-
to grow freely. like the flowers.
it is ok to let go of anger to quietly forgive those who hurt you in the past this is a gift - for you. not for them. to step out of resentment to release yourself from the shackles of disappointment to be alive inside your skin, again. to grow freely. like the flowers. rising up to the sunlight stretching out tall feeling hope flood in. remembering what it feels like to move smoothly, exist in the world without the burden of pain riding your shoulders to be weightless. in the best way. go on. fly free. it is ok.
-
stillness
You are the stillness beneath the mental noise.
~Eckhart Tolle
-
sunrise, sunset
each day the sun rises, the sun sets
the world turns to create this illusion
your day may be my night
my calm, descending orb may be
your burning, rising fireball
all the while, the ground we stand solid on
is actually spinning relentlessly under us
whatever you “see” is perception driven
beauty and sadness
tragedy and joy
heartache and elation
all of these things shift forms
based on what the angle is
my lens is different than yours
yours is not the same as
his and hers and theirs
even common details
become blurry, ultimately
arguing absolutes and opinions, equally pointless
spend more time accepting
try harder to be aware and awake
be ready to receive whatever
put your energy into love
open your heart and mind
prepare to view from a different angle
try to avoid shame and judgement
see and feel and embrace all you can
expand and let in as much light as possible
before the last revolution completes
and the shutter closes forever. -
Darkness, Light… and Human Development
I have the gift of being able to capture my son’s life, and his essence, in images – already I look back through them and marvel at what happens when passion, love, skill, and an observing heart & mind come together. I can see his life unfolding and see his different personality traits emerge as I look through this growing archive. It blows my heart and mind.
Talk about bittersweet. Can’t stop, won’t stop.
By the time I recognize this moment this moment will be gone, but I will bend the light, pretending that it somehow lingered on.
~John Mayer, Clarity*****
© Lotus Carroll, All Rights Reserved
To license commercially, please email. -
quantum heart murmurs
a few yesterdays ago
in the hours between the deepest of night
and the rising warmth of the sun,
when i was feeling how heavy
the weight of forgetting is,
i wrote you a letter.it holds all of the secrets
i wanted you to know about my heart,
and the way that you left things
like the scattering of leaves
after a storm that never
showed up on anyone’s radar.it tells the story of how many nights
i held your shape in the dark with my soul,
waiting,
and the way that i could make my breath
actually say your name even when i held it.i wrote about the way that the moon
reminds me of the shiniest part inside of me
that you found and then stole
but that somehow still lights my way home
when i feel alone.when i was done with the damp pages,
i folded it into a tiny, star-shaped heart
and carefully postmarked it
to a future you, who may or may not
someday care.To license commercially, please email.
-
My Heart Skips None Of These Beats
The last bit of summer vacation is pressing in on us, and it has largely become this: the frantic run from pool to platform on repeat, a near maddening loop of frenzied obsession, the intense need to squeeze in as much flight, falling, plunge and ascension as possible before the school bell once more rings.
He is reborn over and over again in an unrealized effort to slow the sinking of the sun.
It is both beautiful and somehow tragic in its simple impossibility; it is all at once the sweetness of youth and his slipping grasp on it. My heart swells and tightens as I watch him hurry to soar and float once more.
I feel him breathing life inexplicably into me as he powers through his, and I realize that I love the bittersweet pulse of this life.
To license commercially, please email.
-
The Beauty of Change
We collected a rather large batch of caterpillars that were threatening to skeletonize my sunflower garden recently. I housed them in a small plastic container with slots for air designed to hold buggies and fed them sunflower leaf rations (they turned their noses up at other types of leaves) saving most of my garden from destruction while still feeding them. After several days, they all suited up in their respective chrysalises and made with the metamorphosing. We dug witnessing this, and awaited the unfolding of their wings as they became Bordered Patch Butterflies (Chlosyne lacinia).
For the past couple of days, they’ve been greeting the world anew, and as they do, we open the hatch on the container and set them free into my (flower filled, butterfly orgasmic) back yard. It is an incredibly joyous feeling to watch one of them lift out of the housing and ascend into the air and off to freedom, somehow making my heart more buoyant even though it is my lungs that fill with air while I breathe in and watch them float.
This little flapper needed some extra time to dry its wings and visit with another creature who has been rapidly changing right before my eyes lately.
I have a tender love that floats on wings of expectation and wonder for them both.
To license commercially, please email.
-
how to: silhouette photography / self portraiture
Sometimes you can say just as much, or even more, with the suggestion of a thing as you can with all of its details. This is true of silhouette photography – a genre that can be alarmingly beautiful and expressive. If you’ve never shot silhouettes, you may be wondering how to achieve this look. It’s fairly simple to get the basics down. From there, you can let your creativity run wild.
The Basics:
The most important thing to remember is that your subject should not be well lit from the front. In addition, there should be a significant light source in the background.
The subject is whatever you want forming the silhouette. In the case of self portraiture, this subject is you. We want to reduce lighting from the front because we want to obscure most of the detail – this is what creates an outline, or silhouette.
There are many ways to obtain this, from studio lighting to sunlight. Sunsets provide an amazing backdrop for silhouettes. They are pure, simple, and beautiful. Play around to see what you can achieve.
Once you’ve identified a subject and have a backlight, attend to camera settings. Expose the image for the backlight, rather than the subject. This way, your subject will be very dark, creating an outline with little detail from the front.
Voila! This is the basic formula for silhouette photography.
A few things to remember:
- create distinct, clean shapes with your silhouette subject(s)
- try to reduce excessive clutter or multiple other confusing shapes in the image unless they add to the “story” you want it to tell
- avoid foreground lighting
- identify or set up a significant source of back lighting
- no one formula for camera settings is perfect. the strength of your light will dictate what you’ll need, so experiment
- don’t forget to pay careful attention to scene setting and composition, as with all photos, once you get the technique down
- for self portrait silhouette photography, you will find the following tools incredibly helpful: remote/intervalometer, tripod
Here are some examples of silhouette self portraits I’ve created, with some basic information you can review.
Of course, rules are meant to be broken, and you can play around with the basic setup and then go beyond it, tweaking things in so many ways to create different kinds of photos.
Here, there is obviously a lot going on, so the silhouette is clean, and there is “clutter.” But it’s interesting clutter, and adds to the mood:
You can also adjust lighting on the subject to create “near-silhouette” images. Some details of the subject are lit and visible, while others are dark, as with the following self portrait.
Go forth, find the light, and create silhouettes.
To license images or text commercially, please email.