Happy 5th Blog Birthday

October 8, 2012 by 20 Comments

 Happy 5th Blog-a-Birthday, Seeded Earth Photography!

I have posted nearly 1900 photos to my photoblog in the past 5 years.

I pulled out a sample photograph from each of the Octobers I have been photo-blogging. When I began in 2007, I was new to digital photography, new to computers, new to blogging. In short, I had a lot to learn. And learn I did by daily practice.

I hope you enjoy watching as my photography years go by!

Read until the end, there are details on how to enter for a give-away in celebration of my blogging birthday.

 OCTOBER 2007

pa182289.jpg

Double Yellows © 2007

Deep blue lake trapping
Reflection in calm waters
Double yellow orbs

Photographed just after sunrise on a calm mid-October morning at Indian Lake County Park in Dane County, Wisconsin.

 

OCTOBER 2008

Great Sand Dunes National Park

Great Sand Dunes National Park © 2008

We camped at the Great Sand Dunes National Park in southern Colorado in mid-October. I wanted to photograph the dunes at sunrise. The temperatures had dropped into the teens in the early morning hours and iced the sculptured sand, making the trek up the dunes rather easy. It’s much easier to climb frozen dunes than to sink, with every step, into soft sand…

 

OCTOBER 2009

Blue Pumpkin? Yep! © 2009 Bo Mackison

I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion. ~~ Henry David Thoreau

You tell ‘em, Mr. Thoreau. Can I join you if I choose a pumpkin on the other side of the patch?

 

OCTOBER 2010

Interior Room at Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel

Table for Two © 2010 Bo Mackison

This little room is in the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, tucked just off the main lobby. The closed door, leading to a storage room, is quite short, and reminds me of an Alice in Wonderland portal. The stairs wrap around the room while allowing natural light to come in through the windows…

 

OCTOBER 2011

Changing Leaves

Changing Leaves © 2011 Bo Mackison

Everything in life is speaking, is audible, is communicating in spite of its apparent silence. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

In autumn, the colors of nature are what speak to me. They tell me to pay attention, remind me that what I saw yesterday or earlier this morning may well disappear into nothingness by noon. Autumn is the ultimate reminder that nothing remains the same, that change is a constant, that though we may hold treasures in our hands today, tomorrow our hands may be empty…

OCTOBER 2012  – Today’s post!

Autumn Oranges

Autumn with Orange ©2012 Bo Mackison

As I walked through Madison’s Olbrich Botanical Gardens this past weekend, I was happily surprised to see an art installation new to me – orange metallic cones near the bridge across Starkweather Creek.

What a joy to photograph! I love how the bright orange sculptures pop across the water, unexpectedly, and how the bright orange color complements the autumn background colors.

A favorite theme – a bridge crossing reflecting water – becomes even more appealing to me, with the sculptures in orange adding a sense of play to the setting. What an inspiring combination.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.

I am offering you a birthday gift during this birthday celebration of my photoblog. Leave a comment below and I will choose one (by computer number generator) for the birthday give-away.

I will send an original photograph to the winner, The photograph, either an 8 x 10 or an 11 x 15, your choice, will be a photograph I currently offer, and will feature a botanical or garden scene. Please allow me to do the choosing for you! (Special requests considered… 🙂 )

I will pick the winner on October 16th (my birthday, too!) and post the winner’s name on the blog.

Thanks to all who visit. Without you, blogging would not be nearly as much fun.

Filed Under: Art of Healing, Photography Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

A Time for Every Purpose under Heaven

October 5, 2012 by 14 Comments
Wisconsin River Sandbars

Sandbar Fingers © 2012 Bo Mackison

Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares that will not withdraw from us. ~ Maya Angelou

It is autumn along the Wisconsin River.

The river is low, a result of the drought in spring and most of summer. August’s rains were not enough to fill the banks of the river. And so sandbar fingers stretch from shore. As far as I can see, peering from the bridge, there are sandbars edging from shore and sandbars rising from the river’s middle.

Trees across the river have changed their summer greens for autumn oranges and yellows, and soon, it seems too soon, the glorious autumn colors will change again. They will turn into autumn’s piles of crisped, brown leaves below bare branched trees.

