Arbor on Adobe – November’s Photo-Heart Connection

Arbor on Adobe

Arbor on Adobe ©2012 Bo Mackison

Your task is not to seek love,
but merely to seek and find
all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it. ~ Rumi

I love walls, I especially love abode walls. And I love adobe walls that have grape vines creeping all over most of all.There is just something about the combination of a wall with abode and grape vines that makes me grab my camera and check the space on my memory card.

I had an absorbing hour – yes, hour, thank you Sherpa for your patience – taking photographs of this particular adobe wall in Old Town Albuquerque. There were parts of the wall with cracks, parts of the wall with just a bit of the vine, some parts had clusters of blue grapes, some had leaves like this photograph. Together, they combine to tell a lovely story about the wall and the grape-vine.

I chose this as November’s Photo Heart Connection partly because it seemed so fitting for a photograph taken in November – the growing season is over and the vines are leaves are curling, crackling, falling off the vine. And partly because this was Day 3 of a four-day , cross-country trip, and we especially made time to visit Albuquerque instead of zooming through the city while bemoaning the fact that we didn’t have time to stop.

This photograph reminds me that time continues, seasons change, years pass. And if I don’t make time for pauses in a hectic life, make time to enjoy the sights and sounds of life, then I miss out on experiences that make my life meaningful. It pairs well with the above quote from Rumi. I can set up barriers that prevent me from fully partaking in life and love, or I can seek and find those barriers and take them down.

————

Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  This is her November Photo-Heart Connection contribution.

Dahlia, Oh Dahlia

Dahlia, Oh Dahlia

Dahlia, Oh Dahlia © 2012 Bo Mackison

It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between. ~ Diane Ackerman

Dahlias are my favorite flower to shoot. When I find a dahlia I love, I usually return a dozen times so I can capture the dahlia in its many stages, from bud to petals scattered on the garden earth. But when a dahlia I fall in love with is in a garden 200 miles from my home, I can’t visit over and over. The next best thing? Take an hour’s worth of photos in this patch of dahlias, every angle, in diffused light, in sun patches. Blowing in the breeze, and captured in a still air.

After I processed with photograph by de-saturating the colors, I could only look at the giant photo on my computer screen and think, “Dahlia, oh dahlia!” I’m in awe of this beautiful flower.

———————

 

Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is busy at work, finishing a few new photographs to bring to the Third Ward Art Festival in Milwaukee, Wisconsin this coming weekend. More info to follow.

Boardwalk to the Beach

Beach Boardwalk

Beach Boardwalk © 2012 Bo Mackison

An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day. ~ Henry David Thoreau

What a thrill to watch as the sun rises over Lake Michigan. And then another thrill – equally as amazing – when I turn away from the sun, and see the sunlight’s effect on everything within my view.

This photo was taken just north of Bailey’s Harbor, a small village in Door County, Wisconsin. The boardwalk is lined with snow fence for the summer as a beach grass re-introduction project is kept protected from the many feet of the beach visitors. The snow fence, a rather mobile fencing structure, always provides wonderful opportunities for photography. I am especially thrilled with the zig zag lines on the wobbly fence as the day’s sun lifts from the eastern horizon, and swathes the worn fence in deep golden tones.

—————-

Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Bo is now home, and looking through the many photographs she took on her weekend trip to one of Wisconsin’s finest Vacationlands, Door County.

Sunday Series – Minimalist Summer

Cornfield in Iowa County, Wisconsin

Iowa County, Wisconsin © 2012 Bo Mackison

Summer has set in with its usual severity. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Stripes - Iowa County, Wisconsin

Stripes in Iowa County © 2012 Bo Mackison

Summertime, summertime, summertime, summertime. ~ From Porgy and Bess by Ira Gershwin

Queen Anne's Lace - Lost in Iowa County, Wisconsin

Queen Anne’s Lace © 2012 Bo Mackison

Love is to the heart what the summer is to the farmer’s year – it brings to harvest all the loveliest flowers of the soul.  ~ Author Unknown

Telephone Wires in Iowa County, Wisconsin

Telephone Wires © 2012 Bo Mackison

We need society, and we need solitude also, as we need summer and winter, day and night, exercise and rest.
–  Philip Gilbert Hamerton

Iowa County, Wisconsin

Horizon © 2012 Bo Mackison

In summer, the song sings itself. – William Carlos Williams

Beans, Corn, Sky -- Iowa County, Wisconsin

Beans, Corn, Sky © 2012 Bo Mackison

People take pictures of the Summer, just in case someone thought they had missed it, and to prove that it really existed.
~ Ray Davies

Converging Fields - Iowa County, Wisconsin

Converging Fields © 2012 Bo Mackison

Anything one does every day is important and imposing and anywhere one lives is interesting and beautiful. ~ Gertrude Stein

——————

Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Bo takes photographs every day, even on days when the temperature is breaking all the heat records, and she finds beauty in the patterns of Wisconsin’s fields. Each Sunday, she shares a series of photographs and quotes she finds meaningful.