5th Annual Photo Alphabet – Part IV

follow site N is for Nature and Non-attachment

Nature's Abstract

source link Nature’s Pattern © 2012 Bo Mackison

https://www.accessoriesresourceteam.org/art/buy-apaurin-diazepam.php Even though I photograph almost any subject, I spend as much time as I can in the natural world and take a greater percentage of nature subjects than any other. I also like to play with nature photos, especially macro-photographs such as the above barrel cactus. I loved the symmetry emphasized with a black and white conversion.

https://tudiabetesbajocontrol.com/relanzam/buy-roche-valium-diazepam-10mg.php Not only do I love to photograph desert plants, I love learning about them. I find their various ways of adapting to their environment fascinating. In order to survive, they have an extensive system of spiny protrusions and other such things to dissuade potential munchers.

https://www.rmporrua.com/fl6iesqi9a I’ve been working on the idea of non-attachment – the idea that too much attachment for a specific outcome can cause difficulties. And I was thinking that the cactus is the perfect symbol for non-attachment. Oh, yeah!

follow link O is for Observation and Opportunity.

Observation Deck above Buttermilk Falls

Cheap Valium Online India Observation Deck above Buttermilk Falls © 2010 Bo Mackison

go These “O” words speak deeply to me about photography – my photography and photography in general.

Tramadol For Sale Cheap Observation is so key to photography that it is almost too obvious to include in an alphabet like this. Observational skills are honed in the search for a photograph. That is not to say that a camera to required to polish observational skills, but a camera becomes a constant reminder to look around, to see beyond the initial glance. I consider my camera a great prop, an observation kick-starter.

https://www.infotonicsmedia.com/about/buy-diazepam-in-uk-online.php Opportunity is another one of those obvious words that partner well with photography. Some people take photographs at special occasions (or opportunities) – a vacation, a holiday, an annual gathering, a perfect sunset. But opportunity is more about “being” there for the experience of the photograph rather than “finding” a photographic subject.

http://geoffnotkin.com/laygu/buy-diazepam-usa.php Any subject is a subject worthy of photographic exercise. I’ve photographed more walls than I would once have thought possible, or sane. Yes, walls. Wall with shadows, walls with texture, walls with vines, walls of adobe, brick, stone, historical walls in ruins. (Maybe I should copy and paste this under “W”!)

https://bettierose.co.uk/v74o20js6ro I’ve also taken thousands of photographs of trees. Recently I realized that there is some form of tree – perhaps a branch, a shadow, a leaf – in a large percentage of my photos. I didn’t start with the intent to photograph trees in such depth, but it seems the trees found me. Or perhaps I’ve never met a tree I didn’t like, one I didn’t think worthy of a tree portrait.

https://www.saiidzeidan.com/dfeqk7loalk I’m not saying that I don’t take advantage of a photographic opportunity that comes my way. I carry a camera almost all the time – whether I’m going across country, across the city, or across the parking lot. You don’t have to wait for a special opportunity for a photograph; opportunity will find you if you’re paying attention.

here P is for Perspective and Place.

The Long Road

go to site Disappearing Road © 2012 Bo Mackison

see And then there is the perspective of a lonely, open road at dusk. This is a photograph of a Texas panhandle highway. Telephone poles, grain elevators, semi-trucks, and a Texas Highway sign. It’s all about place. And perspective.

https://tvnordestevip.com/titaeyovpb Q is for Questions and Quotations.

Badlands-There's a Trail up There!

https://www.iql-nog.com/2025/01/19/4ss0r5a7m3 Mountain Trail © 2011 Bo Mackison

https://www.accessoriesresourceteam.org/art/buy-msj-valium-uk.php I sometimes take photographs to find the answers to questions I am pondering. Sometimes I take photographs to put the questions I don’t know how to ask into a concrete form. And sometimes I take photographs because I have questions that don’t have answers.

follow link When I begin to write a blog post, and I have a photograph I want to share, I sometimes don’t have the words to accompany the photo. There is a meaning in the photo, but it’s not easily seen. So I go searching through my many dozens of unorganized journals for a relevant quotation. It seldom takes me more than a few minutes to find a quote that says exactly what I was struggling to say.

http://lisapriceblog.com/i1t2qqwblq Here is one such photograph, and the quote I found to pair it with:

https://thelowegroupltd.com/32ccztlh There are hundreds of paths up the mountain,
all leading in the same direction,
so it doesn’t matter which path you take.
The only one wasting time is the one
who runs around and around the mountain,
telling everyone that his or her path is wrong.

~ Hindu teaching

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Part V of the Annual Photo Alphabet continues with  source link Rituals thru https://www.mckenziesportsphysicaltherapy.com/hayz1k0 Universe.

 

 

Traveling through the Mountains

Coronado Trail in the White Mountains

Coronado Trail in the White Mountains ©2012 Bo Mackison

“A traveler without observation is a bird without wings.”  ~ Moslil Eddin Saadi      

Day 3. More notes from my travel log.

