Under Lavender Skies

"In photography and in life, Always look for the light - if you don't see it, bring it..." /John Waire/  You may know that photography has a lot to do with light, practically everything.  Each photo you take is created by light bouncing off an object, hitting your camera's sensor and voila a picture appears.  That is a very simple version of how a DSLR camera works.  I find that type of information, and most aspects of photography, fascinating. However, that is not what I want to write about today.  I believe, light can be one of the most beautiful things.  The way light behaves, bends, and changes every hour makes for some wonderful and challenging photography situations.  During the peak of the afternoon it is not as easy flow with the light.  Straight in the sun, photos are often filled with nothing but harsh lighting, squinting models and, I promise, other unmentioned problems.  However, there are ways to use that harsh ligh...

What Inspires You?  These days people find inspiration anywhere.  There are many ways that someone would put their work out into the world and I find it wonderful how many people put their work out there to inspire someone else.  I work in several different arts so I am always looking for many different types of inspiration. Art  We live in such an inspirational world, some days it gives me goosebumps!  Right now, outside my window the sky is enveloped in clouds.  They are littered across the sky in the most amazing way, and filled with color and texture, perfect for painting.  As an artist, clouds come naturally to me.  I love the texture of clouds and I love all the beautiful Oklahoma skies.  I am able to see inspiration every day right out my window.  Using assets like Pinterest and looking at images that inspire me is also something I do daily.  Photography Many sources inspire more than one thing for me. ...

A Short Story or a Novel?  This will be short- short and sweet as I always say. A couple of weeks ago I watched a video about short stories.  Not far into the video the person who was speaking gave her definition of what a short story is versus a novel, here's what she said: "A novel focuses on a journey that transforms the character whereas a short story focuses on an event that changes or reveals the character."  (A short story being only 2,500 words in general.)  This is good to know because it helps writers to decide if their idea is better suited for a novel or a short story. This has been on my mind for a while.  Towards the beginning I was not sure why this lingered on my mind but after awhile came up with an analogy. If you are going through a time in your life where at every corner you turn and see something rough, strange or uncertain, you need to be honest with yourself and ask yourself: is this a time in my life just an event that will ch...

Dreams In my opinion, dreams make some of the best and most interesting conversations.  It's always fun to tell someone about my dreams and hear all the interesting stories in other people's dreams as well. The fact that anything can happen in dreams makes it even better.   Another concept that interests me greatly is lucid dreaming.  Lucid dreaming is dreaming yet knowing you are in a dream.  It could be as simple as only knowing you are dreaming and can go all the way to you being able to react with dream characters and essentially control the events in your dreams. I decided this sounds very cool and I am going to try and teach myself how to lucid dream!  Lucid dreaming is like any skill, you must work on it and it will develop over time.  Before you start lucid dreaming you must be able to remember your normal dreams each night.  You might not have known that people actually dream every night, just don't remember them mo...