Based on positive feedback I received, appreciating integrating “Today’s Photos” with “Self-Reflecting Queries,” I am continuing that format today. So be sure to scroll through the whole of today’s Picture to Ponder.
Tonight (Wednesday, November 4th) I will be interviewing camera expert, Ingrid Owens of Camera Shy. She will be sharing answers to questions she’s asked on buying and using the digital camera.
She will also be sharing the one quick tip she has for improving your photographs before even taking them. There is still time to register for the call and/or get the MP3 recording if you can’t be on the call. See Point and Shoot Photo Courses – Camera Shy. Moving on to TODAY’S PHOTOS and QUERIES –
I promised I would be featuring unusual mushroom photos from my Sunday walk in the American Orchid Society Gardens. While opening the folder in which I placed the pictures, this backlit leaf, kept calling to me. I LOVE the colors, the boldness and strength and at the same time, the rhythm of the very faint and delicate lines of the veins of the leaf. The faint vertical lines from another plant serve to ground the main image.
Back lit leaf in AOS Gardens
Where in your life are there strong contrasts of strength and delicacy? Do they add up to balance? If one is more prominent than another, is there a shift you might like to make?
Moving on from those questions, I invite you to consider the following.
WHAT IF ….
- you quickly saw the things others are missing?
- you were a hotbed of recurring new ideas?
- you had new openings for communication?
- you had access to shifting moods in an instant?
- you had a best friend available 24 hours/day?
- this all were fun and easy?
It’s so SIMPLE. Amazing breakthroughs in the scenarios are what participants experience in my Point and Shoot Telecourses. The day session of the next 4-week course starts on Wednesday, November 11th; evening Monday, November 16th. See POINT AND SHOOT.
Mushrooms on a path in the AOS Gardens
I am always amazed. I have been visiting the American Orchid Society Gardens for six and a half years. EACH time I visit, I see something I’ve never seen before AND as you see in the above, it’s not always a carefully, placed orchid, or other, plant.
I invite you to look into your life at one or more situations or places where you are not paying attention. After all, they are “ordinary”, “everyday” … Now, that you’ve paused to look, what new can you find?
The mushrooms above were one of several groupings near the edge of a path. A couple groups were right in the middle of the walkway. As their colors blended with the environment from which they emerged, they were undoubtedly invisible to most people and thus got stepped on.
It’s the grouping and the flow I enjoy in the above photograph AND as I look at it now, I’m more cognizant of the groupings within – the couple, the threesome and the charming, delicate, flowerlike mushroom on the left, almost in the middle.
Are you blending in or standing out in your life? Are you more comfortable tightly grouped with one or more others in your circle(s)? Can you step back and recognize the beauty of the whole of your communities?
This second grouping of mushrooms was in a different section of the AOS gardens, a little more off the pathway. Here I like the curls and folds. What do you appreciate when you look at the image?
That’s it for the “deep” queries for today.
As always, have fun and look around you with playful eyes.
Upcoming Programs that Will Enhance Your Life
1 – In addition to my Telecourse answering What Ifs :
2 – For those in business, I invite you to check out my friend Adela Rubio’s Conscious Business Telesummit 3-week series of calls, a gathering of Conscious Business Leaders eager to share the models and methods of Conscious Business, including –
Make a 6-Figure Income with a 3-Figure List
Charge What you Deserve Now
Create Your Conscious Business Story and more…
Easy-to-listen to and keen herself, Adela is interviewing well-known, successful, conscious business owners ready to share their profitable business models and their expertise.
3 – For those who are caregivers, or who know, caregivers, my friend Suzanne Holman is co-facilitating Comfort for Caregivers Telesummit, also a 3-weeks series of calls. I’m in the midst of completing a packet with writing, caregiver tips and photography – ALWAYS LOVE – as one of the bonuses.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
The top photo is an abstract painting to me. I have been studying Georgia O’Keeffe (read bio and now going thru 30 lbs. of books I got at the library), so I am looking at things a little differently now. Yesterday I was driving home and saw a dead branch on someone’s lawn and wanted to stop the car and get out a take pictures of it!! I think you have created a monster! Hee Hee!!
I am so thrilled to know that there is someone like myself, who likes to photograph the “out of the ordinary” things in nature, and who sees objects and faces in the photos. I could immediately see a hobo in your tree log photo, but unfortunately, not a cat. This fall while collecting leaves to press and make photo compositions, I began to appreciate the beauty of a perfectly symmetrical maple leaf with holes in it, or a brown oak leaf. My eyes were constantly on the ground while I searched for a variety of leaves.
My friend pointed out several animals in the patterns on her new granite kitchen counter. Thank you for your photos. I really enjoy them.