Change. Nature manages its changes, coinciding with the seasons, recycling over and over. Nature responds to changes that aren’t cyclical on a yearly calendar also, ones that track over decades and centuries. Rivers overflow, flood the nearby lands and the nearest buildings and roads in river towns. Rivers run low, exposing land that is usually hidden from sight, once only the realm of underwater creatures.

To everything – turn, turn, turn
There is a season – turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven.
~ lyrics from Turn, Turn, Turn by The Byrds

It is autumn in my life, too. I walk through the yearly calendar’s changes. Month by month, I anticipate spring, summer, fall, winter. Sometimes I know what to expect. Some things are planned – a joyous wedding, a planned holiday with family, a special birthday. Some events are unplanned – a family member’s lost job, the death of a close friend, a change in a long-standing relationship.

Perhaps one of the most difficult is the aging of parents and the responsibilities that come with that change in family status. Elderly mothers and fathers are no longer the matriarchs and patriarchs in charge; middle-aged sons and daughters are no longer the ones that obey. Shifting responsibilities, shifting emotions.

Our lives follow similar patterns to those found in nature. The river runs low. Our energies run low. Sandbars are exposed, exposing that which had been underwater, out of sight, for many years. The status quo is disrupted. Secrets spill open, lives are altered. There is no taking back the time, no denying the newly discovered information.

The trees drop their leaves and only the gray skeletons remain. Some changes are short-term, like the bare limbed trees. Spring brings budding leaves; summer, a fully leafed tree. Flowers bloom, grass grows.

Sitting silently
Doing nothing
Spring Comes.
The grass grows by itself.
~ Zen Haiku

Some of nature’s changes take longer periods of time, like the deep river that will only stretch to its edges after many rains and deep snowfalls. Even then, there are subtle changes in its ebb and flow.

Some of the changes – severe damage to the earth from which it cannot recover in a many a generation’s lifetime or a death in a family – they leave a more enduring mark of change. Time passes. We adapt to the constancy of change.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is searching for clarity amidst many changes.

Filed Under: Art of Healing, Photography Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Exploring — My Lawn as a Metaphor

September 28, 2012 by 6 Comments
Fully Floral

Fully Floral in Black and White © 2012 Bo Mackison

“Think of your free time, and how you spend it. Are you fighting your inner geography and planting a lawn? Are you going with the ambient climate and keeping it simple? Do you want to do work that is intense and may not fit the popular climate, or do you want to go with the flow and keep your work suited to an easy schedule? Or, do you want to create an environment that’s exotic for you or do you want to explore your nature as it is?” – Quinn McDonald

There are just so many options for spending my free time, and I always pack more ideas into my brain than one woman could do in a lifetime.

But that doesn’t stop me from adding to the list constantly. When I factor in my penchant for change, I need to consider several options for my front lawn if it is to be a metaphor for my free time.

At first thought, I liked the idea of a tall sunflower field.

I would be surrounded by eight foot high plants, all topped with giant yellow sunflower heads. Hidden in the glory of all those waving flowers, spending my free time wandering without being seen. But when I thought about the upkeep and the crispy brown remains of sunflower stalks once autumn’s frost paid a visit, those glorious sunflowers lost their appeal. Maybe I would get tired of being surrounded by a jungle of bright yellow flower heads the size of dinner plates. Too much intense color, over a long period of time, it might be too bright. Or too lonely, hidden away in the flowers.

What about a mass of low growing, take-care-of-themselves-flowers?

And while I’m imagining what I’d really like my free time to look like, in lawn form, I’d like a black and white flower yard where I can change its colors on my whim – like the original movie version of The Wizard of Oz which begins in black and white, and then magically transforms into resplendent  color. That would satisfy my preference for quick change – white to match a pristine day, red for a passionate mood, multicolored when I’m feeling  festive.

Of course, I’d need a magic wand to keep the flowers in tip-top shape, growing lush while remaining an easily tended ground cover.

And the magic wand would come in handy when it was time for a color change, too. My flower lawn requires a bit of magic – is that because I don’t want to do all of the work that fun sometimes requires (such as the wild rush that comes before and after a planned vacation.)

