Archive for the ‘Photography’ Category
Posted by Michael Scott on April 1, 2013
April Fools! Another winter has passed, another opportunity to prepare the batch of seed that will yield a harvest of completeness and yet we find ourselves sowing for the most part, more of the same strain. Habits are not unlike the roots of a tree, they keep us grounded yet tethered in the same old space, good or bad, right or wrong, healthy or unhealthy. Too often, despite our best efforts to find true and lasting transformation, we find ourselves grappling with the same old demons that we did yesterday, last month and last year.
While there is a humble, if not cynical humor associated with the first day of April, there is also a wake up call, a reminder that transformation doesn’t happen without effort. We all have the ability to engage our minds in original thought and to realize meaningful and lasting shifts of our own consciousness. It is the uncovering of the truths from within that render the past irrelevant and the opinions of others unimportant. The hard part is maintaining a vigilant watch over that truth to keep it from withering away.
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Posted in art, Inspiration, Oil Painting, Photography | Tagged: adventure, art, colorado, creativity, inspiration, law of attraction, oil painting, photography | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Michael Scott on November 11, 2012
“Softly the evening came. The sun from the western horizon like a magician extended his golden wand o’er the landscape; Twinkling vapors arose; and sky and water and forest seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together.” ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
To the person who first likened being unrealistic to having your head in the clouds I say this; there is nothing more real, more perfect and more original than a cloud. To sit and stare for hours if you wish, witnessing what has never been before and what will never be again is a better use of your time by far than memorizing tables and formulas for it teaches us that possiblities are endless.
The thing that I love about painting clouds is that there is no right and wrong. One might say that a cloud is ominous or unusual, but never ugly or unrealistic. A couple of days ago I was hiking under the most amazing lenticular formations and I estimated correctly that when the sun dipped low to the west that they would light up like fire in the sky. The resulting sunset brought inspiration, which manifested an application for the encaustic (wax) paints that have been sitting on a shelf for almost a year.
“Fire in the Sky” my first encaustic painting
It took a while to figure out how to apply the wax and move it about using palette knives, rags, heat gun and torch. In the end, I’m pretty happy with the way my first wax painting turned out. After all, I’ve never met a cloud I didn’t like.
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Posted in art, colorado, encaustic painting, Inspiration, Oil Painting, Photography | Tagged: adventure, art, colorado, encaustic painting, imagination, inspiration, law of attraction, oil painting, photography | 4 Comments »
Posted by Michael Scott on October 13, 2012
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it” – Albert Einstein
Look around this crazy world of ours with open eyes and you will likely have cause for great concern. Human conflict is certainly nothing new, time and again we have faced seemingly hopeless contention and time and again we have overcome it in spite of the odds. This time however, it’s as if the entire world has become like a tiny dysfunctional town where everybody is into everybody else’s business, the willingness to find a common agenda is rare, greed trumps compassion. We seem to be sitting at a great crossroads, looking hopelessly at all of the routes that we have taken, wondering how in the world we will move forward. Perhaps it is time to step back, think bigger, roll up our sleeves and carve a new path.
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Posted in art, colorado, Photography | Tagged: adventure, art, colorado, imagination, inspiration, law of attraction, photography, rocky mountains | 1 Comment »
Posted by Michael Scott on October 11, 2012
Last week’s first hard frost
“Autumn is a second spring, where every leaf is a flower” ~ Albert Camus
So fitting is this quote to this photograph that I had to enlist it, despite the fact that I had no idea who Albert Camus is or was. Annually, I suffer from a bit of sadness this time of year as the trees are stripped bare and the the world around me becomes seemingly void of color. It’s almost cruel how nature saves the most vivid colors for last, only to let them fall to the ground. I find myself wishing that I could rewind the weeks back to spring and start the process over immediately, without waiting through the hardship of winter. Only after the last leaf has perished do I set my sights forward and begin to anticipate winter with eagerness, comforted that a new spring will follow.
As for Albert Camus, my conscience wouldn’t let me complete this post without a google search. Camus was a French author, journalist and philosopher who took home the Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1947. He is best known for his contribution to the rise of the philosophy known as Absurdism. Wikipedia says about him, “Camus presents the reader with dualisms such as happiness and sadness, dark and light, life and death, etc. He emphasizes the fact that happiness is fleeting and that the human condition is one of mortality; for Camus, this is cause for a greater appreciation for life and happiness”.
“Manataka” (place of peace) – Cuchara Pass, Colorado
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Posted in art, colorado, Inspiration, Photography | Tagged: adventure, art, autumn, colorado, cuchara, inspiration, law of attraction, mountains, photography, rocky mountains | 7 Comments »
Posted by Michael Scott on September 7, 2012
Stars Over Manataka
I know that creativity is alive and well within me when I awaken in the pre-dawn hours with ideas that I cannot let go of, when I am inspired to rise and begin my day holding on to that consciousness rather than releasing it back into the ether to vanish like some forgotten dream.
When I was much younger, I spent a great deal of time outdoors, quite familiar with the vastness of space. I completely understood that if I removed myself from sources of interference on any given clear night, I could see into the universe ad infinitum. With age, it became more difficult I suppose, to simply remove myself from the interference and look up.
Lately, I’ve been looking up again as if I have stumbled on to some new revelation and I’ve got to tell you, I’m excited about it. You see, I am beginning to understand that there is a repeating pattern in all of nature. Think about the seasons, there is spring, summer, fall, winter and then spring once again, ad infinitum. There is day, night and then day again, ad infinitum. There is awakening, sleep and then another awakening, ad infinitum. Can the same be said of life and death?
