Tag: writing

Collections. How did I get so many?

For the last post I shot this photo with some of my glass bottles, to go with the new ones I had purchased, the day before. I was looking for different but similar shapes. That is when I realized that I have a lot of glass bottles, and a lot of other things, too. These things were purchased because I liked them and I wanted to use them as photo subjects. I don’t collect anything. I don’t say “Ohhh…, That is a glass bottle I have to add that to my collection.” I say ” Ohh! How would that look to photograph with a sunflower in it? or that is an interesting shape vase, it would look so Cool with….” or “That is the most funky buffalo planter and he needs to be photographed with the trolls surrounded by daisies…” It is not until I start putting things together that I realize that I have a collection, or two, or ten, or???
During this photo shoot an idea for a new blog post was inspired, I cleared off my photo table and started grabbing glass bottles, not the jars just bottles…

This is a pretty good representation of my bottle collection that is usually spread all over my house and photo area. It is not the whole collection, and I admit some of them I have had more than 20 years others just a few days. While it was fun to find these bottles, it quickly became boring to photograph them by themselves. I had so many ideas for things that I had collected and if I tried to photograph each group of things individually, I could be photographing for days….
I decided to add multiple collections in one photo. A lot more fun to make it interesting.

My first idea was using the fake flowers, and then adding some of my vases, not just the ceramic vases but some of the pottery vases as well. 3 collections in one shoot.

I remembered the shot of the feathers and natural forest and decided to recreate that again. Every time I photograph them it is different. I looked at the small rocks and crystals and thought…. I have many collections of big rocks in my yard. All of which have been used in various photo ideas including my coffee cup and thermos collections

Again, a small sampling of all 3 different items, but the boulders are hard to move so you have to work with them where they are…. all over the place….
These rocks have been good backdrops for the troll family and their pet lizards and sometimes if I am lucky, I can catch a real lizard.

I admit the troll family and their pet lizards have been of my most favorite subjects to photograph. They inspire my sense of whimsy and they are quite portable…. I can take them most places, simply tucking them into a backpack, tote, or basket and placing them wherever I think I can get a fun photo…
Each photo idea that was photographed inspired another idea and all were taken within a 3- or 4-day period of time. Truth is I would come up with a new idea and go out and shoot it then come back in and deal with the photos. The next day I would start the process over again. Adjusting this, tweaking that.

Thinking I have more backgrounds and cloths that could be used but I have never used them, wanting to do something with my collection of string, adding a paperweight and a brown glass globe, a couple strings of faux pearls some shiny beads, marbles, small Christmas ornaments and glass stones. I played with the idea of circles…. The balls of string were made by me as a rehabilitation exercise for my left wrist, that I had broken one summer.

I have taken a stash of 2x4s and 2×6 scraps and painted them some of my favorite colors or just white simply to use as photo props. Those were inspired by some wooden cubes that I picked up at a business closing sale. Most of the time they are under a cloth giving me elevation in my photos but what better way to use that collection of props than to show off my collection of broken of old cameras and lenses. All of these cameras except for the two Polaroid cameras, I have used in my photography journey and with the exception of a couple of them most of them are just worn out from use. Lots of use. I have a pretty good collection of photographs, Too….

Inspiration from the thrift stores

I find my best photography props at the local thrift stores. I rarely buy new unless what I want cannot be found in the thrift stores. I am always open to a trip to the thrift store for whatever catches my eye. A couple weeks ago one of the pool pals said I want to go thrifting with you, I need some things for an art project I will be working on. So we set a date of Thursday, next week. My housemate Susan, Robin, and I descended onto the first of two shops. Each with a mission. My plan is to find things to photograph. Glass bottles always catch my eye, especially this shape. I am always looking for good vases with a strong shape and colors, that don’t compete with my flowers. I saw this brown and gold vase filled with Black Eyed Susan flowers, or Sunflowers, maybe some dahlias in orange colors. in my basket it went no hesitations. I tooled through another isle and found some photo gear. A couple lighting tripods, one with the umbrella and lighting assembly. both of those went into the basket, with some back and forth thought. The whole assembly was a bit more than I wanted to pay, but ultimately much cheaper than if I ordered it online. I only needed the umbrella to replace one I bent… but….. I always can use more lighting options.
Next I found this galvanized metal lantern. I visualized it with one of my cream colored pillar candles in it. Surrounded with flowers and maybe some greenery.

Into the basket it went. Time for checkout and time to go home. Only I missed my turnoff at the new interchange system and ended up going to Redmond. Susan and I checked a couple of thrift stores there, but there was nothing that caught my eye… sometimes it happens. by the time we got home the fog had rolled in and I was not inspired to go play with my new items.
The next day dawned chilly and foggy but I was inspired to go play with my new items. I grabbed up the battery powered pillar candles and some of my fake silk flowers and started. First challenge was that my candles did not fit inside the lantern. Well that is a bummer. Will probably need to go find some shorter ones. Later.

digging into the fake flower bins and checking out the cabinet with my vases and jars, gave me more options to play with. each click of the camera or movement of something sparked another idea and back into my stash of props. a couple trips into the house brought out more items

By the end of the day, I was happy with what I had , but?? I noticed a big open area on the right side of the shot and thought I needed to add something in that spot. So I went out and shot it again with some of my other vases. But still….. Not right. I pulled the original vase and started re arranging things…..

finally, I got the arrangement better. But??? What if ?

