the 53 project : week 8

I ventured "over the bridge" yesterday, off of Cape Cod and into the world of southeastern Massachusetts.  Before we moved to the Cape we lived in this area, and I was a Library Director in the little town of Rochester.  Southeastern Massachusetts is an interesting mix of small towns, old farmland giving way to urban sprawl, old manufacturing cities like New Bedford and Fall River, and a sort of urban/rural decay that exists in stark contract to lovely back roads and coastal beauty.  If you're never read the wonderful book Swimming at Suppertime: Seasons of Delight on the Wrong Side of Buzzards Bay, by Carol Wasserman, you should rush out to your local library or book shop and pick up a copy.  It is a poignant and compelling read.

I drove through the very villages that Wasserman writes about so intimately.  These roads were once the gateway to Cape Cod, where tourists traveled to get to the promised land.  Now they are run down and neglected, but beautiful to my photographer's eye.

The red Xs on the buildings are sad reminders that some of these buildings may soon be torn down.  I have a call in to the local Town Hall to see if I might be able to take some more photos of some of these buildings before they're gone forever.

Happy Valentine's Day, friends and family!  I hope your day was filled with love.

the 53 project : week 7

I had a hard time deciding what to share with you this week.

 Should it be lines and shadows?

 Cute bird antics?

 Amazing wave action?

But the seagulls at the beach caught my attention again, 

fishing for supper and skimming along the waves.

 This seagull has particularly nice armpits, wouldn't you say?

 They lined up to watch the sunset along with the rest of us crazy beachgoers.

It was 10 degrees with a stiff winter wind.

Even the clouds looked like they were flying.  Beautiful.

the 53 project : week 6

The trees have been speaking to me again.

inspiration

I was so honored this week to discover that one of my photos (you'll recognize it from the header of this blog) was the inspiration for a painting by a complete stranger.  The day after I opened my redbubble shop, my photograph September Sea was (amazingly) featured on their front page.

An artist from Germany,  Eckhard Besuden, saw my photograph and wrote to me.  He said it brought back memories of his brother, who died at the age of 16 but who loved the summer sea.  "He loved the summer waves and you have made a shot of just that summer sea with blue and yellow. That impressed me very much and touched my heart."  And so he re-envisioned the blue and yellow and created his own summer sea.

I've been so inspired by the amazing photographers and artists I've met here in blog-land and on flickr, and I'm so humbled that my work has touched someone else.  That's what it's all about.  Thank you!

You can find some of my work, and Eckhard's, along with thousands of other photographers, artists, writers, and creative souls, on redbubble.  Support your favorite photographer or artist by purchasing their work.  It puts beauty in your hands and dinner on our tables. xoxo

the 53 project : week 5

I'm not a birdwatcher with a capital B, but I do love to observe birds doing their bird-thing.  Besides the obvious attractions of their beauty and their amazing flying skills, birds are kind of quirky and funny, aren't they?  Skinny legs.  Knobby knees.  Handless, as my pal Michel says. 

And birds are everywhere we go.  When I lived in New York City, there was a pigeon who persistently came in my (screenless) bedroom window and tried to build a nest on my desk. One day I came home and found a perfect pigeon egg on my pillow.  I kept that egg for many years before it finally broke to pieces.

Here are some of the birds I saw with this week. 

 A winter robin in bird-berry heaven.

 Bird stop.

It's like some kind of bird morse code.

 A big puddle of rainwater and snowmelt attracted lots of seagull action.

Farewell!

You can see lots more bird photos here.

I'll leave you with a stanza of Wallace Stevens' 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird:

I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.