Last week I was gifted a beautiful arrangement of antique roses and boy, did I enjoy them! A few of the shots I took close and a few of them closer still. I am fascinated by the intricate delicateness of flowers.
Everything is packed so tightly inside a tiny little bud.
And then when it is released from the confines of its green cocoon the petals just seem to spill out, at first slowly and then seemingly in a burst. I loved the color of this one and oh mmm gee the smell has heavenly.
The petals are so delicate and thin. I love how you can enjoy the variegated shades of color on the pink one.
And then there is the tight spiral that gradually unwinds.
Each petal unwraps itself but still maintains the ruffle of memory.
My favorite flower is the tulip but I cannot argue with the beauty of a rose.
Have a wonderful Monday, friends. I hope you see little bits of beauty in random things this week and marvel at the work of His hands!
Did y’all know my brand new son-in-law is a photographer? He is and a really good one. He’s a young whippersnapper though and has given me grief over the fact that I don’t use Lightroom (the industry standard) for my editing. All in jest of course, and much love, because he wanted to marry my daughter 😉
He is actually going to second shoot a wedding with me in July though and in the interest of making life easier for both us in that endeavour I made sure my computer was up to snuff and could handle the Adobe program and I am now officially doing things like a grownup photographer.
I’m shooting in RAW and editing in Lightroom.
Turns out that young whippersnapper knew what he was talking about when he kept telling me I just needed to do it. I still have a bit of a learning curve and as of yet I haven’t worked on anything involving people but I love love love what I have been able to do so far just with some flower pictures I took in my yard.
Between the extension tubes and Lightroom I am feeling all fancy and the clover in my yard has never looked prettier.
I don’t do a whole bunch of editing but I do think I like what I have the freedom to do since the file is larger and gives me more information to work with if I do want to play with it.
I know, I know. I’m just geeking out over a few pictures and new techniques and skill sets and it’s probably not terribly interesting to you. But seriously, look at the scope of detail that God put into a simple little clover.
The swirl and flare of each petal. The movement of color from stalk to stem. Even the beautiful tea stained shade of the dying flower.
How much more does He care about the details, the smalls ones and the big ones, about your life?
I’m still hung up on the wonder leading to wisdom I guess. Because how can we not be in awe of the God who created this and not trust Him enough to live the life He calls us to? A life of genuine love and real forgiveness? One flush with steadfastness and truth, beauty, and goodness.
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:10
We have been created with even more attention and care than the flowers and He has work for us to do, good works. So get busy. You’re supposed to glorify Him today. Go make someone marvel at what He has done.
Good morning! I hope you had a good weekend. We took a quick trip to visit the Porters in Monroe for Em’s birthday and as usual had a lovely time and ate well. Both of our families enjoy all things food so cooking together is a common part of our life together.
We also went to a Superbowl party last night that also had some pretty delicious eats and boy was the sunset amazing!
Lots of things bumping around in my head from books I’m reading and conversations I’m having and I hope to sort some of it out and share some of what I am thinking about out loud. I enjoy the process of needing to organize my thoughts to write them out but also the conversations with you that sometimes come from a blog post.
But today there is a mountain of laundry to conquer and other home tending to do so I’m just going to drop a few macro shots here for you to enjoy and maybe tomorrow we can have more of a visit 🙂
One of the many things I love about our new home are the magnificent old oak trees on the property. They have these beautiful ferns growing along parts of the trunks and limbs the name of which escape me so if you happen to know what they’re called let me know, okay? It’s the sort of thing I know I know but can not seem to bring to the front of my brain and it’s niggling at me in that annoying way forgotten things often niggle.
One other thing that fascinates me with the trees is the sheer number of acorns all over the ground. What makes this fascinating is the fact that there aren’t a bunch more oak trees sprouting up everywhere. God granting a tree to be born out of the ground only when He chooses is a beautiful natural display of His sovereignty and one that gives me comfort. There is a time and season for everything.
Have a beautiful day, friends!
*Bonus points if the blog title made you hum an 80’s song!
What can I say? I got my days mixed up and posted Thursday’s post on Wednesday and didn’t even realize it until mid afternoon. I am going with someone needing the passage from Colossians yesterday instead of today 🙂
Anyway, here is what was supposed to be a wordless Wednesday post yesterday…
How was your weekend? Mine actually had a head start with a visit from our Sarah with the added surprise of her bringing my mother to see me! It was a super quick visit with them coming in late Wednesday evening and leaving early Friday morning but it was still good for my soul to have both my girl and my mama here. After they left I had some time to drive around some of our backroads taking pictures. There is so much beauty in the landscape of Louisiana and I hope to share them later in the week so that family and friends in Florida can see more of where we live now.
A lovely dinner with a sweet young family from our church that evening, and a beautiful Saturday morning walking around some of downtown Lake Charles while Claire and her friends solved the CluedUpp murder mystery. This is the second time they’ve done the geo mystery game and it is always a lot of fun. The company does them all over the country and we actually gave two of them to people for Christmas, one that takes place in Pensacola and one in Monroe.
