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In a friends backyard at the Las Vegas Ranch in Prescott, Az, a hummingbird feeds on this lovely flower. I captured the moment in a way that highlights the grey of the hummingbird but no colors. Also I thought it was rather interesting that the hummingbird was not eating from one of the newer blossoms but seemed more interested in this bloom that I thought looked a little less than tasty! Meanwhile back at the computer for the development process, I thought it would be more interesting to continue to highlight the blossom color and wash the rest in the same sort of grey that the hummingbird was. I like the way it came out and the way it sort of draws your attention to the details by doing that. It was a pretty sunny day in the backyard as I followed this hummer around. I had my pick of bugs and blooms as well as some other animals that I did my best to capture that day as I took it all in. This one not only caught my eye but kept me coming back for more as I worked with it. Something about it was just fun to play with and I really enjoy the end result. Over the Christmas holiday I was getting eager to have some of my work displayed around the town and so I started reaching out to the local coffee houses to see where I could display my work. I am pleased to say that I had some very nice responses to my request and that after all of the glitter settled in January from the festivities, I again made my inquiries and was met with the same eagerness. I set about to hang some of my photo's at Gurley Street Coffee, just a block off of the square in Prescott. I love the way the wall color highlights the color of the blooms and calls the viewer in to the photo for a closer look at the hummingbird that is hanging suspended behind the entire flower bush. I have about seven photo's there so far and am looking forward to hanging a few more larger sizes there as well soon. Feel free to stop on by to get some coffee and some of their new line of home made soup or check out a local band playing some great tunes, peer out the window at the creek below, read the paper on the couch, and don't forget to take a gander at this great hummingbird who posed for me ever so nonchalantly! I have some not so shy flowers eager for everyone's attention in the back, just beyond the bakery case so you have something to peruse as your order is prepared. Happy marveling, and thanks for stopping by! Who knows, you just may take one home with you! :)

Over and over again, I feel this nudging to get out into nature. The locations flow into my head slowly and I hear some encouragement, "I should go to Watson Lake today", "Oh, I bet the water is flowing around the back of the Peavine Trail today. I would get some great shots there." "I think the ducks are out on the Oak Creek, I should go there soon!". At first it just comes along as an easy thought crossing my mind. Then it becomes more and more persistent as nature is literally calling to me to come and play! I can hear the crunch under my feet of the gravel as I walk on the trail. The sound becomes my familiar meditative background music as I plod along knowing I will get what I came here for, that sense of blurred lines, and some really wonderful photo's. My ears feel like I have stuck the horns from a Victrola in them as every noise begins to register in my brain. I can feel myself settling in with my scenery, I am no longer feeling separate. I love this feeling. It renews me, time and time again. I absolutely know that it will and I not only count on it but I look forward to it. I feel like I either know who I am out here, or I really begin to lose myself and become part of it all. Either way, I begin to notice that I just stop thinking about it. That is usually when I begin to feel the feeling of what I call, blurred lines. It feels like I am connected to nature and that I really take into consideration that it is all just as alive as I am. Then I feel the interaction of myself with nature and the big reveal begins. I can be there for hours, effortlessly following cues to go there and to wander that way. I love it. My rewards are endless and I take them with me. What I love the most is the moment when I something just catches my eye and then I find another world in the details of my subject. The veins of a flower, or the delicate lace of a dandelion, the lights that seem to appear in the dandelion blossom as the sun shines on it just so. What a magical place to be indeed!

I started taking photo's to fill in some time with a hobby. I noticed that my days did not include as much creativity as I wanted and I was trying to "fit" it in somewhere in my days. Usually at night, or during some free time. It just was not fulfilling me this way. I thought if I could combine my time in between my appointments during the day with my creative desires then maybe I would feel fulfilled throughout my entire schedule. I work with horses and so I drive quite a bit and I would find myself seeing things that called to me in the moment. As I began to notice that this was occurring on such a regular basis, I decided to get a camera and capture some of those moments. If I could. I found a great camera for me, the Canon Powershot SX 50. It's Canon's bridge camera and it turned out to be everything I was wanting in a camera. Thank you, Canon! A photographer was born! The world was my playground and people were lining up to buy my photo's for their hotel walls, card stock, walls in their homes, ad's for their companies, offices, screen savers, shirts, sails on their boats, hats, wraps for their cars, totes, billboards, dividers for their hair stations, covers of their books. The list goes on and on! Well, in my mind, so far. Lol! That is what I wanted, to wake up the part of me that dreams and feels connected to life around me as I am out driving to my work spot. I love what I do and I am thrilled to be doing it. I just was not enjoying the down time sitting in my car in a parking lot somewhere waiting for the next appointment. I wanted to keep that connected feeling that I was feeling during my appointments with the horses while I was on the way to my next one. I wanted to do that for two reasons at the time. I felt like it kept me grounded, something the horses really look for during our appointments, and it also allowed me to have my heart stay connected with nature and the life around me while I was alone. It was the same grounded feeling that I felt working with the horses. I did not realize that that was what I was missing in between appointments. I mean I knew I was missing it, but did not really narrow it down to that exact emotional feeling until I recognized that I had recreated that same connecting point in my life with the camera in my hand. Minus the heart to heart connection with the horses, of course! The camera in my hand helps me to ground myself and I love it. I feel connected to life around me, just like I wanted, in between appointments or during the times of the year when the weather slows my horse business down due to inactivity. I can find my place of creativity. I can see things that I may have missed before, and I find that I am taking the time for myself to just be out in nature, breathing it all in and feeling a part of it. What a gift to be finding this perfectly simple moments filled with the gift of life as only nature has to offer. I loved it. I soaked it in every blooming flower that turned it's petals in my direction! Cows were looking at me as I drove down the road, sunlight highlighted the horses mane just so, sunsets were calling my name even more clearly! How can a camera do all that, you ask? It was like a key, granting me access to that part of my self that I wanted to open up, not quite to people yet but at least to myself so that I could learn how to feel my connection to myself and what I wanted. It was a moment when I would just grant myself the permission that I wanted to slow down and take it all in. For me. Take it all in - for me to enjoy it. Take the time for me to just feel my heart opening and stabilizing in a much broader way, in an atmosphere that felt more safe and nurturing for me to go there in my emotions. It was a way, that I found out as I went along, for me to be there for myself in what I needed emotionally. While the camera allowed me to have a conduit for my creativity, it also allowed me to reconnect to my emotional self and let that take shape without the perceptions and comments from others. I did not know when I decided to purchase my camera and start taking photographs that it would help me to find my voice within myself for me. This time has allowed me to not only connect with nature but to find myself, feel how I fit in in my world and to reconnect with my own emotional foundation of who I feel myself to be. A "bridge" camera as well as a Powershot, indeed! Thank you, Canon! Thank you to me, for following my own path for myself and my adventures that shape my life. I am so happy to be here with my camera in hand, sharing my view with all of you!

I am out in nature. The sun shining all around me, like a highlighter it shines on precise moments occurring right in front of me, one after the other comes into focus as moments in my life as I feel my finger press the shutter button and I hear time stop - click. There it is again, the moment frozen now for me to hold, manipulate and share my interpretation of it. Each viewer takes away a moment of their own as they gaze upon it. It's a never ending gift that way.