The next day I pulled the glass bottles and added the fairy lights I changed the angle of the studio lights and turned some off

Then I dug into my bin of silk flowers and pulled out some lilacs. Much better. Not perfect but…. Well maybe I go out and shoot it again tomorrow.

Looking Back at my work series

In 2020 I bought a used reconditioned laptop. It had 1Terabyte of storage on it… Knowing that I take a lot of photos I knew I would need that storage… I had already bought, and used an external hard drive a couple years prior because my laptop before this one died. It was to protect my work should this reconditioned laptop die… Now in 2026 the laptop is in need of major repairs. I have managed to limp along with it for quite a while even though I had bought a new computer tower the summer before last. I was not happy with the windows 11 program and had it changed back to windows 10 then never activated it till now. I am finding all sorts of issues. My newer Computer tower will not communicate with the laptop, nor will my external hard drive, or my printers. Each thing is taking a lot of work to either make work or needs to be replaced just to get the drivers I need.
In 2022 I had joined a 52 week challenge, never imagining just how much it would inspire me and how many photographs I would go through in one year. I quickly filled up the laptop with photographs and had to download them onto the external hard drive. The first year I was not organized by the second year I knew all 52 challenges and was able to put each week into a file, by the third year and every year after I have preset up the challenge files. I admit last year the challenge did not hold my attention and I drifted away. So I now have about 3 Terabytes of photos just from this challenge over the years Most of them are on the external hard drive and I have not delt with them. Yet. What I have been doing is going through the photos that are still on the laptop and downloading them( again) onto Jump drives. 3 of them that hold 32 gigs each. Then taking each drive and uploading them onto the computer tower, and filling them up again. It is taking a long time to download them I am on my second round of filling up the 2 jump drives. So while I am working on getting photos transferred from the laptop I am looking at 2025’s photo work and the file for 2024 challenge work, thinking I need to do posts of some of my favorite challenges.

So this post is simply some of my favorite collages I made for the various challenges, that were still on my laptop, and easily available for this blog series idea.

My Photo studio needs a bit of reorganization, Again.

My Studio is the victim of many different projects, because well at one time it was an unfinished 2 car garage. It really could use a ceiling. But that is another project for a later date. My housemate and I had bought some of those interlocking mats for the floor and while they were nice there were not enough for the room. Then we found a really good deal on Marketplace and bought 20 more. They were slightly different but went together with the original ones, okay. Still though there were not enough. This if a 500 sq ft room, and the hard cement floor is cold…


This summer I had several things I wanted painted or stained including some boards for my photography to use as props and stands and when finished everything got shoved back into the studio in the unused area. Eventually some of the painted blocks 2×4’s and 2×6’s made their way to the actual photo area, and I have used them. They work great for elevation changes. Last month we found on Marketplace 20 more of those interlocking mats. When we got them home, we realized that they were thicker than the original mats. That meant reorganizing all of the mats in front of the photo area so that the thicker mats were there and the others were covering more of the high use areas of the floor. I began pulling up the thinner mats in the photo area and piling them around. I moved my rolling rack that was mostly filled with photo props and fabric backgrounds and tried to put some of the thinner mats there against the large garage door. They were too big. So after a day of trying to organize the floor I quit and moved on to more projects. With all of these projects and others inside the house that meant moving stuff from in the house out to the studio, things are starting to pile up in the studio. There are little trails to the photo area, the freezers and to the door. Another find last week on Marketplace we got 20 more of the interlocking mats only these were 1ft X 1ft. I decided that those would work under the rolling rack but hadn’t gotten to it. A friend had asked if I would photograph a couple of her gnomes and I jumped at the chance it sounded like a lot of fun. I got them last night went out to my photo area and well couldn’t get to it. There are stacks of various different sized interlocking mats there are painted 2x4s and 2x6s there is a cabinet I removed from the house, there are new bins that needed filling with some of the stuff I had collected to photo, and there are other cube units that never found a home. For my photo project I wanted hanging snowflakes but in order to get that I had to move a light above the photo table.
So the organizing began. the rolling rack got moved and the new small tiles installed, the empty bins were filled up and labeled with subject matter and put back in the rolling rack that was back in its home. The cabinet was now in a corner and a cube shelf unit was also with it. More of the thinner mats were pulled up and the thicker mats were put down. The light above the photo table found a new home lighting up the area around the rolling rack and I have a 8 ft long 1×2 board hung from the ceiling with cup hooks so I can hang snowflakes

and I got the background changed moved the white down and tracked down my snowballs.

I will start shooting the gnomes Tuesday, I need to find some ski’s

The Troll family trip to Eugene.

