Nurture Self 365

365 Self Portrait Challenge: Day Three Hundred Eighteen:

November 26, 2012 in ma365, Photo Challenge, Photography, Self-Portrait | Tags: acorn, Bay Area, clear, content, crisp, exercise, grand daughter, grandaughter, happiness, happy, nature, quotes, sticks, sun, sunny, sunshine, walk | 1 comment

“Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.” Eleanor Roosevelt

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” Mahatma Gandhi

The quote that I have chosen for today really resonates. I completely, totally and one hundred percent agree that happiness is a by-product of your daily choices and actions. In fact, I had to include a second quote to underscore the first quote . . . I’m a very happy person these days. So much of my life is in harmony with who I am deep inside. It has not always been so. I’ve been on a journey to harmony in my life, and have seen healing and happiness in the lives of those around me as a result. There was a time when I had division, discord, depression, unhappiness ruling my experience of life. I am so fortunate to be in a place now where I am happy, healthy, and able to share that with the people I love.

This photo was taken with my iPad as hubby, baby girl and I were out for a walk on a beautiful sunny Bay Area day. I took it with an App called HDR Pro that creates the HDR right when you are taking the shot. Thus it is a little fuzzy. That’s Ella’s curly mop on the lower right.

The little one was so happy to be out in the fresh air, walking, picking up sticks and playing with acorns that have fallen by buckets off the trees. It’s one of those afternoons where everything is right with the world. The birds are singing, the air is clean and crisp . . . and our only concern is keeping her from falling in the creek!

Happiness.

– 318-365

365 Self Portrait Challenge: Day Three Hundred Seventeen:

November 25, 2012 in ma365, Photo Challenge, Photography, Self-Portrait | Tags: Bay Area, city, country girl, dash, lights, Oakland, Oakland Hills, san francisco, Shoot, sunset, transportation, treasure Island, vantage points | Leave a comment

“We’re crazy about this city. First time we came here, we walked the streets all day, all over town and nobody hassled us… Los Angeles? That’s just a big parking lot where you buy a hamburger for the trip to San Francisco.” – John Lennon

I left my heart in San Francisco . . . there truly is something about this city that draws one back to it over and over again. It is a beautiful city – one I love to visit but care not to live in. That’s because I’m just not a city girl. I’m a country girl at heart – but love the lights and the history of this golden city. I know it fairly well as I lived in the Bay Area for many years. On this particular day, hubby and I were out and about looking to shoot the sunset. We drove up in to the Oakland Hills, but were un-inspired. The sun was still above the horizon when we decided to dash the 1/2 hour to Treasure Island. It was well worth the effort. I think it must be one of the best vantage points for photographing the lights of San Francisco. We were a bit late for the good sunset shots . . . but this one I liked with the lights so crisp. That’s my shadow as I was attempting to get in to the shot. I had to clamber over some rather large boulders on the water’s edge . . . and finally just gave up and accepted this as my 365 shot.

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365 Self Portrait Challenge: Day Three Hundred Sixteen:

November 24, 2012 in ma365, Photo Challenge, Photography, Self-Portrait | Tags: celebrate, Christmas, fabric, goodness, human kind, love, ripple, season, soul, spirit, winter | Leave a comment

“Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.” Calvin Coolidge

Black Friday. Everyone goes shopping on Black Friday! Well, everyone except us! I won’t be caught anywhere near a shopping mall between now and the New Year! The frenzy and madness are just too much . . . Christmas is not about the best gift I can buy for someone . . . it’s about the love and caring and sharing of spirit between you and the people you love. We’ve just become a society too caught up in commercialism . . . and have forgotten what it is to give from the heart. Today we spent time with family at a local “farm” that was a pumpkin patch and corn maze just a month ago, but is now decked out for Christmas with snow slides, horse rides, and many other fun activities for families to enjoy. The snow is all machine made because it really doesn’t snow here in the Central Valley of California.

That doesn’t matter though – because the spirit of Christmas is in our souls, not in our surroundings. If we are lucky, we carry that spirit with us all year round. We just celebrate it more at Christmas. I’m not a religious person, so I put this all in a context of the goodness that each and every one of us has the potential to share with one another. It’s all about choice . . . and maybe, just maybe – the goodness and loving spirit that I share with everyone I cross paths with has a positive ripple effect on the very fabric of human kind.

That’s my hope anyway.

Let the Christmas Season Begin!

