Memorial Day Tribute

May 28, 2012 by 3 Comments
Memorial Day Tribute at Courthouse

Memorial Day Tribute at Old Courthouse © 2012 Bo Mackison

 Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong. ~ James Bryce

Memorial Day 2012.

Sherpa and I had a fair amount of driving time scheduled for this holiday weekend. Wisconsin to Iowa to Missouri to Illinois, and then across Illinois from the farthest city on the western border of Illinois, through the heart of the state,  a swing to Milwaukee before finally heading home to Madison – where we collapsed in a heap of tired bones and weary minds.

We accomplished a huge number of things, including several family events that were celebratory. And as is now my habit while traveling and collecting large numbers of miles on the odometer, I kept my big camera in the back seat, snug in its camera bag, and photographed whatever caught my eye with my iPhone.

We took a detour off the interstate, mid-Illinois, after half a day of swerving through holiday traffic, and followed the scenic road along the Illinois River from Dixon (childhood home of Ronald Reagan) to Rockford. As we passed through Dixon, we noticed a display of flags on the old Courthouse lawn. Needing to stretch anyway, we got out and walked around the Courthouse Square.

There was a temporary tribute for Memorial Day entitled “Lest We Forget” and I took a few photos. Each cross or star represented a soldier killed in war from the Dixon area.

Dixon Illinois - Huge Oak on Courthouse Lawn

Dixon Illinois - Huge Oak on Courthouse Lawn © 2012 Bo Mackison

As we walked back to the car, I noticed a truly gigantic oak on the southern side of the Courthouse. I am not experienced enough to give a guess at the age of this tree, but I could not reach my arms around it and touch my fingers together.

I wondered how old this tree was, and how it looked at different periods of history.

Would it have been a young sapling during the Civil War? Probably, as the courthouse was built in the 1850s. Surely it was tall and provided a comforting shade during the hot summers throughout World War I, and has continued to do so these many years.

I saluted this giant oak as I left the square, witness to over a century and a half of history.

————–

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

Filed Under: Photography, Travel Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

April’s Photo-Heart Connection Photo – An Unusual Choice

May 4, 2012 by 19 Comments
Burlington Northern Train Cars Dwarfed by Kansas Grain Elevators

Burlington Northern © 2012 Bo Mackison

This photograph is about as different from my usual photographs as it can be, but in going through my photo catalogs from April, this is the one I kept returning to. I found myself studying its lines, its color, the subject matter, perhaps a hidden meaning, trying to decipher why this particular photograph caught my attention, and my heart, and so qualified as April’s photo-heart connection selection.

(Kat Sloma from Kat Eye Studio encourages photographers to pick a photo once a month for sharing — a photo taken in the prior month that best makes a photo-heart connection.)

Now to work my way through the feelings/thoughts attached to this photo:

  • The subject matter is less typical for me than many other genres. I shoot macro-botanicals with passion and abandon; I am ever fond of architectural photos; I’ll drive miles to explore a landscape – particularly those in the wilderness, in National Parks, often with no sign of human activity; and yet here is a rural scene, a scene that is agricultural in theme.
  • I take 95% of my photographs with my Canon DSLR and then spend extra time in post-processing. I am a tinkerer of the post-processing process. I love to use software to create new ways of seeing a routine subject. I will consider many options regarding a small aspect of a photograph, and then go on to another small aspect, and another, and another. When I photograph with my DSLR, I love to take my time, study possibilities, set up my tripod and try lots of options before going on to the next subject. I shot this photo with my iPhone using a Hipstamatic app preset. Sherpa and I were on the long drive home, and we stopped briefly on a country road for a truck to make a left turn. I opened the car window, grabbed my phone, and took a single photo before the car began to move.
  • I like bright colors and focused, close-up details. And my love for the colors associated with the US Southwest has deepened since I began living in Arizona part of the year. I see more color in my photographs – the bright cerulean skies, the turquoise and orange buildings, colors that make a strong statement. But in this photo, the colors are muted. There are a few patches of a rusty color and the remainder is in soft greens, whites, browns.
  • I love the play of light and shadow in photographs, and this photograph hasn’t much light nor shadow. It was taken mid day under a cloudy sky, not typically a good time for photography.

