It’s unfortunately been a while since I’ve been able to post. We’ve moved past the “big move” now, although still unpacking boxes. I think that’s going to be forever. Here’s an American Coot duck from Nisqually Wildlife Refuge.
photographs
Flicker, not Flickr
Walking down toward the river one sunny day, I saw these flickers having their way with a bit of wood. Northern Flickers, a subspecies of the woodpecker family, love their wood and love to peck. A pair of flickers and they stayed around for quite a while offering me a lovely photo opportunity.
Rocks and feathers; feathers and rocks
Remnants of an overnight stay. I go down to the river’s edge early in the morning, walk the perimeter and search for the details, the hints or evidence of recent activity. These feathers speak of the recent visit by a flow of Canadian Geese that took some respite before I arrived.
Here comes the sun…
An old soul, or just come from a battle. Early morning, that intense eagle-eye focus. What does he see? What is he looking for? Watching for a mate, or for prey? Weathered by time. Like the lines in a mature person’s face, the raggedness of its wings tells a tale all its own. Strength, determination, survival. Aged, alert, sage, wisdom. So many words to describe this moment in this eagle’s journey.
Wings and Sunshine
Movement, action, sunshine, and a bird’s wing. Capturing a moment in time, a bit of su nlight caught in this bird’s wing as it preens. That curve, that tilt of a head, that fan of the wing. It’s just that moment that makes photographing such a joy.
Merganser at Nisqually
A common merganser scoping out the low tide at Nisqually Wildlife. The the hairdo on these little guys, they are so cute to watch. The epitome of bad hair days or just plain punk style and ready to rock and roll.
Blue bells and cockle shells
Mistress Mary, Quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With Silver Bells, And Cockle Shells,
And so my garden grows.–Wikipedia
An old rhyme (1744), “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary,” which this photograph brought to mind. These pretty posies aren’t silver bells, but they are bluebells, and growing profusely in the spring. Looking forward to photographing wildflowers this year, hopefully in the not too distant future.
From the Unplug Collection
One of the images included in my 2018 Autumn Collection, “Unplug.”
Unplug. Open up, unclog, clear away. Reveal and free up…
This busy world can leave a person frozen and totally blocked as the world whizzes by, making us feel dizzy and clogged with activity, city smog, worldly clanging noises, trying to stuff more and more into our brains, into our phones, into our life. Stop now! Take a breath. Ease in, ease out. There’s no better place to escape, than into the Pacific Northwest temperate rain forests infused with a primitive, magical silence and scents and sounds that refill the well. Step back, breathe, set that phone aside come with TA Gallup, along the trail, and see what the photographer sees when she gets outside and lets nature have its healing way, and emerge refreshed and invigorated, able to see through the noise once again.
More than 100 images predominantly from Thurston and Lewis Counties, of Washington state’s temperate rain forest experience as the photographer sees it, and photographs it, both intimate moments and breathtaking landscape vistas. Colors that spark the imagination, walks that ignite inspiration. Unplug. Open up, unclog, clear away. Reveal and free up… This busy world can leave a person frozen and totally blocked as the world whizzes by, making us feel dizzy and clogged with activity, city smog, worldly clanging noises, trying to stuff more and more into our brains, into our phones, into our life. Stop now! Take a breath. Ease in, ease out. There’s no better place to escape, than into the Pacific Northwest temperate rain forests infused with a primitive, magical silence and scents and sounds that refill the well. Step back, breathe, set that phone aside join TA Gallup, along the trail, and see what the photographer sees when she gets outside and lets nature have its healing way, and emerge refreshed and invigorated, able to see through the noise once again. More than 100 images predominantly from Thurston and Lewis Counties, of the Washington state temperate rain forest experience as the photographer sees it, and photographs it, both intimate moments and breathtaking landscape vistas. Colors that spark the imagination, walks that ignite inspiration.
A Digital Age of Photography
I tend to think the world of technology has changed the world of photography. Hugely changed in many respects. We are now developing into a different creative form of imagery, used in both good and bad ways. Just by using images as memes makes it a more diversified creative medium, or creative manipulation as another example, switching heads and bodies and backgrounds like a round with paper dolls. Cameras have also become much more user-friendly, with a wide range of possibilities for the average consumer, including phones.
The rush of freeway traffic
When it was film and not digital, I was more judicious about taking photographs, learning about settings, composition, ISO, speed, and using them with an educated, careful eye. Film and processing was expensive. Our tools have changed. Such as using photo processing software and phone apps. We used chemicals and settings and certain types of cameras, certain types of filters, processing equipment, perhaps creative filters we designed ourselves. And the audience and places to share images are much more global.
Today, we have different tools, larger audiences, and photography is becoming a very different type of art form than what we remember it to be. In some respects I love that I can be more creative and design differently. In others, I fondly remember the judiciousness of film imagery.
Like most mediums of art, photography is individual. As when I write fiction, I have one thing in my mind about what that story is. The reader takes away something else. It comes from different life experiences and perspective.
For me, it isn’t simply about taking a “perfect” photo. It’s about the art of photography,
Song sparrow giving us a beautiful seranade
it’s about nature and environment, and how I perceive something. I prefer macro to landscape, I prefer intimate, unguarded moments with people and places rather than portraiture. Photography is multi-stepped: it’s about choosing the subject, about the taking of the picture, as well as the processing of the images, be that film or digital. Photography is about the composition in your mind, the colors, the shapes, the imagery and how you want to represent what you see. It’s about playing with settings, it’s about capturing the emotion and wonder and peace or excitement of that moment and what I, as the photographer, find exciting about that visualization.
Be it a painter, a photographer, a writer, creativity is about personal perception. Representing a world that we see, and sharing that perception with others.
But there is another side to taking photographs. Because it’s become so easy to take picttures at every turn, 
it’s also about copyrights and personal privacy, and the ethics of taking photographs and being sensitive about what I take pictures of, respecting the space of people or animals, places, and being educated on practicing this art form.
I love taking pictures, I love being out in nature, surrounded by so much beauty and passion and inspiration. I can’t help wanting to capture a moment, of sharing that moment. See what I see in a way I see it. My own mind’s eye.
The world is a beautiful place, filled with moments worth sharing.
Reflections in Texas
Tall buildings, skyscrapers and reflections in Houston, Texas.
TA Gallup Photography 