entry seventeen — scattered light, fractured grace: a quiet archive of light, loss, and what remains.
iPhone 17 Pro + DistressedFX + VSCO
The full moon always finds me in that thin place between ache and awakening. The heart softens, the past stirs, and the light insists on touching what I thought I’d hidden.
It doesn’t shout. It simply rises. And in rising, it reveals.
This full moon of these last few days felt like a mirror tilted by something wiser than me: clear, unguarded, almost tender in the way it offers back the truth of who I am becoming.
Every full moon asks for release, but this one asked for understanding. It offered an opportunity for a quiet recognition of what’s been shed, what’s been carried, and what still longs to be held with gentler hands.
Under its glow, my fractures stopped pretending to be wounds. Instead, they shined… faint, but deliberate. And grace slipped in when I wasn’t looking.
entry ten — scattered light, fractured grace: a quiet archive of light, loss, and what remains.
Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta), a fading ember of late summer—graceful even in decay, still holding the shape of sunlight after the bloom has passed. Lumix GX7 + Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm f/2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S., VSCO (A10PRO), Mextures (personalized texture formula: MEZPZZC), Lightroom Mobile (watermark only).
My mother always told me, in every possible circumstance a child might ever need encouragement, “Do your best, and leave the rest. It’ll all come right some day or night.”
It was a line from “Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell.”
She was a third grade teacher, a grammar Nazi, and a mother trying her damndest to connect with me and, well, do her best.
And, as ornery and difficult a young person as I could often be, she never knew that I believed her…
…even when I forgot I did.
Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta), a fading ember of late summer—graceful even in decay, still holding the shape of sunlight after the bloom has passed. Lumix GX7 + Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm f/2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S., VSCO (A10PRO), Mextures (personalized texture formula: MEZPZZC), Lightroom Mobile (watermark only).
There was so much distance between us as I struggled through high school with her overbearing “sin obsessed” guidance, and she struggled to save my soul.
Even when the days were so long, when they bled into each other, and when the nights felt like punishments I hadn’t earned, as her brain and body were swallowed by Alzheimer’s.
Even when the thread broke, or maybe I cut it, when she died…I honored and nursed a clean, holy wound in the shape of freedom for both of us, from past grievances, from debts yet unpaid, from fear, from tension, from aching hearts and confused minds and the evils of that horrific disease.
Still, that line stayed, like a soft breath. Like a healing balm. Like the part of her that couldn’t leave, because it lived in me.
Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta), a fading ember of late summer—graceful even in decay, still holding the shape of sunlight after the bloom has passed. Lumix GX7 + Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm f/2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S., VSCO (A10PRO), Mextures (personalized texture formula: MEZPZZC), Lightroom Mobile (watermark only).
Do your best. Not more than that. Not perfection. Just presence. I tried, truly.
Leave the rest… The story. The tragedy. The one who couldn’t stay.
entry nine — scattered light, fractured grace: a quiet archive of light, loss, and what remains.
Weevil (Meibomeus musculus), a quiet laborer of the forest and the fields…carrying the weight of being, petal by petal. Vision: Lumix GX7 + Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm f/2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. Tools: VSCO (KP3), Mextures (personalized texture formula: QBHASZK), Lightroom Mobile (watermark only).
There is a kind of presence that doesn’t announce itself.
No sound. No shimmer. No need to be noticed. Just a body doing what it does.
Clinging to a petal, breathing the moment, belonging to the quiet. Sometimes, that is the work.
Not saving, not proving. Just being.
And somehow…it shifts the entire forest, the entire field.
For some souls, there is a burden in being seen —not the fear of visibility, but the ache of being misread when presence itself was the offering.
Flowers!?? Of course, flowers! How could I not start this whole top five/top ten thing with anything else when that is what I shoot the most?? OK – it’s probably a tie with droplets, but even those are technically flower shots. ((blows raspberry)
Specifically, as you’ll remember me mentioning Nicole if you read my last post, flowers are what she first asked me to choose as a top five list. I’m going to have to go with ten, though, because I share almost exclusively flowers. It was too difficult for me to choose just five. In fact, it was extremely difficult for me to put these in any sort of order as far as my own “top” choices. The rest of these will likely be “five” lists. This one was definitely the hardest.
10. Blue
I love this one because it combines different visual elements but still keeps the flower as the focal point. Another reason this one is special is because I shot it to complete a calendar I was doing for my Mom. This flower was one from one of the sprays given in memory of my father at his wake, and it also reminds me of the blue and white ceramics that she collects. Things so often tie together like that, in my perception and creativity.
**Sony Alpha (a37), Tamron macro 90mm f2.8, manual focus on full, tripod, external flash. Unedited, aside from crop.
09. Calla
I love this flower edit, done with DistressedFX on the fly. I shot this Calla lily at the oil change place with my phone. It was February, and I was attempting to leave for New Orleans for the third time in two weeks. I was so desperate to get there and find something. This flower, before I even embarked on my journey, was the first thing I “found.” What I was looking for in New Orleans exactly, I’m still not sure, but, all told, I found a lot more than I bargained for.
My plan to stay once I arrived there was foiled by understanding and learning in a very tangible way that you can’t always escape reality, and that when you love someone you’ll always return to them. My dad fell ill and that’s why I ended up coming home in the end – which I wasn’t planning to do at all…and from there my life began to unfold a chain of events that would forever change it – but not all for the bad.
