When flowers hang out in herds like this, you have to be very sneaky, else they’ll run and you’ll miss the shot.
Photo by Kari Wolfe
This is the shot I got. Look how they hid their faces from me!
Yellow flowers are very skittish. Always approach with caution.
They’re fine, thanks for asking! Living the good life and all that.
Driving Miss Candi
My little seal puppy, look at him swim.
Look over there!
Now look over there!
She’s kind of a weird one.
“Yeah, could you guys get back in the car so we can RIDE?”
“Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta!”
“Whatchoo lookin’ at?”
1 comment
Day 29 – Waiting for photo clients.
Day 30 – Hanging out at one of our favorite places – 11-Mile Canyon
Day 31 – I think it’s OBVIOUS my next career should be Pedicurist.
Day 32 – The Writing Parent (had to use a title from the Way Back Machine – my old ‘zine) – my girl reads while I write. (She’s reading “Impossible” by Nancy Werlin; I’m writing my memoir.)
Day 33 – TRYING to work outside. My Candi girl is like having a toddler all over again. “Play with me!”
Day 34 – Writing again. Well, obviously not. I grounded myself from the Internet and going outside and vacuuming (all big distractions for me), and what I should have done was tell myself “DO NOTHING ELSE BUT WRITE!” Else this happens. I found the effects on Photo Booth! I crack myself up. (Just wait until my girl gets home.)
no comments
The photographer stalking a photographer version. What follows is all Kari, all the time!
This is Kari. See Kari pout.
See Kari take pictures.
See Kari look at me like I’m crazy.
See Kari pose for me.
See Kari chat it up with the Harley dudes.
(What’s the guy on the far left doing? Interesting…)
See Kari chimping*.
See Kari pose for me again.
See Kari spot me.
See Kari dancing among the flowers as the sun sets.
Say goodbye to Kari, everyone. “Goodbye, Kari!”
*Chimping is a photography term which means to check photos on the LCD screen after taking them. It isn’t fair for me to really accuse Kari of this since she didn’t do it after every photo. But in the series I was trying to take of us like this, she was doing so in 90% of them. Busted!
8 comments
Did you miss Part I or II or III?
Independence Ghost Town continued –
And back to Independence Pass for the sunset (where this 365 photo was taken) -
And that’s all, folks. You may now exit to your right.
Well, I spared you hundreds of other photos, and there IS one more post to follow, coming tomorrow, but THEN that’s all, folks.
In August, I will be visiting such places as The Grand Canyon, Utah, Vegas (drive-through – gonna get hitched – just kidding – I’m already hitched, but we are celebrating our 12-year anniversary, so…), Lake Mead, and if the husband has his way, California beaches (dog friendly, of course). Basically, it’ll take me forever to share all of that with you. Hope you’re up for the ride!
Note: I like sun flare and I do it on purpose.
4 comments
Day 23 – Sometimes Mr. & Mrs. Troll are just weird.
Day 24 – It was a…bad day. That is all.
Day 25 – What happened is, I was trying to be funny and I didn’t know the phone would delete the original photo, and then I didn’t know it would be so freakin’ tiny!
Day 26 – Ummm….this isn’t what it looks like?
Day 27 – It was a day worse than Day 24. My furry girls were giving me cozy loves. No worries, though – I shook it off and was on the rise again by the next morning.
Day 28 – Published! It’s been a long time since I’ve had a byline. My snarky little poem is now appearing in Almagre, the Pikes Peak Community College literary magazine. (This was an excellent day. I connected with someone, had a great photo shoot, saw a beautiful sunset, got cake from my boss, and received my copy of Almagre!)
no comments
Maroon Bells Continued -
To get the best kind of flowy, soft water and keep everything else in focus,
one should not handhold the camera, but I did, so there.
Once we left there, we stopped in Independence Ghost Town, where the sun began a slow beautiful trip to the other side of the world.
To be continued (again, I know! Just wait until I go on a vacation that lasts longer than one day!) …
4 comments
Aspen -
Mr. & Mrs. Troll visited the Maroon Bells -
And so did I -
365 outtake in favor of this one
To be continued…
9 comments
You’re walking along, enjoying the breeze, smelling the flowers, basking in the warmth of the sun, happy songs on your tongue, praise in your heart, joy from head to toe, and then someone runs up to you and punches you in the gut.
