Spring

One of my new fine art prints.  I love the spring tulips!

She...

"She was chaos and beauty intertwined.  A tornado of roses from divine."
-Shakieb Orgunwall

The Dreaming Tree

This post is a little more personal than most of my others.  One of my goals this year is to share a little more about me, so here it goes... I have always received important answers and guidance in my life through some of my dreams at night.  It's a gift that has brought me peace and comfort through the difficult times in my life, as well as confirmation at times that I'm headed in the right direction, or the wrong.  Some of them have been turning points and life changing. I have always kept a journal of the most significant dreams, thinking that someday it might be important to pass them on to my children.  I had the idea several years ago to do a self portrait project to go along with some of the dreams.  It's one of those ideas that I added to my ever growing "To Do" list, but never started.  As I was making my list of things that I wanted to accomplish as a photographer this year, I decided that I was at least going to start this project.  I chose to start with a portrait about a dream that I had during a significant change of direction in my life.  Because of a gift from a dear friend of mine (you know who you are ;) and the fact that in the dream I was a tree, I chose to title this project "The Dreaming Tree".  The rainbow was a special addition from Mother Nature, thank you! It happened to go along perfectly with the meaning of my dream as well.  Funny how those wonderful gifts happen sometimes.  :)   The details and meaning of the dream are for me, of course, but I wanted to share the photograph with you.  
Here's to the beginning of an awesome year ahead, and to all of you who like my work, and support me in it.  I love to hear your thoughts and questions! Keep them coming my way.

Tulips

I love the effect that I get working with layers and textures.  It allows me to take my creativity beyond the camera.  Some work out better than others, but that's part of the fun.  It's the ones that I least expect, that sometimes turn out to be my favorites.  I have enjoyed finding and photographing my own textures to use as well. I end up with a unique, fine art photograph, that has an aged vintage look.

Getting Creative

What do you do on a cold winter's day in the middle of January?  Get creative.  Sometimes I just need to photograph!  It's my creative outlet.  It's my stress reliever.  It's what I do.  I usually drive up the canyon and find a pretty spot on the river, or snowshoe through the trees. Today however, my lovely daughter was visiting, so I drug her into my creative plan.  Using what we could find around the house for props, and only the natural light coming through the window in my sitting room, this is what we came up with.  To get the soft glamorous look, I shot through some ivory tulle.  As photographers, we often think that we need all of the latest and greatest in lighting and gear to create beautiful photographs. Of course I will keep saving and working to acquire the many things on my "want" list. But until then, part of the creativity is figuring out how to use what I have to get the photograph that I want.  I love how this one turned out.  My goal... to do this more often!

Green in Winter

When winter takes most of our bright colors away for a season, this pop of green moss really caught my eye.  As the warm light touched the brilliant green, it almost felt like spring.  I forgot for a moment about all of the snow around me.

Full Moon