I'm midway through teaching my newest e-course, Beyond Auto Mode: How to Really Work Your DSLR Camera, and I have to say I am SO happily overwhelmed by how the students are all supporting each other as they learn the technical stuff that makes their cameras tick! It's a really wonderful fringe benefit of teaching these online courses--watching friendships form as people move along the learning curve together. It's like they're all helping each other cross a bridge, so I thought this photograph above was à propos. It also seems like a good shot to welcome in the weekend, along with the following interesting tidbits I gathered this past week. Enjoy!
Today I am writing you a permission slip, if you think you really need it. (You don't).
It's your ticket to letting yourself relax, care less about what some people think of you, and notice more of the world right outside your door.
Because sometimes, that means looking like the crazy neighbor.
You know, the one who is lying flat down on the front lawn to take a picture of a ladybug climbing on a blade of grass, when the other neighbors are driving off to work, hunched over in their cars, disapproving scowls aimed in your direction. Or maybe they're just immersed in their own worries or petty miseries, too caught up in their personal dramas to notice you lying flat down on the front lawn.
Maybe that lady who is joylessly tugging her dog down the street will see you--the one who is yelling into her cell phone at somebody who needs a good chewing-out. Maybe she will stop mid-sentence to wonder what on earth you are doing. Or maybe (very likely) she'll be too wrapped up in her own concerns to notice you.
Because that's another important thing you learn as you get older and wiser: Not everybody is watching you.
And even if a few of them are...so what?
(Really. So what?)
Is it worth missing a once-in-a-lifetime picture of a seemingly supersonic hummingbird barely one foot away from you? If you run inside and put on "proper clothes", that hummingbird will be long-gone by the time you re-emerge.
Go ahead, be that eccentric fellow who is wearing his bathrobe outside as he walks around barefoot in the grass, sipping his coffee and admiring the clouds. The one who notices there's a hawk soaring way up high, drifting effortlessly on the ever-so-slight breeze that barely ruffles the leaves.
Be the wacky neighbor who climbs up into the kids' treehouse while the kids are off at school. (A treehouse is a great place to read a good book.)
I hereby give you permission to whisper "hi there" to a squirrel who has stopped mid-scamper, wondering who you are and what you're doing out here in the yard in your pajamas. Shouldn't you be back inside, scrubbing a pot or folding some laundry? Nope, not right now. There's a squirrel who is three feet away from you, head cocked to the side in wonder. Take this moment to gaze right back.
Be that nutty neighbor who saves a beetle by flipping it back over and watching it fly away until it's only the tiniest speck in the big blue sky.
Shed your veneer of cool; let go of the need to be "normal."
You don't want to miss this one and only moment.
*******************
Before you go...
LAST CALLand just a few spots left for my brand-new online photography course "Beyond Auto Mode: How to Really Work Your DSLR Camera." Join students from around the world--class starts this Monday, June 13, 2016.For all the course details and registration, click here.
"Blue makes my heart go mellow..." sings my eight-year-old daughter in lullaby-style from her bedroom, where she is playing with a selection of her stuffed animals, pretending to be their mother.
I've always loved it when my children make up their own songs and sing them without knowing or caring if anyone is listening. I remember my son singing long ago about "a monkey walking down the street in his monkey pants with a monkey belt." And my daughter singing "squirrels in the trees like to nibble, nibble, nibble." These spur-of-the-moment songs are like a secret peek into their busy brains as they're making sense of the world, or making up new worlds entirely.
In the middle of my work, I pause to listen to my daughter's little song (and to melt). What a lovely turn of phrase: "Makes my heart go mellow." It makes me think:
What else makes my heart go mellow?
Seeing an elderly couple holding hands.
Whenever my velvety-eared dog (already a heart-melter) lets out a deep, contented sigh, right before settling down for a nap.
The heady scent of lilacs wafting on a spring breeze.
A baby's "Ritz Cracker" hands (you know, with those little dimples at the knuckles) and pudgy "Flintstones" feet.
