I just started the last book of a trilogy entitled, The Tree of Life by Holocaust survivor Chava Rosenfarb. I am well-read on the subject, but these 3 remarkable books describe life in the Lodz Ghetto, and more than that they make me think about the meaning of life itself. I highly recommend these books to everyone. It is a tough subject, but there is a sweetness and clarity to each written paragraph.
This coincides with another passion – genealogy. Again this is both an alone project, which sometimes surprisingly connects me to my extended family. Next week I will be visiting New York City. Through Ancestry.com, I will be meeting a first cousin once removed who is coming all the way from New Hampshire to meet me for dinner. Last year, I met another first cousin once removed from Israel. Children of my first cousins. It is special to have a family connection. While in NYC I will also visit the Yivo reading room where I will see items from my Great Uncle Lazar Kahan and Great Aunt Rose Shoshana Kahan. I never had any grandparents, and my parents didn’t discuss their past often. I have my parents’ testimonies from the United States Shoah Foundation. My grandparents’ generation had large families (16 children), so it is easy to see how much the Holocaust impacted my family. On only my father’s paternalside, from 15 siblings and families 30-35 were murdered. On my mother’s maternal side, my grandmother had 8 siblings with families of their own, and only one survived. I haven’t counted all the losses. It is hard to take in. Watching the news today weighs heavy on me. I believe that there are no winners in war. Sorry, I got carried away with these heavy thoughts. But that is what happens when I have some alone time.
To lighter thoughts, I have not taken on any knitting or crocheting projects lately. I needed to give my hands a rest. I started to do some quilting, but training my puppy has replaced this for the time being. Looking forward to starting some new projects.
My mother’s sewing machine
So there are plenty of ways I like to spend my time. As you can tell, all but walking and napping with Moxie, need the use of my eyes. And they are starting to fail me. I have macular degeneration and the ophthalmologist is trying to help save the sight in one eye. So far the injection has not changed anything, and my vision is quite distorted. So far the left eye is better, and the dry macular has no treatment but progresses slower. Luckily I use my left eye for my camera eye-piece, and my camera is set for autofocus. I can type ok, but reading back this post is tiring. The book I mentioned may be the last one I read in a paper version. From now on I will use my iPad.
So what do you do with your alone time? Deep contemplation, restful time floating in a pool, or getting lost in a book?
Donna asked me to search for messages in photography this week. The options are endless. Does the message from your last fortune cookie resonate with you? Clouds? Does street art, neon signs, or storefronts grab your attention? What about the underlying messages from marketing logos, or the message you want to portray in your photography. Just have fun! This blog hits my photographic pursuit ideally.
Smilies
People leave signs along the way. A message, I was here!
Signs of Peace and Love
February 14 and hearts abound
Walking about I see hearts in nature
I’m always looking for hearts: leaves, stumps, puddles, and rocks
Hearts were created to show the loving spirit
I love this image. Someone took the time to create this public art piece
Display of glass hearts
I collect stone hearts and they sit in my room in a candy dish. There are some things that you don’t really know about its history. You just know that it has been with you your entire life. It holds my love stones perfectly.
Here is my dish of love stones with my parent’s photograph
Sending love
Permanent display of love, anyone?
Graffiti
Leaving marks of love without regard for the environment.
Love Locks on a bridge in Fair Oaks
Group LoveLocks left in Fair Oaks
So ends my small contribution to messages I find all around me. I stayed with positive thoughts, and I finish with the many faces of my Moxie. Her face is so expressive.
Are you done working on the computer? I really am not interested in another photograph.
The holidays are winding down. Presents have been opened. Returns are in full force. Expectations have been met. And some are left wanting. There are very special gifts purchased to honor that special person, and then there are gifts given to show that services are recognized. Gifts are exchanged with friends, and gifts are exchanged with acquaintances.
The following photographs were taken on other occasions I attended as a guest.
Presents that I did not receive!
But this time I received a Christmas gift from a neighbor two houses down from me. They moved into the small court of 6 houses about 8 months ago. I had only spoken to the neighbor two or three times when I was out with my dog, and I never met his wife. Various cars come and go for a time, and this was explained to me that they provide housing for traveling nurses. Back to my gift. The day after Christmas on my doorstep I found an unwrapped gift with a piece of paper taped on it with our names. It was a plain brown set of blackout drapes.
Blackout drapes. My windows all have very visible wooden shutters. I am seriously stumped by this gesture. All I know of this neighbor is that he has two little white dogs that he says are barkers. I never see or hear the dogs. I didn’t even know his wife’s name. I’m surprised they knew my husband’s name
What am I to do? Send a thank you card for the blackout drapes. Wait till I see someone from the house out and about and thank him for the gift. I walk past the house to get my mail. Usually, my dog Moxie joins me but it is rare to see them.
The mystery still remains in my mind. Maybe the husband was told to deliver presents, and now the wife is searching for the drapes to hang in the bedroom. Maybe the husband didn’t want or like the plain brown design and rather than hang them up he got rid of them. Maybe he thought the gift was something else entirely. Or maybe they intended for me to have this pair of blackout drapes. Did they just finish watching “The Watchers” on Netflix, and they wanted me to be safe? But why a set of blackout drapes? Or maybe they wanted me to have something to write about in my blog about gifts?
Happy Holidays and a very Happy, Healthy, Peaceful New Year 2023!
A Photo's Worth 