We leave Albuquerque. It is 5:55 am and it’s a bit chilly – 45˚F. It is still dark, though there is the barest hint of light in the eastern sky.

We begin by traveling south on Interstate 25, but after 80 miles, we choose a scenic route on a state highway. The trip will be a few hours longer but more interesting. I have a hard time resisting a 120 mile scenic drive through mountains!

As soon as we turn off the busy interstate, I find myself breathing more deeply, my eyes become clearer and I can see further. I feel calmer driving on the less traveled roads, seeing the locals and an occasional traveler, stopping frequently to take a few photographs.

We climb in elevation as we approach the White Mountains. It is still early morning, still cool and getting colder. As we drive near the Magdalena Mountains – highest peak is South Baldy at 10,783′ – we are at 6700′ and the temperature has dropped to 23˚. Sky islands!

We keep seeing signs for “VLA” – not sure what that means. Finally we come to a high plains that has a Very Large Array of radio satellite dishes. I feel like we are traveling on the moon!

We pass Historic Hoof Highway – a trail developed in 1885. It once connected Springerville, Arizona, to Magdalena, New Mexico, a distance of 130 miles. There were supplies and a well every ten miles – a rather adventurous plan – but thousands of livestock passed those miles in good health because of the Hoof Highway.

Not only are there junipers and cedars now, there are Ponderosa pines. Telephone pole pines.

I wonder if there is a hand-held device that tells the altitude? I’m often curious about the altitude when I travel, especially when I’m hiking up and down mountain trails.

We drive across the Continental Divide.

Pie Town, New Mexico
Cross the New Mexico/Arizona border at 10:21 am.
Coyote Wash (dry)

Escadillo Mountain, the highest peak is 10,992′. First snow we have seen covers its peak.
Springerville, AZ, founded in 1870, elevation 6973′. Last chance for gas for 120 miles.

We turn south and drive 120 miles on the Coronado Trail, from Springerville to Clifton. It is a road that thinks it is a roller coaster.

Roosevelt Lake
Nutrioso Creek (water)
Cambell Blue Wash (water)
Hannagan Creek (water)

We begin in the high plains, drive for several hours through the White Mountains and finally reach the Chihuahuan Desert. From Ponderosa pine and sycamores dressed in their autumn yellow to prickly pear, barrel cacti and ocotillo in a few hours.

Eagle River (dry)
San Simon River (dry)

There are cotton fields in Safford – elevation 2920′. Some is already picked and wrapped in huge rolls, ready for truck hauling. Other fields are have dark plants half white with fluff of cotton.

We turn on I-10 — now it’s a straight shot across half the state to the Tucson area.

Stockton Wash (dry)
Adams Peak Wash (dry)
San Pedro River (dry)
Cienega Creek (dry)

We turn off the interstate at Sahuarita. It is 4:05. Sunny and warm. 80˚F.

The pecan trees in the orchards are still green, though a few of their leaves are yellowing.

In another 10 minutes we are at our destination. We walk the neighborhood, watch the sun set behind the mountain ridge, finally unpack the car.

We traveled 1963 miles over 4 days. (First leg of the trip was on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, when we drove 300 miles straight south to celebrate with the family before leaving for the Southwest.)

It is 81˚F.

I am back home in the desert!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

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

Trucks and Trains Across the Plains

New Mexico, Trucks, and Trains

Trucks and Trains ©2012 Bo Mackison

The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

When I travel and I am the passenger, not the driver, I jot down a log of the trip. Filled with facts and figures, sure, so I can tabulate the trip costs but also filled with mumblings and questions and observations, and, in capital letters for emphasis, I note the places I would like to explore further.

Then, in an amazing feat of organizational skills typically not found at my level of expertise, I actually return to these notes when I plan another trip. Since there are only a few trusted routes from my Midwestern home to my Tucson home – at least when winter weather can ruin travel plans – we seem to travel some of the same roads.

A few of the highlights, thus far:

Left Illinois at 4:04 am, crossed the Mississippi at 4:08. Wonder what the people who have always lived in the arid west, those who have never seen large rivers but only banks that run dry (except when filled with Monsoon seasonal rains) would think of a wide river like the Mississippi. Always tumbling over itself in order to get to the Gulf of Mexico as fast as it can.

Missouri. First stop: Ayers for coffee. 4:10 am. Didn’t need gas but regular is $3.35.

4:15 am. “I am going on a trip to Arizona and I’m going to pack my ATTITUDE!” My good attitude – that’s half the key to good travel. Maybe more.

Palmyra, MO: Flashing signs on four lane highway. WATCH FOR FARM VEHICLES. HARVEST SEASON. Gas is $3.23.

Orion’s lights are brightly shining, lighting the sky. Rural house/barn lights are flickering on – early morning on the farm.

Monroe City, MO: Birthplace of Mark Twain. I didn’t know that! I’ve been to his boyhood home and all the other Twain sites in Hannibal a dozen times, but never knew his birthplace was another 20 miles away.

