Tag: Sheryl R Garrison

It lives in transient moments…

sandhill crane snowy woods

In our travels yesterday we passed a man toting a camera and lens longer in length than my arm. When my husband asked me if I’d like a lens of that size I could truthfully answer no.

While I do love macro photography and images that could be described as intimate landscapes—tiny sections of a larger scene—I’m more passionate about the story. I’m just as excited about seeing signs that an animal has passed as I am seeing the animal itself.

The light covering of snow softened the harsh landscape winter left behind and as we got out of my Jeep, the rattling bugle-like call of a Sandhill Crane echoed through the mountains.

A hike towards the marshland uncovered fox tracks, wolf tracks, and winged impressions left behind by perhaps a large hawk. Striding along the snowy landscape was the source of those melodic calls.

Nature is all around us. It lives in transient moments not always captured by a camera.

But on this morning I’m glad it was.

As the year…

is winding down.

winding [ wahyn-ding ]

something with twists and turns

And what a year! This post brings my total of years blogging to five. It’s been a good practice for me and a joy to connect with people from all over the world. I so appreciate the feedback and I love sharing my natural world with you.

New for this month because you know I like to be in full swing of new projects by the end of the year. Focused and already in a routine by the first…

I have 18,340 words written for my book. I am one quarter of the way to my goal! It just means getting up a little earlier, and this time of year that means the day’s writing is well under way by sunrise.

What are your goals for the new year? I’d love to hear them.

Happy New Year and thank you for reading and following it’s (almost always) about the water!

Images…

as words.

delicate [ˈdelikət]

easily broken or damaged, fragile

I’ve long had a love affair with words. And when images can speak a single word they’ve done their job.

Few things can be as delicate and fragile as a snowflake, but life is, from beginning to end.

We plan for a time that isn’t right now, never considering that our time is right now. This moment, not one that may happen years from now.

Change one thing today and always tell the ones close to you how much you love them.

The Moth…

don’t care.

“The Moth don’t care when he sees The Flame.
He might get burned, but he’s in the game.
And once he’s in, he can’t go back, he’ll
Beat his wings ’til he burns them black…
No, The Moth don’t care when he sees The Flame. . .
The Moth don’t care if The Flame is real,
‘Cause Flame and Moth got a sweetheart deal.
And nothing fuels a good flirtation,
Like Need and Anger and Desperation…
No, The Moth don’t care if The Flame is real. . . ”
Aimee Mann

For much of my time as a photographer, other than a series on dying kokanee, I’ve put my lens on beauty which is never in short supply in our natural world.

Lately though I feel compelled to tell a different story.

It’s not pretty but it’s there, right in front of me. and I’m finding it hard to look away.

Will it make me grow as a photographer?

I don’t know but it’s one hell of a story.

The power…

of dreams.

Your dreams are what define your individuality. They have the power to give you wings and make you fly high.

P. V. Sindhu

So true and watching this pelican soaring so gracefully and effortlessly was an excellent reminder of what’s possible.

But then, I look around at my life and I see the importance of dreams and I am reminded of how it began…a leap of faith.

Dare to dream. Start big or start small, just make sure that you start!

Bear…

number 3.

blacj bear brown wildflowers trees

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.

Albert Einstein

On a recent trip to the mountains we had the great pleasure of seeing this guy munching away amongst the wildflowers that infused the meadow with color. The bear’s sense of smell is incredible so although I was a good distance away and using a long lens, he knew I was there.

I love that I have the opportunity to be in the presence of these large apex predators. When steps are taken such as proper food storage while camping in their backyard, everyone is safer, bear included.

For me it’s a thrill to have wildlife appear in a setting that is already filled with beauty. I’ve been at this very place throughout all of the seasons and I’ve never failed to be rapt in awe.

Nature…it’s a beautiful thing.

The amazing power…

of fossils.

A fossil is so powerful. It’s moving. This is my ancestor. The naturalist is moved by the fossil… not the cross.

Greg Graffin

It’s one thing to imagine life that inhabited the earth before our time and quite another to be surrounded by evidence of its existence.

A humbling and moving experience is how I would describe it. I can’t imagine the thrill of actually taking part in discovering evidence of lifeforms that existed 65-230 million years ago.

There’s a fragility about it all.

Kind of puts man in perspective: we truly are but a speck.

Kind of makes me revere nature all the more.

A perfect ending…

to this chapter of the story.

double rainbow in Waterton Lakes National Park Belly River

Like the rainbow after the rain, joy will reveal itself after sorrow.

Rupi Kaur

Divorces are messy and no matter how hard you try to create that pathway to exit with the least amount of collateral damage, it doesn’t happen. Emotions run raw and guilt is the order of the day regardless of whether you were the one who left or the one who was asked to leave.

Moving forward takes a leap of faith and careful navigation through the ensuing storms.

Life is funny though and it turned out that my plan of living a quiet solitary life was not how this story would end. A friendship that began over 35 years ago was rekindled after we both had separated and were in the process of ending long marriages.

The left hand side of the double rainbow in the image above marks the spot that we had chosen the day before, as we wandered through our campsite, to hold our wedding ceremony. Just one of many perfect signs that led to this day.

It wasn’t fancy. It was a small collection of eclectic family and friends and the moments that were shared we will never forget.

The biggest life lesson for me is that you really don’t know the plan for you but if you stay true to yourself you can weather any storm that lies ahead.

Nephology…

the study or contemplation of clouds.

mammatus clouds

Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another.

John Muir

I love a good storm. There’s something about it that makes you feel alive. It engages all of your senses in a way that never happens on a sunny, clear day.

Clouds scud across the sky and if you’re lucky some of the more unusual cloud formations appear. These mammatus clouds appeared ever so briefly, perhaps 4 minutes, but it was amazing to watch them develop and slip away into a swirl of gray.

So excited to add them to my ever growing collection of clouds.

I do go on sometimes…

but not today.

black and white crepuscular rays shooting out from a cloud

I planted my self in the middle of a great many Glasses full of Dew, tied fast about me, upon which the Sun so violently darted his Rays, that the Heat, which attracted them, as it does the thickest Clouds, carried me up so high, that at length I found my self above the middle Region of the Air.

Cyrano de Bergerac

It’s been a great week and today I’m just feeling really content. Good news abounded and nature threw in some beauties as well. This image of crepuscular rays was also an EarthSky “Today’s Image”, always an honor for me and a good reminder of why it’s important to carry your camera with you.