I Spy With My Little Eye...Pink!

A flower's appeal is in its contradictions — so delicate in form yet strong in fragrance, so small in size yet big in beauty, so short in life yet long on effect. ~Terri Guillemets

It's App Happy Wednesday...I'm enjoying this new weekly prompt! I love this time of year because everything starts blooming and I have so many more things to take beautiful photos of. This past week everything is pink, pink, pink...oh, and let's not forget the gorgeous blue sky. These are a few of my camera app favorites from this past week.

In the first photo above, I used Mextures, a great app that adds a lot of character to your images. It can change the mood of your photo immediately - I use it a lot. For the remaining three photos, I used Pictapgo, which is RadLab's mobile app. It's an app I used constantly! It adds so much to my images.

Thank you for stopping by - click below to see other app-happy photos. Join in if you're an app-happy kind of person! I'm "sherribrannon" on Instagram.

All You Need is Love...and a Sunset

All I need is a sunset as glorious as this to remind me how much I love nature and all it offers...the beauty of it takes our mind off the busy-ness of life, if only for a few minutes. Especially if we have a camera in our hands! I was inside the house the other evening when I glanced out the window and saw this sunset sky - needless to say, I grabbed my camera and made a run for the front door.

I'm linking up today with Kathy's Song-ography, and her theme this week is "All You Need is Love".

The day is ending. It’s time for something that was beautiful to turn into something else that is beautiful. Now, let go. ~Elizabeth Gilbert

Go With The Flow

Forget about enlightenment. Sit down wherever you are and listen to the wind that is singing in your veins. Feel the love, the longing, and the fear in your bones. Open your heart to who you are, right now, not who you would like to be. Not the saint you’re striving to become. But the being right here before you, inside you, around you. All of you is holy. You’re already more and less than whatever you can know. Breathe out, look in, let go. ~John Welwood

I find that I could learn a life lesson from tree branches. When the wind is blowing, they simply go with the flow. They're attached securely to their foundation, that majestic tree trunk further anchored with the strength of its roots, reaching deep down into the earth. The underground roots are the heart of things, where growth and wisdom manifest. When the wind comes, the branches don't resist and they aren't afraid. They surrender to the wind, with the comfort and knowing that the trunk and the roots have nourished them with all they need to survive till the wind passes. They don't worry about yesterday or tomorrow. And if by chance they break off from the tree, falling to the ground? The earth is always there, waiting...inviting them back to where it all started, where the roots are...letting them come back home slowly, surely, eternally.

Isn't nature wonderful? The life lessons are endless and right there to be noticed, if you just take a closer look.

App Happy Wednesday

Barb at Keeping with the Times is starting a new link called App Happy Wednesday. I'm so happy to hear about this and can't wait to join in! These days, I use camera apps for editing much more than I ever use Photoshop. I think this is a growing trend, so I'm thrilled that Barb has started her weekly link. Thank you, Barb!

For the first three images, I used my new, favorite painterly app: Brushstroke. I love the instant look of a painting you can get with just one finger tap! There are many different paint filters to choose from within this app, and each one gives a slightly different look. I tend to always go with one of the "S" series - they appeal to my eye the most. If I don't feel the painted effect is popping enough, I will often then move it into either Snapseed or Pictapgo to saturate or "crisp" up the image so it's more striking. Once it really pops, I know I'm done.

For the last photo, I used the app Mextures to add the lovely filter. I think I then moved it into Snapseed and de-saturated the pink background just slightly, so it wasn't overpowering.

Please click on the link below to participate and share your own "app happy" images! I'm "sherribrannon" on Instagram, by the way. Thanks so much for stopping by.

The Beauty of Dogwoods

After all, I don't see why I am always asking for private, individual, selfish miracles when every year there are miracles like white dogwood. ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Every spring when the dogwood trees bloom with their gorgeous pink or white flowers, they bring a happy smile to my face and my heart. I treasure every day that I get to see them while they're here! And, needless to say, each year I take endless photos of them...here are a few to share. More will be coming this week...and possibly next! On this particular day, the dogwoods were cheering up the clouds with their blooms.

For Kim's Texture Tuesday this week, I used her "daisy" texture in the last photo above, at Soft Light/30%. The theme is simple, and I think the simple beauty of the dogwood bloom is breathtaking. Thank you for stopping by!

