All around us

A sunny winter day. A perfect time for a long overdue date with my camera. Not because I have an idea for a project, or because I “should make meaningful images”. Just to have fun, play hide and seek with the light ( the light does the hiding, I gladly do the seeking part). The arboretum it filled with families soaking in the sun, dogs enjoying their walk. A million birds, heard but not seen take care of the music. The wind and light paint fleeting art on the surface of the water. Everyday magic.

“Sometimes since I’ve been in the garden I’ve looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something was pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden - in all the places.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

Below the surface

What's in an image? What do you see?

Roots. Are they edible? A harvest of sorts or overgrown weeds?

Hands. Presumably the gardener. Big hands. Is this a woman or a man? Is he/she proudly displaying the results of their labor?

While each viewer will create their own story, here is what this image means to me. We are back in Israel, reconnecting with our roots. for me, a big part of this is returning to the garden I left behind two years ago. It is heartbreaking to see it invaded by aggressive, out of control plants to the point where some think it should be scratched, the soil replaced (or worst yet, poisoned to kill all invaders) and start from scratch. Ten years of work down the drain. I refuse to accept, for now, while evaluating the options, I fight the invaders. I know it is too little too late, but I still spend a couple of hours the other day on my hand and knees, digging and trying to uproot the weeds. The garden was always "my place". My husband helps carry the compost, but other than that, he just takes pride in "his gardener wife". Yesterday, he saw me fighting what seemed to be small nice leaves that turned our to be connected to a carrot like root ten times their size.  Without thinking, he picked up the fork and started digging. He digs, I pull. It's the eve of Yom Kippur, people dressed in white, going to the synagogue - we are wearing shorts, dirty and sweaty, fighting the weeds. When we were done, I asked him to wait, grabbed my camera with my favorite 50mm prime lens and took a few photographs of his hands holding the uprooted plants. To me, this image speaks volumes about what's below the surface, a portrait of our relationship. 

To all the peacocks, trees and turtles

...and this seems to be one of those times when the spirits chose me ... A last visit to the Arboretum in LA before returning to Israel. Soaking in ideas, getting ready to renovate my own garden. Imprinting images in memory and on film. Gardens are always the places that's hardest for me to leave behind. To all the peacocks, trees and turtles, ponds and ducks, squirrels and spirits - farewell, I will miss you. 

If hope had a scent, it would smell like spring

April 4th. My 51 birthday.

Closing another year, my best one yet. The year I found a new path to me. Through the lens.

The best place to photograph today, in our garden. With the scent of childhood lilacs in my mind, I photograph the Wisteria and Brunflesia - both filling the air with their sweet fragrance. And I can remember the lilacs (that will never grow in my too sunny, too hot garden) with longing, but also with a smile. As this is a good day. A day filled with hope and anticipation for the next year, and all the good things it will bring.

If hope has a scent, it would definitely smell like spring.

Memories of childhood lilacs by Amy Kanka Valadarsky

The gift of rain

The gift of rain

The Macro lens was reserved to photograph my jewelry art. Not only it allows me to take detailed pictures of the pieces, but it is also my quality control, as every tiny blemish will show.

Until now.

Back to Israel after a month away, when I left it was scorching summer. Now the air is cooler, and it already rained twice this week.

And my macro lens got another use. Shooting raindrops. 

Not that it was such a success the first time I tries. Macro shooting and the wind are not good companions. 

But I am stubborn (as my husband will readily agree...) and I kept trying until I was able to capture it. Not perfect yet, but already able to express what I saw.

The gift of rain. Nature's gift to us.

Enjoy.

One drop was caught on a spider web

...back to reflections. Light and a raindrop