In Focus Friday With My Mind's Lens: March 2013

Where has the month gone?  It is already the last Friday of the month and that means it is time to hear from Kaeley....budding photographer extraordinare!  Major kudos to Kaeley for managing a post this month.  She does tax preparation, so at this time of the year any spare time is certainly a luxury!

I always love to see what beautiful pictures she has decided to share and as usual, she does not disappoint.  Kaeley lives in Oregon and seeing the beautiful scenery there makes me want to visit even more.  Enjoy!!!!

This month, as much as I wanted to, I just did not have the time to pull together a post.  Instead, I would like to share one from the past that is pretty special to me.  This post is the very first one I wrote last year for my own blog.  Although they are some of my early photos - the featured pictures are some of my favorites so far.

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All of the best artists start somewhere.  For some, it may be a quiet room in their house.  For others, maybe a sunny park or shopping mall.  What they all have in common is that they seek out inspiration - that thing that drives them and establishes new ideas.  Inspiration can come from all aspects of life and is what makes all artwork different.  The same subject may inspire 5 artists in 5 different ways and they will all interpret it differently, coming up with different expressions and finished products.  That is what is so great about art: you can make it yours.

Lately I have been seeking out that inspiration.  Where do I find beauty in life?  What makes the gears of my mind start turning and creating new ideas?  How can I interpret the scene I am looking at and turn it into something beautiful that other people can admire?

Beauty surrounds us everyday, but rarely do we take the time to really notice it.  We go about our days and don't stop to think about the flower blooming outside our front door, or the barefoot child running around in the yard across the street.  Every once in awhile we need to just stop and take in everything around us.  I am determined to seek out this beauty and capture as much of it as I can through my photography.  To be able to share the things that I believe are beautiful and things that matter with the rest of the world is a great honor.


A little bit of background on my photography:  I am no professional!  I have enjoyed taking pictures for as long as I can remember but have recently been working on making my pictures worth looking at.  I own a Nikon D3000, with the stock 18-55mm lens.  It was a gift a couple of years ago and I recently attended a half-day class (another gift!!) to learn how to really use it and to manually adjust the settings to get the picture I want.  As I continue to work to grow my skills, I am looking forward to sharing my work and hopefully providing some tips and techniques along the way.

For now, here is a little teaser of some recent photos: