when the sun sinks low on the horizon,
a special quality of light
passes through the atmosphere.
a glowing, gentle light that says
"i'm almost done...but i'll be back in the morning."
i love that light.
petal upon petal
world within world,
star within cell.
(excerpted from) "the rose" by kathleen raines
42 comments:
Your photos and thoughts are lovely and touch my heart.
Spirithelpers
These poetic posts are making me sigh a lot. In a nice peaceful and satisfied way.
I adore that light, too. And the poem. And your blog.
beautiful, with magical photographs
steven, what a stunning set of photographs! The geranium leaf is miraculous! You capture light, and it's transforming effects, so well. Have a lovely day!
Hello Steven
these are lovely gentle images - geraniums are so warm and friendly in an unpretentious old fashioned sort of way...
I have just spent a wonderful hour or more reading the poetry of Mahmud Kianush whom I found through the link on your last post. Thank you for putting me in touch with a gem...and there is so much more to read there...
How has the first week back been going...I was interested to read that your class goes on to Intermediate school. That is the system we had in NZ whereas here in Au they have 7 years primary, then 5 secondary.
My kids were fortunate to go to a P though 12 school...
Prep or kindy + preschool + Primary + highschool... so they spend the entire 14 years on the one campus.
Thanks for wonderful newness again..
Happy days
hello tammielee! thanks for visiting and for your thoughtful comment. steven
hi amy - those kind of sighs are a good thing. there's a softening of the tummy, a lowering of the shoulders and a nice wave of contentment that washes across and through you. have a peaceful day! steven
hi kathleen, i'm very glad that you like it here. i do too! that might sound odd, but i really enjoy creating these posts. finding the words, writing my own words, taking pictures if i can't find the right one. i'm really lucky to have this place. have a lovely day! steven
ahhh nanu, thankyou!!! have a peaceful day. steven
hello titus, thankyou! it's more luck than anything - and fortune!!! have a lovely day. steven
hi delwyn, it's an extraordinary time. there are so many incredibly talented people whose work we can follow. i'm left giddy and need a walk sometimes when i look at the lists of incredible writers whose work is sitting right there. what to do?!!
delwyn, i promise you there will be posts about my school but i'll happily tell you a little bit right now. my school is a kindergarten to six. so we teach four to twelve year olds. for the last week and a half i have been working in my classroom, attending meetings, doing consultancy work for the schoolboard, and all without children. they start next tuesday september the 8th. i like the idea of attending one school all the way through. the parents of my children would say the same thing. we build very close knit and special relationships with our students and there's trust, honesty, hard work, fun that comes out of that. i heard lots from my wife about the aussie schools and she loved the culture and the details of aussie school life very much!!!! have a lovely day by the river. steven
Steven:
Lovely photos with such depth and, of course, the evening light. Nothing compares.
hello bonnie - thank you very much for your kind comment!!! there is a lovely softness about the evenings in late august through september that is unique in terms of the quality of light. have a peaceful day. steven
That morning and evening light enhances the shadows and puts a tiny bit of color everywhere. I really like it and I do think you hit the photographer's jackpot with this post. Beautiful photography, Steven.
The odd thing about busing the kids here is that she was bused from the same spot last year. Now, she is a 4th grader and has to get there on her own. And, the bus still stops at the same spot and picks up kids in 1, 2 and 3rd grades.
We don't mind taking her and picking her up, now, but when the streets are covered with ice or snow or both, some of us will probably wish the bus was still picking them up.
I guess I didn't know you were a teacher. I taught for about 13 years and told my wife if I had to go back the 14th year she would have to put me in the looney bin. We had some supervisors who were nuts and it seemed their goal was to give us their jobs.
Thanks for your visit to my Pick a Peck of Pixels Blog and for your comment there about busing to school. And your visit helps me get closer to my original goal: 10,000 visits. Pick a Peck of Pixels
The evening light is shown to best advantage in these pictures...beautiful!
Steven,
You have done an extraordinary job capturing the back light of the evening sun. As the sun is setting on the flower petals it really does bring home the feeling of summer's end in one whisper of breath. Thank you for sharing.
