Neville Ronan Blog

It was three in the morning and all I wanted to do was sleep. But a little black furry guy had other ideas and the increasing intensity of his jumps on me eventually got me into an awake state and my night was over.

I lasted almost an hour begging and pleading with him to let me sleep, but eventually a little before four, I found myself clothed and heading downstairs.

Just outside the front door was Tetsuo who had been out all night (chasing ladies, no doubt), so he was glad to see the door open early and the furless-one-who-feeds-me appear in the doorway.

Similarly, the six in the office/studio also rejoiced as I opened the office door and there was a stampede into the darkness of wild little creatures that seemed to have been locked up for years.

Of course, the wonderful thing about these early morning stampedes is that at the first sound of a dish hitting the floor, the stampede happens in reverse and their cute little faces all look up at me as if they have never even seen food before!

It can’t have been very long after that, that I gathered my camera, a cup of coffee, sat in the car, and headed off to downtown Tampa. Even in the darkness, I could see that the skies were heavily clouded, so the chance of anything sunrise related was remote.

But I was more interested in buildings, shapes, and lights. So on the 30 minute drive into town, I was a happy camper, sipping coffee and thinking thoughts of what to shoot.

I made the Tampa Theatre my initial target and while it is in the first two pics below, it was the wrong time to shoot it. If the under canopy lights had been on, it might have been a cool feature, but frankly, it didn’t work out the way I wanted it to.

But, that was the only part of this early morning adventure that didn’t.

I had a great time wandering around with little or no traffic and several streets to myself. And some of the shots are attached at the end of the blog … hope you enjoy them.

There are a couple of things I want to point out … the reflection of the building top lights in in the passing cloud above (pic 7), and the couple of instances where the traffic lights were caught turning red/green, and then the homeless guy asleep on the sidewalk in pic 6. Richest country in the world … this should never happen.

There was another homeless guy that followed me and rode by me three times on his bicycle and I could feel his eyes on my equipment (keep it clean!) and realized there was a possible danger point here. I stared him down hard on his third pass and puffed out my chest. And thankfully that was the last time I saw him.

But it was that incident that stuck, along with the other guy who looked seriously stoned and when I answered that I didn’t have any cash, wanted to know if I had a card. I thought fleetingly about giving it to him along with my PIN, but I wasn’t really in the giving mood this morning. I mean, seriously; homeless dudes with the ability to process cards … what is this world coming to!

Driving home I was thinking about the good and bad of this morning’s adventure. A quiet downtown really presented me with the chance to explore some city-scapes without having to battle traffic. Several times, I was standing in the middle of the street to get the shot I wanted. But there was definitely a danger element to where I was and some of the people that were there also. I resigned myself to next time, I will have my Glock with me, but it saddened me that this thought even entered my head.

But standing there with almost $3K worth of equipment among dudes that might value my life to be questionable even at the $20 level … well, that’s a bit of a risk, in truth.

I am definitely safer in the company of alligators. Despite what my kids think.

And so the whole aspect of decency/honesty/truthworthiness as traits within living creatures, is what played out in my head while I was driving home.

Right or wrong, I see no malice in non-human animals. There seems to be very little agenda at play in the natural kingdom. The guys with big sharp teeth might want to eat you, but they won’t rob you. And if they do kill you, it is for food, not in malice.

No, malice and subterfuge are distinct traits of us humans and I suspect that these evolved along with our brains when we crawled out of the ponds.

Truth is a concept that we like to elevate and make out how important it is to all of us. Yet, none of us are completely truthful. Everyone has a darkness within them, big or small. It might be controlled or dominant, but it is nonetheless there.

Young couples professing their undying love to each other willingly promise to always tell the truth and build their “forever” relationship on honesty and trustworthiness.

Even in the bible, if you believe it, Jesus says “let he who is without sin, cast the first stone” … confident in the fact that no human is without a darkness.

I love getting lost among animals. I don’t have to wonder if the possum on the bicycle is about to mug me and run off with my camera, or if the raccoon asking for my card is going to pull a knife on me and force me to give them my PIN.

I recall how growing up in a catholic school system i was taught that only humans have souls, animals do not. Hence only humans can go to heaven.

The argument of being created in the likeness of a god is bestowed on humanity, ensuring that we see humans as being somewhat elevated above the rest of the animal kingdom.

Yet humanity is the home of lies, murder, robbery, and almost every negative trait you could think of. If that is what having a soul means, then the joke is on us.

