Tag: photograph

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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These days I am obsessed by light, it is so hard to commodify. I am not talking about a beautiful dawn, or holidays in the sun, or the light that makes a photograph look good. I am talking about brightness itself, the air lit up. The gleam on the surfaces of my typing hands. I love the gift of its arrival. The light you see is always eight and a half minutes old. Always and again. And you think it is shared by everyone but it is not shared, exactly — our eyes are hit by our own, personal photons.

— Anne Enright, The Wren, the Wren. (W. W. Norton & Company, September 19, 2023) (

Notes:

  • DK Photo 5:05 am Wednesday, June 25 2025. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. More photos from yesterday’s daybreak walk here.
  • Thank you Make Believe Boutique for the Enright passage.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

T.G.I.F.: It’s Been A Long Week

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Go wreck yourself once more against the day

and wash up like a bottle on the shore,

lucidity and salt in all you say.

— David Mason, from “Another Thing,” Sea Salt, Poems of a Decade: 2004-2014

Notes: Poem via The Vale of Soulmaking. Photo: (via Your Eyes Blaze Out)

No Trade.

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beach-walk

They were walking up the shoreline, Brother and Sister now in their early 20’s. The waves were lapping at their feet, their feet disappearing in sea foam before the waves rolled back into the ocean.

I’m wading through Herzog’s book, now 60% of the way through. My headphones are piping in a Nils Frahm playlist from his album “Felt“. I set the book down to watch them.

Rachel is doing a handstand on the beach while Eric is taking photos. I can see them laughing as she tries it again. They are Friends. All those years of fighting, squabbling and picking on each other in the back seat of the car…All those corrections by Mom and Dad to keep it civil…look at them, they’ve become Friends.

Just as they pass below me, as if on cue, the late afternoon sun streams through the clouds. A warm breeze gusts. And two Pelicans skim the ocean, gliding along with the wind currents.

Herzog said that “Today I would give ten years of my life if I could play the cello with the same ease as breathing. The finest music has a quality of consolation you find nowhere else, with perhaps the exception of religion or being in contact with small children.” 

I glance down at the playlist to see the title of Frahm’s track. It is titled “Less.”

I paused to contemplate Frahm’s tune and Herzog’s words.

Frahm got it half right. “Felt” yes. “Less” no.

As to Werner, I Iove the Cello, but I wouldn’t trade a single moment.

Not one.

Criteria for Husband: Must Love Dogs

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cute,photography, close-up. dog, sleepy

“I never would have thought it necessary to establish criteria for boyfriends or husbands, especially one as seemingly unimportant as: Must love dogs. As in:

  • You must be able to share your waking hours and living space and a good amount of your disposable income on a four-footed companion that is basically a child in fur for 12 to 15 years.
  • You must plan every vacation around its needs.
  • You will trip over toys and pigs’ ears and chew hooves splayed across your best Persian carpet.
  • You will be forced to walk it every day, rain or shine, or risk having your favorite shoes sacrificed to the god of canine frustration.
  • If everything goes well and it lives to a ripe old age, you may have to decide to end its suffering, and you will have to be strong enough to stay with it those last moments, stroking its silky ears.

In my life, dogs have always been a part of that equation, a way to find the small, grounding moments in life — the grass, sunlight and sweet bite of plums — that we commonly call happiness. After 20 years of marriage, on our fourth dog, my husband and I are best friends, which must be at least as rare as soul mates.”

Read the rest of this article by Tatjana Soli @ Picking Up The Scent On The Road to Bliss

Related Post: Guess who graduated? With a fancy badge and diploma too…

Credits:

  • Photograph: Pink Blue & You – the winner of the Cute Close-ups Competition was Gemma Buttery’s dog Neo
  • Thank you Susan for sharing the article.

Sunday Morning: Taking an ordinary moment and elevating it to the iconic

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“Joel Sartore is a photographer for the National Geographic. He will take 30,000 photos in a year to come up with three or four keeper photos.  Sartore has also been working on a 20-year protect called The Photo Ark, taking studio-style photos of animals to document biodiversity and call attention to endangered species. ‘The goal is for people to look these species in the eye and get them to care while there’s still time,’ said Sartore, described as a modern-day Noah.  He has photographed more than 2,650 species  and he believes ‘for many of Earth’s creatures, time is running out.  Half of the world’s plant and animal species will soon be threatened with extinction.’  Sartore believes he’ll have 5,000 to 6,000 photos of animals in The Photo Ark by the time he’s finished.”  Inspirational “Charles Kuralt” Sunday Morning-like clip.

Good Sunday Morning.

Joel Sartore, A photographer’s life from Joel Sartore on Vimeo.

Source: GrindTV