This is heavy stuff and it probably should remain in the pages of my private journal but this is afterall 2012 and there are plenty of reasons to ponder weighty subjects these days. I often wonder what season it is within our country, there is so much anger, fear and division and it seems as though people really don’t listen to one another. On a global scale a lot of scary things are happening, what season is it? If life as we know it no longer exists, then what? Somehow, some way, I believe that we, as the human race are about to remove ourselves from all of the interference and look up once again, to awaken in a cycle of infinite possibilities.
Ad Infinitum
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Posted in art, Inspiration, law of attraction, Photography | Tagged: adventure, art, colorado, earth, global, imagination, inspiration, photography, stars, universe | 1 Comment »
Posted by Michael Scott on September 1, 2012
Full Moon Over the Spanish Peaks and La Veta, Colorado
“Every Artist dips his brush in his own soul and paints his own nature into his pictures” ~ Henry Ward Beecher
There is something powerfully captivating about this land, where high alpine twin peaks stand alone between the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains. The Ute, Comanche and Apache tribes called these mountains the Huajatolla(breasts of the earth) and considered this aesthetically poetic region to be sacred. Today, these mountains are known as the Spanish Peaks and artists are drawn here from all over the world to become inspired.
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Posted in art, colorado, Inspiration, Photography | Tagged: adventure, art, colorado, cuchara, huerfano county, inspiration, la veta, law of attraction, mountains, oil painting, photography, rocky mountains, sangre de cristo, spanish peaks, trinidad | 2 Comments »
Posted by Michael Scott on August 21, 2012
Moon Sliver
It is so easy to give the beauty of this world and this universe a passing glance, occasionally pausing to admire long enough to frame a pretty picture in a camera or in the mind. It is more difficult, yet well worth the effort to look beyond the surface, to access imagination, to search for information that is something closer to the truth.
Looking Beyond
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Posted in art, colorado, Inspiration, Photography | Tagged: adventure, art, colorado, imagination, inspiration, law of attraction, mountains, oil painting, photography, rocky mountains | 2 Comments »
Posted by Michael Scott on August 11, 2012
“Secret Falls” – Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell 8/10/12
“The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. No big laboratory is needed in which to think. Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born.” Nikola Tesla
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Posted in art, colorado, Oil Painting, Photography | Tagged: adventure, art, colorado, creativity, inspiration, law of attraction, mountains, oil painting, photography, rocky mountains | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Michael Scott on August 5, 2012
July Afternoon On The Purgatoire River
It might just be true that there is nothing more soothing and tranquil than to sit next to a high mountain stream on a warm summer day, to become one with the rhythm of nature. There is a sensory renewal, a transfer of energy that takes place within me and I find that for those peaceful moments an abundance of fullness that reminds me that Anything is Possible. The human consciousness is likened to a mountain stream. It ebbs and flows through the seasons of life and it has the uncanny ability to re-generate from a quiet frozen drip to a powerful moving torrent, this is the absolute law of the universe.
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Posted in art, colorado, outdoors, Photography | Tagged: adventure, art, colorado, inspiration, oil painting, photography, rocky mountains | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Michael Scott on May 25, 2012
Mr. and Mrs. Duck
First there is a warning quack, then a resounding quack-quack followed by the fluttering of wings. “There goes Mr. and Mrs. Duck” Tammy will say and we watch the pair skim over the water in the same easterly direction. And so the chain of events repeats itself, day in and day out as we take our daily walks. Ahhh, summer in the mountains of Southern Colorado.
When I was a kid, I’d take an old shoe box, poke a hole in the end of it and tape a piece of black and white photo paper inside. It always amazed me how I could miraculously produce a photograph using such simple tools. Today, it amazes me that with all of the fancy equipment I can’t seem to get a wildlife image that looks much different from those pinhole camera pictures. Shooting photographs or video of wildlife is an art form that I have not neither mastered. I am persistent however and I have the desire, a combination that will eventually unlock the door to success.
So, back to that elusive pair of Ducks and the comical scene that unfolds each time I try to photograph them. I’ve done everything shy of dressing in camouflage and building a duck blind to capture their image. I have indeed, crawled through the grass on my belly and hidden behind a nearby shack a number of times. Holding my camera in shooting position, I peer around the corner as if I’m an FBI agent on a drug raid. “Quack…Quack Quack….Flutter Flutter”, they’re gone before I can take command of my focus ring.
Quack…Quack Quack…..Flutter Flutter
It seems as though the same scenario plays itself out no matter what the subject matter is. Tammy and I drive everywhere with cameras ready and tripods extended for when and not if we see a heard of Elk, a Bear or a Mountain Lion. The way it really seems to work is quite different from what we anticipate though. In the past 7 days, we have seen a Blonde Male Bear, a Black Male Bear and a Momma Bear with three darling little Cubs. When we see something really great there is an adrenaling rush and a very confusing attempt to communicate with one another that could easily lead to disaster. “Stop” “Go” “Roll Down the Window” “ Move out of my way” “We need a new windshild” are the types of things you might hear in that moment. It’s not uncommon for me to lose my mind and attempt to take pictures from a moving vehicle, while I am driving. And then there are the times when we are whispering and moving very slowly to get into position. I open the door with the key still in the ignition and the “ding-ding-ding” announces to the whole forest that we are there, larger than life.
So go easy on me when you judge these pictures. They aren’t as easy to get as you might think. You can bet that I will be bragging it up when I finally get that award winning wildlife shot.
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Posted in colorado, Photography, video production | Tagged: adventure, art, bear, colorado, cuchara, huerfano county, inspiration, la veta, law of attraction, oil painting, sangre de cristo, spanish peaks, video | 7 Comments »