I don’t know if I have mentioned this before, but these are my troll kids. Frequently my Alter Ego because each one is a piece of me. For most of my friends on Face Book you have seen them many times. For everybody else meet Pinx, Aqua, and Poppa T.
I had decided to make a trip to Eugene Oregon for shopping…. My friend and I make several trips across the mountains every summer stocking up for winter. The plan was to hit the rose garden for the first time this summer… a bit late in the season but still nice. Then we would move on to our favorite farmstand and end the stay in Eugene with a few thrift stores before we blitzed home that evening.
After we cross the Cascade Mountain pass, we usually stop at a small wayside a few miles outside of Springfield, a good place to stop stretch our legs and check out the McKenzie river.

Turning the trolls loose with 3 of their favorite pet lizards, we headed down the trail to the river.
This area is rich in things to explore

We found a nice spot with a picnic table to rest while they checked the river shoreline.

But soon it was time to head back to the car and our next stop.

Back at the car we settled into our seats and headed to the Rose Garden. I left the kids napping in the shade while I went and photographed the rose garden. The garden was beautiful but most of the peak blooms were gone, and I was glad I didn’t have to corral the trolls through the flowerbeds.
Our next stop was Thistledown Farm where we went for apples, corn, salsa, gourds and pumpkins. The Troll family was allowed to pick out their own pumpkins and gourds. The only rule was they had to be able to carry them…

Leaving the trolls in the car, making plans for their jack o lanterns, Sue and I checked out the thrift stores. I wasn’t about to allow these guys in the stores with all the Halloween displays.
By the time we got back to the car they were all snoring soundly and it was a peaceful drive home. With maybe a few snickers, and chuckles coming from the back of the car.
A good day was had by all

Flat Fire threat and I am freaking out

Flat Wild Fire threat and I have been Freaking out.
We are NOT in the evacuation zones, not even in the get ready, But I know how fast things can change. One hot ember and the game changes …. When the Flat Fire started Thursday, I saw the smoke column and realized that it was around the old town of Geneva. Knowing that there have been many fires in that area I knew that the fire would be fast and hot burning through light fuels. By Friday it took off as I expected, but I did not expect it to triple in size. On the way home from Bend I thought what if this really does head to my area, I need a plan. It is about 20 +/- from my home and has to cross though some rough terrain farm fields and a highway. Then more canyon BLM areas. but it is that sneaky hot ember I worry about. The thing is I have 4 vehicles to move, and which vehicle are we not going to move if things go bad. So I came up with a plan, if we do end up in an evacuation level 1 get ready, we will take the vintage motorhome and move it to a safe spot in town. (If need be, we can live in it….) Then come back and start getting ready for the next level of evacuation….. Hoping and praying it doesn’t get that far. This morning, I noticed that the deck had a lot of fine white ash from the fire…it looked like we had had a light snow, but I knew better. Time to make sure that we could move the vintage motorhome if we did go into a level one… We haven’t started that motorhome since we parked it in the new shed and when I tried to start it NOTHING…. At the same time I was dismantling my sprinkler system and manually trying to get my flowerbeds watered, finding out why some of the areas in my flowerbeds were not getting watered. Trying to change out sprinkler heads and faucet connectors….and making sure that leaky hoses were getting water to the waterlines…. and I was moving little things that could be fire hazards if an ember were to land in it and trying to move bigger things like the older Subaru which also hadn’t been moved in about 4 months. The older Subaru also didn’t start… and trying to get an update on the fire which is now over 18,000 acres but the web sites are still saying 3,300. The evacuation levels have changed, and the fire is within 10 miles of my home. Again, a long way away, but… things are not going right and I can’t get current information. My housemate has gone to Redmond and picked up a newer battery for the RV and some 20 ft jumper cables, I am running around trimming flower seed heads because they are within 4 ft of the house…. pulling weeds that have outlived their usefulness as a green fire resistive plant. Doing the watering the best I can with a system that works for general watering but not so much fire protection. I need to get the humidity up around the house. I photographed around the house showing areas cleared of brush and weeds around the base of the house later in the afternoon….. I have done what I can and decided that I could photo the beautiful sunset. Because what the smoke gives us is beautiful sunsets.

So now I am calm I have done what I can and hope that the fire stays contained up north of us. It is still just over 18,000 acres and growing.
Except… I got a call from a neighbor who briefly talked to the local Fire Chief. If things continue as they have the fire has the potential to move into the southern end of our fire district maybe bypassing our neighborhood but possibly moving into another neighborhood I had lived in for several years. I know that one hot ember is all it will take while the fire might move southwest the ember could float anywhere should the wind come up. A trip to Walmart and I came home with more garden hoses.
That was yesterday the fire has is now nearly 22,000 acres and we are as ready as we can be. I have watered my place around the house and done my best to raise the humidity level, hopefully slowing the chance of a fire at my place. I have made sure my important papers are in a quick to grab fire safe, and the motorhome is ready to go at the level 1 get ready be aware, and I have prayed to Mother Nature to keep the fire in its current boundaries….
To be clear this is not my first fire here in Central Oregon, and even to myself it is funny to watch me freak out, but I do it anyway. When I came here in the early 90’s we had a fire just half a mile from the house we were building and then the big Aubry Hall fire hit that summer. When I moved here permanently, I joined the local Fire Department as a volunteer firefighter. I have worked on many fires both brush and structure, and I know the game…. Still I Freak OUT