I choose to believe that all creatures are part of the world we live in. An equal part. None are better than others and none are worse.

Oh wait, I forgot humans and their soul shit … they are worse.

… just a thought.

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A prospective client the other day asked me to send him samples of work that would show the detailed aspect of what I could capture. There are some precision mechanical parts that need to be shot.

All of a sudden yesterday (two days later) I remembered his request and realized I hadn’t sent anything.

So, I furtively looked around for anything small in my office that I could quickly (and hopefully clearly) shoot for him and not have him wait any longer.

I found a coin, a glasses screwdriver and tiny screw and while looking I came across my old iPhone. The one that broke a few weeks ago.

It still had power and in the action to power it down, I had to swipe left to right and in so doing, I got stuck with a small shard of glass into my finger from the broken screen.

Smart, huh? A dog with a mallet up his ass could have foreseen that one!

While it hurt a little (getting it out), it didn’t kill me. And hopefully I learned a lesson in the process.

But it did raise the question “Why on earth was I holding on to this phone?”

Things that could potentially have future use, I hang on to. I got that trait from my Dad, whose garage was full of nuts, washers, strange bits of metal, and such. But in all seriousness, what future use could this broken phone possibly have?

Anyway, as I carefully put it back into my desk drawer for some possible future use (no lesson learned, apparently), I began to think about the whole aspect of why we sometimes seem to hang onto things that hurt.

A lot of life is about hurt. Hurt done to us or hurt we do to someone else. So, a lot of our actions and path through life is about navigating past these hurts and moving ourselves onto greener pastures.

Most hurt is singular and gives us an emotional or physical hit that lasts a short period of time. Other hurt is more long lasting and even leaves scars that could be lifelong.

Therapists make a living among such hurts and sometimes they help us put a band-aid on it or even find a cream that heals it and lets us move forward.

In the absence of therapy, we often develop a mechanism that involves taking the hurt, putting it in a box and closing the lid on it. Never more to think about it.

But then there are those of us who occasionally open the lid and allow the hurt out and we are in pain all over again.

Why do we do that? Is it a case of we want ourselves to be hurt? Or do we open the lid, hoping that it has magically turned to dust inside, no longer with the ability to cause pain?

Whatever the reason, it does raise a question mark over the whole locking it away but somehow still hanging onto it!

Surely the right thing to do in situations where we really can’t resolve the pain in that instant, is to actually tackle the hurt, stab it in the heart, and then cremate it.

I’ve been around people who have come through remarkable hurt and yes, even those that carried horrible scars and always would.

Those who survived, mostly did so through therapy and the helpful support of family or friends.

I have also witnessed the cremation route and seen the success that such an aggressive act can achieve.

But whichever route we take, it is really important that we deal with our hurts and not have them lie in wait for us when we least expect it.

They can unravel our lives and do much more damage than a simple shard of glass in a finger.

… just a thought.

It was a gorgeous start to the day and where else would you expect to find me but down lakeside. I couldn’t resist.

The way my schedule has evolved is that there is a chunk of time between having taken care of all the cats first thing in the morning and the eight o’clock moment where my energies need to begin to switch in favor of work.

It is a time of indulgence and it normally lasts a couple of hours or so, with all the early chores completed around 5:30 or 5:45. And with the lake only a 15 or 20 minute drive away, It has become a natural spot to enjoy my first coffee of the day.

I never travel without camera, so it also becomes my first opportunity to shoot something, hence these wildly repetitive scenes. Sorry.

Most of the differences from one shoot to the next come from whatever the sky is up to … not me.

But I put myself into a couple of the shots, enjoying my coffee and staring off at the warming horizon.

I’ve attached a few at the end of this blog and I hope you enjoy!

Man (me included) is a social animal, but some of my most enjoyable moments occur when I am alone. I don’t fear being alone and I rarely equate any such moment with loneliness.

Truth is, sometimes we are loneliest when in the company of others. So the presence of company isn’t any sort of guarantee against it.

Since I destroyed my marriage a number of years back, I have had numerous people urge me to find someone and worried about me ending up “dying alone”.

But dying alone is what happens to almost all of us anyway. Dying is a very personal experience. And however that experience feels for you, you take it with you. There is no real sharing of that experience.

Knowing you are loved or once were loved … now that is a different thing and I acknowledge that. But a present love, right at the point of your death, has no real relevance beyond perhaps adding a worry as to how your loved ones are going to feel when you are gone.

There is a horribly misguided dream that some people sell in that regards … the notion of finding a partner, falling in love, growing old together, and then dying in their arms.

