I had a meeting with a client yesterday and was presented with the usual dilemma of what to wear.  Fortunately, the business end of it was solid and secure, but switching from my usual private “barn clothes”, that are OH so comfortable, is always a challenge, especially since I usually work from the comforts of my home or out in the field, literally. It was so much easier as a public education “official” —...

O. Helene Kobelnyk launches optimistic lifestyle magazine.  Read the whole story about the New Mexico based  online publication here.  More information and the “rest of the story” can be found in the latest press release. Read Helene’s guest post on Black Star Rising — the leap from photographer to publisher. Newly released limited edition prints will be available through February 2013 only.  Order now to have...

  It was the coldest night of season and I awoke at 5:30 this morning and turned on the TV to watch “Balalaika” with Nelson Eddy, from under a warm down comforter and snuggled among my doggies.   A point of clarification, Nelson Eddy is in the movie, not in my bed. I grew up with the Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald musicals, and Balalaika (costar is Ilona Massey) was always one of my favorites, and my mom’s, because it...

  I first participated in Project 365 in 2011 –one photo for each day of the year, and then modified it in 2012 to include writing. As I looked back over the years’ work and the photos I selected as my POTD (Photo of the Day), I realized how much I had grown in skill and vision, how much photography is still a joyous part of my daily life, and how much more there is to discover not only in photography but in this fabulous...

Impermanence is the stuff of life, which by its very definition is change.  Nature reminds us of this each time we transition from one season into the other.  We readily accept the golden aspen leaves of autumn, the apple blossoms in spring, the crisp frosty mornings of winter, yet fight change in the most common everyday, sometimes insignificant areas of our life.  But it still happens, just as life does. Animals seem to be so much more...

  In the late afternoon summer days of August when the sunflowers pop their heads out of the draws and ditches, and the fields gleam yellow with wild buttercups, I can feel my Nicky and see with my heart the joy he felt when he would run leaping through the fields. Some say that dogs are made of the same “stuff”, “ether”, “energy” as angels, and no other dog in my life exemplified it so much as my Nicky. Always happy, loving...