Now walk around for a week and pretend that you’re perfectly fine, like you don’t hurt, like you might not at any moment burst into tears because the pain becomes too much.
Shaking it off isn’t easy. You don’t just shrug and decide it won’t bother you. Rather, you get angry that it DOES bother you. Fifteen years later. You thought, or maybe just denied the truth, that it was all behind you, that it couldn’t possibly hurt anymore. And then you lie awake in bed, crying because the pain is fresh, like it just happened. The wounds that you thought were healed have merely been plastered over, a bandaid that was so fleshy you didn’t know that’s what it was.
In a second, it’s all back. It’s in your face, dredging it all up again, and you deny it, no, you don’t feel it, it can’t be there, it can’t hurt anymore, I’m in control, back off, back off, I don’t see you!
You peek out from behind the hands that cover your eyes, and you cannot deny it – it’s there. It’s staring you in the face, the past that you thought was back there, in the past. It showed up, the scraggly cat you know you should ignore, yet you don’t because your heart won’t let you. You feed it and it grows and it’s here for good. Because it never left. It was here the whole time, and damn it, I’m in control, this is my life, but it’s not just my life. It’s someone else’s life, and I wish at that moment I didn’t have a heart, that I could really just turn my back and pretend like I don’t care, no, I don’t, it’s not my concern, leave me the hell alone. But it is, it kind of is. Because I know how it feels, and I have to acknowledge that. I have to.
And yes, this is I, not you. It’s I. Me. My pain, my punch in the gut, my past, my troubles, my heart involved. And I can want all the damn day long that it isn’t here, back for a second helping, but it is. Fifteen years doesn’t make it go away. It just means I’ve lived with it for fifteen years. And then I think, “I hate you!” This isn’t fair and I have been pretty sure I’ve felt nothing for you, but now I know I hate you. This is YOUR past, your decisions, and you died and don’t have to deal with them. I do. Not because I have to, but because I HAVE to. Because it’s not fair – not to me, not to my children, and not to this little girl, all innocent, all affected by the decisions you made, thinking only of yourself. Never no one else.
There it is, the anger, the pain, the frustration, all dug out of the ground again, putrid and horrid and in my face. My gut hurts, my head aches, and my heart, oh my heart, it feels what needs to be done and wants to reach out and make it all okay again, but it knows. For a week, I have sat in this mess of filth from the past, trying ever so hard not to let it hurt, but maybe it needs to hurt again. Maybe I need to keep crying it out. Does it ever go away?
Dead for almost thirteen years and I still feel you standing over me. I smell your cologne on someone and for a brief moment, I smile, and then I want to throw up. Our time together is like that – a brief moment of good, following by pain and sorrow and a broken me.
I cry into my pillow because I don’t think anyone will understand. I should be over all of this. I should be able to keep a straight face and tell it, and deal with it, and not be afraid of it. Which reaction is my truth? Am I lying when I’m okay, or when I’m not? In an instant, I am 20-year-old me again, not good enough, not pretty enough to keep my husband loving only me. I am sickly and trying to stay healthy, trying to take care of my babies, trying to live out my happily-ever-after, because this time it’s for real, this time he means to love us the right away. And then it’s all over and my love is shattered once and for all. That’s what I realize as I cry – that this memory hurts the most, more than the night he died, because it’s when I stopped loving him. It’s when he hurt me worse than any other time. And though we went on for two more years, right then, this memory, this ghost from the past that is here now, that is when it was really over. When I accepted it and let it happen. When I gave up.
I love my life now and have a wonderful husband who would never hurt me like that, and so it shouldn’t hurt anymore, it really shouldn’t, but as the tears roll down my cheeks and this screen becomes blurry, I know that I’m still a little broken inside, a little lost still, and maybe I’ll always be.
Write it out, Angela, write it out. Release it, let it go, cry, and cry, and cry, and let it go.
And now do the right thing.
8 comments
1 comment