A Pinker Shade of Pale

October 9, 2012 by 10 Comments
Olbrich Autumn Wonders - A Pinker Shade of Pale

A Pinker Shade of Pale ©2012 Bo Mackison

There is a huge amount of freedom that comes to you when you take nothing personally. ~ Don Miguel Ruiz

Where I am now in my photography process?

I have embraced the freedom to create for myself first, to explore while processing and printing my photographs, to make decisions about my creative process based on what feels right to me. The bonus? The discovery that all this freedom opens the door to further exploration, taking bigger chances, stepping into challenges I once considered an impossibility. This is FREEDOM!

And then there is the challenge of printing photography portfolios.

I look around my studio. I look at the photographs I’ve chosen for the two portfolios I am currently printing. Who knew printing photography portfolios required such intense concentration, that it was such an exacting science? I learn as I do, and re-do. When I look at the finished printed photographs, the fine art photographic paper so thick and luscious, it feels like a high quality watercolor paper. I can scarcely believe these are of my creation. I love the prints.

They speak to me. For now, that is enough.

—————-

Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is assembling two sets of her fine art photography in classic print portfolios. She will be attending the Filter Festival in Chicago the week of October 15. Workshops, lecture series, gallery walks, portfolio reviews. Wow!

 

 

 

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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.

—————-

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.

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Quiet Space – September’s Photo-Heart Connection

October 1, 2012 by 31 Comments
Quiet Space

Quiet Space © 2012 Bo Mackison

The beginning of a new month! When I turn the calendar to a new month, I know it’s time to look for a photograph for Photo-Heart Connection from the last month’s photos. I look for one that speaks to me in a special way.

Here is my choice from the many photos I took in September. I took it on the last day of September, on an early Sunday morning when Autumn’s sunlight cast a spell on me. I stopped at this set of prayer benches situated high on a hill overlooking the city I call home.

It was a quiet morning.

A quiet time in a quiet place and I was grateful to spend some time resting on one of these benches.

I felt a deep connection with place, a sense of renewal, a new strength. I acknowledged that I am at a crossroads, and that simple acknowledgement gave me an inner peace for which I had been searching.

“We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”
~ Chas. R Surndoll

This photo is my choice for this month’s Photo Heart Connection.

Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  She joins other photographers at  Kat Eye Studio and posts a photo taken the prior month that “connects with her heart’ during the first few days of the new month.
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Autumn, Overlooking Madison

September 30, 2012 by 10 Comments
Autumn, Overlooking Madison

Autumn, Overlooking Madison © 2012 Bo Mackison

“Autumn is the eternal corrective. It is ripeness and color and a time of maturity;
but it is also breadth, and depth, and distance.  What man can stand with autumn
on a hilltop and fail to see the span of his world and the meaning of the rolling
hills that reach to the far horizon?” ~ Hal Borland

I stood on a hill-top this morning overlooking a prairie remnant, then a line of ash trees dressed in the brightest of yellows, next a small woods touched with a variety of color – dark greens, yellow greens, yellows, oranges, reds. Beyond the woods, the blue of Lake Mendota in the early morning contrasts with the city of Madison that rises from the shores to the gently rolling hillsides. I could see the University of Wisconsin and the State’s Capitol building in Madison’s downtown.

It’s a sight that made me pause, filled me with a deep joy that Sherpa and I had decided to settle in Madison nearly three decades ago. Madison in autumn with the change in the weather to pleasant days, cooler nights; Madison in autumn with its glorious colors — Madison is at its best (in my opinion) from mid-September through mid-November.

Viewing Madison, and a bit of the surrounding countryside, from the top of a hill is one of those perfect autumn moments.

—————-

Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  Since autumn’s cool weather arrived, she’s been spending many an early morning at a prairie remnant just north of Madison — wandering, thinking, and taking a few photographs, too.

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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…

 

 

 

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