Pic of the Day: Point Arena Lighthouse, California

Point Arena Lighthouse

Mendocino County, California

Point Arena Lighthouse stands above a rugged stretch of the Mendocino coast. What draws me to this photograph is everything happening below the tower: the steep, weathered cliffs, the scattered rocks, and the Pacific breaking around them. The lighthouse gives the scene its anchor, but the coastline does much of the storytelling.

I made the original photograph years ago under a plain gray sky. When I returned to the image, I still liked the land and water, but the sky gave little back to them. I chose to add a sunset sky during editing. The lighthouse, cliffs, rocks, and ocean are from my photograph; the pink and blue sky is an artistic addition.

That choice changed the feeling of the picture. The warmer light draws your eye along the cliffs toward the lighthouse, while the cool water keeps the scene grounded. I wanted the finished work to convey the drama I see in this part of the California coast without suggesting that I photographed that sunset on that day.

I’ve recently prepared a new version of the image for my LightIntoArt shop, along with room views that show how it looks as a single print or a large three-panel canvas. You can see the available sizes and materials in the Point Arena Lighthouse listing.

— Bryan D. Spellman

Pic of the Day: Flathead Lake at Somers

Flathead Lake at Somers

A few kayakers cross Flathead Lake while a houseboat rests near the shoreline. Beyond them, wooded land and mountains meet the reflective water. It is a wide, quiet scene, but those small human details are what keep my eye moving through it.

I photographed this view at Somers, on the north end of the lake. As a Montana native, I have returned to Flathead Lake many times. In revisiting this photograph for a new print, I wanted the blues and grays to feel natural to the scene rather than brighter than I remembered them.

The kayakers give a sense of the lake’s scale. At first glance they are easy to miss; once found, they make the open water feel even larger. The houseboat offers another place to pause before the eye travels toward the distant mountains.

I have finished a new edit of this photograph and updated its wall art listing with fresh images showing the print options.  The photo is available as a paper print (in smaller sizes) or as a stretched canvas, brushed metal or acrylic print in sizes up to 40x90 inch triptychs.  Let me know what you think.  You can see it on LightIntoArt.

Bryan D. Spellman

Pic of the Day: Newport, Oregon Harbor

The Harbor at Newport, Oregon

Back in the day, most of my trips to California involved driving US 101 along the Oregon coast.  One of my favorite places to stop was Newport.  I'd turn off 101 and drive the winding road down to the harbor.  In addition to the fishing boats and pleasure crafts, there were restaurants, souvenir shops, an underwater aquarium, and a seemingly endless array of floating platforms covered with seals.  

My mother died at Thanksgiving, 2006, ending my need to travel to California.  I stuck around most of 2007, clearing up her affairs, and since then, I've rarely visited the coast.  In fact, it's been close to twenty years since I last visited Newport.  I took this photograph on April 30, 2008, with a Nikon D80 and a Sigma 18–50 mm zoom lens set to 24 mm. The exposure was ISO 200, f/11, at 1/125 second. Years later, the photograph was featured in Redbubble’s All Oregon USA group. It's one of my favorite views of the Yaquina Bay area.  

If you like this image as much as I do, I've made it available in my Etsy shop, Light Into Art, and you can find it here:  https://lightintoart.etsy.com/listing/1847305882/yaquina-bay-bridge-seascape-newport or click on the picture or the caption below to go directly to my Etsy listing.

The photo is available as a paper print (in smaller sizes) or as a stretched canvas, brushed metal or acrylic print in sizes up to 40x90 inch triptychs.  Let me know what you think.

Word Search Puzzle for Snohomish County, Washington

 Below you'll find a word search puzzle with twenty-five names taken from my blog post about Snohomish County, Washington.  I recommend that you print this page before taking a pen to your monitor.  NOTE:  If you are looking at this page on yourr phone, you may have to rotate the screen to see the puzzle's full width.  Make sure all four outside lines are visible before you print.

Word Search Puzzle for Stevens County Washington

 Below you'll find a word search puzzle with twenty-five names taken from my blog post about Stevens County, Washington.  I recommend that you print this page before taking a pen to your monitor.  NOTE:  If you are looking at this page on yourr phone, you'll have to rotate the screen to see the puzzle's full width.

