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First click PHOTO PAGE to the left – then return, scroll down, and see what I think about why we PHOTOGRAPH things.

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I went to the Google and ask “Why do we take photos?”  Here is what I found:

1. Capture Memories

2.  Capture Moments

3.  Tell Stories

4.  Communicate with Others

5.  Improve as a Photographer

That is what the internet said – I think it is a pretty compressive list – But I want to add  one more.

6.  Stop, Look, Enjoy, Wonder, Ponder, Smile

Taking photographs helps you see the story. You could take the photo and then trow it into the trash -YOU WOULD BE A WINNER  because just stopping to study the environment for your PHOTOGRAPH gave you so much more than just taking a quick glance.

Oh my, Did I just say, even if you do not have your camera, study the things around you as if you are looking for the best PHOTOGRAPHIC angle – YOU WILL BE A WINNER. I did, ’cause it is true.

Your brain will be working to see your story, your memory, your moment – so you got your dollars worth from your vacation, your walk in the woods, or your stroll through NYC.  You are A WINNER – whether you take the PHOTOGRAPH or not!

 

 

 

After I wrote my last blog here, I was prompted to think about my hobbies – gardening, blogging, walking, biking, fixing things around the house – Oh my, none of them cost very much – of course blogging means I get to find hidden things in nature that I can tweak with my computer and figure out what to say about them to you, my  readers. Hardly spend any money doing that.

I do go to Google from time to time and ask it to show me a list of “Inexpensive hobbies” – just in case I want to do a new hobby for a while. My point here is “You do not have to have one hobby and you do not need to spend a lifetime doing your hobby.”  – switch off from time to time – I think it is more fun that way. In most cases the cost is near zero.

I will show you a few things I found hidden in nature, tweaked them a little, then sent them out on this blog just to show you.

Oh my – back to the original.  Did you notice the deer hiding there in the center watching me?

 

 

I determined that our young people are too busy – too important – to have a fun hobby.

Young people are working, running kids from piano to soccer to tutoring, keeping the house tidy, staying on top of e-mails, stuff like that.  How can there be time for fun.?

It has become a badge of honor to say, “I’m too busy” – it is a sign of importance.  Any empty time they have they need to look busy – they squander precious time on social media – Facebook, email, netflix, or some other kind of digital poison. 

Well, here are 6 benefits of not squandering time and having a life passion – a fun hobby.

Don’t miss out on these benefits:

1. STRUCTURE: Hobbies help you structure your “off work” morning or evening time – you schedule hobby time rather than just fill your  time by being busy.
2. FUN: Psychological flow – TV and surfing the web is vegging out – it does not create that feeling you get when fully immersed in a mental challenge of a fun hobby or passion.
3. FRIENDS: New social connections are found when birds of a feather meet.
4. ATTRACTIVENESS:  WOW, if you have a hobby you have something to talk about – you become a more interesting person.
5. SAFETY NET:  Not having all your eggs in one basket means not all eggs are broken when you have a bad day at the office, kids get a bad report. or whatever else make you gloomy.
6. DOLLARS:  Hobbies give you zest and zest makes you better at work so you make more money to spend on you hobby!

Be a fun structured attractive rich person with lots of friends, even on a gloomy day. 

Start now doing that thing you always wanted to do. Not sure what to do – try beekeeping, painting, photographing butterflies, collecting dead wood that looks like it has a face in it. Collect clocks, rocks, or docks (Pictures of docks that is). Anyway don’t say “I am too busy.”

All of the following photos were sent to me within the last weeks – INTERESTING PEOPLE having something to say – sharing the zest of their hobbies with me. I smiled at each.

 

Dave Cesari shared some beautiful bird photos – You must click the photo page to left to see them – Then return here to see my comments on doodling and sketching:

Here is my story on  Doodling, Sketching & Coloring:

There is nothing childish about Visual Storytelling:
Doodling, Sketching & Coloring. 

I came across this interesting piece of information.- Adult coloring books are on the rise and two of the top ten selling books on Amazon at one time recently were actually adult coloring books.

Let me just start by saying, I wasn’t even aware that there was a demand for adult drawing books. So to discover that they are so hot that bookstores can’t even keep up stocking their shelves was a surprise to me.

Putting pen or pencil to paper helps us think. It can make you develop your ideas, concepts, and emotions. It is a great tool for enhancing creative thinking.

Author Sunni Brown is a  woman on a mission to get adults to do more doodling. In corporate America  she teaches that there are significant connections between doodling and thinking, problem solving, and creativity.

Sunni Brown is an American author in Austin, Texas known for her evangelization of the power and value of doodling.  She is a co-author of “Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, etc.”  It is a book that outlines visual thinking techniques for business.

So, when I have forced downtime like at an airport, nothing I want to watch on TV after dinner, or when I want to avoid some boring housekeeping chores, I grab my iPad and maybe a photograph and begin to creatively think by doodling/sketching. Here are three examples:

Oh my – click on the Photo Page to the left – Susan Hubbard posted three photos that will stimulate an emotion in you if you enjoy the Great Outdoors – and I bet even if you are an indoor person!

Then return and read of some views from my Drummond Island window:

In front of my truck – the bucket of a Quarry Loader – not my front window but,  seen just as you get off the ferry – This is Drummond’s macho version of the beautiful horse-drawn carriages of Mackinac Island with the driver dressed in uniform and top hat. – Yipes!

 

Before I even start my story click Photo Page to the left – Ed Swan posted a great sequence of a Rosebay flower – from bud to bloom.  Then return to read my story below.

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My Story:  Use Art to tell a story? Art who? Oh my, did they mean use a fake photograph to tell a story?

I debated with my self – Should I tell these stories – They may be too gruesome but I felt the message of the stories was relevant and important.  So, here goes. The titles of the two stories are:

1. Listen to Your Doctor and Use Sun Screen
2. Use your Doctor and Use Sun Screen

It is around 230 years since our country declared that we are independent!  That amounts to 45 presidents.  Why am I thinking about presidents?  I will tell you late .  Right now I am thinking about some of my winter activities – 1. The Writing CLub and 2. The Photo Club.  Maybe, I will start a third one: 3. The Storytelling-Photo Club

Anyway, I went to a web site that explains what newspaper writers say about story characteristics.  They said the story has to be: 

1.  relevant

2.  important

3.  entertaining

Then I studied a book, “Telling Stories With Art” – in particular art created using photos and PhotoShop.  The author of the book said the art has to have at least five elements to tell its story: 1. a character, 2. a moral, 3. a theme, 4. a conflict, 5. mood.

So what art should I create – what story should I tell?  In the last 230 years we humans have made so many advances – we had 45 presidents, well that is not important to this story – think about important things like: 230 years ago there was no internet to use for research, there was no PhotoShop, and our medical profession was still using witchcraft methods..

Medical professionals – That is it!  From fear to a smile.

I will create a piece of art that tells a story of what modern medicine can do for you,  one that urges you to use your medical professionals, and finally one that teaches you to use sun screen so that  your need to call on the  medical professionals will be reduced. 

I think my elements are relevant and important and I tried to make the photo entertaining.  Can you find; 1. a character, 2. a moral, 3. a theme, 4. a conflict, 5. mood.

I doubt if I will ever be a storytelling artist – but I had fun creating this one.

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!