Shutter Sisters

a study in focus

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“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs.  When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.”  -Ansel Adams

As November closes with it ends our One Word, “focus”. It is clear that we are all speaking with our images as Ansel so beautifully said.  You have shared with us what you focus on, who you focus on.  How some days are clearly in focus, where others are nothing more than beautiful blur.  Some focused on the bigger picture where others focused on the tiny details.  Whatever your focus, how we see and what we choose to point our lenses at each day, is what makes this such a beautiful space. 

Thank you for sharing all your images of focus and thank you to Focal Press our fabulous publisher for sponsoring this month’s One Word Project.

Are you feeling focused today?  Or perhaps things seem slightly out of focus?  Lets all pick up our cameras and share just what focus means to us this one last time.  Don’t forget to add your images and words here in our comments, but also in the Shutter Sister’s OWP Flickr Pool.

gathering

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I love this time of year.  Gatherings of friends, family and food.  A coming together of hearts centered around tables set with so much to be thankful for. Warmth in spirit and light.  That is what this image makes me feel. A beautiful memory of a cold autumn evening spent warm inside with friends.  Sharing a bounty of food lovingly prepared.  Glasses toasted and emptied, bellies full, friends lingering in the glow of home. The good stuff.

Today let’s celebrate the beauty of gatherings.

  • And even after all is done,  the beauty found in the remains of the day.

Happy gathering everyone… CHEERS!

shifting focus

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I feel it happening, my focus shifting inward.  It always happens this time of year.  The days turn cold and dark.  I find myself indoors so much more, nesting.  All I seem to want to do these days is cook and bake (and eat!  LOL ) or knit and sew. It is an unmistakeable urge that the change in seasons brings. This forces a change in my photography as well.  I am no longer strolling endlessly outdoors pointing my lens at the sun,  now I find myself here, at home, late night by lamplight with the workings of a quilt in my lap.  Two chocolate chip cookies and a half drank cup of coffee on the table with my needles and thread. The light feels too yellow,  but then maybe my eyes still need to adjust to the darkness.  I shoot at the work in progress in my lap.  I take a moment to take it all in. 

Do you feel a shift when the seasons change?  What do you find yourself focusing on when the light lessens?

 

focus motherhood

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This is me.  The momma.  In the background, watching, observing, snapping away.

This is them; crazy, silly, messy, loud, creative, beautiful, mine.

This is my focus.  This is the me right now, this moment.  I am blessed to be present and capture our every day moments of beauty.  The little big things make make our life so full.   As they grow I will be needed less and less and that will surely bring a shift in my focus, but for now this is me, this is my focus, and I like that.

What is your focus right now?

Help us celebrate this month’s One Word and share a capture of your focus today.

simply autumn

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There would be no autumn if there were no leaves to fall.

It begins with the changes in color. Summer’s vivid greens turn shades of gold and orange, some a raucous red, and then finally to crunchy browns underfoot.  We watch the show from our windows, our walks, and our drives.  It is a grand show indeed.  So much change in what seems such a short time.  An overload of beauty and a feast for the senses. Seems everywhere you click in the Shutter Sister pool right now you are bound to find images of autumn’s bounty. 

On the ground.

In a little hand.

Up in the trees.

In flight.

A single leaf or a full carpet.

Let’s all celebrate autumn’s simplicity.  Have fun with it.  Maybe go outside and make yourself a leaf pile and jump on in!  Perhaps treasure hunt for the perfect leaf and make a leaf rub, or press it in a book to rediscover in seasons to come.  What colors and shapes are you drawn to? Do you search for the biggest brightest leaf you can find, or are you drawn to the small?

Autumn’s show will be coming to a close up here in the cold north.  All too soon I will be surrounded by monotones and bare sticks. So today show me your favorite leaf shot. OVERLOAD me with all that glorious color that mother nature provides.   I can never get enough.  

unexpected beauty

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“The real voyage of discovery consists of not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” ~Marcel Proust

The other day while driving I spied something I wanted to photograph.  I pulled my car over as I often do.  Kids snug in their car seats,  not batting an eye at my behavior.  I am sure they both look at each other with a look of knowing… there goes mommy, taking a picture…  Autumn is in full swing here in Maine and the past few days have been beyond beautiful.  Everywhere you look, eye candy.  The trees glow in the sunlight.  That is what brought me here, to this spot, those glowing leaves.  My neck should hurt right now from constantly looking skyward at them.  As I got out of my car, camera in hand, i carefully side stepped a puddle breaking my focus from my intended subject just for a moment.  It was just an ordinary puddle on a dirt road,  a place where many cars pull off so a mix of oil from some other vehicle had leaked into the puddle. I was mesmerized.  The darkness of the puddle,  the swirling opalescent colors of the liquid, a lone fallen leaf floating in the mess. I was transfixed by this beautiful swirling canvas.  

I eventually made it past the puddle to the giant orange tree,  but those shots were not the favorites of the day like i assumed they would be.  No, this shot, this strangely beautiful, unexpected shot was the one i loved and keep coming back to.  

What unexpected beauty have you captured lately? Share it with us here today.

drama

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Most days my photography style leans heavily toward color.

But some days a photo will grab me in a way that feels dramatic.  When color is just too much noise and only distracts from what the photo has to say.

Images like these push me out of my comfort zone of softness and color and instead call for the drama that only black and white seems to bring.  

Slices of light and dark, a halo, raw emotion, beauty etched in darkness.

Join me in expressing the darker side today.  Perhaps you love the drama and excel at such processing,  or perhaps you, like i, need a little push into the unknown.  Try your hand at a dramatic sepia or cinematic black and white and share your results with us here.  

signs of change

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Change.  The word has been ringing in my ears for a few weeks now.  The leaves on our trees are beginning their change from greens to golden browns. My kids returned to school ending what felt like the best summer vacation in years. The temperatures are dipping from the heat of summer to the cool of autumn.  The daylight is shortening.  So much change all at once.  It can throw a routine loving girl like me off balance.  Rather than fight the change I take out my camera and search for the beauty in the signs. The morning I dropped my son off at his first day of first grade I was really feeling tender.  I had my camera on me since I had just snapped what felt like a zillion photos of him walking into school, his new classroom, and of course, he and his backpack.  On my way home I took the long way.  I stopped a few times, each time getting out of my car, camera in hand, searching.  For what I had no idea.  I just needed to slow down and take those few minutes for myself.  I tend to go small on these occasions.  Beauty in the details sort of thing. Most of summer’s wildflowers have come and gone here already.  The queen anne’s lace have turned inward.  The once pretty parasols of white flowers now wrapped upward as if they are holding on to one another.  A true sign of season’s change.  I snapped away at them and somehow felt lighter, happier.

As we say goodbye to another season what signs of change do you find?  Please share your images with us.

shine on

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“Here comes the sun. do do do do,  here comes the sun, and I say its alright…”

Friday is here, let’s take today and bask in some warm sunlight.  Have you captured the sun lately?

Share your warmth here as we slide on into the weekend together.

Happy Flare Friday!

kiss the ground

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“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.” -Dorothea Lange

Many days we tend to rush around, head up, multi tasking, running errands, meeting deadlines, all hurry hurry hurry.  Photography has given me many gifts, but one I think I treasure most is the ability to slow down, take my time, really see.   We have all heard the expression “don’t look down!”,  as if something terrible may occur if we do just that.  I happen to like to look down.  I have found unexpected beauty in a puddle, messages from the universe, love, and  I have even found myself .

Today, lets slow down and look down, there may be something completely unexpected right at our feet.  

Show us what you find.