a celebration of light and color

"There are two ways of spreading light; to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it."  ~Edith Wharton

Tis the season for lights and color. And when you combine to two? Magic happens!

The golden glow of candle light, radiant ornaments, moonlight, subtle sparkles, twinkle lights.

Whether you choose fantastic focus or a brilliant bokeh, today, illuminate us with all the light and color that you've captured this holiday.

bokeh love

This is the perfect time of year to experiment with those beautiful fuzzy orbs of light we call bokeh. A string of Christmas lights is the ideal tool for creating bokeh in the background. For this photo, I setup a backdrop with strings of lights draped over top of a cream colored blanket. Then I placed my cute little subject about 10 feet in front of the backdrop and set my aperture as low as I could (f2.5 in this case). What resulted was a soft, creamy glow of bokeh in the background.

Now that Thanksgiving is behind us and the holiday twinkle lights are going up, get out there and play around with boheh! Show us your results, past and present so we can all get in the spirit of the season!

life is but a dream

As I travel my creative path, everyone once in a while I call on a new muse. And sometimes I don't even know I've invited something else in to change my perspective, shake things up, or give me a whole new way of thinking. It's almost as if I intuitively know that I need a little something to get me out of my usual way of seeing or being and *poof* some new muse comes to do just that.

Such has been the case with my experimentation with shooting out of focus. It's nothing new for me, I've done it before but as a photographer, I'm usually thinking about where to focus and what to focus on rather than thinking about how to throw my entire shot out of focus.

I'm glad when the glimmers of creative muses come my way. When I am reawakened to all the wonder of my everyday life. When it feels like a beautiful dream. When around each corner lies a brand new adventure.

I encourage you to call on your own muse for the next week. Perhaps the muse need only be your life? Ali Edwards' A Week in the Life begins on Monday. It seems like just the thing to get us to focus (or not) on our amazing, everyday lives.

Share your favorite muse today. Anything from subject matter, to tool, to technique...it's all magic when you're open to it.

Feeling Creative

I'm a lover of photography and a lover of words.  Occasionally I like to combine the two when I feel a photo calls for it such as the one above.  When I saw those sweet, tiny, beautiful, little violet flowers, I knew immediately what words to use. 

How about you? Do you ever feel moved to do more with a photo? Do you alter them? Add words? Textures? Share with us your creations.  We'd love to see them.

new growth

There's nothing better than the color of new blades of grass in the spring. After months of a dry, brown yard, new grass growth can instantly change my mood. It evokes such a feeling of starting over and new life. Combine that with beautiful evening light and some bokeh and I'm in heaven. I love being able to capture a small part of that feeling in a photo. Photography has increased my sense of awareness in many aspects of life. But the details of a new season are always at the top of my list.

Do you have any uplifting spring photos to share?