photography

Find Someplace Beautiful

/ still a dreamer / 9 Comments

My guess is that there is someplace beautiful within walking distance or a short drive from where you live.

This is one of the views walking along the bike/footpath in Frenchtown. So gorgeous. A friend and I had stopped in to The Bridge Cafe for coffee and some pastry, and decided to walk.

We can all get stuck in our homes and/or digital lives and forget that it’s not all that far to find some beauty. It doesn’t have to be nature; it can just as easily be in the city, in a park, or a walk in the neighborhood.

Get outside and look around. Find someplace beautiful. Take pictures. Enjoy your life.

Gardening Glow

/ still a dreamer / 13 Comments

Finally! A bright, sunny day! We’ve had so much rain lately, and there hasn’t been much inspiration or sunshine to even go walking, let alone take pictures.

I grabbed the opportunity one dry morning and walked, admiring all my neighbors’ landscaping and planting efforts. These are my favorite photos among those I took.

There are a fair amount of gardeners here who know what they’re doing with perennials and shrubs. They plant creatively and with great timing so there is always something blooming throughout the summer. I consider this a true art.

What I also appreciate is the appearance of entire gardens growing wild, even though how these areas are planted, in most cases, was carefully planned.

I did a fair amount of gardening at the first house I moved into on this side of the state, almost entirely with annuals. Admittedly, it looked very pretty, and complemented many perennials already in place, but my humble efforts still left me in “aspiring gardener” status (in my opinion.)

Cheers to all the gardeners in my neighborhood and beyond for their contribution to making this world a lovelier place.

The Middle of Winter

/ still a dreamer / 12 Comments

Nature will do her best to never fail us. She will shine in her own way, in her own season, in her own time. Grateful.

And a poem that just came to me. It seems fitting. By Donna Ashworth.

UNSTOPPABLE

Unstoppable they called her
but I saw her stop
I saw her stop many times
sometimes I thought she had
stopped for good
but no
she always found a way
to rise again
to resurrect
not the same, never the same
unstoppable they said
but I think it was in the stopping
that she found her power

– Donna Ashworth

Early Shades of Fall in September

/ still a dreamer / 11 Comments

The sun has not shown its face all day, there is a chill in the air, and I felt a call to go walking. The Delaware River, rippling in the breeze beneath a moody sky, has a flawless beauty in every kind of weather.

The last roses of summer tangle with a shrub with red feathery flowers under a tree slipping into her bronze foliage.

This small ancient barn and its weathered doors still hold some fascination for me. They are such a willing photographic subject.

The tracks heading north out of town and the surrounding greenery were recently treated to a little freshening up for a townwide event. Once upon a time, these tracks were used by trains hauling grain from the town’s mill to destinations both north and south.

I recently saw some advice – “Walk Happy.” I like that advice.