Can you always trust what you see?

I think not. In these days of Photoshop and advanced photography programs that enhance, tweak and transform, many of the images we see have been altered in some way.

I am currently on a journey, attempting to reveal, dare I say, my inner artist. I start my day by perusing countless photography sites exposing me to not only fabulous photographers, but amazing techniques used in post-processing. Textures, grains, and layers...oh my! There are a myriad of options available to the budding photographer when editing one's images. But the question arises, do I really want to change the photo that much?

I recently completed an artistic photography workshop. Fantastic results were rendered by layering and masking an image. The results were phantasmagorical, highly cool, but not to my taste.

This morning as a walked into my garage, I noticed the window was speckled with frost. There I stood, witnessing the morning's gift, frost. I made an about-face, walked back into the house to grab my camera. With camera and macro lens in hand, I clicked away, trying to catch each perfectly unique formation. My favorite was the one above, which I titled, Keeper of the Crystal.

I showed the above image to a friend and he asked, what did I do to the image to make it look this way, and how did I get that nugget in the center? The short answer, nothing. Sure, I tweaked the basic adjustments and added a vignette, but that's it. I could have added a texture or layers, but I chose not to. Why mess with nature?

A sage once said, "If you can't improve on silence, keep quiet".  Allow me to tweak that by saying, if you can't improve upon natural beauty, do nothing. And that is exactly what I did with this image.
Don't thank me for the image. Thank Mother Nature.

​Live in color,
Abby

​So what does a girl do on a chilly winter's day? Hightail it down to the creek, lay on a slab of ice, and take photos.

Hidden in the solitude of Vermont, if one is crazy enough to withstand frigid temperatures, one can uncover extraordinary hidden treasures. On today's outing I parked myself next to a half frozen river and witnessed the magic.

​In one fell swoop, life is gushing with movement, yet also frozen in time. How does that happen?

My words could not amplify the beauty I found within the ice. I will let the images speak for themselves.

​Live in color,
Abby

Who are we if not our memories?

​A funny thing happens on the way to one's own antiquity. We try to grab on to the fragments of our life, desperately attempting to slow time down. Sadly, that doesn't work. Time marches on, slowing for no one.
If we are smart, we surround ourselves with photographs. Photographs of the good times and of our loved ones, reminding us where we came from, who we once were, and who we think we are today.

In the hall of my home, I once had a wall of family photos spanning decades. Images of my parents as young, impressionable lovers, grandparents long gone, pictures of my son at various stages, along with our dogs, in-laws that have fallen into out-laws, and a slightly faded Kodak print of me, a favorite. It was a shot of me at the tender age of four, or there about, with arms folded, already showing signs of defiance and independence. This photographic walk down memory lane was my window into who I was, and gave a nod to the people that added texture to my life. One day my son referred to this area as, "The wall of the dead,” harsh, but partially true. I quickly removed all the photographs. What I didn't realize at the time was that that wall was my anchor, which mapped out my voyage and my family's evolution. That innocuous wall, strangely, gave me comfort on my current circuitous journey.

Memories aren't stagnant, they are a living grab bag of impressions and experiences that define us and fuel our creativity. So why do we bury away our photographs? Why don't we proudly show off all the phases of our lives?

​What if we were to print a few photographs today? Mount them in our favorite frames and carefully arrange them on our shelves. Flood our memory with images, for our memory is our unique story, revealing how we have grown, not aged.

Live in color,
Abby