Updates

I have so many photos to choose from now, it's hard to pick which one I like best. My Zen Clam Photo Blog is filling up nicely. 

Recent trips to a local botanical garden and a zoo have given me a lot of subject matter, not to mention flowers blooming all over the neighborhood. 

This shot will appear on the Photo Blog soon - I think the leaves look like they're made of glass or ceramic. 

Other than taking a lot of photos and reading, I'm not doing much. Perimenopause is getting me down - the aches and pains, the lethargy, despite eating well and taking vitamins - it's gets tedious feeling tired all the time. 

Of course the voice in my head keeps telling me, just get some more exercise, and the other voice in my head says, if I had the energy to exercise, I wouldn't be so tired, right?  Ugh. 

The garden is finally coming along after so much rain and cool weather. 

Potatoes - growing like gangbusters
Blueberries - Amazingly it looks like I'm actually going to get some berries!
Tomatoes - bigger every day - tiny tomatoes are starting
Strawberries - escaping their pot and taking root in another nearby!
Cucumbers - just starting to come out of hibernation now that it's warm
Carrots - growing steadily
Lettuce and Kale - taking over their planter
Spinach - bolted in the heat - so I pulled it out today
Jalapenos - growing slowly
Peppers - growing steadily
Basil, parsley, cilantro - hanging in there
broccoli - long and leggy so far, but getting leafy

Photo crazy

All right, I've gone so photo crazy that I started a photo blog where I can put up my images since Pinterest isn't really working that well for me.

It's here: http://zenclamphotoblog.blogspot.com/

And for now I'm posting whenever I want, but I'm going to try a dedicated photo a day for 2016.

I'm just having too much fun playing with photos.

Image obsession

My Photo A Day project is consuming me. I used to love to take pictures, back when you had to have film developed and seeing your photos cost money! I stopped for a while taking pictures as an art form and now I've discovered it again and I love it.

It's funny that I'm having a lot more fun taking photos with my PHONE than I ever did with a camera.

My new dilemma is this though, I'm posting my finished pictures on Pinterest, and I decided to sign them. Not that I'm really worried anyone will steal them, but they are original art work since they're enhanced with photo manipulation software. They're not just pictures, they're a daily work of art. But I'm signing them with my real name, which I don't particularly want to post here. So for now I'm just going to post the original, unretouched photos here.

 

For instance, a collection of veggies.

 

And a close-up of my palm tree.

 

I don't want all my photos to be of stuff around the house though. I'm hoping to have more slice of life photos rather than just a collection of found objects.

 

I think if I can keep this up until the end of the year, I'll start an official 2016 Photo-A-Day blog.

Start Now!

There's no time like the present, so they say. One of the problems that always arises then there's talk of starting something new is - when is a good time? It seems like something always needs to be begun at an auspicious time - like Monday, or the 1st day of the month or the 1st day of the year. What usually happens is, the idea is chosen, the date is chosen for its' auspiciousness and then the path goes awry before the date arrives and the idea never takes form.

Then the cycle starts all over again. The other day I started looking into something called a 365 Project. Taking a photo a day has always interested me. I know people who have done it for a while and I thought it was a nice idea - creative and also therapeutic.

So I decided I would start a Photo a Day Project - but of course - it seems to make sense to start one on a 1st - day of the month or day of the year. A Friday - especially a Friday the 13th seems inauspicious.

Then I reasoned that one of the things I want to start doing is to start doing things. I started bike riding - I just picked a day. I didn't wait until spring or until the first of something. I just started. So I'm doing the same with this and hopefully with all other things I want to do. I'm tired of waiting for the right time to do something.

So without further ado - my Photo a Day Project begins. Whether it lasts a month or a year or forever, we'll see. If I'm still doing it on the 1st of the year, I may call it from that point forward the 2016 Phot a Day Project, but I may not.

Here are my first two photos, from yesterday and today. The theme is 'Things I love' - and basically it will just be images of things that make me happy. I'm taking an unfinished photo and then I'm embellishing a little with GIMP to make the photos more of what I love.

These are both finished photos.

 

A little bird and a nest with polymer clay eggs that sits on my desk.

 

Purple flowers that grow among the rocks at the corner of the street.

 

I probably won't post every photo for every day. I'm using Pinterest to organize the pictures and I'm keeping them in a folder on my hard drive too and considering if I get enough good ones maybe going for broke and making a really nice Snapfish album out of the best of them.

 

The upside of this is so far it doesn't seem like a chore and it's a few minutes a day that I can focus on something creative without pressure.

 

Off to write. No pressure there. ;)