For at least half the people who grow old together, that is simply a fairytale as only the first to go experiences the company at death. The longer living partner gets to die on their own, accompanied only by the memory of their lost love.

My mom spent the last few years of her life living mostly alone after a marriage of 60 odd years. So how did that dream play out for her?

I strongly suspect it was the memories of my dad that she took with her at death and of their wonderful life together.

The fact that it was a past love was irrelevant. I only use the word “past” to describe that he was no longer present. Because in truth, she never stopped loving him.

Nor will I. Either of them.

So the wonderful thing about the effects of love is that it can leave an indelible mark on your soul. One that stays with you until the end of your own days, if you let it.

As I stood there on the end of the pier, coffee in hand, that is what I was thinking of. The loves of my life. The ones that are no longer with me, except in velvet corners of my heart

And so that is really the thought I am trying to convey in this morning’s blog.

The greatest love in our life exists not in what someone is giving us, but in what we are retaining within our heart. It may be present. It may be past. It may have been sustained. It may have been fleeting.

It doesn’t matter how it was given. It matters how we encase it with our memories attached and can draw from it when we need it most.

You might find yourself standing on the edge of a pier feeling aggrieved at what life is doing to you at this moment. You might be feeling sad, depressed, or simply melancholy.

But when you are able to look beyond the horizon and into your own heart and recover the memories of love, then you are no longer alone. They are with you at the end of the pier.

They never left you. They were always there. Just waiting for you to recall them.

… just a thought.

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I wasn’t really going to go anywhere this morning. Had a rough night (sleep-wise) and was moving later than normal.

But as I stood there in the yard, having fed the last of the babies and emptied the last of the litter trays, I stopped. I looked up at the yet-dark skies and breathed in.

The air was fresh and sweet, courtesy of a significant storm that blew through yesterday evening. My yard and the driveway were strewn with nature’s litter; bit of branches, twigs, and leaves everywhere. In sections and in particular in this darkness, you couldn’t make out where the driveway was versus the yard.

People more industrious than I would immediately begin to plan the clean up; restoring their yard to a chaos-free appearance. But me, I went in, grabbed my camera and coffee and left it all behind me.

There is nothing like turning your back on things, particularly when you already feel that life is over-burdening you.

So, passing no apology to anyone and offering an “I’ll be back” to the furry faces looking up at me as I hopped into the car, I found myself pulling off the driveway and heading down the road to the ball fields.

Being this close to twilight, there was no opportunity for me to make it anywhere else in time to catch the sky, in all honesty. So this wasn’t so much a “wouldn’t it be wonderful to shoot the ball-fields” moment as a realization that I needed to get somewhere quickly.

As I pulled off Walker Road (after less than a two minute drive) I spotted that there was a swathe of low lying fog on the ball fields that created a magical effect with the always-on floodlights.

I hate that they always leave those lights on for many reasons, but this morning I momentarily forgave them.

The mosquitoes were savages and the time to catch color in the skies was short, but I managed to get a few images worth sharing and they are here at the end of the blog. Hope you like them.

On the short drive home again I mused over how magical a little fog can make a scene. It can take a very mundane view and add an element of mystique to it. This morning had that and the lights adding the broad glow to the fog’s vapors made it all so picturesque.

The funny thing is the fog had evaporated within about ten or fifteen minutes. It was merely a moment in transit and those arriving at the ball fields for a Sunday tournament, as I was leaving, hadn’t a notion that it had even existed.

So, there we were different people, at the same place and almost the same time, but having wildly different experiences to report on.

To all intents and purposes, the fog was here one moment and gone the next. And that is the chord that struck within my mind that leads to this blog thought.

I have often commented before on how the colors in the sky rapidly change at sunrise and so their transience has to be treasured when you get them. But these color shifts happen often during sunrises.

The fog was something that I might not witness again for a year or more so it highlights an element that is more rare and therefore more precious.

And this is the thing about life … we encounter some things along life’s path that are precious and are indeed there just for a moment and gone the next.

Making the most of them and appreciating them while we have them, is crucial to our life’s experience. It is pointless only mourning them when they are gone. Seeing value in something only when you don’t have it, is quite frankly, pathetic.

Along my life’s path, I grieve the loss of my parents and others who have been dear to my heart but no longer here. But, I can reflect on each of these and remember moments with them where we shared life together, shared love, and rode life’s coat-tails as best we could.

None of this reduced the grieving for the loss, but it solidifies the preciousness that they were in my life.