I adore the notion of sunlight gently whispering "I'm almost done...but I'll be back in the morning." Lovely thought. Lovely pictures.
a glowing, gentle light that says
"i'm almost done...but i'll be back in the morning."
So poetic.
I love that light too.
Thanks for sharing. Enjoy your day.
Steven, what simply lovely evening-time, evening-light photographs. You have managed to capture that mellow glow so beautifully.
I have spent the most blissful half hour catching up on the posts I've missed recently and, like Amy, I feel so peaceful and serene after my gentle meander through your eloquent prose and beautiful images. Absolutely lovely, Steven. It is always such a pleasure to visit your place.
That's what I love about afternoon light...it's so soft, as if soothing you towards an evening of rest.
Nice work sir!
The light on the petunias is magnificent. Hinting at the structure, making it positively glow. Oh to be lighted like that personally, all the time.
I love the poetry of Kathleen Raine. She was an interesting woman and had a lifelong relationship with the Tarka the Otter man didn't she? The quality of light in those photographs makes them very mysterious steven - lovely.
beauty in your words & splendors of light and life in your photos..
What beautiful light in these photos,
hi abe - i've always been sensitive to light and colour. i love the nuances a great deal. the thing with photography - and you know this better than me - is that it places a machine between you and the object being photographed and so it changes things ever so slightly - or a great deal! so i keep my eyes open and try to think what it would look like through the lens. thanks for your comments about the whole process of before and after school transportation and your precious granddaughter. i am a teacher and i've loved or found a way to love every moment - truthfully!!! steven
hello jinksy - thankyou very much for that generous comment. steven
hello linda - you always get the essence of what i'm hoping to share!!!! that's very happy-making!!! steven
hi willow - whenever i watch the sun set, i feel that way and think that somewhere it's saying "hello - what's in your day?" as it rises over a far-away part of the world at the same time. have a lovely evening at the manor. steven
hi liza, thanks for that. i'm glad that this simple little moment carried the presence i thought it might!!! i'm amazed that people like yourself can see what i see and that we can get that moment where the words and the image cross paths and meld. have a lovely evening. steven
hi tessa, thankyou for your generous comment. i am so happy that people are able to enjoy these little moments - it seems so unlikely as i craft them as much for myself as anyone. i am trying to create a space where i would feel comfortable visiting. so thankyou so much for your supportive comments. they are very kind. steven
hello hope - there's a softening of the bright gold sun of the late summer afternoon into the early evening bronze and then pinks and salmon streamers against athe softest of pale blue skies. it's been an amazing stretch of nights like that. the light comes through the back windows and the air itself seems to slow down!!! have a lovely evening. steven
hi meri - you know through the course of this summer, i've felt like that more often than at any time since my late teens when i was in a very different physical and emotional space but i was very much inside the sort of moments i'm experiencing again and sharing here. a sensitivity to the world around me. thanks so much for your thoughtful comment. see you again!! steven
hi weaver - "the tarka the otter man" a.k.a. gavin maxwell was the object of her unrequited passion. i didn't know that until i checked it out. i try to include mystery or ambiguity in my postings these days. have a lovely evening in the dale weaver. steven
hi lissa - thanks for your lovely words. steven
hi crafty green, that's what i love about this time of day. even as i write i know it is fast approaching and have my camera and eyes ready for whatever may arrive. steven
Absolutely beautiful photos Steven. I, too, love that early evening light, it is quite magical.
hello bt, thanks so much. i'm glad that you can connect to these images as i do. have a lovely evening. steven
Hi Steven~ I enlarged these macros--incredibly beautiful! backgrounds a hazy blur, flowers totally in focus, rich in evening colors, all illuminated by the rays of light. a microcosm of the world.
hello margaret - thankyou for doing that!!! i try to upload photographs straight from iphoto - so they are big - really big!!! they are also not protected by any copyright and so if anyone wants them then they can have them!!! the colours in those pictures - especially the blurred elements (which are my favourite parts!!) are really amazing. have a lovely evening margaret, steven
You outdid yourself on these, Steven, and captured the "golden hour" perfectly. Thanks for sharing!
oh thankyou golden west!!! it was a matter of being in the right place and suddenly seeing this moment!!! thanks for visiting!!! steven
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