A fellow patient at my chiropractor’s office had brought the staff a beautiful orchid as a thank you for the great care they provide and my husband saw it the day after they received it. Knowing my love of flowers (like he could miss it), he took a quick picture with his cell phone and sent it to me. A week later, I got a chance to see and take pictures of the orchid. I think it’s a Phalaenopsis of some sort, but I’m far from an orchid expert – all I know is I can’t bring any home because I murder them.

I really liked this picture of a partially open flower – it looks like a bird of prey or maybe a Klingon ship.

I went to my pre-teen’s art fair at his school yesterday and brought my camera since I’d notices some purple flowers opening up at his school. After we did a brisk tour of the various art displays and picked up his artwork, I went over to the flowers with my camera and started taking pictures. I got some really nice flower close-ups, too!

Then, from behind me, I hear another child say “Hi. Hey, your mom is taking pictures of flowers?”

My son says with a sigh worthy of any sixteen-year-old-drama-queen teenage girl. “Yah. I know. My mom likes flowers.”

I just wish I could have seen his face. Normally he likes going with me and even looks for nice flowers or bees for me. Apparently this is decidedly uncool around his friends though. Cracked me up.

Here’s one of the schoolyard flowers. I’ll have to look up what it is.

This is a weed called “Herb Robert” or sometimes “Stinky Bob” and it’s a member of the geranium family. In traditional medicine it’s used as a remedy for nosebleeds and toothache when brewed as a tonic and if the leaves are crushed and rubbed on your skin, it’s said to repel mosquitoes. I may try that as mosquitoes think I’m really tasty! There is a patch of Herb Robert growing alongside my driveway and it just started to bloom with it’s lovely pink/purple flowers.

I have a love for weeds. Maybe it’s because I like a much less “groomed” look or maybe it’s because weeds find a way to survive and even thrive despite all efforts to eradicate them. I think perhaps that joy of finding beauty in unexpected places and in plants deemed less worthy and less attractive in general also makes me enjoy them.

I do admit, though, that I draw a bit of a line at blackberries. The flowers and fruit are wonderful but the thorns are vicious and they are hugely taking over parts of my yard. I’m going to have to hire someone to rip them out as I don’t go for poisons, especially since we’re on a protected wetlands. Ugh. I’ll make jam this fall in revenge!

I’ve reviewed the CreativeLive online class experience just after I took my first class – Zack Arias’s class on Foundations of a Working Photographer. You can read my review of CreativeLive here, in case you haven’t read it yet.

This weekend is another class: Food Photography with Penny de los Santos. I was drawn to the class originally because I have celiac disease and have a (very new) food blog dedicated to gluten-free food. It’s been languishing on a weekly link review as I’ve been trying to figure out how to take pictures of food WELL when I review it or make it to post on that blog. It’s been a bit of analysis paralysis, honestly. So I thought I would, from this class, get an idea where to start.

Instead this class, as of day 1, has been an interesting game-changer for me. Maybe it should be more like CreativeEpiphany

A bit of history. I’m a writer of both fiction and technical non-fiction for a living. I am and have always been very left-brain focused. I love words and I love creating a world with words and description. I took up photography as a hobby about 18 months ago in an effort to offset my extreme left-brain focus and I’ve focused a lot on nature and wildlife and some landscapes because I do love those subjects. I was diagnosed with celiac disease just after I took up photography but the two have always been quite separate in my own mind. About a month ago, I decided I wanted to give back to the gluten-free community and started my gluten-free food blog: Celiac Kitchen Witch.

I was up at 10am today to watch Penny’s class, expecting to take notes on lighting setups, cameras, lenses, etc. but got something else entirely. Something pretty damned wonderful.

Penny spent the first part of day one mostly speaking about her journey as a photographer and almost a cultural anthropologist – both as it relates to food and not even involving food. She’s offered insights and a true, palpable passion around what she does and how.  Some people were disappointed by this but I am, at this moment, listing to the replay again and will be buying this class.  After the first few hours, we did go into tips and best practices and we could look at photos Penny had taken and I went to taking furious notes as I’d originally planned.

The first part of my personal epiphany is that I’ve been taking pictures – but I should be making pictures. I can and should do with pictures what I do with words. Tell a story that I love and am passionate about in a way to draw others into it and make it live for them. That should always be my goal. I don’t take this to mean that I have to give up my addiction with flower close-ups but I can give more purpose to the pictures I take.

The second part of my epiphany is that my taking up food photography for my blog should be more than paying lip-service to a quick snapshot of a dinner. I really think that anyone on a limited diet or who has dietary restrictions has many moments of feeling they are deprived or what they can eat pales in comparison to what they used to be able to eat or just wish they could eat. I miss a lot of foods with gluten in them. There is a story right there that the food I can eat is my own reality and it deserves to be appreciated, presented well and enjoyed for what it is. There’s a story even in photos on that blog – a story of regaining health and regaining a love of food and cooking.

Don’t get me wrong, I need to learn and practice the techniques of food photography in order to tell this story. I spent years learning how to tell stories in words and this deserves just as much care and education. I’m excited to see tomorrow’s lessons on this class but I’ve already received a wonderful gift courtesy of CreativeLive and Penny de los Santos. I’ve received a personal epiphany for free. Penny – you have inspired me.

Got this lovely bleeding heart photo at a friend’s house in between bouts of rain.

My husband loves to play with fidget toys and his latest favorite are Zen Magnets – these are tiny spherical niodinium magnets, precision machined and sold in sets. He walked into my office late last night with a rather fun shape he’d made and we played around with it and lighting a bit to see what we got. I think I need to set up some more specific lighting, though, because these little guys are HARD to photograph well.

More photos after the cut.