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Bill White shared some of his visit to DC – near the 4th of July – very appropriate! Click Photo Page to the left to see Bill’s photos, then, return here to read my story of “Snapping.”

MY SNAPPING STORY:

In the days of the founding of our country folks did not carry camera everywhere they went – Later-on Abraham Lincoln did not carry a camera everywhere – probably never owned one.  Think about what that telephone camera can do (or does do) for you! – bet you have it with you most everywhere you go.

I was thinking while taking the 5 minute walk from my barn to the house this morning.  My hands were full, ‘cause I was pushing a large mower, so I did not snap any photos of the Mallard pair sitting on my dock, or the garden snake crossing the road, or the Sea Gull diving for breakfast, or the deer thinking about munching one of my flowers.

But, normally I just snap away – I see I have over 9,000 photos on my storage-drive of interesting or pretty things seen while doing chores around the house, barn, and field.

I will post a few of my up-close snaps to share with you. Hope you enjoy them and that you are encouraged to snap away.  Study interesting things and stare at their color, tone, lines, shape, and texture a little longer – maybe even send your snaps  to share with us.

Please click on the Photo Page to the left – Then return and read my story on Color/Colour.

MY STORY ON COLOR:

In the 1980’s I traveled full-time throughout United States and Europe for a large computer manufacturing company.  This company had sub-companies in each country that sold and maintained the computers. The computers were mostly designed and manufactured in the United states. 

One of my jobs was to keep all country managers and U.S. developing managers working peacefully together to resolve documentation and language translation issues.

In Canada and United Kingdom color vs colour could become and issue. Color/colour really caught my eye in places like Newfoundland, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, and Finland.  Why all the color?  Why announce your town has a Jellybean Row.

The romantic story is the village fishermen often got caught in fog and used the brightly colored houses to glow through the fog bank and guide them home.

Some say “tourism” has much to do with “Jellybean Row”  –   Travel agents insist you take a Jellybean Row bus tour.

Some say it is not the Fishermen that needed the guiding light of the brightly colored house but the local folks leaving the Pub legless, in the middle of the night – which is up to 20 hours long.

Others say it was the churches trying to solve the depression of gloomy colors during a 20 hour night. Think about it – 4 hours of sun light in mid winter – and only on those days when it is not snowing or Ice Fogging.  Ice fog is a type of fog consisting of fine ice crystals suspended in the air. It occurs as water droplets suspended in the air – they can remain liquid down to −40 °C (−40 °F).  Bright colors are needed to cheer things up.

The Great Outdoors, which I love dearly, is often void of color.   Well it has green, grey, black/brown – that is about it. It needs more color since the average  humans can see 1 million shades of color – a lot more than green, grey, black/brown.

Like Jellybean Row – I decided to practice with PhotoShop – Practice my landscape designs – Practice project number 1,  color/colour up the entrance to the community I live in – Hidden Lakes, of the Great Outdoors RV and Golf Resort. – What your think!  Soon, I will begin PhotoShopping the design of a winter project for my home – a garden with capital COLOR, COLOUR.  – After designing, I must create it – Yipes

Oh my: “What colour are the sweets the bloke put in your boot.”  = “What color is the candy the man put in the trunk of your car.”

Oh my: “leaving the Pub legless”  = Leaving the Bar too drunk to walk”

 

 

I get some beautiful photos from folks in my community in Florida called “The Great Outdoors.” Click on the “Photo Page” to the left. When there, you can click on a person’s name to see a history of their photos.

I did a little internet research on why do some of us love the outdoors. Here are some comments I found:

1 .  Increasing evidence demonstrates there are many benefits of being outdoors in nature on children’s psychological and physical well-being. 

2.  Frances Kuo, PhD, founder of the Landscape and Human Health Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, says “The basic finding of our studies is, nature is really good for kids,”

3.  Martha Erickson, PhD, said, “My kids were very likely to head off on their bikes, canoe down the creek that flows through our city or rally some friends to create an outdoor adventure,” she says. “Now, as young adults, they are fit, creative, adventurous and striving to protect the environment.”

4.  Richard Louv, author of “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit-Disorder” (Algonquin Books, 2005).

“It is pretty tough to have a sense of wonder when you’re playing ‘Grand Theft Auto, on your computing device, Louv says. “We’re raising a generation of children under protective house arrest. Where does that lead us in terms of our connection to the natural world?”

5.  A study by University of Maryland sociologist Sandra Hofferth, PhD, shows that between 1997 and 2003, the amount of time children spent participating in outdoor activities such as hiking, horseback riding, fishing, camping and gardening declined by 50 percent. 

My observation:  Nature is good for children, – and it doesn’t hurt us 80 some year folks either – but psychologists may need to act fast to get children back outside before there is another 50% drop.

I have spent most of my week gardening, dealing with poop from six horses, enjoying my barn, pasture, & trees – mowing, clearing winter debris from my trail, saving turtles and snakes, studying ants, watching squirrels, hawks, eagles – looking for new-born fawns, beavers, and otters and trying to get good photos of a King Fisher and Pileated Woodpecker.

