July 13, 2008

Photos by Sharon Lee
Beaver Chewed Tree
Pink Poppy
Pink and White Flowers
Two Brown Mushrooms

I've been thinking lately of additional ways to earn income and still keep the free-lance flexibility that I would like to hold onto so I can create art when my creativity is highest not necessarily when the clock has been punched out. For the past six months or so I've been taking nature photographs in the woods as well as in my garden. Each day I attempt to get one or two successful photos taken. This does not mean I only take 1 or 2 photos but perhaps 20 or more. Right now I have about 30 fairly successful photos and I hope to take 20 more before I start scaling down the photos to the absolute best and start the printing, matting, framing process in hopes of selling these photos in several art fairs.

I am often intimidated by the quality of my photographs. A few weeks ago I was watching a documentary on Cindy Sherman and fell in love with the way that she set up photos to tell a story. Some people are brilliant at capturing interesting light, some photographers travel to exotic places and take interesting photos of other cultures and some are remarkable technicians. I feel honestly I have not mastered any of these skills. Then one day I realized that color is my thing as well as nature and I could find my photographic voices through these two things.

June 9, 2008

Yesterday when I was doing early in the day gardening I noticed that some short poppies were coming up in a cluster of about 10. Sorry I have to go back a bit an explain my garden (and do not think it is anywhere near weeded as we have had 3 weeks of rain into many many days of exhaustive heat and humidity-but I digress) Most of my yard is part of one or another flower bed. There's the two beds at the front of the house under the maples and another small spot with all day strong sun. In the shady garden I had planted hostas of many varieties and planted them in a simple pattern, some old traditional orange day lilies. and a nice small leaf ivy which slowly climbs up the wood fence. But let's move on. As you go to the back of my yard you pass a work area of wood-firewood brush, etc under a giant maple tree-hardcore no real beauty to this section of my yard but:

1. It doesn't need to be mowed
2. I love to see piles of firewood-like money in the bank.

At the edge of the shade of the giant maple tree is the first bed I have in full sun and it's a basic the entrance bed for the garden In this bed goes the flowers I treat myself with I had a blue lupine there, a beautiful blue delphinium, striped green and yellow grasses, mint, primrose, ground sedum, comfrey, sweet woodruff and a delightful pink poppy. Last night when I looked I saw only the pods. This morning when I got up to look the pods were still attached to the flower (like a chick coming out of the egg shell) By afternoon the pods had already dropped to the ground and the flowers were fully opened. I took the attached photo this morning around 9:00 am.
Peace Always

Sharon