Monthly Archives: December 2014

Holiday Twinkle

My neighborhood is filled with light this time of the year. Icicle lights hang from eves, nets of lights hang on shrubs, and I even noticed some new light sources projecting light on the walls of houses and words onto a garage.

Tonight, with peppermint hot chocolate in hand, we set off for a nighttime walk around the neighborhood to appreciate the twinkle of lights decorating the neighbors’ houses. With only my iPhone as camera, I tried my hand at some night photography. It’s pretty clear that I still have some work to do at improving in this area of photography.

I loved these lanterns hanging from a tree. They seem to be a string of colored lights arranged in chicken wire.

I had fun playing around with this snowman. Using the app Big Lens, I was able to focus on the snowman and blur the background and then use a filter called snow to create a chilling effect! (And trust me, it’s not snowing here!)

Here’s a version without the snow effect.

There are lots of colorful lights hanging from bushes, wrapped around palm trees, and outlining doorways. Some flash, some blink, and some stay lit steadily.

There are elaborate displays…some reminiscent of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation…and others more serene like this one with two deer in lights.

And as much as I enjoy these twinkling holiday lights, I find myself drawn to nature’s twinkle of sun on water. I am a sucker for a beautiful sunset…and take too many photos of them. This one from earlier this week was particularly beautiful with the clouds hunched along the horizon.

And I love the twinkle of the clouds reflected in the still water of the lagoon after yesterday’s storm. If you look closely you can see a ripple of the breeze along the water.

As we head towards our shortest day, light becomes the focus of holiday celebrations. I notice myself seeking out the light…looking for sunrises and sunsets, holiday light displays and candlelight. There is something both calming and energizing about the light of late fall as we celebrate winter holidays.

What light draws your attention? Where do you find the twinkle of light in your life?

Weekly Photo Challenge: Wet

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Do you speak in images? Enjoy taking photos to document your experiences or just to express what you notice in the world? Love to share them with others? Welcome to the weekly photo challenge! I post a new challenge each week…check in regularly and join the fun!

Here in Southern California we’re in the third year of drought conditions…and our normal rainfall is only ten inches annually, so you know it’s dry. So when we get a forecast of rain, it’s an event! Yesterday we were hearing the news of the storm that hit Northern California and watched the clouds begin to gather on our own horizon. I love the drama of the clouds yesterday afternoon along the coast with the lifeguard tower in the foreground.

As promised, rain arrived this morning. The morning commute was quite an adventure with dark clouds and rain making it look almost like nighttime at 7:00am! My windshield wipers raced and my tires created plumes of water as I drove through the rain pooling in large puddles in the street.

And in spite of the leaky roof in my classroom and a rainy day schedule with kids spending their recesses and lunch in the classroom, we had a great day. And we so need the rain! Lucky for all of us, we were able to head outdoors for Friday afternoon Cardio Club…into the sunshine with blue skies in evidence!

After school I couldn’t resist heading toward the beach to take a few pictures of the clouds and sun along the coast. This view is looking south near the mouth of the lagoon.

And even though it hadn’t rained in a few hours, when I arrived at home and opened my car door my eye was drawn to the raindrops on the clover-like grass growing in my lawn. These truly precious wet jewels glistened in the afternoon sun against the green of the grass.

Where do you find the wet in your world? (And I’d love to learn some techniques to take better photos of rain!) It could be on your dishes as you wash them, trickling down that festive holiday cocktail, in your pet’s water bowl, or outside…in your yard, community or the natural spaces around you.

You can post your photo alone or along with some words: commentary, a story, a poem…maybe even a song! I love to study the photographs that others’ take and think about how I can use a technique, an angle, or their inspiration to try something new in my own photography. (I love a great mentor text…or mentor photo, in this case!)

I share my photography and writing on social media. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter using @kd0602. If you share your photos and writing on social media too, please let me know so I can follow and see what you are doing. To help our Weekly Photo community find each other, use the hashtag #wet for this week and include @nwpianthology in your post.

So follow the water and find where it pools…what does wet look like through your lens?