Cherry Blossoms - Continued

The spring came suddenly, bursting upon the world as a child bursts into a room, with a laugh and a shout and hands full of flowers. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Here is a continuation of some of the cherry blossom photos from my last post - there are too many to choose from! These are all by me with my Lumix - my husband was off somewhere with our Canon at this point. :)

Oh, how I love Radlab, and for this set I used their "Sexy 70" filter on all of them. I love its dreamy, romantic effect and use it often! It's one I'm always drawn to.

I'm linking up with Kim's Texture Tuesday - for the first and third images, I used her "cora" texture at Soft Light/20%. It's a soft pink texture, so it added a lovely, subtle touch to the pink in the cherry blossoms and sky.

Cherry Blossoms - Tidal Basin, Washington D.C.

My husband and I made a pre-dawn trip down to D.C. on Friday to see the cherry blossoms. We left the house at 5am and were lucky enough to find the last of a couple parking spots in a lot near the Tidal Basin. Or, at least we thought we were lucky...until we trekked back to our car at 7:45am to head home, and met up with the policeman writing our parking ticket! Oh well, we decided $30.00 was worth the price of admission.

Even though we arrived there by 5:40am, we couldn't believe how many photographers were already there waiting for the sun to come up. By the time we left, it was wall-to-wall people. It was a spectacular sight with all those beautiful blooms and the Jefferson Memorial right there as a stunning backdrop, not to mention the Washington Monument standing tall in the distance. The weather couldn't have been more perfect for us...and despite the incredible volume of people, it was still possible to get some great shots if you were patient.

Here are some of my favorites - I may share more later because we got so many good ones. And I must be upfront about this particular set of photos: this was a team effort by my husband and I. We had two different cameras we were using, and although I did all of the Photoshop editing, my husband took some of the initial images. Even though my signature is on all the images for the sake of the internet, he had a part in some of them!

I'm linking up today with Kathy's Song-ography, and this week's prompt is "Photograph".

The naked earth is warm with Spring,
And with green grass and bursting trees
Leans to the sun's kiss glorying,
And quivers in the sunny breeze.
~Julian Grenfell

The Grace of Spring

Grace is always present. You imagine it as something high in the sky, far away, something that has to descend. It is really inside you, in your heart. When the mind rests in its source, grace rushes forth, sprouting as from a spring within you. ~Ramana Maharshi

THE GRACE OF SPRING

A fallout of body and mind: the melancholy of winter sank in, as it tends to do. My heart was put on a shelf by my own hands, numb and dumbed down by gray snow and screen glow. There was the passing of time, the rise and fall of moods and moons. But spring's wind is like a soft, holy breath against my skin. And its blooms are like visible prayers suddenly revealing themselves. I'm drawn back to the shelf and I retrieve my heart, studying it with no noise to hinder thought, in a stillness so soft it charms. The heart is our dearest partner, I remember. We do everything with it: loving, fearing, hoping, falling apart. Our soul resides in it, in the silence. I go outside, and I take my heart. It breathes again, filling my spirit's winter hollows, replacing them with joys again, soothing my sorrows. April's flowers have magic powers.

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My first attempt at a prose poem...I'm not even sure if I did it right, but I like how it flows so smoothly, as if I'm writing in a journal. May you feel the hope and grace of spring! That is my wish for you.

Spring is a Happiness So Beautiful

Hello! It's been too long...I've been M.I.A. for weeks. My back and ribs are improving tremendously and I couldn't be happier. Spring has also officially arrived in Virginia, which makes me almost giddy.

These last weeks have been tough - it's funny how, when you're ignoring the balance in your life, your body will literally bring you to your knees to get your attention. My pain issues forced me to re-evaluate and I'm spending less time sitting at the computer these days. I'm also eating much healthier, meditating, and doing yoga. It's hard to believe, but I think my injury was actually a blessing in disguise because it forced me to take a look at some bad habits I had developed. I'm now making my physical health a priority in my life, and reducing the "noise".

Our daffodils are out! And the birds were happily chirping this morning when I woke up with the sunrise. Our trees have buds on them, too...oh, how I love spring!! Thank you so much for stopping by, and I hope to be back to more regular blogging now. I will finally have pretty things to take photos of, now that things are starting to bloom! No more gray trees and brown landscapes. I'm linking up today with Kim Klassen's Friday Finds.

Spring is a happiness so beautiful, so unique, so unexpected, that I don’t know what to do with my heart. I dare not take it, I dare not leave it – what do you advise? ~Emily Dickinson