Finding Inspiration with Photography

After a morning of trying to get some creative work done, but not being able to become inspired, I headed out to my backyard with my camera. I left my steaming cup of coffee on the end table next to my laptop. I had just been reading my bloggy friend Yaya's great blog post about her favorite color, orange. I noticed that the sun was peaking out from behind a cloud shining dappled sun down on my newly orange Japanese maple. I decided to take a photo of it to email to Yaya, her favorite color & all.

After I shot numerous photos of Leafy (Delaney named the tree when we planted it), I glanced around the yard. Although it's a pretty gray day, here in Oregon, the sun would peak out for a few moments here & there. I wandered the yard, purposefully looking at everything I could find. I shot photos of my maples turning on their Fall best. I shot photos of some strange mushrooms growing in the yard. Yes, Dave, I know this is strange, but their color & shape was interesting. I shot the ducks sleeping on the island in the middle of the pond behind our yard. I shot a huge yellow zucchini flower growing through the fence from the neighbor's yard. I shot the swings, lonely & empty, barely moving in the light breeze. I noticed how quiet it was for almost noon. All the neighborhood kids back to school & Jake napping upstairs. I shot my last bright red & orange cherry tomatoes of the year. Then I started to realize that I had just taken a rainbow of photos from around my yard. I was just missing the color blue. I stopped to take one last photo of the blue lobelia, still hanging on in my summer containers. As I shot the photo, I noticed one more harbinger of Fall. There was a Preying Mantis, hanging upside down,from the lobelia, watching me. After shooting her photo (Delaney & I always call them girls), I headed back inside to my now cold cup of coffee.

Who cares about warm coffee, when you can spend half an hour outside with your camera finding the inspiration to create all sorts of wonderful projects. So next time you find yourself needing inspiration, grab your camera & head outside. Shoot photos of whatever interesting things you find. You may find beautiful Fall leaves, white drifts of snow, gray puddles of newly fallen rain or just the shape your boot makes in the mud. But if you look at them with a creative eye, you will find the beauty in the simple creations of nature.

Try it sometime & let me know what you find!

(I wrote this last Monday and have just had the time to attach all these photos to it! Hope you enjoy them!)

















By the way, I shot all these with my little Sony Cybershot digital camera, I don't own a DSLR, but it's on my wishlist! Almost all the photos were shot in the "soft snap" setting, where you shoot the subject with a soft background & no flash. Your camera might have a portrait setting, try it for your photos. I love the camera knowing to focus on my subject & then blurring out the background.

When the snow began...

Now that the snow in Portland has been gone for a couple weeks, it's almost impossible to believe these pictures are for real. We woke up on a Sunday morning to discover it was snowing hard. It continued to snow all day long. We drove to our friends' house to pick Delaney up from a sleep over with her best friend and watched the kids sled down the street. After we returned home, we went sledding in the church driveway across the street. Delaney went all over the front yard making snow angels and Dave walked across the street to take this picture of our house. Look closely, you can see how hard it's snowing! We were very surprised when the weather forecast said the snow would be with us for a while. Our schools ended up being canceled all week, which made for a 3 week long Christmas break. It's nice that Dave is working at home now, so the four of us hung out at home together.


Just a few days into the "Arctic Blast," as the news people called it, the sun came out. Delaney & I headed into our backyard to build snowmen. It was so cold and dry, that the snow wouldn't stick together enough for snowmen. So we decided to go back across the street to sled. I took this picture at the end of our yard. The pond was a bit frozen and got more frozen as the cold lingered on for 10 more days after this. I'm sure everyone who lives where it snows and ponds freeze over every year think this is no big deal. But in the Portland area, we NEVER see anything like the storm we had in December. It cracked us up to look out at the Canadian Geese who winter in our pond and see them walking through drifts of snow on top of the pond.

During the time we were "snowed in," Jake got 4 teeth in one week! It was a tough week for him, but it was nice that we were more or less trapped. We did chain up our SUV and were able to get out to check out movies from the store up the street. But in our area, the roads aren't plowed or sanded until you get to the main roads, so it's better to stay at home than end up in a crash with someone who doesn't think they need chains. I do think we're weather wimps around here, but as long as I have the option to stay home, it's fine with me! Maybe next year Santa will bring more plows to Portland and then we'll have to join all those other places where snow doesn't close down whole cities. But until then, we'll hang out at home sledding and making hot chocolate!