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365 Self Portrait Challenge: Day Three Hundred Fifteen:

November 23, 2012 in ma365, Photo Challenge, Photography, Self-Portrait | Tags: daughter, Family, giving, grand kids, grateful, gratefulness, precious, thanks, thanksgiving | Leave a comment

“May your stuffing be tasty
May your turkey plump,
May your potatoes and gravy
have nary a lump.
May your yams be delicious
and your pies take the prize,
and may your Thanksgiving dinner
stay off your thighs!”
–Unknown

We’re back from our week in Vegas just in time for Thanksgiving with family. My daughter went all out to provide a beautiful setting, and serve a delicious traditional meal. Of course, the best part of the whole day was just spending time with people that I love. I wish the entire family could be there. I miss the days when we would rent out a local Community Hall and have a huge pot luck for all the family and friends that could show up. Those were the days! However, we all live in different cities and have extended family obligations . . . not so easy to get together. I am so very grateful for the time I am able to spend with my kids and my grand kids. Since I live so far away, and don’t get to see them often enough, moments like this are priceless for me, and for them.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

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365 Self Portrait Challenge: Day Three Hundred Fourteen:

November 22, 2012 in ma365, Photo Challenge, Photography, Self-Portrait | Tags: belly laugh, blocks, fun, giggle, grand, Grandchildren, Granddaughter, laugh, memories, play, playtime, wooden blocks, YaYa | Leave a comment

“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.” Fred Rogers

I woke up this morning, after being away for a week at my 365 Vegas Meetup, to find a little girl at the side of my bed yanking on my pillow and saying “Up YaYa! UP! Play! Me!” over and over . . . until I finally rolled on to the floor and played “blocks’ with her. As much as I enjoyed my time with my fellow 365’ers, I really missed my precious little Grand Daughter, and apparently she missed me as well! Moments like this are just to precious to waste.

I had to document it as my 365 Self Portrait for the day. I’ll be leaving again in a week for almost a month in Hawaii . . . so I cherish each and every moment I get with her. I just love watching her at play . . . she is so intent on what she is doing. One second she’s immersed quite seriously on the task at hand, and the next moment she is reduced to a belly laugh and giggles that consume her whole body. Who can resist that?? Sure gets my day off to a great start!

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365 Self Portrait Challenge: Day Three Hundred Thirteen:

November 21, 2012 in ma365, Photo Challenge, Photography, Self-Portrait | Tags: blue sky, desert, hot desert, joshua tree, joshua trees, mojave, mojave desert, nature, outdoors, plants, sf bay area, yucca, yucca brevifolia | Leave a comment

“One time I saw a tiny Joshua tree sapling growing not too far from the old tree. I wanted to dig it up and replant it near our house. I told Mom that I would protect it from the wind and water it every day so that it could grow nice and tall and straight. Mom frowned at me. “You’d be destroying what makes it special,” she said. “It’s the Joshua tree’s struggle that gives it its beauty.” Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

Today we’re on the way back to SF Bay Area after a truly amazing Meetup with my fellow 365’ers. On our drive to Vegas, I was quite taken with the Joshua Trees all along the Mojave Desert stretches. I decided that I had to take my 365 Photo with one of these beautiful creatures. The average “tree” we saw was less than a few feet tall. This was one of the biggest we saw from the road. There were a few massive ones that we could not get close to because of fences etc.

Truly breathtaking that something like this can survive for hundreds of years in the dry hot desert . . .

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365 Self Portrait Challenge: Day Three Hundred Twelve:

November 20, 2012 in ma365, Photo Challenge, Photography, Self-Portrait | Tags: 70-200mm VR II, D800, D800E, edit, flash, Image Editing, Lake Mead, Las Vegas, Las Vegas Nevada, light trails, Lightroom, lights, LR4, meetup, moon, moonlight, night sky, starry, stars, sync flash, Valley of Fire | 2 comments

“The night before I left Las Vegas I walked out in the desert to look at the moon. There was a jeweled city on the horizon, spires rising in the night, but the jewels were diadems of electric and the spires were the neon of signs ten stories high.” ~Norman Mailer

We drove back to the Valley of Fire this afternoon to catch the sunset. We then drove back through the northern edge of Lake Mead and found this amazing spot where the lights from Vegas were just stunning. We set up the tripod and I attempted to do star trails, but didn’t really succeed. Not dark enough. However, I did capture the stars, the moon, and light trails from all the airplanes in the sky over the city. We were here for over an hour and a half . . . mesmerized. Only a few cars passed by on the road while we were there. This shot is my attempt at doing sync flash – something MTM taught us when we shot on the Strip a few nights ago. Not sure I was 100% successful as it seems the background is out of focus. The first shot is the original with just a bit of LR4 editing.

