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November 2009 
Every Day Environment Blog Action Day 2009
Jeff
I have been photographing nature for the past five years or longer... I continue to take my camera on almost every walk I take with my two Golden Retrievers "Muffin" and Riley". These walks are not just walks they become adventures, a hunting, gathering experience in which my spirit and my camera capture the wonder and beauty in the everyday...
At the moment I live in a tiny suburban town, there is a bit of wooded area that has been there for years, I grew up in it in many ways. It has been transformed by progress, yet still clings to wildness. Broken bent, twisted trees, wild flowers, reeds, mushrooms, fungi, there is a family of Red Tail Hawks, a falcon that comes through, to disturb the peace of the other birds, robins, redwing black birds, chick a dees, and many that I don't see but here, traveling around...
On the ground I have been greeted by box turtles small and large, garden snakes, fogs. dragon flies, and the cicadia whirling about like a ballet in the air...
Do I get to take photos of all these, not always, but I know they are there, that they have allowed me into their space....
I recently created two photographic calendar's, http://www.redbubble.com/people/jeffstroud, in honor of the beautiful gifts that are there for us to take pleasure in, to allow us to breath, to live among the ever changing challenge of climate, pollution, noise and trash.
My intention with the photography that I have the honor to shoot, is to allow nature and creation to speak on its own behalf.
Not only are the hills alive with the sound of music, so is your neighborhood, your parks, your back yard...
This is my gift I offer back to the gifts that I am grateful to share with all living creatures....
Access: Public
And it looks like your photography skills have gotten really good during the past five years! I am in awe of the quality of your shots. I've just been taking my camera out for nine to ten months lately and learning the basics of the craft. Two days ago the darn camera died (Emergency!) and had to buy another one but couldn't afford a really good one. What kind of camera do you use? Love the way you described the broken best twisted trees and all the nature which surrounds you on your daily walk with the dogs. Cool about the calendar, too.
Kathy,
Thank you for reading and responding! (((Hugs))) My photographer friend suggested if you wish to get good to just practice, take photographs of everything… so I do… read manual, catch a class here and there, I belong to a couple of on line photography groups, which offer much advise on how to achieve certain effect, etc.
I invested in a Nikon D60 a little over a year ago. with an 18 to 55 mm lens, it has more bells and buttons then I am aware of and learn when there is something I wish to accomplish… one thing that happened which could have been disaster, I had dropped the camera which landed on the edge of the lens… causing the automatic's of the lens not to work, so I have had to learn to manually focus, so it allows me to really view something and get the shot, automatic is not always ones best friend anyway…
I am Love, Jeff
Jeff, I enjoyed the way you honor trees. In your photograph above, I feel I am in the wood!
Now responding to your status- if you would tag your blogs “Blog Action Day” AND also copy and paste this at the end of your blog Blog Action Day 2009
Google should pick up your marvelous blog for all to read. I'll message you about the registration - but clicking on the link above, I think you'll be able to do it.
Jeff,
Visiting you from Laurie's blog. Well, I'm not too sure either about the “official” Blog Action Day stuff, though I did pre-register. Anyway, I love the tree picture - no one will be surprised at that. LOL
I took my camera out in Spring of 2007, shortly after I joined Zaadz, and did some photos to do blogs with. I should at least do a Summer, Autumn and Winter version of my “local” environment, for I have enjoyed having the photos I do have available. I also like to draw and miss carrying my backpack of supplies to do my nature journal with, since my back started complaining (not related to carrying the pack but causing me to set it aside never-the-less).
Though I have more “space” in which to roam perhaps, you are as blessed with all the same birds and other wildlife. I love knowing that I am in some ways the same as they are, I live here too, and don't own it any more than they do (though there is whatever that amount of security is, of it being in my husband's family, this causes me to feel a bit differently towards it and that feeling I don't mind).
I could not love the wild world around me less nor cherish it more. I've made it mine in my heart but would love anywhere else just the same. I am of the Earth and all of it is so very beautiful in my eyes - forest, desert, ocean, mountains, sky, etc …
Peace & Blessings -
Deb
Hey Deb, thanks for the visit… each talent or bit of creation has it's cycle too, so drawing or photographing or writing, or teaching all have their moments of front and center…
The world is full of wonder, in the wood, in the city, on the ocean or beneath, atop a mountain or flying above, maybe even deep within the center of our being beneath the surface of skin a bone… all magic waiting to be seen, touched, shared…
I am Love, Jeff
Hi, Jeff - thank for sharing your loving heart with us through these visual and verbal images.
peace and blessings -
Sylvia