Perhaps I’d like a magic wand because I’m not the quick change artist I wish I could be in real life.

One day I yearn to be a landscape photographer tramping through the wilds of red rock country or the Southwest desert; another day I’m the artist curating her photographs for a museum or gallery show.

One day I am a photographer who is demonstrating the simple workings of a pinhole camera to a group of excited children; another day I’m an urban photographer documenting form and shape in the architectural details of abandoned buildings.

Maybe I’d even be in the mood for some meticulous, creative work. I spend much of my free time doing just that when I am in front of the magical computer screen processing my photographs.

What a changeable yard…um, photographer…

 

 

 

Filed Under: Art of Healing, Photography, Writing Practices Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Changing Season

September 26, 2012 by 2 Comments
Changing of the Seasons

Changing Season © 2012 Bo Mackison

Some of my friends are honoring this day in their special ways. Today is Yom Kippur. It began yesterday at sundown and continues until sundown today. Yom Kippur is the Jewish Day of Atonement. It is the day the Great Book is opened and one’s name either is or isn’t written in its pages for another year. I’m told some people spend their day in temple praying and listening to sermons.

Others practice in their own way, spending their time in recollection and reflection, using the day to consider the lives they have lived, to consider the life they hope to live in the coming year, the coming years, however many that may be.

It is certainly a day that urges the consideration of one’s mortality.

There is no specific day in my year set aside for atonement, or to recall the last year and assess how I did in this practice of mine called living. There is no day set aside specially for the purpose of considering how I hope to live my life in the coming year, or even the coming years.

New Year’s Day, January 1st, doesn’t do it. Happy New Year doesn’t give much serious time for assessment and goal setting, for apology and hope setting. I find it hard to think deeply when the party horns are going off next door, though I do like a few rounds of Auld Lang Syne. For some reason, the melody of that song seems to lead me into a deep thought space. (I’m mixing holidays!)

I do hope my Jewish friends do not mind if I borrow from their solemn High Holy Day, and spend some time today walking in the frost-nipped garden, taking account of how I lived this past year, and setting intentions, filled with hope, for the coming year. Doubtless, I have the theology all wrong, but I do believe my intention is worthy, and an evaluation of the practice of living is valuable practice for each of us, not just those who call this day Yom Kippur.

In this season of change – trees in my neighborhood have turned yellow and red in the past few days remind me that colder days are not on their way any longer, they have arrived – in this season of change, I ponder what it is that I need to change in my life. Of course I could brush off that question with “I need to change just about everything” and decide that even the thinking part is too hard, so I won’t try to change anything. Or I could pick one thing and at least reflect on how it shows up in my life each day. A few minutes, at the end of my meditation walk, seems to be a good time for a minute summary.

So with that in mind, I will reflect how fear shows up in my life, and how I react to and interact with fear. It seems a good first step. I need to have awareness before I can decide on specific steps for change. Fear and I are old companions. It is time, I’m quite sure, that I need to spend less time with him.

I looked up some of the traditional greetings for this day. One of them is “G’mar Hatimah Tovah” or “May You Be Sealed for a Good Year (in the Book of Life).

It is greeting that carries an awareness, a reflection. A soul-searching question in a greeting.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She also finds nuggets of inspiration in many of the worlds’ cultures, religions, and practices.

Filed Under: Art of Healing, Photography Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Life Cycle of New England Asters

September 24, 2012 by 10 Comments
Life Cycle of New England Asters

Asters Life Cycle © 2012 Bo Mackison

… in gardens, beauty is a by-product.
The main business is sex and death …
–  Sam Llewelyn, The Sea Garden

Oh, that quote seems so appropriate for many of the botanical photographs I shoot.

I am either shooting the reproductive parts of flowers or I am shooting the flowers that are no longer beautiful flowers but on their way to brown and crispy, or the parts that are left standing to produce the next flowers, the seed heads. But the by-product of all those seeds and reproductive parts make for some pretty fine floral displays in the flowering seasons.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is catching up on photography work at the computer today, after a weekend of weddings and birthday celebrations.

Filed Under: Art of Healing, Photography Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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