The Beginning

Today marks one year exactly since I started this project. The quote I found seems absolutely perfect for where this whole thing has led me.

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished.
That will be the beginning.
~ Louis L'Amour

The Escape

The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.
~ Charles DuBois

Old Junk

After a couple of days of playing with the new camera I figured out the lens is not good at all. Looks like I need to exchange it for a Canon lens. Back to the old camera until I get it sorted out.

To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.
~ Thomas Alva Edison

Ice Skating

None of these came out very well but this was the best one. It was taken thru the glass without a flash.

There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.
~ George Sand

Here She Is

She finally arrived today and I have my work cut out for me. I can't wait to dig in and start learning.


And here is one of the first photos:


Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.
~ Andre Gide

End of the Year

I started this project one year ago with a bunch of friends on a lark. I had never really taken pictures before except typical snapshots of family or vacation shots. It sounded like it would be a fun challenge for the new year and a way to keep in contact with online friends. I had no idea how life-changing it would be for me. This year has been one of the hardest I have ever gone through. At times I wasn’t sure I was going to survive it. The one constant has been photography. It has been a therapy for me that I could not have imagined. I pick up the camera and my world disappears. It is a magical feeling. I haven’t kept track but I know that I have taken at least 7000 pictures over the course of the year. I have not missed one day of posting. Some days it has been all I could do to think of one picture to take, let alone find a decent one to post. Others it has been hard to pick just one.

Having a camera in my hands changes the way I see things. I look at everything from a different angle. I see shadows and light and reflections and color. I wonder how something will look at dawn or at sunset and if I can get back to shoot it. I have gotten very brave with a camera in my hands. I got within feet of a bear by myself on a hike and all I could think of was how can I get the best photo. I’ve taken pictures of complete strangers. I’ve met complete strangers and talked with them about the best cameras and how to get the best shots. My children think I’m insane, but when I go somewhere without my camera they think that’s even crazier.

I am so excited at the possibilities this could lead to. I have enrolled in a local photography school and purchased an official dslr. I am working on a website (www.nicoleraestudio.com) that I am hoping to have ready by the end of January. This blog may be moving then. I will keep posting though. I don’t know if I will be as legalistic as I was this year about posting every day, but it has become a part of my life that I can’t see changing.

Another part of my life that I hope doesn’t change are the others that have participated this year. Lovely Laura, who brought this project to my attention (and has great photos as well); Julie, whose artistic eye just amazes me; Kim, whose passion and talent are incredible; Dalissa, whose lighting and color I just love…. I could go on and on. There is so much talent out there and I have been inspired every single day by so many people. I am so grateful for this project and am glad that it really doesn’t have to come to an end. For me, it is just beginning.

The Train

The light at the end of the tunnel is just the light of an oncoming train.
~ Robert Lowell

Christmas Morning

What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace.
~ Agnes M. Pharo

Christmas Gifts

There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.
~ Erma Bombeck

The Story

There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story.
~ Linda Hogan

More Lights

Stress: The confusion created when one's mind overrides the body's basic desire to choke the living daylights out of some jerk who desperately deserves it.
~ Anonymous

Shadows and Light

Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.
~ Maori Proverb

Lights

The outdoor Christmas lights, green and red and gold and blue and twinkling, remind me that most people are that way all year round - kind, generous, friendly and with an occasional moment of ecstasy. But Christmas is the only time they dare reveal themselves.
~ Harlan Miller

The Season

Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.
~ Henry David Thoreau

After

Here she is!

She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom!
~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Before

Stay tuned for the after shot....

The pain passes, but the beauty remains.
~ Pierre Auguste Renoir:

Break Away

For those men who, sooner or later, are lucky enough to break away from the pack, the most intoxicating moment comes when they cease being bodies in other men's command and find that they control their own time, when they learn their own voice and authority.
~ Anonymous

Living

I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.
~ Eleanor Roosevelt

A Moment

Right now a moment of time is passing by! We must become that moment.
~ Paul Cezanne

On the Way to Work

If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves.
~ Lane Kirkland

Imagine

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.
~ Henry David Thoreau

The Process

The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.
~ Julia Cameron

Christmas Trees

The perfect Christmas tree? All Christmas trees are perfect!
~ Barnard

First Snow

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event.
~ Anonymous

The Sun Breaks Through

Count your blessings. Once you realize how valuable you are and how much you have going for you, the smiles will return, the sun will break out, the music will play, and you will finally be able to move forward the life that God intended for you with grace, strength, courage, and confidence.
~ Og Mandino

Opening

Birth is the sudden opening of a window, through which you look out upon a stupendous prospect. For what has happened? A miracle. You have exchanged nothing for the possibility of everything.
~ William MacNeile Dixon

The Star

To perceive Christmas through its wrapping becomes more difficult with every year.
~ E.B. White

Foreign

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd
From wandering on a foreign strand!
~ Sir Walter Scott

Glow

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
~ Jack London

Trash

To play safe, I prefer to accept only one type of power: the power of art over trash, the triumph of magic over the brute.
~ Vladimir Nabokov

Entopic Phenomena

E showed me some shots on flickr of entopic phenomena and we had to try it for ourselves.

Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall.
~ Ray Bradbury

A New Piece

I'm working on this one. It's not quite done but wanted a record of it beforehand.

I'm not trying to make paintings look like photos. I want to make paintings using photos as a reference, the way painters did when photography was first invented.
~ Peter Doig