Here are a few photos I did take:

Art is everywhere. Look out your window, look down the road, walk in the grocery store, art is everywhere.  It is impossible to avoid art. Then why do we have a photographers or an artists? They do nothing – art is free everywhere!

We do need them – I suggest that artists are our psychologists.

A psychologist, isolates elements from the environment of an individual and isolates the trigger elements from the individual’s make-up.  The psychologist does this to relate the two and thus help an individual make changes.

The artist isolates an element of the environment – from the window view, the road views, the grocery shelves, the arrangement on the table. — from everywhere. That is one half a psychologist/artist.

Now for the other half. Every artist is confident that they “Know” what element’s trigger what reaction given the viewers make-up.  So, even without college training, the artist is confident they know what will trigger a “wow” from their viewers.  

So, the artist looks out the window, selects elements that will fit their 9” x 12” canvas and expect a change (a WOW) from their viewer and of course a $1500 check.  I know, psychologists make a lot more than that.  But, a starving artist would not be starving if they had twenty-dollar bills sticking out of their pockets.

Just for fun I give you 7 of my isolations – Please send a WOW and a $1500 check!

I have been studying the effect of background in a photograph or painting. Found some interesting stuff as I studied. I found  background can have at least two meanings:

A.  The space around an object is its background.

B.    How you were brought up –  your growing up environment is your background.

In the A. meaning, I played around with the background of a Sea Gull I photographed.  I think the quality of a photo is in the eyes of the artist ((photographer) so there is no right way to do it – only a different way to do it:

Oh my – enough of that.

What about the B. meaning? Just for fun –  here are some words I found in a new Pew Research Center survey:

“The lives of children from rich and poor American families look more different than they have in decades. 

Well-off families are ruled by calendars, with children enrolled in ballet, soccer and after-school programs. 

In poor families, children tend to spend their time at home or with extended family. Their parents worry about them getting shot, beaten up, or in trouble with the law.

Higher-income parents see their children as projects in need of careful cultivation.

Working-class parents,  believe their children will naturally thrive, and give them far greater independence and time for free play. 

Working-class children are taught to be compliant to adults.  While well-off families teach their children to challenge the norm and seek to improve it.

There are benefits to both approaches. Working-class children are happier, more independent, whine less and are closer with family members.  Higher-income children are more likely to declare boredom and expect their parents to solve their problems” . …….. and on and on the research goes.  If you are interested in the subject, look it up on the internet.

Here are 2 backgrounds I photographed this morning:

 

 

After reading this page, Check the Photo Page – See Jim Spain with telephoto lens I hope.

I am standing on my dock this beautiful morning.  I know it is morning because I know where the sun is at this time of day. But, what day is it, Monday, Friday? 

The sun tells me what hour it is but how do I know what day it is? It does not really matter to me anymore. I love each day – last Sunday was great, Wednesday was too – sure hope and pray to God that this Friday is a repeat of good days

Oops, I said it – I do have a few things on my mind to tie me to the day’s of the upcoming week. I am not yet completely free.  Or is it that I am very lucky to have thoughts that tie me to the day of the week. 

Standing here reflecting on the reflections of nature, my mind jumps. It is beautiful here – I mean really beautiful!  

Here is one dissertation that jumped into my mind, I know not why – maybe because I feel no anger at all – only the peace of nature this morning on Whitney Bay.

Now I am not a Bible person but at times I read something that makes reference to a Bible verse – so onto the internet I go to read the reference – For example: in Romans 12:18 the New Living Translation Bible puts it like this:

“What a difference between becoming irate over someone cutting you off in traffic and putting ourselves in that person’s shoes for just a moment.”

I stood there, so thankful for having the opportunity to experience the beautiful morning (Which I will show you in photos at the end of my little dissertation here.) I thought of Romans 12:18 – what I think is the real meat of the verse “putting ourselves in that person’s shoes for just a moment.”    – Can not be done!

I am reading a book “Never Stop Walking”  by Christina Rickardsson. It is about the struggles of a street person, “Rat,” as they are called, that by a quirk of faith got adopted 24 years ago and became successful.  How could I ever put my self in her shoes – I never needed to murder a person at the age of 7 just to hold on to a piece of pizza I found in the trash behind a restaurant. It was her first food in 4 days.  

Standing on my dock this morning, I looked skyward and said “Thanks” for allowing me to walk in my shoes. I can read of Christina’s shoes – but I can never walk in them. 

Ponder that as you get upset with someone. They have their own shoes that most likely are quite different from yours.  Of course they had a valid reason to do what they did  and you had a valid reason to be upset with them – WOW – it is all valid – that is complex.

But come stand on my dock in whatever shoes you have been given:

Lots of great photo activity in the Photo Page – A first time contributor, Bill White.  Plus a  great education and beautiful photos by Dave Cesari: Oven_bird and Thrush!