So why this photograph?

  • Well, I am attracted to the composition. It feels satisfying to me, the blocks of different colors, three almost equal rectangular spaces, plus the darker colors as contrast. I do not often take symmetrical photographs, and honestly, I would probably not have composed this photograph as it is if I had been taking a more deliberate photo. But the symmetry provided by the grain elevators, and the strong horizontal and vertical lines seem to emphasize the subject of farm work and transportation in the country’s Midwest.
  • I like that the train car is marked with the logo of the Burlington Northern line. I grew up in the Midwest not far from Burlington, Iowa – the train company’s namesake. And several of my relatives – a grandfather and two uncles — worked for the Burlington Northern. I remember bits of their stories, I sometimes saw them return home from night shift duty with coal stained coveralls, and I associated the smell of their smoky clothes with a night of hard work.

So, an atypical photograph can be a favorite. A photograph with the vaguest memories of family can add a strong sense of human connection to a seemingly straightforward scene. And perhaps there is special thrill about a photograph taken on the run, the knowledge that taking a photograph isn’t only about f-stops and sharp focus and the rules.

Maybe it is also the appreciation of timing, good instincts, and a little luck!

————————

Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. After three months in the Southwest, Bo is back home in the Midwest. And just in time — her first art show of the summer season is tomorrow — Madison’s Audubon Art Fair at Warner Park on Madison’s east side. Seeded Earth Studio’s booth will be inside in the glassed-in annex. Hours are 9:30 am to 4:30 pm.

 

Filed Under: Photography, Travel Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Traveling East, A Spring Greening

May 1, 2012 by 12 Comments

The greening of the trees in spring rain,
see-through trees like a lacy negligee, the nesting bird
watches from the half-leafed trees.

Traveling in the Rain

Rain Travel © 2012 Bo Mackison

Calves balancing on gentle hills rub their noses in the wet grasses.
One stands wobbly, leans against its mother.
Others watch their mothers watching them, nibble a bit, suckle,
wander about the remains of last fall’s tattered harvest.

Darkest brown, Iowa’s earth, earth that dips
and dances. We’ve driven past the Kansas grasslands,
and not yet reached the prairie flat of Illinois.

See the family plot tucked tightly between
the edge of the woods and the tilled field;
Splintered posts and strands of wire mark its boundary.
Roughly hewed stones, two rows of three, the mossy inscriptions illegible.
Though one, a mother’s marker, is split in half – part upright,
part broken off and tipped into the rain-soaked grass.
The roughened quarry block, now a rest stop for crows,
splats of white the only sign of life.

Clouds hang gray, so low I yearn to stand
and push them high into the skies, high enough to punch an opening into the dim blueness
that is Midwestern sky, give sunlight to the earth.
Yet fog lingers, sky primed in deep grays.

We pass a highway sign, What Cheer, population 142. Twenty miles south.
I wish to see a town worthy of this name, but we’re on the fourth morning of steady travel.
There is no will to detour.
Tonight we sleep in the familiar ridges and valleys of our familiar bed.

First I will say hello to the house I left a hundred days ago,
walk through the rooms I know by memory, peer out the back window at the apple tree.
I’m told no blossoms remain.

Oklahoma, Gray Skies, and a White Truck

White Truck © 2012 Bo Mackison

I bought a primitive statue of a woman last summer from a stone sculptor the next booth over.
She toppled in a winter storm. My husband mentions this
as he pulls into the Save-n-Go in Dubuque for gas and coffee.

Tomorrow morning I’ll push her upright so we can watch the garden together.
We will meet, eye to eye, and reflect on the greenness of Midwest spring.

———————-

Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. After four days of cross-country travel, Bo is back home in the Midwest.

