I was visiting a college roommate on Martha’s Vineyard, hoping for a little distraction after my very bad choices in romance had wreaked havoc on my psyche. I walked into her home deeply demoralized, and my eyes were drawn immediately to a cheerful dozen or so daffodils in a mason jar on her kitchen window…
Most toddlers know how to get a good night’s sleep. The needs of their bodies usually surpass the ability of their thoughts to keep them awake. So when they are tired, they sleep! I have memories of my kids falling asleep in their high chairs and other various places around our home. Somewhere along the…
I initiated a 28 Day Blogging Challenge on Feb 15th in my NessLabs community, and was delighted when a dozen or so people wanted to participate. The idea was to write and publish a post on our blogs every single day. To be honest, I was inspired to do this by a paid blogging challenge,…
Why learn photography? Most people come into photography because they want to capture and remember the moments and the special people in their lives. That was certainly true for me. I’ve always been fascinated by the power of a photograph to transcend time and space and reveal an instant, a fragment from long ago. As…
One of my clients suggested doing her senior pictures at Colvin Run Mill, and I knew immediately it was a great idea! Because it is in Fairfax County and I live in Loudoun County, it wasn’t really at the top of my mind for locations. But I grew up in northern Virginia and remember coming…
Why are we so busy, and what is it about our culture that fuels this busyness? I’ve been thinking about this question on and off since 1985, when I was a college student in Denmark for the summer. I was sitting at a picnic table with five or six other students having lunch. “I have…
Do you need a better relationship with your phone? Do people you love tell you that you spend too much time on your phone? Are you using your phone more than three hours a day? Do you suffer from “text neck”? Do you find yourself saying, “I’ll look at xyz for five minutes”, and then…
“We don’t have time for perfect. In any event, perfection is unachievable: It’s a myth and a trap and a hamster wheel that will run you to death. The writer Rebecca Solnit puts it well: ‘So many of us believe in perfection, which ruins everything else, because the perfect is not only the enemy of…
Confession — right now I’m standing at a crossroads with a minor case of the burnout blues. It’s foggy, and I know in one direction lies the dark woods of melancholy and depression, and in the other direction lies sunny fields of possibility, where goals seem meaningful and effort seems desirable. So I’m writing this…
A 30 day photography challenge is perfect for anyone who wants to grow as a photographer and who is looking for some new ideas for photography subjects. In my photography courses, I encourage my students to practice coming into the present moment and following their curiosity to find their subject, and I still recommend this…