pitching (not pictured: my heart in my throat)

Whew. Well. It's been an interesting couple of weeks. If I had visions of sitting around and thinking deep thoughts and, I don't know, making lists, well that didn't really happen. Still, I got a handle on some things. Others, I got a handle on, only to have them slip immediately back behind again (laundry, I'm looking at you). I think I said on Friday that things feel marginally less chaotic, and that's good, but it mostly felt good just to lay a burden down for awhile, even if it's one you like carrying.

I think of all the social media things I'm connected to, I could let everything go except this space and Instagram. I'm not sure I will (shakes fist at Twitter), but those are the two that matter the most. More and more of us seem to be taking these breaks, and just yesterday I had another friend send out a Facebook message saying "over and out" for a bit. To my mind, it can only be a good thing. Could I have checked out even more? For sure. (Baby steps, people.) But I got settled back in with my family, and I got some good creative reading done, and I opened my heart to some exciting photography projects.

I doubt Christine was planning to really inspire anyone when she started talking about black and white photography last week, but it was just the kind of mini-challenge that I needed. I think in color. So in the past I've only used black and white filters to save a "bad" picture when I'm at the editing stage. Got a somewhat chaotic lifestyle shot? Pop that baby in black and white and it'll look like you meant it. See how easy?

But with Christine's nudging, I started thinking about what I'd look for if I were shooting a black and white photograph. Texture. Lines. Contrast. All of these things in the absence of color. Those were the things I looked for. Neel's garden provided a perfect backdrop for me, but I also wanted to spend the week capturing our life in black and white.

When I took my mini-project to my photo group, we talked about these challenges (And it was my friend Barbara who pointed out the sweet irony of "Violet in black and white!"). It was fun for the food photographer of the group (that's me) to put aside one of her favorite tools (color) and concentrate in a totally different direction. We Googled black and white food photography and felt pretty meh about the results, but I was determined to marry my two genres. I have some other ideas too, so maybe you'll see a bit more black and white from me down the road. Who knows!

So was this a "What I did with my summer vacation" post? I don't know. For me, a critical component of creating/taking pictures is sharing them, so I'll never go away completely, but if a break can sharpen my eye and heal my heart a little. Then I'm all in.

1. I think it's pretty funny that I like to cook different and creative things when all my family wants is meatloaf and sloppy joes. Ha! Joke on me, right? It's all good. Callum really will eat anything I put in front of him (the spicier the better), but we had both meatloaf AND sloppy joes this week, and the gusto with which both my men gobbled up those dinners, not to mention the glee? Well, lesson learned. When they're happy, I'm happy.

2. I think I've been thinking some about how outsiders see us lately. Outsiders? Wrong word. For the next few weeks, we'll have a young woman living with us while she's in Virginia working on efforts for the gubernatorial campaign. She's a recent graduate of the college Neel and I attended (where we met, actually), and she found us through the alumni directory. She needed a cheap place to stay for a short amount of time (just through the election), so we had a family meeting and decided, why not here? She got here Tuesday, and she's been nothing but a delight ever since.

You can't help but wonder, though, how someone new will see you. After Neel told her to be sure to have cash for the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, I said, "Okay, Dad..." Are we fuddy? Are we mainstream? Quirky and fun? Does she even give us a second thought? Only time will tell, I guess. At least the guest room was ready for her. I hope she's cozy.

3. I think I really appreciate the nudge that Christine gave me with this post about shooting in black and white. I tried to do it for most of the week, and I'll share some of those photos on Tuesday if you care to have a look. I'm not sure I'm getting it yet, but I'll keep trying!

4. I think I'm still not completely out of my funk. I'm getting there, but two of my classes didn't go (not enough students), and even though I've been reassured left and right that it's not personal, it's hard not to feel it, you know? Baby steps, I guess. Perhaps I need to read more of those articles about jumping back from failure. Or not. I've been thinking about friendship too. I'm enjoying some deepening relationships very much, but I've been hurt lately too. How do you let go of a thrum of anger when you feel you've been let down by someone you love?

5. I think it's good that I was "off" these last two weeks. Well, "off-ish." I'll tell you more about what I did next week. I wasn't offline as much as I wanted to be, and I didn't get things straightened out quite the way I wanted to, but where things were slipping into chaos, they're now merely busy. I guess that's a good thing, right?

life in black and white {life}

five things, september 27