Two Photographers, One Car

I've been down this road before. Bright blue skies, wide open Texas in seasonal change, one map, 4 cameras, one brand new convertible, and one husband (also a photographer)....... in the driver's seat.  Oh he's left me on the road before! Taking that slow roll away as I am knee deep in wild flowers waiting for the breeze to stop blowing my perfect shot out of focus. Expecting peace on today's drive was unrealistic at best but we hit the road with good intentions.

Texas reveals her autumn with subtlety.  Sturdy yellow flowers rise in rolling pastures, green crops are harvested leaving brown stubs behind, and tractors recline with ease along barn sides.  Even barbed wire fences take on a rusted orange hue. 

As we twist through empty county roads, the perfect shot is around every corner.  The trouble is knowing where to stop.  I know the spot instinctively.  I notice small details, the tree line opening, the lone remaining corn stalk spared, or the longhorn whose cinnamon coat catches the afternoon sun. 

 

  My husband is a big picture guy.  He jokes he's "the one who knows the perfect shot". So when I say "here"!  He keeps rolling.  Inching along at 5 mph as my shot gets smaller in my rear view.  We playfully bicker away another 300 feet of asphalt.  And when he finally says "here's the shot"- I am hoofing it back to my muse while he checks his phone.  (Smoke billowing from my ears.)

I get my revenge when I am in the driver's seat.  There's no stop I won't make, no U-turn too sharp for the right composition in nature.   Loose pit bulls threatening that shot of the bayou curving off?  No problem!  And those antique stores my husband slows near and asks, unimpressed, "Really?  You want to stop here?" as he rolls on by.....  Oh yeah!  I'm stopping when I am behind the wheel.

 No wonder our photo explores wear us out!  But after 20 years, we've got this photo sharing thing figured out.

LOVE  &  BACK ROADS!

Summer Teal

Twelve years of school are winding to a close, college acceptance has been achieved, and vacation plans are now pen marked on the summer calendar.  Relatives will be arriving this week for graduation celebrations and laughter will replace the hectic hurry of the school year.  The squalor in the parlor has been neatly tidied and I am left to contemplate the simple joys in front of me.

Teal has always been my serenity color.  It calms me.  Soothing as the sea and crisp as line-dried linen, I could swim in this color forever.  It is the siren shade of fresh starts and reminds me that I have two months before Baby Girl leaves home and starts her new life three hundred miles west in San Antonio.  I think of all the blessings that have paved her path and I am so thankful for the journey of motherhood. Teal was Baby Girl's nursery color eighteen years ago, so perhaps it's no coincidence I am craving this color palette today.

She is wood and crystal.  Stubborn, like her father, and beautiful (like her mother- snicker snicker snortle!)- she is a simple country girl with the complexity of prisms in sunlight. I don't worry about her going off to college because she is a traveler at heart- a student of the world and she is not one content to be confined.  I know letting her go is the beginning to her own spectacular journey.  So for the days and weeks ahead I will enjoy the simplicity, wander our vacation world, and enjoy every moment alongside the teal waters under the rotund Texas sun.

 

LOVE  &  LETTING GO

The Perfect Perspective

Any photographer, no matter the experience level, knows perspective is the difference between a good photo and a masterpiece.  When it comes to the perfect shot, no risk is too great, no roadside position too humiliating if the reward is earned.

Normally I am alone in my photography quests but this week, as we all know by now, I had the good company of Ashlie Blake, who matches me in my fearless quest for just the right angle.  Stomping through ant-ridden sands, tip-toing around thorny shrubs, and trying to guess the stampede warning from a wary longhorn.  After all, "no trespassing" signs are just a suggestion, right?

The greatest fun at the end of the day was sifting through all the photo flops and laughing at how we got the shots in the first place.  The uncooperative butterfly, the blooms that knew to wind dance just when the focus was right, and broken window shots that look more like crime scene evidence.

There were the battle scars of the hunt: sun burned necks, dirt-filled shoes, and swollen hands from a palms-first fall into a raspberry patch.  All symptoms of a time-grown friendship

captured both before and behind the lens.

Finally meeting Ashlie in person has been one of the greatest joys in my life. If a picture is worth a thousand words- the story behind it is worth a million more. So if ya catch me smiling at the pics of our 4 day excursion- know that I am simply dreaming of the adventures yet to come.

 

LOVE  &  JOURNEYS

Wildflowers and Antiques

Country explores are fabulous medicine for the soul.  With old fashioned paper, pen, map and camera, Ashlie (Painting Bliss) and I set out to snap some good pics of Texas bluebonnets.  Amongst the blues, pinks, and rustic elegance of small town Texas, we found insta-relationships, heart melting homes, and an unexpected mega antique fair! 

 

 

Despite a dry season, the roadsides were alive with color.  Painted ladies danced from bloom to bloom as buzzing bees tunneled in bluebonnet towers. 

 The breeze so gentle, the hawks drifting circles in the sky, so far from any city it's as if nature pressed the pause button on our busy remotes. 

Today was a day to stop and smell the flowers.  And stop again.  Oh and over there!  Stop again!  Wait!  Back it up! (Ashlie can really fly a car in reverse!) No field or patch was overlooked on the road from New Ulm to Fayetteville!

 

Little did we know that our route to Round Top was taking us right into the heart of Marburger Farm Antique Weeks!  This time of year the fields are alive in sudden tent cities hocking the finest finds of the season. 

 From massive architectural doorways to the tiniest trinket, rust and chippy paint rule the day.  We arrived late in the day but it was perfect timing for us.  No crowds, no lines of people to dodge, just us and the vendors talking shop, reflecting on the day.

 

 
The day was coming to a close as the Texas sky clouded over and one by one the tents wrapped up for the evening.  Ashlie and I had a 2 hour ride back to Houston, the last stretch of what has been a phenomenal four days.  The bluebonnets fading into dusk, the car barreling south, all that was left to do was to celebrate the rarest of birds: true friendship.

LOVE  &  WILDFLOWERS!