happy halloween...

In darkest woods she wandered,
one moonless stormy night.
The tree limbs made she
reaching out through lightnings light.

the forest nymph

A glint of her hair or a flash of her shoulder 

That is the most I can boast to have seen, 

Then all is lost as the shadows enfold her, 

Forest glades making a screen of their green, 

Could I cast off all the cares of tomorrow

Could I forget all the fret of today 

Then, my heart free from the burdens 

I borrow, Nature’s chaste spirit her face would display.

                                                                       Ellis Parker Butler

here comes winter

 Sharp is the night, but starts with frost alive

Leap off the rim of earth across the dome. 

It is a night to make the heavens our home 

More than the nest whereto apace we strive. 

Lengths down our road each fir-tree seems a hive, 

In swarms outrushing from the golden comb. 

They waken waves of thoughts that burst to foam: 

The living throb in me, the dead revive. 

Yon mantle clothes us: there, past mortal breath, 

Life glistens on the river of the death. 

It folds us, flesh and dust; and have we knelt, 

Or never knelt, or eyed as kine the springs 

Of radiance, the radiance enrings: 

And this is the soul’s haven to have felt.

                   Winter Heavens by George Meredith

self portrait

In the absence of my "models" who all left me behind for the benefit of education, I had to settle with myself, a remote swich and my basement for this photoshoot. I wish I had used a reflector to redirect the light from the candle to lighten up the dark side of my face. But, you know, hinsight and all that.

To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the surfaces 

and record the qualities of nature and humanity which life or are latent in all things. 

                                                                                                                          Ansel Adams

blue beauty

innocence

A child can teach an adult three things:
to be happy for no reason,
to always be busy with something,
and to know how to demand with all her might that which she desires.

                                                                                            Paulo Coelho