This year? It’s 60+ and sunny in late March and early April. I feel like even the robins made it back early.
Out for an evening walk, enjoying it while it’s here.
After Jaime and I took a trip to South Haven a few winters ago, we swore we had to come back. To see that heaved ice hanging onto the shoreline, to see that frost-encrusted lighthouse again. Maybe grab another beloved shot of strangers trudging through the cold.
The lakeshore is like another planet: a mix of sand and ice, and off in the distance an unfrozen lake. The ice in the pier heaved, like the lake was breathing – a living, swelling mass of ice.
I brought along my seldom-used Tamron 24-135mm zoom lens to give it some exercise. I’m usually a prime guy, but with scenery like this, I wanted to be prepared for whatever came up.
We dragged the kids along with the grandparents with us, too. The children were constantly on a precipice: one slip, and we’d lose them to what felt like the void.
On the ride home, we could’ve all fallen asleep. We were tuckered out. All that cold and fresh air did us good.
Winter here in Michigan, one at sunrise and one at sunset.
Stay warm out there, folks. .
I love a good, old-fashioned photography blog. Flickr is great, Instagram is mostly trash, Twitter still has some good photography sharing – but a blog? That’s a place I can visit when I want that’s dedicated to the craft.
Take a simple photography blog like Just a Little Patience. Super simple design, minimal text – it’s a place where Johnny Patience shares a lovely picture and a location or a quote. Nothing else. Photos, one after the other.
Because I’m a writer and a photographer, Patrick LaRoque’s blog appeals to me too: it goes deeper, with updates, thoughts, and (plenty of) opinions on the state of the world, the photography business, and his family.
My heart goes to blogs like Just a Little Patience because I appreciate its minimalism. It lets the photos speak for themselves. But my head says I have to do the essay-for-every-photo format. My blog has landed somewhere in the middle, but either way, it’s the sharing part that’s important.
Show your work. Talk about it if you want, but above all, put it out there.
I challenged myself to make something out of all this midwinter cold and isolation. It’s finally getting cold, and the snow is sticking around, so I made a point to capture it as I see it: outside the windows of the house that I barely leave.
It’s hard to be creative, stuck inside. We’ve taken a few walks outside. We even went hiking at a local nature center. But by now, that just feels like therapy. The pandemic makes the lower section of Maslow’s hierarchy that much more important.
I did finish my 2020 family photo album. I didn’t take many photos last year, but the ones that I did take really matter. Someday, we’ll look back and remember.
Another creative project: posting iPhone photos to Twitter, just to get them out there. Instagram has been a waste for several years now. Twitter is the only social media network I feel I still enjoy (especially now post-Trump) – why not share some old iPhone images I had captured, edited, and saved for Instagram?
It’s all slow, tough going. But I keep going, as much as I can.
In March, we planned on remodeling our bedroom. And boy, did it need it: wood paneling, dark, drop ceiling. In all fairness to the previous owners, it used to be a back porch. Then it became a bedroom, but that was decades ago. Now it’s our turn to make it right.
Why not start now? We need something lighter and sunnier in our lives right now. Sure, it means we have to sleep in our breezeway for the time being. It means contractors in the house, with their noise and drywall dust. But we’re considering this project our early Christmas present.
Everything is harder these days. My photography has certainly taken a hit. I feel it in my bones – a kind of creator’s guilt, ever-present. Not much blogging, not much newsletter-ing, not much of anything. With the pandemic and the post-election stress, it’s been hard to wake up in the morning, let alone take photos.
Now we have a new look to our bedroom, and with the light coming in, it felt like a good excuse to get out the camera and document the progress.
So here it is, in all it’s sheetrock glory.
I’m searching for some serenity in all this chaos. Luckily, we have had a pleasant autumn so far, and we take evening walks to shake off the dread and anxiety.
Now daylight savings has changed the light, and we wake up in the sunshine. It’s good, and much-needed, because the sun won’t be around much from now until spring. I’m trying to capture it as much as possible before the darkness comes.
School has shut down in-person learning until after Thanksgiving. COVID-19 is spreading as usual. The election is over and yet not over.
So very tired.
