Focus on Phoneography

As we wrap up the month of June and its theme of patterns, we are continually amazed by your beautiful captures!  Thank you all so much for sharing your art!  

Focus On You

Today's photo is from Pam, aka AFishGirl, and the moment I saw it in our flickr pool I fell in love. Can you find all the patterns going on here? There are so many things to love about this photo; the black and white, the swing of the little girl's hair, and the bubbles, oh the bubbles. All of it is so good. Pam has an amazing ability to catch childhood in its sweetest moments. You can see more of her work right here, be sure to visit. Thank you Pam for playing with us this week!

There are still a few days left for this months theme, so keep your images coming. Tell me where does the time go? We are looking July right in the face! Thanks to all of you who play along and fill our flickr pool with beauty.

Have a glorious weekend. . .

My garden is agreeable . . .

by Kim

"One of the new things people began to find out in the last century was that

thoughts-just mere thoughts-are as powerful as electric batteries-as good for

one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one get

into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If

you let it stay there after it has got in you may never get over it as long as you

live...surprising things can happen to any one who, when a disagreeable or

discouraged thought comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember in time

and push it out by putting in an agreeable determinedly courageous one. Two

things cannot be in one place.

"Where you tend a rose my lad, a thistle cannot grow."

- Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

Sometimes the ebb and flow of life will hand you a detour, a very disagreeable detour, and one that will require some off road driving with a few bumps.

And sometimes, sometimes it can be so hard to navigate disagreeable, especially when the path is not easily seen, and definitely not familiar.

Unless of course, you have an agreeable garden, which I very much do! Maybe not so much in the abundance of plants, but in the diversity of its patterns and rhythm, and in it's good-naturedness.

So every morning I start my day on my front porch in search of agreeable amongst the disagreeable even in a good natured garden.

I have a lizard that comes to greet me each morning waiting for me to spritz her favorite plant with water. A momma who feeds her baby birds that have fledged the nest and is no longer dive bombing me. For bees and butterflies and for caterpillars and toads.

And just recently I've had dozens of dragonflies hanging out in the garden like angels. Their wings shimmering in the gentle breeze like gold. Coming over and hovering right in front of me, one by one. And not just dragonflies, but damselflies too.

I've never seen so many in my garden before, and certainly not all at once for this long. I have had many interesting encounters with dragonflies in the past as well, so I decided to look up their Native American symbolism. And wouldn't you know the dragonfly represents transformation and life's ever constant process of change and the understanding of the deeper meaning of life. Things that make me go . . . hmmm.

So since two things can't be in the same place, I'm trying to give my attention to the rose. But the silver lining is that even if a thistle is found nearby . . . they attract butterflies!

What is your agreeable?

Focus on You

Have you ever really taken the time to look closely at a pine-cone? What you find will amaze you; all types of patterns inside and out. Thank you Kate Ter Haar for sharing this beautiful treasure from nature with us this week in our flickr stream. You can find more of Kate's lovely photos right here, be sure to check her out.

Keep your eyes open this week for unexpected patterns and then be sure to share them with us on flickr and Instagram. Thanks again Kate for playing with us this week.

Do You See a Pattern Here?

by Dotti

So … how are you doing in your quest for patterns this month? Me? You ask how I’m doing? Well … true confession time. Not. Very. Well.

You see, I tend not to think in patterns but since I had a post due today, I thought I’d better put on my pattern-thinking-cap. Normally, I ‘see’ patterns, I just don’t notice them. Or maybe it’s the other way around. I ‘notice’ but don’t  see. In any event, I think it’s safe to say I’m ‘pattern challenged’.

It’s no secret that I love to take photos of flowers, so  I tip-toed out to the garden to see what patterns I could find. As you might imagine, they were everywhere!

And there were lots of different shapes and different colors but all had patterns of their own.

Then I realized some were newer than others.

Some were past their prime. And I found that when I took out the color, I could see the patterns even more clearly.

But wait … It’s not only flowers, there are lots of patterns everywhere … if we just bother to look. Or notice. Whichever.

And if we let ourselves, we can begin to correlate patterns to our lives, as Kelly shared just a few days ago.

We have always had patterns in our days, our weeks, our months, our years. Babies demand pattern by their need for routine. When they’re hungry every 2 hours, that’s the pattern. Children have patterns, in their play and in their schooling and sports.

