Birthday

My birthday was a couple days ago, and I wanted to make a video on the day. To keep my thoughts straight I read something to read for it....which is below. The video is here, if anyone wants to see it.

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I used to think that my birthdays would never bother me, that I would grow older without being phased by the passing time. And on one hand that's so: I delight in each new white hair I find on my head, enjoying the contrast they make against the dark hair I was born with. But although my age doesn't bother me, I've found that each year around my birthday I wonder what I've done with my life. It's so easy to focus on what I feel are my failures, so perhaps I should take a moment to think about what I've accomplished.

I'm fairly decent at writing, although I haven't been doing much of it lately. Worth mentioning though, in 2009 one of my poems was published in the magazine Cricket.

I'm told that I'm great at photography. And if I may say so myself, I am pretty good at it.

I'm talented at a variety of hand crafts, such as: needlework, spinning yarn, crochet...and more, but I don't feel like listing everything I can do.

I've competed internationally with the Sweet Adeline's chorus Pride of Portland, and in 2009 we took ninth place at internationals in Hawaii.

I'm very close to completing my English degree at Marylhurst University. I spend a lot of time worrying about what a barrier anxiety and depression are in completing my degree, since I'm very aware that I should have graduated by now. But I should probably also remember that it's taken a lot of work to get where I am now.

And, I've always managed to work my way through anxiety and depression. I still struggle, and I'm sure I'll always have my ups and downs, but to have gotten past the really tough times in the past is something.

So maybe, maybe next year, I'll be able to think about all this and my other accomplishments rather than scrutinizing what I haven't succeeded in yet.

A photo of stairs that I took on my birthday

The New Year

New Year's Resolutions:

1) Actually stick to exercising
2) Get myself closer to where I should be mental-health-wise
3) Graduate

...and I guess I'll stick to that for my official resolutions. I have other things I want to do, like make some money off my photography, get a real camera (my iPhone can only do so much), and knit a scarf (not loom knitting, but with knitting needles). But I'm so scatter brained right now (thanks, depression and anxiety) that I'll stick to three main goals.

I already got a start on exercise, and on a photography project. I've made an Instagram account separate from my Earth Worshipper Photography stuff, and plan to post a photo a day throughout the year as a way to document it. Maybe not an original idea, but I think it'll be fun.

Here's a photo (ok, two photos smashed together) of me exercising. I have this fascination with how windows turn into mirrors at night, and since our exercise bike is right next to a big window it was pretty natural for me to take photos.

Learning Photography

I don't know how young I was when I got my first camera, but I was young enough to enjoy photographing butts. The response to my obsession with photographing butts ranged from intense irritation to shrugging it off as just something kids do. Fortunately, my camera was never confiscated.

Along the way I've photographed many different things. Nature. My barbies. Trees. My family. Dead trees. Our pets. Landscapes. And just anything that caught my attention...which I think even from early on was largely nature related.

I've hardly had any formal training. Early on I was taught a bit about composition by my dad, who used to be am amateur photographer and even participated in competitions. I think he even had a dark room in his house before I was born. (It would have been awesome if he'd still had one when I was growing up.) Then when I got to Portland Community College I took a class in digital photography.

And that, my friends, is the extent of any actual education I have in photography.

Virtually all I've learned is from trial and error, and saying "Hey, will that work?" Sometimes shots that I think will be awesome just don't turn out as imagined. And sometimes photos that I think will be terrible result in my best photography. Sometimes I stick to the rules, sometimes I throw them out the window, and in both cases I've gotten great photos. So basically, trial and error while being willing to ignore the rules, but also being able to follow the rules. I even stick to the rules most of the time, since they do exist for a reason.

Moral of the story: just play with a camera, and with the rules. Remember that the rules are more like guidelines. Don't try to make every shot perfect. There's really no point in that. It's an impossible goal, so just accept that you'll take more bad photos than good ones. Realizing that allows me to experiment and figure out what works.

And just for the heck of it, here's a video where I explored the contents of my old camera bag. I hadn't touched it in years, and it had a pleasant surprise that rendered me temporarily speechless.



Coming soon...what I love about photography, and projects that I'm kind of working on. I'll probably also share what's on those disposable cameras once I finally get them developed.

Autumn

This isn't purely advertisement for my photography stuff, honest it isn't. If it serves that purpose as well, then that's awesome, but that isn't the main point of this post.

The main point? I love autumn.

