A different creative pursuit~

Seems a little silly to write a blog to say I'm still not writing fiction. I wish that I could, but I'll have to be patient a bit longer. I've had dry spells longer than this one and I'm sure it will pass. Certain life changes have made writing seem less important than it was, like an innocence I once had that has been lost. My garden, flush with flowers early in the summer, has dried and been overtaken by weeds. There will be no tomatoes this year.


I have taken up a new creative hobby though- photography. It gets me out of the house and thinking creatively. I should probably post more photos here instead of Facebook, where folks are probably getting tired of seeing them all. I'm just teaching myself via Google and making things up as I go that look good to me. I'm looking for challenges. So far, I've done portraits, landscapes, birds, night sky, and waterfalls, with varying levels of success. I'd really like to try capturing lightning, but we just haven't had that much around here this summer. My camera isn't capable of the super long exposure times (25-30 seconds) for night sky stars, so I guess that will have to wait for a more expensive camera. It does great sunrises, sunsets, and full moons, but that's because it likes the light.

My favorite subject at the moment is birds. The fact that it's summer makes them relatively easy to find.

I've seen more birds than I've been able to catch, but it sure is fun trying. The ones that got away - a Belted kingfisher and a Great Blue Heron. Snapping a picture sure makes it easy to look up the bird later in the ID book.

The challenge giving me fits right now is waterfalls. I'm trying to learn the technique for making that soft, flowy looking water. I've only managed it once and it was kind of an accident.

The trick is you need low light and a long shutter speed. The long shutter speed lets in too much light if it's a sunny day and washes the whole thing out. I'm going to try a polarizing lens and see if that helps me get more consistent results. Luckily, there's lots of waterfalls around here to practice on. Peace~