Life is very much a tapestry woven with many elements and full of twists and turns. Our shared path through it, with someone we love, is only a part of the fabric that eventually has captured our complete life.

Their life may take them on a different thread the very next day, or yours might. So, living the moment with them is super-important and something worth breathing in.

Today … this moment in time, is our only guarantee with them. They may be gone tomorrow. Or we may be. Who knows.

So take a moment. This moment, right now. Look around at the beauty that is in your life and breathe it in. If there is someone to be hugged, hug them.

This may be a beautiful moment that unbeknownst to us is on the verge of evaporating with the rising sun. Treasure it.

… just a thought.

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It was seriously dark.

I got to the causeway across Tampa Bay a little more than an hour before sunrise and it was dark.

When you know the area well, darkness is a limiter but not an inhibitor but when you are desperately unfamiliar with where you are, your visual leads are important. And I had none.

I drove across the causeway twice, looking for access to the side beach areas that I knew existed somewhere. But any time I tried to exit to one, there were locked barriers across the exits and I was forced onwards.

On occasion, I have passed by these areas heading to and from Clearwater and seen a wealth of cars and people frolicking on the white sands either side of the causeway.

But in the dark everything looked different and I couldn’t understand why each exit I took was blocked.

It was only my second time across that I noticed that there were signs on one of the barriers saying it was open from 6am to 9pm and I groaned. It wasn’t a big groan because it was 5:50 am when I sat in the car beside the sign and it wouldn’t be long now.

The techie in me imagined that there were timers controlling the gates, but when six o’clock came and went and nothing happened, I realized I was waiting on a person.

It was still dark at 6:10 but I was becoming agitated and aware that the skies would begin their brightening and I would lose what I was trying to shoot.

So, I maneuvered my car off to the side of the exit, grabbed the camera and climbed over the guard rail separating the road from the narrow beach area.

I was in the middle of my first one or two attempts at shots when a police car pulled in around 6:15 and after he determined I was an old white guy with a camera, he muttered something inaudible and returned to open the barrier.

I waited a few minutes for him to leave, rattled off another couple of attempts and then headed to the other access points on the assumption that he would be going from point to point opening them all.

I was wrong, by the way. He only opened one more because he was Clearwater Police and I am guessing the ones on the other side were Tampa Police but the Krispy Kreme sign must have been glowing because none of these were opened.

And so I did what I could and climbed what barriers I could in order to take the shots I got. But the truth is, I was rattled and out of balance and the sun was brightening the wrong part of the sky for me to consider any of these real vantage points.

I attached what I got at the end of this blog but the reality is, the camera was back in the car and I was on my way home, long begore the skies did anything interesting.

I hope you enjoy them and one small footnote by the way. I have no idea what the strange line in the dark sky on picture one is all about. I only noticed that when I got home.

So as I drove home annoyed and frustrated at the lack of solid advance planning that I did, I was thinking about the barriers that were in place and why they were there. They are obviously concerned about illegal or delinquent activities that might take place overnight, so this is their way of deterring such folks.

But the truth is, folks with a will to, could climb the barriers just as I did or find obscure entrances that are unknown to more ignorant folk like me. So, really the main deterrence in place with these barriers was keeping honest-folk like me from being there at irregular hours.

OK OK, I used the word “honest” quite liberally there in describing folks like me, but you get the point.

And I was proud of myself for scaling the barriers even though it didn’t really materialize in prize-winning shots. It wasn’t about the end result, it was about the trying. And these barriers were determined to stop me from even trying.

The miles home saw my mind run with that thought … barriers, gates, ceilings, and fences …. things that are placed in our path in life to try to control our actions.

I don’t know what the real percentage is, but I imagine 99% of people obey these barriers and go meekly through life obeying all the rules and staying between the lines.

When there isn’t a “fence” a much greater percentage become rule-breakers. For example, well over half the people on the highway speed above the limit. Yet, when a police car (a.k.a, “fence”) is in one of the lanes, all of a sudden everyone is driving the limit.

A certain percentage of driver don’t come to a full stop at a stop sign, but when a police car is behind them, they make a perfect full stop. Red lights operating at intersections are normally treated indifferently, until a camera is put in place and everyone starts to see red.

Law enforcement is not the only fence that we experience. Many people of color dutifully sat in the back of the bus until one day some old lady didn’t.

And when they said land-ownership, color of skin, or type of genitalia, was the defining factor in whether you were allowed vote … well that fence had to be dismantled so that folks could move forward on the path.