A photo posted by Raine Rucker (@earth_worshipper_photography) on Nov 18, 2015 at 5:13pm PST

My absolute favorite time of the year is early spring, and spring in general. But fall is a close second. I guess I just like the changing of the seasons.

I love the changing air, the smell of wood smoke, even the chill. Well, if I have warm enough clothing, I like the chill. I wish I could take all of this and stuff it into words to show everyone, but failing that I'm using photography instead.

A photo posted by Raine Rucker (@earth_worshipper_photography) on Nov 10, 2015 at 12:28pm PST

I also seriously love all the different colors, which fortunately is something that I can share with photography. It's amazing how the changing colors begin so slowly that they're hardly noticeable at first, and then it's suddenly all around us.

Go ahead and laugh, but when I was out with my boyfriend recently I kept saying "It's so pretty! The colors, it's so beautiful!" I just couldn't help it.

A photo posted by Raine Rucker (@earth_worshipper_photography) on Nov 9, 2015 at 10:50pm PST

And then, I can find a bit of fresh greenery among the dying leaves. It's almost surprising.

Is fall your favorite season? If not, what is it?

Earth Worshipper Photography

Earth Worshipper Photography

I'm selling photography now. And I'm blaming it all on Amber and Murray.

It was with their encouragement that I started thinking about how to sell my photos, and that led me to opening a CafePress shop. Only a day or so later I signed up with DeviantArt. I've been so focused on this that one might say I got a tad obsessed. As in, forgetting to eat obsessed.

You can already buy my photos, and visit my Facebook page or Twitter account for Earth Worshipper Photography, but I feel like I'm still in the process of setting everything up. I bought a domain name for a central website (since I'm going off in different directions with CafePress and Deviant Art to sell the photos), but it isn't up and running yet. I'm also planning on setting up an Instagram account, though I know nothing about beyond the fact that people use it to look at pretty pictures.

Oh yeah, and I need to buy a camera. I do already have a digital camera, but it's a tad old and my iPhone camera seems to take better photos. Which is kind of just sad.

I'm sure I'll share tidbits here about my photography adventure, but if you want follow keep up to date on what I'm doing I'd recommend checking out my Facebook page. I've been sharing everything there. Plus it's a convenient place to admire what I've done. :)

Oswego Lake

Dear Depression:

 Dear Depression,

I've said before that you feel like an old friend. In any case, you are someone who I've gotten to know fairly well, and whose presence I am used to. I expect that I will be familiar with you throughout my life, but I need you to not lean so heavily on me. Your presence I can accept, but I will do my best to fight you if you drag me down. So please, loosen your grip. Make this easy for us.

-Sarita

journal pages

The above is an excerpt from my journal/sketchbook. Oddly enough, writing a note to depression helped me, at least briefly. And yes, I have found myself wanting to describe depression as an old friend before, which is strange considering how painful it is. But I'm also used to it.

On the opposite page is a simple drawing of a person in the far distance flying a kite, which we see up close. (Though I suppose you could see a tiny figure and a giant kite, if you want to.) Not sure if it has any meaning, I kind of just felt like drawing it. Maybe because there isn't much that makes me feel as alive as wind does, and how better for someone with my limited drawing skills to portray wind that with a kite? But I guess that's me reading meaning into it after the fact.

As I've said before, this particular journal is a work in progress. I'll probably add some color behind the letter, and actually fill in the sky with blue at some point.

sleepy bee

On a slightly more cheerful subject, here's a sleepy bee. I found her when I was smelling some flowering mint, and she almost made close acquaintance with my face. (That wasn't the first time I've had a close call, and likely won't be the last.) She looked dead, since she was just sitting on a leaf under the flowers and wasn't moving, but I recently found out that some bees actually sleep on plants. In any case I didn't disturb her, and when I checked back later there wasn't any trace of her. So I'm going to guess that she was asleep.

Lunar Eclipse

Remember that I took photos of the lunar eclipse last month, but due to technical problems didn't share any? Well, here they are. Finally.

There are a lot of them. Without providing commentary on each and every single one...

 The moon started going behind a tree...I had to move the tripod. Multiple times.

 

This was an oops...but a pretty oops. And I'm sure the plant appreciated having its photo taken.

It's amazing how, even during totality, you can still see the moon.

I couldn't get a good clear photo of the moon after it started coming back. There were two problems: trees in the way, and some light clouds blew in.

Now that I've figured out how to get photos from my digital camera to my computer, it's just about set for me to take it on a field trip adventure for school. Nope, not saying what, though I'm sure there will be photos eventually. :)