We are so grateful for the sweet friends Claire has found here!
This was followed by Claire’s first formal dance with the homeschool coop we belong to. She takes weekly dance lessons in Lake Charles so it’s fun to actually get to go somewhere and do the foxtrot and Virginia Reel.
Then Rob and I actually went on a date, something we realise we haven’t done since sometime like September? We went to a restaurant called Calla and oh boy! was the food delicious. We started the meal with blue crab beignets and the meal just went up from there…the brussel sprouts were divine!
Everything wrapped up with a wonderful Sabbath full of spiritual food (I found Rob’s sermon to be particularly beautiful) and good rest.
There was a beautiful mix of fog and pink skies this morning when I took the puppies out. A quick phone picture is all I captured but I think I may need to keep my camera handy tomorrow for a real picture.
There is so much to be thankful for and I’m looking forward to whatever this week holds. Everything is not always rainbows and butterflies I know. Last week was mixed with deep sorrow over the loss of a faithful minister and friend of Rob’s who passed away suddenly. There were text conversations with friends that I miss seeing regularly. But God shows Himself so faithful even in the midst of those things and then the extra portion of grace given in such sweet good things can only cause me to either weep with joy or sing His praise.
It seems like a good place to begin a Monday, don’t you think?
I almost forgot the macro picture! I’m not calling it macro Monday every week but right now it is a fun departure from regular photography and I hope you enjoy seeing things up close and personal. I actually find taking macro pictures to be very relaxing and if I feel stressed or a bit chaotic it helps to take a moment to lean in and narrow my focus for a bit.
I think this last one was my favorite from the roses.
On Saturday the ladies of my church came over and we enjoyed a lovely brunch and fellowship over a discussion on Psalm 23. It was my first time hosting a group since we moved here and it was so fun to have them here! God has indeed been so gracious to us in this move.
And the food. Breakfast foods are some of my favorites and we had a veritable feast to savor and enjoy. As an afterthought I picked up some frozen macarons, partly because they are yummy and, being completely honest, partly because I knew if there were any left over I could take pictures of them 🙂
And there were so I did and now we get to enjoy the fabulous alliteration of macro macarons on a Monday and if that isn’t just a fun way to start the week I don’t know what is. In all seriousness, I realize it may seem a silly thing to do and really a lot of the pictures I take may seem that way. I mean, these probably aren’t going to grace anyone’s walls just like the ones I did of an artichoke or the cheerios. But to me these pictures, the ones that so delight my soul but will never be hung or even printed, are small acts of beautiful resistance.
I have an online friend that I have been following for years and this morning she shared some of her heart struggles while living in China as the government there begins to push another lockdown due to covid. She talked about how Japanese-Americans were forced to live in internment camps during WWII and as an act of resistance they took to gardening. “They made rock gardens and ornamental gardens, vegetable gardens and gravel gardens. They refused to give in to the desolation. They preserved their culture and humanity. They resisted the harshness of their condition, and they did it with beauty.”
Christine went on to write that as she read Psalm 23 with that thought in mind it was as if God himself is known to create these beautiful acts of resistance…I have prepared a table for you to sit and feast in the midst of your enemies.
So, I ask you dear friend. What beautiful act of resistance will you commit this week? What small beautiful thing will you do or make that tells the world Christ is King?
Me? I think I am going to pick up my camera and see what unexpected and often overlooked beauty I can find to photograph.
My birthday was Wednesday and turning 51 was a lowkey event and lovely. The kids gave me a beautiful Willow Tree figurine and it seems I am finally going to actually start collecting them and that makes me happy.
Rob got me a thingie called an expo card that helps set accurate white balance when taking pictures and I am looking forward to working with that but what I am most excited about is the set of extension tubes he gave me. They are a poor man’s answer to a macro lens and they worked so much better than I expected! A good dedicated macro lens is going to range in price anywhere from $400 to $1200 and while it would be nice to have one I just can’t see spending that kind of money on “nice”.
Enter the extension tubes. They work great for a macro hobbyist who is just doing occasional up close work. Metal rings that attach to the camera, literally extend your lens so it can function as a macro. The set came with three different sizes and what is pretty cool is that they can be stacked to achieve different focal lengths.
I took around 275 pictures yesterday morning just getting a feel for them. Any macro lens gives you an incredibly narrow depth of field which means focus can be hard to nail. Pardon me while I geek out, but it was just so much fun to play around with!
This was one of my first successful shots.
I received some beautiful birthday flowers from friends and they came in quite handy as a practice subject.
And of course I needed to see how cheerios looked through the tubes.
I braved the cold (winter has arrived in Louisiana!) long enough to do a couple of random outside shots.
I’m hoping that as I practice I will get really good at macro work. There is something special about focusing in on the very small details that we usually just glance over. Almost like God is sharing a secret with us. Not sure what the secret in cheerios is but… 🙂
Always happy to get suggestions for photo ideas so feel free to share any you have.
You can use this link to check out some really amazing macro photographers who are most likely not using extension tubes 😉