You see, life is full of people telling you what you can and can’t do, where you can and can’t go, and when you can and when you can’t move.

And dutifully most folk obey.

But before we obey something, we should be clear that we agree with it. If not we should fight it, change it, and climb it.

Change only comes from the folks that climb the fences. Not the folks that obey them. And most certainly not the folks that build them.

… just a thought.

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Coffee in hand, I headed off to the lake. Foregoing breakfast and having all the cats taken care of, I felt it was going to be a good start to the day and I didn’t want to miss a moment.

I got to the lake about an hour before sun rise, so it was still very dark.

The air was fresh and clear, the mosquitoes were still sleeping, and the coffee was a perfect companion as I watched the horizon trying to define itself.

I just stood there for a moment and said “hi” to the morning. and it said “hi” back.

I set the shutter speed to 30 seconds and then I walked out onto the pier and just watched as my eyes became more accustomed to the darkness. My ears picked up the distant sounds of traffic a mile or two away on the south side of the lake and it quickly became drowned out by the sounds of waking birds.

I genuinely don’t think there is a better way to enjoy a cup of coffee. It is almost like coffee was invented for moments such as this.

As I stepped back behind the lens, the sky became defined and the colors began to slowly wash in, filling out the tapestry of the early morning’s story.

I have attached some images below that show the progression from darkness to light and how the entire palette of colors was pulled from in order to help define this new day.

Hope you enjoy.

As I drove back home I felt happy. Happy for the first time in days. And I made myself acknowledge that I was happy.

Because too often we only acknowledge the sad feelings and give no voice to the happy.

Part of the reason for this is that some of us take solace from the pity and so we feel we have to voice the sadness so that others will witness it and give us the pity and consolation that we need in order to restore.

The other part of the reason is that the moment we feel happy, we take the feeling for granted and so it becomes a non-issue.

It is kind of like pain. The moments we are in pain, we feel them and they become a huge factor in our existence. We medicate for them, we tell others of the pain, we might even seek remedy at the doctors.

But when we are in no pain, there is no such action. We don’t call up the doctor’s office and say “I feel fine today.”

No, the absence of pain is very similar to the absence of sadness and they are both very much taken for granted.

With respect to happiness and sadness, there is also a very large middle-ground where we are neither. And I think a lot of our time is spent in this unfeeling state.

Which is really unfortunate, because our lives would be more complete if we could shift the norm into where most of our time was spent in a state of happiness.

The absence of happiness is not sadness. It is merely nothing.

Yet, the absence of sadness can and should be happiness.

We should remind ourselves that we are not sad and turn it into a source of happiness. But first we need to acknowledge the change of state.

Acknowledge that we aren’t sad. Not just take it for granted.

So, today, if you aren’t sad, acknowledge it. Grab a coffee, breathe in the day, and tell yourself that this is a good day.

Because, frankly, that is the first step in making it one.

… just a thought!

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When my scheduled Friday experimental shoot with Jax got cancelled, I sat there at a loss for a while and wondered what to do. I had been looking forward to my Friday evening up to that point and suddenly now I stared into an emptiness.

It was a gorgeous day outside, albeit a little chilly for Florida, so I was very reluctant to just let it go to waste and sit down to a movie or something.

Morgan agreed to take over the evening cat duties and I grabbed a couple of cameras and headed to Cypress Point on Tampa Bay. It’s about an hour drive on a Friday evening at this time, but I didn’t mind. The skies looked promising and stunningly clear blue stretched in all directions.

The sun was still pretty high in the sky as I got there, and so I relaxed with a milk shake for a few moments before heading onto the beach.

I had brought my A7 with the 11mm lens attached to it and I also brought my A77 with the 300mm lens on it; so I was ready for both wide and zoom shots as the situation arose.

The A77 is the crop sensor and now that I have the full frame A7, it has barely seen the light of day. It does take a great picture, but my bias has already shifted to the exceptional clarity of the A7. But as you’ll see in the eventual images below, it does take a pretty good shot and deserves its place in my arsenal.

I wandered along the beach waiting for the sun to to drop, passing by people with cameras, children in the water, pretty ladies sun bathing, and studly guys sucking it in for all they were worth.

I had the A7 on a tripod and the A77 in my hand. So I looked every bit the professional. Someone commented to me as I was taking a shot in zoom about what a fabulous camera I had and after I thanked him, I smiled on the inside with the knowledge that the one on the tripod was worth twice as much.