Word Search Puzzle for Boundary County

What you have here is a word search puzzle based on my blog post about Boundary County, Idaho.   These are twenty-four names that appear in that post.  Well most of them.  The rest came from the DeLorme Idaho Atlas.  Note that there are no spaces, so Bonners Ferry appears as BONNERSFERRY.

In order for this to work well, you will need to print out the page.  Pens and pencils don't work well on computer screens.  Although, if you have a tablet that allows you to draw on the screen, that might work.  No promises though.  I'd print it out, myself.

 

Answering Questions

FULL DISCLOSURE:  This blog is supported by you, my readers, buying things.  The links top and bottom to Amazon include my Amazon Associates ID and I will earn a percentage of anything you buy when you use my link.  Also, the photos shown are for sale in my online gallery and the caption beneath each photo is a link that will take you to that gallery.  


At 7 0'clock this morning, I finished reading my latest morning reading book.  As you may recall, in January I decided to spend the first half hour (or longer) of each day reading a book by one of my gurus, or some other book of inspiration.  A week ago, I pulled Dan Millman's Living on Purpose off my shelves and said "This will be my next book."  Please understand, this is not a book to have sitting next to your recliner with the idea in mind that you will read the whole book in the following week, yet that is exactly what I did.  I do not recommend that you follow my example.

Instead, let's look at how the book is structured.  Inside the covers are twenty-five "House Rules."  Each of these "rules" is designed to help us answer life's questions, and questions form an important part of the book's content.  Each section, or "rule" starts with a question.  The first is "Is there a larger purpose for living."  I never said these were easy questions.  The opening question stands on its own otherwise blank page. Turn the page and there the House Rule is spelled out. House Rule #1 is "Earth is a School and Daily Life is our Classroom."  Millman then expands on the rule with several pithy aphorisms.  "We are here to learn by expanding our awareness about the world and about ourselves.  This is followed by five more, the final one being "Each and every day we find new lessons to learn." 

The Colony Takes Flight

The third page of each section opens with a question someone has asked Millman in the course of his life.  These questions tend to be personal, and very specific, yet, at least in my experience, also very applicable to my own life.  Millman follows the question with an answer, usually taking about two pages to do so.  A second question tops page five, with, again, roughly two pages for Millman to answer.  Millman never devulges the identity of the asker, but that identity is not necessary.  As I said above, the questions, again, at least to me, seem applicable to each and every one of us, a question that we might well have asked ourselves.

The final two pages of each rule are for personal homework, or "Personal Applications" as Millman puts it.  After an introductory statement, Millman asks questions for the reader to consider, and a lined, otherwise blank page, for the reader to note down his/her own answers.  Obviously, the book is not meant to be read in a single, or even multiple sittings.  I would recommend that this book should be kept on your desk, or perhaps your nightstand, so that you can refer to it daily and use it as a workbook to help gain enlightenment, or at least understanding of ourselves and our personal situations.

Which Way is Up?

While reading the book, several of the "House Rules" spoke directly to me, and others brought to mind friends and their situations.  Two rules toward the end of the book brought to mind a high school classmate who now, in her early 70s, has been diagnosed and is living with Stage 4 cancer.  The rules are "Life moves in cycles:  All things change," and "Life is a series of moments."  My friend posts a short missive every morning on Facebook.  She does not write about her struggle with cancer.  Instead she writes about the little things that make up her day; the moments that bring her joy, whether that be the antics of her dogs, having a meal with friends, or a spear of sunlight over the sea near her New Jersey home.  She has learned the lesson, the rule, that life is a series of moments," and she exults in these moments.  That is one way to live on purpose.

Dan Millman and I were students at the University of California at the same time.  His first book, The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, sets out the lessons he learned, not in the classrooms but rather on the streets of Berkeley where seemingly by accident he met his own guru, a man he calls Socrates.  I never met Millman personally, but his descriptions of Berkeley took me back to my own time there, a time when I wish I had met the author.  This is not a review of the first book, but I also heartily recommend that book.  You can find it on Amazon in several different editions.  I have placed a link below.

The Library of Congress catalogs this book under the rubric Spiritual Life--Miscellanea and the back cover indicates that this is a book for "Personal Growth."  The book's subtitle, "Straight Answers to Life's Tough Questions," is perhaps a bit misleading.  Yes, Millman answers the "tough questions" his readers have asked, but the real value in this book is doing the exercises at the end of each House Rule and answering the questions for ourselves.  I intend to keep this book close at hand and do exactly that.