March 2017 – I dream of sumac and milkweed (and other wild things)

Spring, sort of

March 31, 2017 sumacandmilkweed4 Comments

Last Friday’s burst of warmth and color quickly turned to chill, gray, lackluster. I crave that color, but I’m beginning to see things differently. Black and white film opens you up to that, I think.

umbrella, riverfront, rain, Minolta SRT 102 and Lomography Earl Gray

Since January I’ve shot and processed (myself!) 16 rolls of black and white film, 35mm and 120mm. I have one more assignment in the class I’m taking and then I may need to go a little nuts with color film for a while after that, especially as I’ll be in California for one day of sightseeing before a few days of work and then after that in Lima, Peru for a week. I don’t know much about Lima yet, but I am imagining it’s a place requiring color film. I can’t wait to find out.

gnarly trees and clouds, Mamiya 645 1000s, Kodak T-Max 400

But despite the gray, there are green shoots, buds, the smell of wet earth, wildly chirping birds… all these signs of impending color and warm and sun. We are poised and ready and the wait makes the reward that much more delicious.

Marsh in metropark, Holga, Kodak T-Max 400

This week is exciting, different, changing. I have a new outlook. My youngest turned 21 this week, which feels like a new era… both my babies are adults. I shared an interview and photos with a community of film enthusiasts and the experience makes me feel lucky, like pinch-myself lucky, to be considered as someone with a passionate voice. I will have family around me this weekend and I will revel in that.

Good things are coming.

Chasing color (and don’t mind that Holga in my camera bag)

March 28, 2017June 16, 2017 sumacandmilkweedLeave a comment

It’s been the grayest month. Gray everywhere. After some teaser days in February we got just the grayest, dreariest March ever. Well, until last Friday, which was a big, blue, bright, bold, sunny and lovely day with a wind that blew the winter’s dust around and sent the cobwebs packing.

Of course the rain came over the weekend but whatever. It’s spring now and rain happens. But let’s get back to Friday. The temps even hit the low 70s. It was glorious. You shoulda been there.

But you weren’t, so I’m going to share some photos because I sneaked out of work a tiny bit early and went in search of color with my friend Jane.

LDC_20170327_62170002 — car as art, Holga, Kodak Ektar 100

LDC_20170327_62170004 — car and sky, Holga, Kodak Ektar 100

LDC_20170327_62170006 — Let’s Do This, Holga, Kodak Ektar 100

Detroit’s Eastern Market is the perfect antidote to a too-gray month that has gone suddenly, brilliantly bright. On Saturdays the market is alive and crowded, but other days it’s fairly quiet. Go on Saturdays for people-watching (and food buying) and on other days for wandering and mural-gazing.

LDC_20170327_62190003 — Eastern Market murals, double exposure, Holga, Kodak Ektar 100

LDC_20170327_62230006 — Dequindre Cut mural, Holga, Fuji Pro 400

LDC_20170327_62230002 — Ghosts of what I might have been, Eastern Market, Holga, Fuji Pro 400

LDC_20170327_62210001 — 2126 Pierce, Holga, Fuji Pro 400

I’ve got it bad. I sort of made a deal with myself to not acquire any more cameras for a while and focus on the ones I have (and the one I’m borrowing). But I broke my own deal in January when I used gift money to buy a Lomography Sprocket Rocket. And then some fascination with the Holga made me buy one of those, too, earlier this month. I kind of don’t count these two cameras in my deal with myself because they’re plastic. Not that they’re not real cameras–I’d argue with anyone on that. But, they’re really inexpensive. Faulty logic, but there you go.

I fall in love too easily. 120 film is my current crush. These Holga images from Friday’s adventure make me happy I don’t listen to myself sometimes.

LDC_20170327_62210005 — Clouds and corner building double in Eastern Market, Holga, Fuji Pro 400

LDC_20170327_62230001 — Sacred Heart, Holga, Fuji Pro 400

LDC_20170327_62210006 — Razor wire and sun flare, Holga, Fuji Pro 400

LDC_20170327_62230003 — Eastern Market, Holga, Fuji Pro 400

LDC_20170327_62190005 — No idle zone, Holga, Kodak Ektar 100

Getting back to yoga

March 2, 2017March 2, 2017 sumacandmilkweed2 Comments

Many years ago when my children were small and my office was not in my home and my life was far more complicated than it is now I decided to take a yoga teacher training class and add teaching yoga to the list of things I had to do. I loved practicing yoga, and for a while after that I loved teaching it, too. I taught for several years and then burned out, even though by the time I stopped teaching I was already working from a home office. But there were still deadlines to meet and growing kids to drive around to so very many activities and it all was just one big swirl. Something had to go.

I stopped practicing yoga pretty much. Every now and then, here or there, I’d take a class or roll out my yoga mat at home, but I didn’t do it often enough to have a regular practice.

Just this past November an absolutely beautiful studio opened up so close to my house that I couldn’t ignore the siren song of the things I loved best about yoga, like the retreat into my own mind and body that happens in a supportive studio with excellent instructors, the breakthroughs that happen with a regular practice, the way my language changes about myself when I am being kind and loving toward my body while practicing yoga. And when I say “so close” I mean I can walk there in just about 6 minutes flat–5 if I’m running late. Nope, no excuses not to get back to it.

I’ve been maintaining a practice at this studio for just over three months. We practice flow sequences in a room heated to 90°, a delicious sweat-fest. I’m dripping 10 minutes into a power flow class, and loving every second. I’m already starting to think about how much I will miss this place when I am on the lake in the summer, where I’ll just have to cue Jennifer, Kate, Katie and the other teachers’ gentle voices in my head as I create my own flow.

The light in this second floor studio is one of its best features. On a corner, with windows facing both south and east, window light spills across the floor most of the day. Jennifer, the owner, let me make use of this gorgeous light to take some photos for a class assignment, and I chose her Tibetan singing bowls and the light and shadows as focus. I took these with my Minolta X-700 and Kodak T-Max 400 ISO film, my first time with this film. I developed the roll and scanned these images myself.