Tag: fog

Expressive Pics | Foggy Mornings

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Expressive Pic Foggy

“Life” has been challenging every fiber of my being lately, so I have turned to the three things that provide salve for my soul–God, my journals, and my camera. My conversations with God and my journal entries are private, but my photos can be shared with the world. 😀

My camera has been my constant companion as I attempt to express my feelings and focus on ordinary moments of joy. This morning’s dense fog required a photograph, but though I did “shoot my shot,” I captured the photo above a few months ago on my way to work. No worries–I was in a long line waiting at a traffic light. 😉

I don’t know what it is about them, but I love foggy mornings!

#ThursdayTreeLove | Foggy Morn

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The color of winter is in the imagination.  –Terri Guillemets?

We interrupt Sunflower Month for our first #ThursdayTreeLove post of the year.

I returned to campus yesterday, and of course, I escaped the office for brief moments and visited the trees. I took photos, but it was the two foggy morning shots I managed to get on the drive in that stole my heart.

The fog was so dense that only the car directly ahead was visible. It wasn’t great for driving, but I loved how the fog covered familiar scenes in a way that I can only describe as otherworldly.

It’s a little difficult photographing from a moving car, so I missed some of the more powerful scenes, such as the sun’s rays projecting from a dense group of trees and the eerie light it cast on open fields. No matter. I am pleased with these two and the others are etched in my memory.

I am joining Parul Thakur for #ThursdayTreeLove every second and fourth Thursday of the month. If you would like to play along, post a picture of a tree on your blog and link it back to her latest #treelove post.

#ThursdayTreeLove | Earth and Sky Mingle

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“Foggy Morning,” Photograph by Vaughan M.

I like the muted sounds, the shroud of grey, and the silence that comes with fog –Om Malik

This trio of trees sits near the entrance of the University campus where I work and where my son goes to school. Many things grab our attention during our commute, and when we see something worth a shot, the not-so-little one takes control of the camera and photographs while I drive.

In fact, he shot the photo above a couple of days ago as we drove onto campus. The clouds were hanging low for much of the ride, but when we entered the campus area, earth and sky met.

It seemed the fog–or condensation–rose from the ground simply to mingle with the clouds.

It was eery. Interesting. Beautiful.

Unfortunately, since I’d planned to head straight home after dropping my son off at school, I did not have my camera. But…fortunately, he grabbed my phone and started snapping away. He managed a number of strong shots, but the trees, obviously, are my favorite.

I am joining Parul Thakur for #ThursdayTreeLove every second and fourth Thursday of the month. If you would like to play along, post a picture of a tree on your blog and link it back to her latest #treelove post.

“Beware the Ides of March”

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It has been clear to me for some time that my students didn’t read what I read in high school, so it was little surprise to me that students in my Shakespeare course had no idea what I was talking about when I walked into class this morning warning, “Beware the ides of March.” I’m not teaching Julius Caesar this semester, but I couldn’t let the “ides of March” go by without acknowledging the play that made the line “famous.”

I read Julius Caesar in junior high with Mr. Elliott, an amazing English teacher. As he demonstrated in his booming voice how we should read/act out the play, he drew us into the text and into the lives and motivations of the characters.

I haven’t reviewed the high school literature curriculum lately, but I’m pretty sure students are no longer required to read what I “had” to read–eons ago. I imagine English teachers today have serious challenges providing a curriculum that embraces the traditional “canon” of dead white men and the more inclusive contemporary “canon” to a generation that cut its teeth on e-readers and hyperlinks.

Anyway, in honor of Julius Caesar, Shakespeare, and my 9th grade English teacher, I’m dropping by not with a warning but with a poem about the unpredictable mid-March weather that makes us all “watch our backs.”

I shot the “foggy day” photo outside our home in New Orleans March 15, 2012–the “Ides of March” six years ago. If the poem is difficult to read on the photo, it appears below:

The Ides of March by Marcella Remund

The seer was right to warn us,
beware the ides of March.
It’s a dangerous time, peering
through iced windows at the jeweled
tease of crocus and daffodil.
We’ve weathered another season
of deep-freeze, locked up tight
in muscle and mind.  We’re tired
of winter’s grey and gritty leftovers.
But this is no time to get careless,
toss a floorboard heater through
the beveled glass and go out,
where spring flashes her flannel petticoat
embroidered in pinks and greens,
leaves us gaping, breathless,
in air still cold as a knife blade,
stripping off the down.

The author, Marcella Remund, is also an English professor. I wonder if her students came to her familiar with the phrase–“Beware the ides of March.”