Zoom lenses certainly impress people … size matters. Actually I recalled the last time at Circle B when I went out with the 500mm and the number of people that made wonderful comments to me about my set up. Yet, for the life of me, I cannot get a decent shot with that lens. But hey, if I am ever just going out to impress the ladies, I will be wiping the dust off that big boy.

Anyway, last night at Cypress Point, I found myself taking a lot of people shots with the zoom. There is a wonderful anonymity of stealing a shot from someone when they don’t know. I know that sounds a bit paparazzi-like, but the real advantage is that you are shooting people doing totally casual things. Not a pose in sight.

I must admit though that in many instances I felt like a creep. There are several tutorials on YouTube about shooting in public like that and how to discipline yourself past the “creep” factor. But, so far I haven’t been able to master that one.

There was one young lady in particular that caught the attention of my lens and I took a lot of shots of her, using her as a prop against the falling sun. She was certainly very pretty but it was her demeanor that really caught my attention camera-wise. She seemed pensive. She was alone and just staring off into the sun and I imagined a sadness on her, right or wrong.

Most of the shots of her were taken from behind as it gave me the chance to try to outline her head and face with the rays of the sun. That and the sun glasses perched atop her head, gave me lots to work with.

Anyway I have added some of these, along with some neat shots from the wider lensed A7, here at the end of the blog. I hope you enjoy.

In retrospect, I was annoyed at myself as I drove home for not having approached her and offered to email her some of what I got. I felt she would probably like them.

But a combination of my own insecurity and the possibility of freaking her out to where she felt she was being stalked, stopped me from doing so. I think if she was with someone, I would probably have made the approach but it wasn’t to be.

As I drove home, my mind wandered on to how she had unwittingly become my muse for the evening. Her posture, her solitariness, her profile, and even her glasses … they all worked together to give me idea after idea.

And I had a blast.

So I began to think about incidental paths that occasionally cross and how they can affect others without us even knowing. She had certainly spun mine in a positive direction, whereas I had no impact on her experience at all.

Humans are a highly social animal and one-sided interactions such as this, can be fully absorbed by one person and become one of their life’s experiences.

It is why people can develop a crush on someone without that other person ever knowing. It is why we can cause offense to someone without ever targeting them. And it is why we can unknowingly put off a vibe to someone that makes them think we have no time for them or even dislike them.

Many of these conditions are experienced in one-sided exchanges and the impact can not just be significant but it can be life-altering.

I remember twenty years after university meeting a lady again for the first time since, where she confessed to me that she waited for me to make the first move those years ago, but I never did.

For my part, I hadn’t the slightest inkling of her interest and harbored a secret crush of my own on her. And so both of us left our words unspoken and time took us on separate journeys.

I also had the experience of someone coming up to me a number of years back telling me how a simple conversation of mine had transformed their life and made them abandon a destructive path they were on and they had now found their calling. Yet, for the life of me I can’t even recall what I said.

So, saying something or not saying something, can have equally profound ripples in the lives of others.

(Now that I have written those words, I am more annoyed at my silence last night.)

In any event, the point that I am really trying to make with this blog is that everything we do (or don’t do) in life has an effect on others. While we cannot obviously be on top of each and every interaction that we have, being a bull in a china shop is also not the right approach.

We humans don’t function well in solitary mode. It is why solitary confinement is one of the most egregious punishments we inflict on prisoners.

As John McCain wrote “the most important thing for survival is communication with someone, even if it’s only a wave or a wink, or to have a guy put his thumb up. It makes all the difference”. Note how he doesn’t refer to words expressed!

We need to understand that we communicate to those we come into contact with in many other ways besides words. And when we communicate to people it can create a change in their life’s path or even our own.

So being conscious of smiling or frowning at people is an important step in self-awareness.

Many of us carry perpetual frowns from whatever stresses are going on around us and then these are read by others as anger, unapproachability, or upset. And they leave us alone because of what we have inadvertently communicated.

At the same time we can’t go around smiling at everyone all the time. Apart from the possibility that the men in white coats will come along and lock you up, there is also the possibility that some weird old guy with a camera will hit you up for your email address.

It is all about balance.

… just a thought!

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There are moments when I find myself getting dragged under, as the weight of whatever salient issues exist give me no respite.

It is so easy for our knees to buckle in instances like this. And life can seem unbearable and just not worth it.

I am so blessed during times like this to be surrounded by so many little loves as they invariably have a way of grabbing me by the socks and lifting me out of it.

Melancholy has little chance of surviving when you live in a world shared by eleven cats. Someone is always up to something and they have a way of injecting life into the most dead of days.