The Collected Tales of Beatrix Potter. (And I love, love, love how Beatrix Potter spent her author royalties on buying up woodlands in England to save them from development.)
Remembering my gruff grandfather, who had a soft spot for me when I was very little and let me put sponge curlers in his thinning hair while he watched the Yankees and smoked cigars.
Coloring books, paper dolls, wooden pull-toys.
Typewriters--the very oldest ones with circular keys.
Looking through boxes of old photographs, curled at the edges and yellowed with age, of my parents and grandparents--and their parents, too.
Remembering so many furry friends who are no longer with us.
Last few days to sign up for my brand-new online photography course "Beyond Auto Mode: How to Really Work Your DSLR Camera." Join students from around the world--just a few spots left! For all the course details and registration, click here.
With Halloween quickly creeping up on us, I'm sending out my round-up of "Joyful Reads & Finds" a couple of days before the weekend. That should give you plenty of time to get ghoulish (and greener) for your Halloween festivities!
To be honest, I was never much of a "Halloween person" -- all of that pesky begging for candy, and toilet tissue in trees, made me into an October version of the Grinch. So why the change of heart? Well, it's pretty easy to get in the holiday spirit once your kids reach a certain age (somewhere above two and under twelve) and want to wear their Halloween costumes from early September through (oh, let me see...) late March? Anyway, some Halloween treats for you--enjoy!
I dare you to find cuter snacks for your party (and how funny are those mummies?!): Healthy Halloween Treats
Seems like you could work out some "healthy aggression" with this event: Host a Pumpkin Smash
Last week, one of my friends (a former student from my nature photography course) posted the following note on her Facebook page, along with some gloriously detailed shots that she took of a few bugs buzzing around her garden:
It is totally Joy Sussman's fault that instead of saying, "Eewww, a bug!" I now say, "Oooooo, a bug!" and grab my phone to take a picture!
And I felt so...proud.
Proud because I don't think it's in our collective human nature to be excited (in the happy way) when we see a bug enter "our" space. Often, our first impulse is to squash it. (Or to let out a panicked scream for somebody else to squash it.)
And yet, I had transmitted my fascination with bugs to my friend. (Score!)
It's a long and slippery slope, getting to that rare spot where we're actually happy to see a bug. (I'm not talking about mosquitoes or ticks, for the obvious reason that they suck. Literally.)
But when you squelch the desire to squash a bug, and study it instead, you see that it's just a little critter going about its daily business of trying to make ends meet.
Quite a few years ago, I lamented to my husband that some anonymous critter was digging holes in our garden. He said something that I'll always remember: "It's just a little creature, trying to make its way in the world."
I still love that. Widening our perspective to see that the vast majority of wild creatures, great and small, are not "doing things to us." They're doing things for themselves--or for their babies, or for their critter communities. They're simply living their lives in this world.
Sometimes, I actually set out to look for bugs, like an archaeologist on a dig. And I feel more than a little thrill when I finally find one, like a paleontologist uncovering a fossil.
On a deeper level (because I love to dig deeper, don't you?), I'd also say that photographing bugs helps me to become more like the type of person I'm striving to be:
More curious.
More patient.
More mindful.
More compassionate.
That's a tall order for little bugs. And yet, they fill it for me every time I pick up a macro lens.
So, yes, I'm happy--not sorry at all--that my bug mania is contagious.
I just celebrated one of those "big" birthdays--you know, one with a zero at the end of it.
Thankfully, I still feel like I'm 32 (I think I've felt 32 since senior year of high school!), so it wasn't all that traumatic. It was exactly my kind of birthday because I spent it doing all kinds of my favorite things, without even one dreary chore or one ounce of guilt mixed in. Just pure, simple pleasures. If that sounds like your kind of birthday, too, help yourself to this recipe for celebrating. (Feel free to make your own substitutions, according to taste.)
1. Head outdoors first thing in the morning, camera in hand. (If you know me, you already know I'm fascinated by bugs, so it was an extra bonus for me to capture a company of ants having a meeting deep within the petals of a Rose of Sharon blossom.)