Oh my, check back often – Linda Somers is waiting for Chuck to finish a project so that we can enjoy one of their summer activities.  When the project  is complete, I will post photos of its progress to completion.

 

—————————My post of yesterday is below———————

Stick your camera in your pocket and become a BLUE_Blood.

You may think the next sentences have nothing to do with “Blu_Bloods.”  Read on and I will try to show you that they do.

Cell phones and the internet are seen as positive tools for improving the quality of communications with family members.

Are you blue blooded, red-blooded, black listed, or green with envy. 

Why did I ask that? Well, I was thinking of the CBS TV show “Blue_Bloods” – What do you like best about it?  Of course it is the family dinner gathering and the family talking about their family community – all having jobs in the same activity – police and justice jobs.

I like it ‘cause I really relate to it.  I grew up with parents, Grandparents, and some aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers, and cousins gathering for chicken dinner every week. We were not cops but almost all of us were in the activity of the Brethren Church, self-sustaining farming, and teaching.  We were face to face where we used facial expressions, voice tones, and arm waving to tell our story of what happened in our life this week.

Not many people can do that these days ’cause we are scattered all over the place and work/recreate in all different activities – Except of course the TV “Blue_Bloods.” 

So I did a little research. 75% of the people interview said they use the internet to connect to family. 25% said they communicate that way and therefore watch less of the no-communicating “TV watching activity.”

70% said they send family members photographs to tell them of the excitement in their day. It is more like describing face to face where you use facial expressions, voice tones, and arm waving to tell your story.

So that lead me to urge your to send photos – not just words. But, do you have to carry you camera everywhere you go?- Yes.  You do.  It is your cell phone. Use it! 

Use it to create  family gatherings – get them to do the same  – enjoy each other more!

For example, here is some of my “day’s happenings” recorded with my cell phone – just two day’s worth!

I hope you make full use of your phone camera to have a more enjoy enjoyable cell phone/txt gathering with your family.

I just had to waste time playing around with my camera and computer this morning! Here are two of many creations I made:

Yesterday’s heading: Nature is all about art – you know landscape, vistas – and abstracts that control our mind – WHAT? – Oh my, read on.

It seems to me that more than 50% of TV time is spent watching advertisements.  Are the advertisements just pretty pictures of videos? No No.  Each video/picture is designed to make you focus where they want you to focus – make you stay looking and get the message – which may even be hidden.

With a little research I found there are many college level courses and extensive research aimed at educating the folks that are “controlling” what we see on TV advertisements.

There is a new paper from Nicole Thomas, an experimental psychologist at James Cook University in Australia. Thomas uses eye tracking of folks looking at abstract paintings to investigate how we look– or as she puts it, “how do we decide what we pay attention to, and what we choose to ignore in on cereal cartons, TV advertisements,  or bill boards”

Unlike paintings like portraits or landscapes, abstract paintings offer a kind of blank slate for observing how and what we see.

Some findings:  In general, people tended to focus their eyes on the upper-right-hand area of the art, and move in clockwise patterns to the rest of the painting.

They stated the right hemisphere is important for emotional processing.  They explain. “The emotional reactions that are elicited by abstract artwork lead participants to focus their attention within the upper-right quadrant. Then, since we go clockwise to the upper left quadrant with our emotions in gear – You guessed it, they put the message along that path.

But the five personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism) also played a role: People who tended toward neuroticism spent more time on the left side of each painting than the other four personality traits do – so advertisement creator’s must know who they are trying to reach. 

Yipes, it is complicated – but I have been having fun with abstract photos – Nature is full of abstracts.  I put a few here – study them – see where your eyes go and where they stop and study the abstract photo – do you see hidden images/messages.  It is fun to study them. 

After you read my “DIGITAL EYE” page below take a look at the Photo Page.

Linda added new photos to the Photo Page. She wrote of them: Yearly, a West Newbury neighbor conducts a lilac walk through hundreds of lilacs on his property.  Knowledgeable and entertaining, as there is a Scottish dancing segment, Chris shares his enthusiasm of plants with us.  We are also treated to a delicious buffet. 

——————————————————————————————–

THE DIGITAL EYE:

Is your eyeball a digital magnifying glass? Better yet, is your mind a concentrating  mind? Looking for details thru magnification helps you concentrate. Concentration on details helps you see and enjoy the whole.

Details in nature are a form of art created by God. When you look for them you are concentrating.  When you concentrate on art I believe you are provided an uplift in your mental outlook on life, you see and thus learn new things, and you are prompted to wonder why or how such things could be.

Boy, what am I talking about? Well, I was thinking how lucky we are to be able to save things we see. I mean save them with my iPhone camera or my relatively inexpensive 42 power digital camera. I can see them again in the evening and concentrate on details missed with the naked eye.

Magic – Grandpa never had it that good. He never really got to seen things up close like I can.

For example: See this little snake I found sleeping under the pile of rotting leaves in my garden. I scooted him out onto the driveway and snapped a picture of him with my iPhone

– then today, I magnified him: