Category: gratitude

Butterfly Maiden Bokeh

The job that pays the bills has been especially nutty this month. Around these parts, Santa is saying “Ho, Ho, Hoooooly crap I have a lot of work to do.” Thankfully, I managed to get through to the end of the week and now get to enjoy a bit of time off for the holidays.

And so it’s best to balance all that work with some fun. Which can also be work, in a way.

This week, my photography takes a turn toward bokeh, the sort of blurry backlights seen in many an Instagram photo. I’ve seen a LOT of photos with bokeh, it’s quite popular. When I see these kinds of photos they always seem fun, and those blurry lights look like they would be so easy to shoot.

Easy was not the case for me. I figured I’d waltz right into some fabulous bokeh photos, but I really, really struggled with this challenge. The photo’s subject was photographer’s choice, it just needed to have some nice juicy bokeh in the background.

Curse words were uttered. Cameras were called names. Swears in English, Spanish, French and British English (bollocks, bollocks, bollocks!) were all employed in the making of this photo. Finally after several Google searches and articles consumed, I stumbled onto a good suggestion for creating lots of sparkly light, and it worked.

In the end, I’m pretty happy with how this turned out. The photo features a Zuni Pueblo fetish carved by a Native American artisan named Dilbert Gasper. His Butterfly Maiden is carved from black marble and inlaid with turquoise. Since Christmastime is when I miss New Mexico the most, she seemed to be a good subject for my trials and (many) errors in learning a new technique.

I hope I did the little Butterfly Maiden and master artisan Mr. Gasper their justice.

And with that, a hearty Feliz Navidad to all!



©2017 Karen Fayeth




Shadow Cutters

The hard work on my Macro Photography skills continues this week with a theme of “lit by candlelight.” A week ago when this challenge was announced, I was like “pssh, easy peasy.”

Turns out shooting by candlelight has been anything but. Sunday night I did a whole round of photos with a few objects and although candlelight is certainly beautiful, the photos I shot just weren’t working. The photos were…dull. Not interesting. They didn’t give me that excited feeling to share.

Then The Good Man opened up a bottle of wine and put out some cheese and garlicky crackers. That really seemed to lubricate the creative gears. Half a glass in, I had an inspired idea. I grabbed my copper holiday cookie cutters out of the kitchen (not that I have made any holiday cookies this year, but that’s a topic for another time) and got to shooting.

Turns out candlelight casts really great shadows. I’m now pretty happy with the results. The top photo is my entry this week in the Macro Mondays challenge. The black and white was just for fun.

Whew! This is three weeks in a row I’ve managed to produce a new Macro photo for Monday’s event. It’s harder than it looks!



©2017, Karen Fayeth, all rights reserved



©2017, Karen Fayeth, all rights reserved





Where To Swear Your Oath

As a sort of minor and mildly entertaining footnote to Tuesday’s Congressional election in Alabama, there was a CNN interview where the spokesperson for the Republican candidate made a spirited argument that Muslim politicians should not be allowed in Congress because they’d be required to swear on a Christian bible.

The CNN host went on to utterly decimate the spokesperson’s assertion by letting him know that not only is it not required to swear on a bible, if you are swearing an oath of office, you can technically swear on anything.

Something about that pesky separation of church and state, I suppose.

Look, I’m not here to wade into political waters. What I am here for is to wade into this debate:

If you became an elected official, upon which book would you swear your oath of office?

As a lover of books, this question intrigues me. One might suggest that the book used for an oath of office would have some meaning, some gravity. Something that matters to you.

So where to start? I mean, what are the books that made me who I am today? That have, to me anyway, a sacred meaning. Something upon which an oath would really matter?

Okay, I’ve had a noodle on this, and decided that here would be my top five picks, in no particular order:

  1. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry


    This is the book that made me want to be a writer. It’s seminal to my creative life and had particular meaning for me years ago to read an author from the west write the west (and not some east coaster’s idea of the west, I’m looking at you Cormac). This book is in my DNA and it’s the perfect book upon which to swear, because Gus and Call do an awful lot of swearing in the story.

  2. Red Sky at Morning by Richard Bradford


    When I was a kid, my mom suggested I read this book and I am so glad she did. I’ve opined plenty on this book, and it’s perfect for swearing an oath because this was the first book to make me feel like it was not only okay, but pretty damn cool, to be a New Mexican. Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s no one knew where or what New Mexico was, nor cared. Heisenberg putting us in the media spotlight was years away. This book is me and I am this book, I give you my oath on that.

  3. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff by Christopher Moore


    The story of the Son of God, as told by his best friend Biff. It’s historical and hysterical. This book will make you laugh right out loud as our man Biff pulls his somewhat clueless friend Jesus out of scrape after scrape. It’s outright blasphemy which makes it the most logical choice to swear my oath of office.

  4. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

    As noted before on this blog, Las Vegas is something well woven into the fabric of my life. I got my start in life there and spent an awful lot of time there as a kid. I have a much different view of Vegas than most. It’s a strange sort of indescribable thing. This book is on my list because, uh, it’s Hunter S. Thompson. What better FU to the whole swearing an oath to the government?

    But mainly, it’s because of this part:

    “A little bit of this town goes a very long way. After five days in Vegas you feel like you’ve been here for five years. Some people say they like it — but then some people voted for Nixon, too. He would have made a perfect mayor for this town…” — Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

    C’mon! This is the perfect oath of office swearing in book.

  5. Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn, or maybe Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella, or possibly Ball Four by Jim Bouton, or, or, or… It’s a long list.


    The right choice for swearing in because baseball is my religion.

Okay, now that the book question is sorted, the next item to tackle is what music is going to be played at my swearing in? I’m going to assume I will be elected to a low-level office with no budgets for live acts. So, assume a bumpin’ sound system. Who gets to warble under my swearing? Ooooh, that’s a good one…..

If you have a mind to, holler at me here or on any of the social medias and tell me what book you want to swear your own oath on. I’d love to cuss and discuss.

———————




The exact moment where the one on the right realized his whole argument was just verbally punched to the ground


Story source.





Button Glow

In an effort to improve my macro photography and challenge myself a little harder (photographically speaking), I joined a Flickr group that does weekly challenges.

Photos must be new, no taking from the archives, so it pushes photographers to keep shooting every week. I seem to work well under a deadline.

This week’s theme is “buttons and bows.”

Tomorrow I will enter this photo, taken just last night, into the Macro Mondays challenge.

Whew. Who knew photographing a simple button could be so much work?



Button Glow, ©2017 Karen Fayeth


If you are interested in looking at more of my stuff, here is the link to my Flickr page.

Otherwise, wish my little button photo good luck!



When the Perfect Metaphor Raggedly Flies By

So yeah, I’ll just cut to the chase, I’ve been having a hard time lately. Moving, work, life, storms, general state of politics, hades-like heat in the Bay Area, all of it. Stress. Anxiety. Insomnia. It all just got on top of me, and stood on my neck.

Some days I’m stronger than others, but last week the final drop of strong independent woman inside of me got used up, and I broke. I had been in a prolonged email squabble with a really challenging coworker and I hit a wall. I totally collapsed into tears.

Sobbing, heaving, inconsolable tears. Not in front of the coworker, at least. But still. It was what I believe the kids these days call an ugly cry. Full on.

For a while I was so down, ragged and lost that I thought I might be losing that small tenuous grasp I have on sanity. I was actually pretty scared.

But through some tough love from The Good Man, some actual sleep (I swear lack of sleep would make the most calm person into a raving psychotic), and doing a much better job taking care of myself, I found my way back. Mostly.

I mean, it’s still there at the edges, the crazy I mean. This is the absolutely busiest time of year at my job and things always go a little pear shaped in September anyway. Tempers are quick for everyone and feelings are a little raw.

This too shall pass, it always does. I mean, October 1 is only three weeks away. I can survive three weeks, right?

Today, this lovely Saturday afternoon, when I should have been doing work but just couldn’t bring myself to sit in front of a computer, I instead sat on my back deck with camera in hand, trying to photograph hummingbirds. Not an easy thing, and I’m learning a lot about both the birds and who I am as a photographer.

I shared one I really liked on all the social medias.

Here is another:





Today as I sat and watched and listened and kept my eyes open for the hummingbirds, another animal caught my eye: A Monarch butterfly.

A sure sign of pending Autumn, the monarch. They are special to me in so many ways, not the least of which is how closely tied they are to Dia de los Muertos in the Mexican culture.

I silently wished for the Monarch to land and let me get some photos.

Well, I got my wish, just not quite in the way I expected.

The butterfly flew in listlessly, bumped into a wall, ricocheted and then landed on the side of the deck.

As I got closer, snapping quickly with my telephoto, I soon realized the issue.




“We have an injured warrior out here,” I texted to The Good Man.

I wondered what had happened to this beautiful animal. Did it go through a rough storm? Get batted at by a sporting cat? Fight for territory with another butterfly? Or was it just at the end of a good life?

What sort of hell had this little guy gone through, and how was it still flying?

After some Googling, I tried making some nectar and coaxing it into a box, but alas, no. It mustered up some of its last strength and flew off.

I was left sort of sad, wanting to give the injured insect a safe haven. Wishing I had just left it alone.

But as it flew off on one good wing, I couldn’t help but admire its tenacity.

A tenacity I wish I could find. Or perhaps find a little more of.

May I (and you and we) find the strength to fly on our own battered wings. May my poor ragged butterfly inspire you as it did me.