Weekly Photo Challenge: Winter

On A Wet Black Bough

The weekly photo challenge for the end of December 2011 is "Winter." This photo was taken last Winter. There is no traditional Winter in southern California or what most people picture when they think of Winter. For us, this is the rainy season, when, unlike much of the rest of the country, everything slowly turns green. There are bleak, gray days made raw by the moisture in the air, but our backyard birds, like this hummingbird, still venture out to find food. I found this one huddling alone in the branches of a virtually leafless, wet mulberry tree.

Weekly Photo Challenge--Self-Portrait: A Thin Slant of Light

A Thin Slant of Light

Been busy with many other things, finishing course work for the PhD program, now studying for qualifying exams. Still, my time behind the camera has fostered a creative outlet that has helped to keep me sane. A friend and photographer E. Renard recently posted a quote online that I found myself agreeing with whole-heartedly: "If a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it's as though I've neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up." --Richard Avedon. In spite of my intense focus on completing my PhD, I find this to be true and the camera is teaching me how to see differently, to see newly, to continue finding the sixpence all around me.