Yes, it can be a challenge and there are moments I carry the burden of so many little mouths to feed. But I wouldn’t trade a single one away.

Their degree of preciousness to my heart is immeasurable and their value to my soul is priceless.

Yesterday as I was about to leave and get some food for them at Walmart, Daisy was fast asleep on the car roof (hence this shot) and for a moment the madness of my life evaporated and I was consumed in the innocent beauty and her total feeling of safety and peace.

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She was lost in some dream and I just stood and absorbed her for a little while.

Gone was the rush that had consumed my mind and the list of things that I needed to get done faded into irrelevance.

This little soul (like many of those in my care) has undergone such a tough existence that brought them my way. A heavily pregnant feral when she arrived in my yard, giving birth underneath my lawnmower. She has survived several health challenges and come shining through them all.

Her spirit is untarnished by her experiences and she is the most loving and gentle you could imagine. And she is a beacon of inspiration to those of us that struggle through the fog of our own life’s challenges.

I look around and see Rocky who survived the most gruesome of dog-attacks, Beauty who kept her eye despite Vet’s advice, and the others that have overcome their own hardships and it makes me stop and reassess my own.

Like most of us, I often feel the pull of my own “misfortunes” and they can derail me from life’s true joy. But it is important to remind ourselves that smaller lives than ours deal with bigger challenges. And therefore we need to muffle our moans and get on with it.

My cats are perfect mufflers … their love and endurance inspires me. Find yourself a muffler or two. They can make life so worth the living.

… just a thought!

It was a challenging week at the end of a challenging month at the end of a challenging quarter and I found myself repeatedly going to the lake each morning hoping to find some solace.

And I did.

I went there four mornings this week and while none were classic photo-op sunrises, it really didn’t matter. The purpose of each visit was to step away from the reality of things just long enough to breathe again.

From the engulfing cloud of the first morning to the fog of this morning, each day presented a different feel even though I was effectively going to the same place.

I got some decent shots along the way and I have placed them below this blog, beginning with the first day and ending with this morning’s views. I hope you enjoy the different moods.

This morning as I drove home, I mused over how such different environments can still have the same soothing effects. And it dawned on me that it wasn’t so much the place that I was going to, as the place I was leaving behind.

Sometimes, we can find ourselves engaged in a heavy struggle that saps our energies and makes us question the value of living. We wonder if life would be better off without us and whether those we love would be better served by our departure.

But while we stay submerged in the issues that are drowning us, our ability to answer those type of questions is severely limited.

There is a reason why phrases like” not being able to see the forest for the trees” serve to remind us that we occasionally need to step back and take a longer view of life.

It would be nice to be able to take an objective view but frankly I don’t think anyone is capable of taking an objective view of their own life. Our own lives are the very definition of subjective.

But by stepping away for just a little while, we can regroup a little, refresh our soul, and brace ourselves for the next wave of attacks.

We live on the front line of our own lives and even WW1 soldiers in the trenches periodically got rotated out before returning again. Otherwise they ran a very real risk of suffering shell-shock and becoming largely incapacitated by the experience.

We can also become victims of shell shock in our own daily battles, if we don’t occasionally take refuge from life and indulge ourselves with a little departure from reality.

We don’t have to completely depart from reality, just depart from our own reality. I mean, I am not suggesting we start dancing with pink elephants among the daisies. But finding a quiet spot away from our own reality where life gives us a very different experience … that’s the real escape I am talking about.

Ever since I discovered a love for the camera years ago, it has been a fabulous tool for me to dig my way out of the trenches.

I learned long ago, in picture-taking, that the only important piece of what is in front of us is the piece that falls in frame. To the left or right, is irrelevant. It is why I can find a beautiful moment standing beside a dump, but focused on a gentle flower of some sort.

But we all have different escape tools and whatever yours might be, dust it off and use it.

Maybe it is a fishing rod, a butterfly net, or just a long dark cup of coffee. It doesn’t matter, they are equally effective as long as they take us away from the trenches.

None of us win this war in the end but the life we live should not be defined by the time we spent in the trenches. It should be defined by the moments we enjoyed away from them.

… just a thought.

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Some weeks carry a certain level of draining in them, such that by the time the weekend arrives, I am completely spent. This past week was one of those so by the time late afternoon heralded in the final PC work of the day, I was completely done.

So I arrived at that moment where you have your chores finished and have to make that decision “sofa & TV or go out somewhere”. There are moments when we choose TV because the bones are tired and the soft cushions of the sofa are so welcoming.