Filed Under: Photography, Travel, Writing Practices Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

A Crack in Everything

January 11, 2012 by 3 Comments
Danger - Thin Ice

There is a Crack © 2012 Bo Mackison

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

~  Anthem by Leonard Cohen

The link is to the song on YouTube. Interesting, thought-provoking lyrics, interesting talk-sing voice. I love the line “forget your perfect offering.” I don’t usually post a lot of quotes on one post, but I kept finding quotes about imperfection that I wanted to remember, and this seemed like a good place for this compilation. It is a good thing to remember — no one is perfect. Imperfect is human, humans are imperfect.

Both our senses and our passions are a supply to the imperfection of our nature; thus they show that we are such sort of creatures as to stand in need of those helps which higher orders of creatures do not. ~ Joseph Butler

If you look closely at a tree you’ll notice it’s knots and dead branches, just like our bodies. What we learn is that beauty and imperfection go together wonderfully. ~ Matthew Fox
~~~
Imperfection clings to a person, and if they wait till they are brushed off entirely, they would spin for ever on their axis, advancing nowhere. ~ Thomas Carlyle
~~~
Persuade thyself that imperfection and inconvenience are the natural lot of mortals, and there will be no room for discontent, neither for despair. ~ Ieyasu Tokugawa
~~~
The fastest way to break the cycle of perfectionism and become a fearless mother is to give up the idea of doing it perfectly – indeed to embrace uncertainty and imperfection. ~ Arianna Huffington
~~~
There is a kind of beauty in imperfection. ~ Conrad Hall
——————
Bo Mackison is a photogrpaher and owner of  Seeded Earth Studio LLC.

 

Filed Under: Photography Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Remembering Moments

December 27, 2011 by 2 Comments

Remembering Moments © 2011 Bo Mackison

We do not remember days, we remember moments. ~ Cesare Pavese

Moments from the past few days:

  • Sitting in the darkness before the fist hint of dawn, tree lights on, absorbing the beauty of light and color.
  • Many moments spent adding tinsel to the tree, a strand at a time, and with each strand I expressed gratitude for one thing — big or small..
  • Telling my kids how I added tinsel to the tree this year, and then noting how they followed my example by saying a “thank you” every time they replaced an errant piece of tinsel from carpet to tree.
  • Following a long-standing family tradition, each person made hors d’oeuvres for the Christmas Eve table. No sit down dinner for us. The Christmas table is always a part of the entire evening. We opened presents, visited, slowly ate a delicacy or two from the table, revisited memories from Christmases past. We took our time and enjoyed ourselves.
    • When my kids were much younger, there was a variety of offerings on our table — mozzarella sticks from the freezer case at the nearby grocery, meatballs from the same freezer case, cheese and crackers. We greeted each person’s contribution with enthusiasm and love.
    • This year, the kids are all practiced veterans in their own kitchens, so we had true delicacies prepared with their hands and their love — Asian shrimp balls, pot stickers, homemade meatballs, oysters on the half shell and sauces, a plate of delicate Christmas cookies, and more. What pleasure to see how they have matured in the thought and preparation of their culinary offerings.
  • As I wrapped each present this year, I took my time. I thought of the intended recipient of each gift and sent an intention into the Universe for that person. For example:
    • If the gift was kitchen-oriented, I asked that they experience a sense of accomplishment while preparing food for their loved ones and an attitude of gratefulness for their food.
    • If the gift was a humorous book, I asked that they experience lots of joy and laughter in their lives, not only while enjoying the cartoons, but throughout their days. It made wrapping gifts a deliciously uplifting time.
  • A walk around the neighborhood with Sherpa, enjoying nature in the balmy December weather, and chatting about the day’s small events which, when totaled, make up the precious gift of our life together.

This truly was a season to be grateful for all the goodness that surrounds us, and a time to show our appreciation to family, friends, acquaintances, helpers — to all who touch our lives and humanize our existence.

—————-

Bo Mackison is a photographer, owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is taking time today to give thanks for the little things and the big things in her life.

Filed Under: Art of Healing, Photography Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
« Previous Page
Next Page »