The World Through My Lens: 09.2023

 

Shutterbugs and photo-lovin’ friends glad to have you join me for The World Through My Lens 09.2023.  It’s been a minute since I’ve shared any photos.  Today I am sharing my snapshots for the summer Sunday Stills prompts provided by my blogging buddy Terry at Second Wind Leisure Perspectives.  Sunday Stills is a one-prompt-a-week monthly photo challenge.  With all the worry and stress over PC’s health, I haven’t been in the right frame of mind for taking photos.  But hoping to get back to photography now that we feel more reassured about Paul’s prognosis.

In addition, Deb at Patio Postcards as in previous years, is hosting her Summer Photo Scavenger Hunt/Search (SPSH).  It has run from June 1st to September 30th.  With a couple of check ins throughout the summer so we can keep encouraging one another. First check-in was Monday July 10th…a date which I missed.  But I’m here now!!  Better late than never!!

Summer Photo Scavenger Hunt Prompts

 

About this year’s prompts, Deb says, “This year’s list is a little shorter than previous years & most of the items can be found on or off your home patch. I think that the selections have an option of being easy or difficult.”

I agree, the prompts are simple but I want to take extra-ordinary pictures of these everyday things so I am looking for just the right ‘tree’ and an especially picturesque bridge!!

First Photos

• a plant/tree with thorn(s):  our desert is full of plants and trees with thorns, some so thick and strong that they can pierce the soles of tennis shoes and even hiking boots.  I saw this one just in time.

• wordless directional sign:  school children, please cross here.

• something netted or webbed:  a spider’s beautiful web in the early morning Tennessee dew.  I almost stepped on it, accidentally.  So glad I looked down when I did.

• something berry, berry delicious:  this breakfast quesadilla was delicious – eggs. turkey sausage, cheese.  Served with fresh fruit.  You can see the berry, berry delicious berries in a small bowl on the edge of the frame.

• a bridge:  we crossed this bridge in Knoxville, Tennessee walking from the parking garage to the football stadium.  It made me smile.

• a school: Cami runs to give her teacher, Miss Cindy, a hug every morning when she arrives at school/Kindercare.  Lucia had Miss Cindy, too, and loved her.  She is a devoted, creative, structured teacher.

• something that dangles:  since having our deck resurfaced and our pool replastered, we have been trying to keep the birds away.  One of the contraptions we’ve employed are these Christmas tree icicle-looking things dangling from the pergola.  My second image for this prompt features plastic shopping bags caught in the branch of a tree, ripped by the wind, beaten by the sun and dangling like apparitions.

And There’s More

• some shadows:  okay, so I might have cheated a little on this one by editing to make the shadows stronger and darker.  But I wanted to play up the way the shadows of the trees almost look like fingers reaching across the meadow and toward the house.  Kind of eerily so.

• a crack or pothole in the road or sidewalk:  can’t remember where this pothole is but it could be on just about any street in El Paso.  For years and years, El Paso did not receive its fair share of state infrastructure funding.  We are the city furthest west in the state, and in the Mountain Time Zone when the rest of the state is in the Central Time Zone.  And very often treated like the step-child of Texas cities.

• a white flower(s):  a couple of springs ago, I wanted lantanas for the backyard.  The only ones I could find were white ones.  Really wanted the pink-coral-red ones.  Or even the yellow ones.  But the white ones would have to do.  They have struggled to grow this summer with our 70+ triple digit heat but now, as it has cooled off to the 90s, and Paul is watering the new tree nearby, they are thriving.

• extraordinary water:  oh, my gosh, the water at Ozone Falls in Tennessee was indeed extraordinary.  Clear, cool, refreshing.  Beautiful from above looking down to the pool where it fell and looking up watching it fall.

Finally…

• summer tools:  nothing works harder around our house in the summer than our pool skimmer bucket.  The backyard neighbor’s trees drop debris every season.  In the spring it’s little yellow flowers, in summer it’s several inches long seed pods, in fall it’s the tiny fronds it has instead of leaves and in winter the smaller branches all blow off and into our pool.  The skimmer bucket is always full.

• sold or for sale sign (not necessarily a house):

• something that rolls:  this car appeared in front of a house down the street.  I can’t swear that it runs, but I bet if we put it in neutral, it would roll.  The interior is as perfect as the exterior.

• alternate A: your favorite summer taste:
• alternate B: your choice:

Sunday Stills

 

These are the weekly prompts Terry thinks up for her monthly photo challenge.  Terry shares her photography and lots of other good stuff on her blog Second Wind Leisure.  She has an incredible eye and talent for taking photographs.

2023 Color Challenges

• January: white and gray
• February: red
• March: green
• April: pastels
• May: purple
• June: pink
• July: blue
• August: yellow
• September: orange and gold
• October: black and metallics and/or black and white
• November: brown
• December: red and green

 

April 2023 Prompts

 

04.02.2023 Awakening:  this was what I saw upon awakening at my sister’s house each morning of my visit.  “My room” at Valerie’s house is so cozy with its wood paneling and charming antiques and keepsakes.

04.09.2023 No Challenge 
04.16.2023 Monthly Color Challenge: white and pastels:  this still life kind of created itself when Purrcival parked his sleepy self between the white framed baby photos on my bookshelf and beside the baby doll dressed in pink.

04.23.2023 Earth Day:  these are my El Paso girls with me on Earth Day.  We enjoyed dinner at a very unique restaurant in Socorro, Texas.

04.30.2023 Roads, Paths, and Streets: this meandering road is the drive up to a house set way back off the street in Crossville, Tennessee.  It looked almost enchanted in the golden hour light.

 

May 2023 Prompts

 

05.07.2023 Churches, Temples, and Spiritual Centers:  snapped this picture of the chapel at the Atlanta airport on my way to be with my mom before she died.  I think the colors and the movement of the design in the glass are both soothing.

05.14.2023 Monthly Color Challenge: purple (any shade):  hydrangeas remind me of my grandmother’s house and visiting her in humid Missouri summers.  She had a beautiful bush in her front yard with giant bruise-colored blooms.

05.21.2023 Pets and Playgrounds:  in general, I have pet pictures and playground pictures with the grands but not pets on a playground, so I took a field trip to a park at the foothills of the Franklin Mountains to get this capture.

05.28.2023 Everything Water:  I didn’t take this photo, my sister did.  I was in pig-heaven swimming in a stream at Lilly Bluff.  What a fabulous experience.

 

June 2023 Prompts

 

06.04.2023 The Great Outdoors:  we enjoyed dabbling in geocaching with a class offered by the park rangers at Franklin Mountains State Park.  Nothing like a Sunday morning spent in the great outdoors.

06.11.2023 Monthly Color Challenge: pink (any shade):  Cami, pretty (sleepy) in pink.

06.18.2023 Furred and Feathered Friends:  Fluffy (aka Jasper) is a kitty who belongs to our neighbor but for years has gone mostly uncared for by his family.  We have become his surrogate family and no one loves him more than Lucia.  He has spent many a cold evening or hot afternoon in our house and knows we always have a bowl of food and water ready for him.

06.25.2023 Plant Life:  after being cooped up for a few weeks following PC’s surgery, we decided to take a day trip to some of the nearby wineries to get some bottles to restock the wine rack.  We stopped for lunch at Lescombes Winery.  The landscaping around the restaurant incorporates some of the grapes used in their delicious wine.

 

July 2023 Prompts

 

07.02.2023 Historical:  El Paso Union Depot train station.  On our way to find the car in Union Depot parking lot after a recent Chihuahuas baseball game, the depot security guard, sitting in front of the building in his golf cart, invited us for a peek at the inside of the building.  Built between 1905 and 1906, it is supposedly haunted but we didn’t capture any spirits with our camera lens. Was added to tthe National Register of Historic Places in 1971.

07.09.2023 Monthly Color Challenge: blue (any shade):  pumpkins…Walmart had quite the assortment of foam pumpkins and I couldn’t decide what color to get for a pumpkin painting project I want to try.  Picked up the sage green color.  But thinking I need to go back and get a blue one, too.

07.16.2023 Let’s Get Small:  the stacked rocks at Lily Bluff were mammoth and imposing.  And made me feel very small.

07.23.2023 Double Trouble, Things in Twos:  where there’s Lucia, there’s Cami…double trouble.  And double joy.

07.30.2023 No Challenge

August 2023 Prompts

 

08.06.2023 Lazy, Hazy Days of Summer:  a man-made kind of haze settled over Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee, after the pregame show, and the 164th Airlift Wing C-17 flyover.

08.13.2023 Monthly Color Challenge: yellow (any shade):  barrel cactus.  We have one in our yard that is looking poorly.  Came across this hearty one along a trail in the mountains.

08.20.2023 Celebrations:  we have 3 birthdays in July and try to be all together to celebrate Cady’s birthday on 07.28, Brennyn’s birthday on 07.30; and Lauren’s birthday on 07.31.  This year, Cady and I teamed up to decorate for the festivities.  I bought this pretty table skirt on Etsy.  We had princess plates and sparkly plastic silverware.  We bought an arrangement of balloons, including a helium “3,” a “7” and a “9” in recognition of Lauren’s 37th birthday and Brennyn’s 39th.  Before we could hardly get in the house with the balloons, the 3 and the 7 and a ‘happy birthday’ balloon all sailed up to the top of our 30-foot living room ceiling.

08.27.2023 Hints of Autumn/Spring:  I was tickled to see that the trees were beginning to change when I was in Tennessee mid-September.  We don’t have a lot of trees in El Paso and many of those we do have, don’t change color.

 

September 2023 Prompts

 

09.03.2023 No Challenge
09.10.2023 Monthly Color Challenge: orange and/or gold (any shade): the crowd at the Tennessee-Texas San Antonio game was a veritable sea of orange.

09.17.2023 No Challenge
09.24.2023 Bridges:  this is a bridge – singular – that crosses one of the streets on the University of Tennessee, Knoxville campus over which the band marches to Neyland Stadium on football Saturdays.

 

That’s a lot of photos, huh?  Feels good to be caught up!!  Now to stay that way.  Ha.  We all know that’s not going to happen.

 

Your Turn

 

What have you been photographing lately?  Do you tend to take mostly family snapshots, selfies or photos of places you visit?  My post seems to be heavy on nature this time.  But with all the inspiration in Tennessee it’s little wonder.

Thank you for stopping by.  Whatever the rest of the week holds for you, I hope you stay happy and healthy.

Hugs and kisses,