D800e, 70-200mm VRII lens @ 70mm, 2 sec @ f6.3, 800ISO, and SB800 flash mounted on camera set at zero.

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I ended up not really liking that the background was out of focus, so took it in to LR4 and reworked it . . . adding in the starry moonlit sky from another photo I took just a bit earlier in the evening. I think I like the reworked version best.

This is my edited/reworked version.

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365 Self Portrait Challenge: Day Three Hundred Eleven:

November 19, 2012 in ma365, Photo Challenge, Photography, Self-Portrait | Tags: celebrities, celebrity, Las Vegas, Las Vegas Nevada, Las Vegas Sign, las vegas strip, movie star, reflection, Secret Agent, sign, sun, sunburst | Leave a comment

“I don’t believe you have to be better than everybody else. I believe you have to be better than you ever thought you could be.” Ken Venturi

Today is the last day of our 365 Vegas Meetup. Most are leaving today, or have left already this morning. My husband and I have decided to stay for a couple more days, as we would like to go back to a couple of the places we didn’t feel like we got enough time in . . . such as the Valley of Fire. A group of us decided to get our picture taken and the Las Vegas sign at one end of the Strip. There was quite a line up of people waiting to take pictures, as well as an Elvis personality and two Vegas Showgirls with whom you could get your photo taken if you wanted to pay them for it. We ended up standing in the lineup for quite some time waiting for all of our people to show up. I took this shot of Frank (a fellow 365’er) as we waited. I was so pleasantly surprised when I opened this up on my computer to see this amazing sunburst and the great reflection in his glasses! Score! He kind of reminds me of one of those Secret Agent types in this shot. Or a movie star!

I also love the quote I found for today that seems to totally fit the mood of this photo. Be the absolute best that you can be and you will shine beyond measure. You can certainly use what others have done to inspire and motivate, but don’t compete with others to be the best of the best . . . compete against yourself. Your beautiful aura will then leave a positive impact on everyone who passes through your experience of life. And YOU are the only one who can make it happen . . . GO FOR IT!

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365 Self Portrait Challenge: Day Three Hundred Ten:

November 18, 2012 in ma365, Photo Challenge, Photography, Self-Portrait | Tags: camera, dawn, Las Vegas, light trails, meetup, Nevada, Oakland Hills, Red Rock, shutter speed, sunrise, tripod, Valley of Fire | Leave a comment

“Ultimately photography is about who you are. It’s the truth in relation to yourself. And seeking truth becomes a habit.” – Leonard Freed

We arose at 3:30 this morning to catch the sunrise in the Valley of Fire – about an hour drive from the house we rented in Vegas. It was pretty spectacular, as we shot in the dark at first – learning how to do light trails as MTM drove his car down the park road towards our bank of tripods all set with slow shutter speeds. As the sun started to peek over the horizon, we all scattered in our different directions to capture the beauty. This shot below was taken well after the sun was up in an area of gorgeous red-rock formations.

I detest early mornings, but this trip was so well worth the effort of getting up before dawn!

I would do it again in a heartbeat . . .

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365 Self Portrait Challenge: Day Three Hundred Nine:

November 17, 2012 in ma365, Photo Challenge, Photography, Self-Portrait | Tags: architecture, artistic, Death Valley, documenting, ghost, Ghost Town, interpretation, Las Vegas, meetup, Oakland Hills, paradise, photographer, Photography, Rhyolite | Leave a comment

“To be a photographer, one must photograph. No amount of book learning, no checklist of seminars attended, can substitute for the simple act of making pictures. Experience is the best teacher of all. And for that, there are no guarantees that one will become an artist. Only the journey matters…” Harry Callahan

Viva Las Vegas . . . Day Two. We drove in a caravan out to Death Valley today. We spent most of the afternoon exploring Rhyolite, a small ghost town on the edge of Death Valley. I could have spent the entire day there – it was that interesting. There were old buildings and rail cars, and a very eclectic Museum with very interesting statues and artifacts. It’s really a Photographers paradise. We spread from one end of the site to the other . . . all immersed in our own creative juices attempting to put our own unique spin on what we were documenting here. We didn’t actually make it in to Death Valley because we ran out of time . . . and it was very cold and overcast by time nightfall came. Our intention was to photograph the sunset, and then get some star trails . . . but that wasn’t going to happen with an overcast sky. Oh well . . . we left Rhyolite feeling very pleased with ourselves and wishing we’d had more time there!

This photo was taken in an old abandoned cabin. I applied some HDR processing, and tweaked a bit more in Photoshop.