South River
North River
Salt River
Mussel Fork
Turkey Creek
Muddy Creek
Locust Creek
Higgin’s Ditch

5:05 am Clouds moving eastward. Stars are disappearing. Windy – the flags, and there are many, are standing straight out (at attention!)

Bevier, MO  Driving past we see that regular gas is $3.14
Ethel, MO No place open for breakfast.
Lingo, MO No place open for breakfast.

Exit to General Pershing’s Boyhood home Hmm.

Exit to Locust Creek Covered Bridge. Too bad it’s still dark.

Hickory Creek
Parsons Creek
Muddy Creek
Medicine Creek
Leeper Creek
Blackwell Creek

billboard: KO THE FAT. What the heck? Oh, Sherpa explains it means “Knock out” the fat. Of course.

In Chillicothe, MO. We try 3 different coffee shops — all either closed or they have disappeared. Get gas and bananas. Gas is $3.10. It is the HOME OF SLICED BREAD. Must Google later. Chillicothe looks like a nice town. There are quite a few murals on buildings of the main streets — still too dark for photos. Sigh!

Raccoon Creek
Grand River
Brushy Creek
Shoal Creek

6:45 am. Dawn and now there is light so we can see. And there’s a place for breakfast just ahead . . . to be continued sometime after breakfast..

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She loves travel logs.

Adventure in an Antique Mode

Hot Air Balloon

Adventure in an Antique Mode ©2012 Bo Mackison

Like a shamanistic language, flight speaks in different idioms. We can blast rockets to the stars. We can race across the sky on fixed wings. Ballooning appeals because it is more languorous and low-tech; it’s source link adventure in an antique mood. What a treat to stroll through the veils of twilight, to float across the sky like a slowly forming thought. Flying an airplane, one usually travels the shortest distance between two points. Balloonists can dawdle, lollygag, cast their fate to the wind and become part of the ebb and flow of nature, part of the sky itself, held aloft like any bird, leaf or spore. In that silent realm, far from the mischief and toil of society, all one hears is the urgent breathing of the wind and, now and then, an inspiring gasp of hot air.  ~ Diane Ackerman, ‘Traveling Light,’  New York Times, 11 January 1997.

There are so many phrases in this quote by Diane Ackerman. I want to just pick them out of their sentences and fling them about, see if, perhaps, they will soar as they have my mind soaring.

“stroll through the veils of twilight” – rather like the slowing down part of the day, the time when you sit in the comfy chair near the fireplace and rest your head on its high back, and close your eyes so that you can take a short mind-travel of the day’s events.

“float…like a slowly forming thought” – I have more and more of those. The kinds of thoughts that if I hurry along, force out into the open, well, they are lost forever. I need to nudge those thoughts forward a bit, those thoughts that linger on the edge of consciousness, and then I let them rest awhile. I pretend I am only vaguely interested, and move on to a project that is more busyness than business. More often than not, that elusive thought gradually moves closer, until it is close enough that I can see more than just the edges. I capture a glimpse of the idea. The glimpse is enough. A little more time and the glimpse becomes the thought I once wanted to capture. It has come to me of its own accord.

“become part of the ebb and flow of nature” – well, yes. That is often my intent. I am happiest trekking through the wilder lands than walking along a paved sidewalk or doing business in a building where I feel cut off from the natural world. But the next part speaks even more loudly to me.

“become…part of the sky itself, held aloft” – What would that feel like? The experience of flying, of soaring, or circling the earth below, all the world held at a distance while I took enough time to gather my thoughts. And being held aloft? On what? Gentle air currents, pockets of weightlessness, invisible threads held by unseen angels. Oh, sometimes it is fun to let my mind just take off, and I follow along to see where it will take me.

“far from the mischief and toil of society” – Yes, some days I do dream of escape, of tucking a heap of insulation around me and resting, far from the mischief and from society’s expectations. At one time in my life, I was a phenomenal mind-escape artist. I’ve learned it’s more advantageous, more acceptable too, to take only a bit of a time out – perhaps a walk around the pond – not a long escape, but I still find myself dreaming of the quiet.

“all one hears is the urgent breathing of the wind” – Yes, in the sky, I would expect to hear the urgent breathing of the wind. Here, land-bound, I seem to hear the urgent breathing of the earth. How does one calm the earth’s breathing, soothe its shuddering inhalations and exhalations? How does one help the earth slow its breathing, how does one touch the earth?

——————

Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.Occasionally, she veers off course and takes a look at the world through a somewhat poetic view.

This is my October Photo-Heart Connection contribution. When a photo (and the accompanying quote) move me to consider my place in the universe, it is a truly heart connection combination.

Hotel Living

Closet

Closet ©2012 Bo Mackison

Shower

Shower ©2012 Bo Mackison

Towels

Towels ©2012 Bo Mackison

Waste Basket

Metal and Paper ©2012 Bo Mackison

More Comfortable

Getting Comfortable ©2012 Bo Mackison

Pillows

Pillows ©2012 Bo Mackison

Curtains

Curtains ©2012 Bo Mackison

Chair

Chair ©2012 Bo Mackison

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