A Tree in Strength and Stillness – A Winter Scene

Winter Scene in Wisconsin

Winter Scene in Wisconsin © 2015 Bo Mackison

What do the trees know?
Buds can weather ice and snow.
Dark gives way to sunlight’s glow.
Strength and stillness help us grow.”
~ Joyce Sidman

5th Annual Photo Alphabet – The Finale

W is for Wilderness and Wonder.

This is the Trail?

Palo Dura © 2010 Bo Mackison

When I want to do deep thinking, I head for quiet spaces, walk one of the trails through the wilderness. I do some of my most productive thinking here, walking alone. In this deep stillness.

My gratitude for the life I lead is huge. I stand without a movement. I speak to the Universe. I wonder. I fill with a great happiness at the wealth in my world.

As I walk in nature, my world expands. I find my place. I stand upon the Mother Earth, grounded. l connect to a greater plan for the greater good.

If you look for the truth outside yourself,
it gets farther and farther away.
Today, walking alone, I meet it everywhere I step.
It is the same as me, yet I am not it.
Only if you understand it in this way
Will you merge with the way things are.
~ Tung-Shan

X is for eXplore and eXperiment.

Gold Poppies

Poppies in Arizona © 2012 Bo Mackison

There are times when I have a photograph and I just want to play. Explore new techniques. Add and subtract, soften the focus, sharpen the focus. Experiment with colors, saturation, a different crop. It’s similar to coloring outside the lines in a coloring book, then making the sky yellow and the trees turquoise. Usually, when I change a photo extensively, I don’t keep the results. I just enjoy the process.

But once in a while, I like the result. And so I not only have a few hours of play, experimentation, exploration, I also have a fun photograph for my portfolio.

Y is for out Yonder.

Beach Boardwalk

Boardwalk at Sunrise © 2012 Bo Mackison

Sometimes it is enough to look out on a vast body of water and let the senses absorb the space. It is enough to walk along the boardwalk, aware of each step as the walkway shifts under my weight. It is enough to be at the edge of the shore when the sun rises in the East.

Z is for Zen.

Branch in Stricker's Pond

Branch in Pond © 2012 Bo Mackison

Fitting that I end the alphabet, and the year, with a contemplative photograph. I have a folder of photographs I refer to as my Zen photos, photographs I re-visit when I want to focus, settle the voices in my head, and calm my mind. This pond is only a few blocks from my home in Wisconsin. It is the pond I walk around from mid-spring through early winter. I’ve captured the pond in all seasons, in all kinds of weather, and at various times of the day.

I have photographs of the pond when it is home to Canada geese, egrets, herons, and wood ducks. I have photos when half of the pond is a white and green carpet of American lotus in blossom. But this is my favorite photograph from all of my walks – a broken branch in shallow water, shifting in the soft light from a disappearing sun. It is a late summer evening.

I take a few deep breaths, focus my attention on the lines, the colors, the beauty in the simplicity. I am thankful.

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And so ends the annual photo alphabet, and just in time too. After spending several weeks compiling the last posts, I am ever so grateful. Grateful for you, my readers. Grateful for the coming of a new year. And grateful that there are only 26 letters in the English alphabet!

Best Wishes for a Wonder-filled, Happy, and Healthy 2013!

Happy New Year! 

~ Bo

 

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

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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.