2. When somebody (for instance, your eight-year-old daughter) asks you what you'd like for your birthday, answer "Just a hug, please." Melt with love when she brings you a surprise homemade breakfast of three pieces of toast cut out into the letters H-U-G, decorated with wild blueberry preserves (my favorite!) and fresh blueberries. (Seriously, how cute is that?!)
3. After breakfast, read a good book on the porch. (A Path with Heart by Jack Kornfield is chock-full of wisdom for living a more meaningful and mindful life. I'm underlining like crazy!)
4. If you're not much of a cake person, have ice cream cones instead. Preferably, with lots of sprinkles (or jimmies, or shots, or whatever you call those little candy toppings in your neck of the woods).
6. Take one of your favorite people with you to one of those little shops where you can paint your own pottery while chatting and listening to more good music.
7. End the day eating dinner with your favorite people in the world, (which is hopefully your family), preferably at a Mexican restaurant (which always feels like a fiesta). Get just a little bit tipsy on frozen strawberry margaritas, so that you can't take a proper photograph of the event. Pretend you were aiming for "an artsy shot" instead.
8. Tuck into bed, completely grateful for the day and all of the simple but wonderful things it held out to you.
How 'bout you? How do you celebrate your big birthdays? I'd love to hear!
I returned from a week in Connecticut and dove right into teaching a new session of my Art of Photography e-course. (Yet another lovely group of students, thank heavens--and knock on wood! I'm enjoying them immensely.) Before I get back into the full swing of blogging, I thought I'd treat you to the AMAZING work of my students from the most recent session of my nature photography course, How to Take Better Photos of Nature and the World Around You.
Whenever I share these exhibitions of student work, I feel like I need to point out that these are not professional photographers--which I think you'll find even more impressive after you look through these gorgeous images. I'm sorry that I couldn't include every student's work from the course--this was my largest class yet (I'm so very grateful for that!) and I don't want to crash your computers by loading lots and lots of images!
Okay, ready to have your socks knocked off? Drumroll, please...
Flower and Butterfly by Sam Wolf, Abington, Pennsylvania
Old Barn by Jean Jagodzinski, North St. Paul, Minnesota
Find Your Peaceful Place by Pat Bourke, Victoria, British Columbia
Bee in White Flowers by Amanda Robichaud, Hopkinton, Massachusetts
Purple Blooms in the Golden Hour by Tracy Van Houten, Pasadena, California
Butterfly and Blooms by Nancy Hadden, Forsyth, Georgia
Flower in the Style of Georgia O'Keefe by Sue Knopp, Colorado Springs
Yellow Blooms by Amy Jo Kellington, Fremont, California
Well, were your socks knocked off? Mine certainly were! Thank you so much to my wonderful students--first, for being such a pleasure to have "in class" and second, for allowing me to share your beautiful work here today. (You all rock!)
If you're interested in taking my online nature photography course the next time it runs, email me at [email protected] and I'll notify you when enrollment opens!
Well, I'm back down on Planet Earth! I just returned from BlogHer15 in New York and it was quite a trip!
I don't mean the train trip or the crazy cab ride; I mean it was an almost surreal mental trip, seeing my winning photograph on a continuous-loop slideshow with the other six winning photographs, blown up onto two movie screens on each side of the stage at the New York Hilton. My little picture of apples, super-sized in the Big Apple! Yep, that was definitely trippy...
The award inspired me to keep on aiming for pictures of simple, natural beauty.
Here's something else--or rather, somebody--who inspired me at BlogHer: Christy Turlington Burns.
(That's her on the left, at one of the BlogHer panels.)
I remember, years ago when I still lived in New York, going to a little vegetarian restaurant way downtown and seeing Christy Turlington eating dinner with a friend across the room. This was when she was one of the top supermodels in the world, so it was a shocker to see her out-and-about and mingling with mere mortals, low-key with little makeup, yet still gorgeous in an other-worldly way that only supermodels can attain. She still is gorgeous today, but now she's the founder of Every Mother Counts, a non-profit organization dedicated to making pregnancy and childbirth safe for every mother--which makes her even more beautiful.
