045: I am grateful for photos

Every post on this blog starts out with a photo. Some of my favorite people on the planet are avid photographers.

Here’s a picture that means a lot to me.

happy-moosh

Photo by me.

I took this photo of our Springer Spaniel, Moosh, in our backyard when we lived in Maple Ridge. By the time this photo was taken our girl was getting on in years, but as you can see, she was very happy. The perfect moment…

“Sometimes I do get to places just when God’s ready to have somebody click the shutter.” ~ Ansel Adams

I love it that a photograph captures a moment in time to be enjoyed, or not, over again and again later on. I’m not sure how zen that is as it implies attachment and sentimentality, but, I like photos anyway.

What is a photo?

A photo, picture or photograph is “an image created by light falling on a light-sensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic imager such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are created using a camera, which uses a lens to focus the scene’s visible wavelengths of light into a reproduction of what the human eye would see. The process and practice of creating photographs is called photography. The word “photograph” was coined in 1839 by Sir John Herschel and is based on the Greek phos ‘light’ and (graphê) ‘representation by means of lines’ or ‘drawing’, together meaning ‘drawing with light’.” [source]

There’s a great History of Photography Time Line on the National Geographic site. That magazine introduced me to photography as an art form and also, helped me travel from my room in Nova Scotia instantly through times long gone and across the globe to Egypt, Japan and the jungles of the Amazon where I came face to face with interesting people and dangerous and exotic creatures.


Carol loves taking photos. Go anywhere with here and she has her camera with her snapping away at whatever strikes her as interesting. I enjoy it too, more so when Moosh was alive. I think she was my muse, but I am slowly becoming a shutterbug again.

“There are two people in every photograph: the photographer and the viewer” – Ansel Adams

Dad took a lot of photos too when I was young. He has literally thousands of photos on slides in carousels in the family room. Hopefully we can get them all digitally scanned one day so we can share them properly. It is going to be a big project, but one I 100% would enjoy participating in.

Speaking of big projects. I have already caused Dad a bit of a headache with those same photos.

When I was wee Mom and Dad realized something was up as the house was too quiet. They came out to find me sitting on the floor surrounded by slides, taking each one from the carousel, holding up and looking at it, putting it on the floor and pulling out another. Needless to say, I got into trouble.

Here’s a slide show of Carol’s photo portfolio. There are lots of good friends and some family in these. Enjoy:

You can see many more of here pictures in her Flickr photostream. She hopes to make a living from her photography. I think we are on the right track.

As well as memories of people, places and things long since gone we have photos to enhance those memories and keep them from fading.

Thank you photos!