As adults our patterns change, too, as we move from one set of patterns to another but they always dominate our lives. We just don’t always notice them.

That’s what’s so cool about ‘focusing on life’! If we hang out a lot with our cameras and with other photographers, we’ll soon recognize the patterns that exist all around us and all through us, the seen and the unseen. It’s called ‘being present now’.

There is still plenty of time for you to share the patterns in your lives with us here in the comments, in the Flickr pool, or on Instagram. If you’re like me and  bit pattern challenged, this is a good time to stop, look around, find some patterns and click your shutter.

Paying Attention to Patterns

by Kelly

My neighbor’s coneflowers are blooming.

Now, I know what you’re thinking…  ‘Well that’s great Kelly, but really?  A blog post about your neighbor’s coneflowers? What’s the big deal?’

Well the big deal is that I dearly love purple coneflowers. I love their divine color.  The ordered arrangement of petals.  And with these especially, the way the late evening sun washes them in a magical golden light and sets them all aglow.

As I was traipsing through my neighbor’s front yard the other night with my camera, I thought to myself, ‘well this is kind of silly…why would you take another picture of mrs. graham’s coneflowers?  you’ve taken pictures of them for the past two years.  move on…find something different to photograph.’

But I love these coneflowers.  And I look forward to them every year.  Just like I do my daylilies and my shasta daisies.

I love that about gardening… this predictable cycle of bloom. From late-February to late November - crocus, daffodils, tulips, iris, peonies, etc. – at any given time I can pretty much expect that something will be blooming.  And purple coneflowers are just one glorious phase in the succession of blooms in the course of my gardening season.

I find so much joy in the routine and rhythm of my garden.  And I like a certain amount of routine in my life as well.  Having an order to my days.  Knowing to a certain degree what will happen from one day to the next.  A pattern to my life if you will.

I don’t know if you’re into this sort of thing, but my daughter says that I am a classic Taurus.

My guess is that if you have been gardening or photographing or blogging or parenting (or whatever!) for any length of time at all, you probably recognize patterns in your own world...in your own life.

And I think there is a place in photography for documenting these routines.  To celebrate or at least give a nod to the patterns that make up our ordinary days.  Morning coffee, daily runs, going to the store, making dinner. These patterns tell us so much about who we are and what we love.

But you know, if all of life was this same predictable routine, day in and day out, well that would get pretty boring.  Monotonous.  Even for me...the Taurus of all Tauruses.   Thankfully life isn't always so predictable. There are always happy surprises in the garden....like when your saucer magnolia just up and re-blooms for no apparent reason.

So today I'm honoring the ordinary.  The routine.  The pattern of our days.  But also, the out of the ordinary, like having your daughter home from college.  Making coffee for two in the morning.

This is the good stuff.

So how about you?  Do you love routine?  What are the predictable routines and patterns in your life?  We'd love for you to share with us in the comments or in our Flickr pool.  There are so many gorgeous images of pattern this month!  Thank you to all who are playing along with this month's theme!  And if you are on Instagram, be sure to tag your photos of patterns with #focusingonlife.  

Until next time, 

Kelly

Exploring metaphors in life . . . through the lens

by Kim

"Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle,
curved tunnels of leaf miners in the face of a leaf. We must somehow
take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe
what's going on here. Then we can at least wail the right question into
the swaddling band of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise."
- Annie Dillard

Have you ever plugged your camera card into the hard drive only to be amazed, but not because your photos were earth shatteringly beautiful, but instead because there was an overwhelming common theme...in fact maybe even a pattern?

One that was just in your face as soon as all those little thumbnails popped up on the screen, even though you certainly didn't see it at the time you took them?

This wouldn't be the first time it's happened.....there have been doors, and windows and fences. Completely unplanned, and entirely spontaneous... all with important messages.

And perhaps, because life can be, on occasion so big,

and chaotic,

sometimes we need another way to look at it . . . even before we know we need to see it differently.

For about the last year and a half I've been exploring my images monthly (Photo-heart Connection), not with a technical eye, but with my heart. Exploring the elements, looking for metaphors that translate to my life. And this practice almost always helps me to better understand certain realities, or at the very least brings them to the forefront for some contemplation.

In these images I see the element of the long road as there have just been things, situations and circumstances that seem never ending, and long, very long.

Although can I say, I must have been a little a lot out of touch that day as I didn't recognize the pattern. Not only the long road, but that nearly every single one veered to the right with a few exceptions.

"The metaphor, then, is not simply a figure of speech. It is a habit of thought,
one we must develop in order to see. The habit of metaphor allows us to see
the large from the small, the pattern in chaos, that which is not expected, that
which is expected, in new ways. Metaphor allows us to see with eyes expanded
beyond the simply literal, the cataloguing of perceptions. Metaphor allows us to
see relationships. Ultimately, it is the relationships which constitute nature, not
collections of individual objects."
                                                     - Steven J. Meyers

Have you ever explored metaphors in your images and what have you found?

Pay Attention

 By Cathy

she sees the patterns of her life clearly now

something to do with her age no doubt

it was not always like this

but now she recalls. . . 

and when she does she understands the patterns  were always there

she just wasn't paying attention

the little girl walks past the wobbly old fence, her red flip-flops

beating out the rhythm of her own walking

flip-flop, flip-flop

her mother is close behind her

 reminding her to not go too far

they emerge at the ocean’s edge and she plays in the sun

while her father fishes on the shore; down the beach from them

later the three of them sit outside the camp site 

and examine her treasures  

tiny seashells, homes for clams and snails, a sand-dollar 

and a few crab claws

he explains how almost all of nature and life has its own pattern

if we only take the time to notice

but the little girl is too busy lining up her seashells in a row 

and hardly listens

  the chestnut brown braid of the teenage girl

almost reaches her waist

as she sit on the floor in the kitchen of her childhood home

she is tethered to the beige telephone

which hangs above her on the wall

and her fingers gently trace the diamond pattern 

of the worm linoleum beneath her

the cord bounces up and down creating a playful pattern 

on the wall behind her

and if she listened carefully

she would hear the rhythm of the rain 

as it hits the glass windowpane

but she is too engaged in the story of  her best friend's break-up

to hear anything but her voice

so again the patterns around her go unnoticed  

years later, as a new mother, she tells her husband she has figured  out  

the sleeping pattern of their new son

only to have to tell him the very next day that it has changed

she is in awe of their son's toes and the symmetry of his little body

perfect in every way and she can’t get enough of him

she reads to him, repeated words and sings songs

clapping out the rhythm

as the itsy bitsy spider climbs higher and higher

but she is so tired she can hardly manage a shower

and again the patterns go unnoticed

today the patterns of her life delight her so

the making of her morning latte, the walks she and the dog take, 

the flowers in her garden

her daily photo

patterns emerge all around her

winter crystal snowflakes

does he love me or love me not petals of the daisy

summer ladybug wings

and butterscotch orange leaves

her father was right and she understands this now

 and she wishes she could thank him

thank him for all he taught that little girl 

because today. . .

there is not a day that goes by 

that she does not pay attention

to the simple patterns of her every day life

:::

what patterns do you notice in your view finder? 

xoxoxo 

The Dance of Repetition

by Susan

OK, let me just start off by saying that I 'love-love-love' {pattern} this month's theme.  Patterns are everywhere!  In our photos, nature... our surroundings... in the way we conduct our lives... and yes... even in the way we write {... pattern}.

As far as photography, patterns are right in front of you... so take notice!  There are patterns of identical repetition with an uninterrupted flow... like the photo above. The pattern and color repeats itself in the tiny leaves and it flows.  But what happens when you just add a bit of color to a repetitive set?  You break the pattern!  And in photography this is known as capturing the interruption of the flow of a pattern.  It's as if the subject is saying... notice me, not the others, just like the image below.

Whether you are photographing an image that completely fills the frame, giving it a much larger feel than it actually is…

... or photographing a small cluster of a repetitive pattern... with a small break in it. {that little upside down toothpick}

Just try to focus on bringing out the best in the patterns that you see... and take your best shot.  You know... repetitions in everyday life sometimes can be... well... repetitious.  I say, open your eyes and see the beauty in the repetition around you. You'll be amazed at how beautiful the dance of repetition is... in photography... and... in life.

xo's...