Not a life-saver, but nonetheless inspiring to me at BlogHer: Gwyneth Paltrow.
I know that some people love Gwyneth and some people can't stand her, but I'm in the first camp. I like a successful girl with a healthy sense of slightly sarcastic humor, somebody who is not deterred by negativity or big bumps in the road of life, and Gwyneth delivered the goods at BlogHer. She was asked how she handled life with her children while her marriage to musician Chris Martin was breaking up, and I loved her response:
“One of the things I said to them originally when we were separating was, 'You know, Daddy and I are famous and there’s going to be a lot of stuff out there, and I can’t control what you’re going to see and what you’re not going to see, and what your friends are going to say or ask, but you know what it is to be here in this house. You know what’s real. You know how much we love you. You know we love each other.' I think they understand there’s a difference between the outside world and the inside world.”
Even for us non-celebs, I think it's always good to remember that much of what we see in the media is just hype and hysteria.
I took some library books with me to New York (because there's just no way I'm going anywhere without books), and these are the ones that inspired me the most--all blending art with science, one of my favorite combinations:
Chris Hadfield's You Are Here: Around the World in 92 Minutes: Photographs from the International Space Station. Hadfield is the Canadian astronaut who famously sang a version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" while still in space. (That video has over 26 million views on YouTube--it's in the "Related Articles" section at the bottom.) His book surprised me because I found his writing and photographic views of the world to be downright poetic.
And last but most definitely not least, the highlight of my trip was meeting Jayla, the three-week-old daughter of my long-time friend, Caren. Just look at that little face!
Wow. Just wow.
It brought me right back to when my own children (now 8 and 11) were this teeny-tiny. Time flies, indeed.
Babies are always inspiring to me because they're so new to the world, so fresh and flawless, and the very essence of hope is right there in their eyes, gazing right back at us, and glimmering.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Pssssssst!Early Bird enrollment for the next session of my online photography course,The Art of Photography: How to Take Your Pictures to the Next Level,ends just one week from today, 7/31/15 (12:00 midnight EST). Save $15 by enrolling earlyand join me in August to create some inspiring pictures of your own!
My eight-year-old daughter has become quite the philosopher lately. Yesterday, after the rain ended abruptly on our drive home from her summer acting camp, I said to her, "Look at that--the rain stopped all of a sudden!" She said, "Mommy, everything is an all-of-a-sudden. Life is an all-of-a-sudden. New things just keep on happening."
I have to admit that I peeked into the rear-view mirror to check if my daughter had been replaced by a mini Zen Buddhist. Nope. It was still her in the back seat, gazing up dreamily at the clouds.
She's become more and more fascinated with clouds this summer. Especially the way they can morph so quickly from a dinosaur to a fancy lady to a rocket ship. From one to another, all of a sudden.
The dog is also a real pro at noticing even the tiniest changes. She's always on alert for new and fascinating things. So much to see, so much to smell, so many bees to try to eat.
My daughter and dog make quite a team as excellent observers of the world. I think it helps that neither one uses a cell phone.
When you're out with a camera, everything can seem new. Even the littlest things can spark an almost scientific interest, like this teeny-tiny green spider pictured above, crawling around near the top of the weed. I didn't even see it when I started focusing on the weed, and then, there it was. All of a sudden.
With my camera, my dog, and my wide-eyed daughter, I'm noticing the "all-of-a-suddens" even more. And I'm grateful. As always.
This week has been absolutely GORGEOUS, between the balmy weather and the blooms abounding. I've been out-and-about every single morning with my camera. I just love how Bleeding Heart flowers are like nature's perfect little valentines! If you need some plants for shady areas of your yard, I highly recommend Bleeding Hearts (Dicentra). Here's what else I recommend to kick off your weekend wonderfully:
As a die-hard spider rescuer and bug-studier, I loved this New York Times opinion piece from Tim Kreider: On Smushing Bugs.