But last night wasn’t one of those moments. Or, at least, the softness of the cushions couldn’t overpower the need to do something that took care of my soul. The body would just have to wait.

So I took a gamble (looking at the sky and the app) and decided to see if I could catch the sun going down, down at Picnic Island. It takes about an hour to get there and I have made the journey before only to be bitterly disappointed in a cloud-controlled wasted-trip.

But the sky looked promising and I was driven by desire for solace. Something that would soothe the raw fibers of my soul. Desire is a strong mistress and last night I was her slave.

As I pulled in to Picnic Island, I opted for the boat launch and fishing pier section. There were lots of people there, but that was OK. On this occasion I had decided that people would be an important ingredient in my shoot.

When the people are with you, sunset always presents a real challenge because you are trying to get enough light on them while still getting the colors in the sky behind. In this instance, though, people were merely a prop and a silhouette prop at that. So their identities were unimportant.

I brought two lenses, the 11 mm super-wide angle and the 300 mm zoom, as well as a tripod to rest the camera on. And the biggest challenge of the evening was occasionally switching lenses (without dropping) so that I could move from super-distant to super-close. I have to admit, it was a pain and I need to come up with a better answer that doing it with a weak break-recovering wrist on one side and a freshly cut and throbbing index finger on the right. I was a mess.

But the good news is I fumbled but didn’t drop. Given how much the lenses and camera cost, that could have been disastrous.

In any event, I have added a number of images to the end of the blog and they are in the order taken, so you will see the progression of color-change that was happening. Each time I switch from wide to zoom, the background color obviously changes dramatically, because i am only seeing a tiny portion of the sky behind the people.

Scenery wise, I prefer the wide shots because the open blue sky is so impressive. However the people actions (the person struggling with his leashed dog, the woman with her braids flying through the air, the guy casting his bait-net, and catching (and keeping) the embarrassingly small fish … they are all courtesy of the zoom at a distance of about 100 yards.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

Driving home, I definitely felt like my soul had been somewhat replenished by the experience and there was much more of a pep in my step than there had been at any other time in the week.

And it made me think about the whole aspect of draining and replenishing and how we submit ourselves to this cycle as if it is just life.

While much of life is outside our control and I acknowledge that, we need to make ourselves aware of the parts of it that are draining to us. Work, health, personal life, … these are all primary drains on us and yet significant parts of these are within our control.

We don’t all get to work at what we are passionate about, but if we can, then work become much less of a drain on us. And if we can’t make a career at whatever our passions are, then it is very important that they find some other outlet within us. Perhaps a part-time activity or even a committed hobby/interest.

Health is to a large extend beyond our control, and we all go through periods where it beats the shit out of us. But living healthy (eating and exercise) can mitigate the damage that health causes and so we need to make sure that we are at least giving ourselves a chance for it to be less of a drain.

Personal life is likely the one area we have most control over and yet it is also the area that least control is exercised. We get married, We divorce, We stay single. We choose our own path (and company) to navigate through life and in this respect we are very much captain of our own ship.

Some people hand the captaincy over to someone else and they leave all decisions up to that person. But at the end of the day, they still go down with their own ship.

The decisions that are made throughout our lives either reward us or take from us. And if someone else is making the decisions for us, then it becomes almost impossible to avoid those that drain.

It’s funny how many folks, after they finally give up on a relationship or a job that they were stuck in, bemoan the wasted time. I should have left ten years ago” is a phrase that plays out again and again.

Did they actively decide to stay in that situation or did they just let it slide because it was easier or less confrontational? Chances are, they didn’t decide anything and even at the end, the decision was probably made for them. She walks out and leaves a note, or the boss tells you they are restructuring and your position is no longer viable.

It is at moments like these we realize how much of a swamp our life has become. We are stuck in so many aspects that are not what we intended. We sink further as each day passes and we hope that somehow someone will come along and throw us a rope and pull us out.

The longer we live in the swamp, the more draining it becomes, sapping life’s energy from our every waking moment.

So I guess what I am trying to say is that instead of waiting on this unidentified someone to come along and give us a lifeline, we need to understand the swamp. Understand the pieces that are sucking us in and then make our own decisions about clawing our way out.

Taking control of our life (as much as we can) and making decisions that affect it in a positive manner … even if it is as subtle a decision as “no sofa tonight”. They don’t all have to be earth shattering decisions. They only need to help us live. It’s your life; live it.

… just a thought.

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