**iPhone 5
08. Finding It
This cute little flower was hanging out on my cousin Gail’s porch at the farm. I shot this during a time when I felt so…overwhelmingly lost. It was a day when I simply didn’t know how to breathe without my father’s presence in my life, and was struggling to find meaning in ever leaving my room again, and when I saw this flower and spent thirty minutes photographing it and even longer playing with the DistressedFX/Mextures edit, I found a ray of meaning to get out of bed the next day: a desire to find more flowers to shoot. It was a very meaningful day because of this tiny little flower.
I found these daisies on clearance at Home Depot around mid-spring this year. This experience was something on many levels that I can’t even put into words…but this shot is visually one of my favorites because of the angle, focus and colors.
Some form of wild sage, I think. I shot these while walking in the woods somewhere in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. I love these little purple flowers, and I didn’t have any super special experience for or equipment with this shot. I just love the textured edit I did with it using Mextures.
**iPhone 5. Mextures Formula Code – TWTIYIE
05. Lightroom
With this shot, I was playing with Lightroom – which, at the time, I hadn’t done for a very long time. I’d been using mobile apps and devices and hadn’t touched my computer for months (ok, truth be told, years). Here I was trying some different styles with some shots from earlier in the year, and I was especially addicted to some Lightroom presets I’d gotten from Creative Market. Mixing presets and filters with Mextures formulas and effects from other apps, like DistressedFX and Stackables, is fun and you get some pretty cool results.
I chose to include this image because I love the gradient of the colors in the edit, but when I looked back at the original post I remembered very clearly how I felt on that day and why I called it “Soul Dance.” It was all down to music – a song called “Crystallize,” by Lindsey Sterling – as my moods often are. Internally, I was having such a hard time. I remember how light and how empowered that music made me feel, and as I was editing this image whilst listening to it and was trying to imagine my spirit flying like these dandelion seeds soon would be, I titled it after the song.
Continuing with my dandelion obsession this year, this shot is one of my all time favorites. I shot this while walking a trail at Norris Dam State Park, located on the Clinch River in Campbell County, Tennessee. I was sitting down, talking on the phone with my Dad (one of the last times I ever spoke with him before his illness and death), and he was telling me he was still not feeling well. It was at that point that he was going back in to the doctors to request more blood work and I was very scared and concerned and asked if I needed to come home. He said no, he’d be ok.
I remember telling him that the sun was going down and I saw this shot I wanted to try to get while I’d been sitting on the path talking with him (this shot), and I had to go, but I’d call him later that evening when I was back at the place where I was camping. That return phone call was when I told him about my art show in Knoxville, and he was so excited about it and didn’t say a whole lot about his health the rest of the time I was on that trip. It was just a couple weeks after I returned home that he went into a diabetic coma.
Sigh. It’s sometimes very emotional for me to see how things fit together when I look back on them. I’m so grateful that I got a good shot of this. It’s funny to me now that half the dandelion is missing – half of me is missing now, too…
**Lumix GF3, Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm f2.8, manual focus on full, handheld. Unedited, aside from crop.
02. Invisible
A very recent edit and a new favorite, I shot this the same day that I shot the blue flower at number 10. I was still experimenting with the external flash, and decided to play with this paper white bloom that had fallen to the floor when I’d moved things around for the blue flower shoot. I love the way the shot turned out, and edited it to further blend into the lighting with Mextures and the Stackables app. One of my all time favorites of my edited shots.
My number one favorite flower image is this macro image of a rose that was in one of the many gorgeous vases that were delivered to my house the day after my Dad passed away. I suppose we all know that flowers are my favorite, they are my friends, and I photograph them more than anything else. I just absolutely love flowers and have a fascination with them at many levels. This is something, interestingly enough, that I shared in common with my Dad. I kept my sanity during the weekend before we were to plan his funeral by shooting these flowers, somewhere in my heart hoping that he was there with me, invisibly enjoying them, too.
As I was shooting this particular flower, I had one of my first spiritual experiences with my dead father, as well as my first completely overwhelming, breathtaking, soul wrenching moment of grief. I remember falling to the floor and just completely breaking down for the first time that afternoon. I began to talk to my Dad, out loud, and I remember having this revelation that got me through that night and the next morning (the funeral home, picking out the casket and all that happiness).
As I shared on the original post:
I used to think that nothing lasts forever. Now I know…the love of a father does. I feel it all around me, especially when I close my eyes, and especially when I cry…even though he is gone. What a beautiful thing.
Now stir the fire, and close the shudders fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn; Throws up a steamy column, and the cups, That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in. -William Cowper
As I have practiced it, photography produces pleasure by simplicity. I see something special and show it to the camera. A picture is produced. The moment is held until someone sees it. Then it is theirs. -Sam Abell
Hey, y’all. Happy Thursday – hope you’re having a good one. I have been very busy for the past couple of days, but in my down time I’ve sat and worked with a few of the iPhone images I took during my Christmas holiday and I’ve saved quite a few new Mextures formulas from that arting/art therapy adventure. I have a lot more formulas to share in the near future, also, as I created many during the fall.
I hope you enjoy these formulas and find some use for them in your own Mextures adventures. As always, remember that blend modes of layers (and layer opacity) may require tweaking depending on the light/style/tone of your image and they will not necessarily look exactly the same on your images as they do in the provided versions.
If you have any questions about Mextures or using formulas, feel free to ask them in comments or via e-mail or social media/messaging.
**All of these images were shot with iPhone using the “stock” camera app…
Formula Name: Light Fog Formula Code: SLCUKDK Formula Name: Forest Sunset Formula Code: TFJKCGK Formula Name: Pine Sunset Formula Code: ZQRFZPT
Formula Name: Digital Darling Formula Code: GBEMCQT
I have been hoarding Mextures formulas again, as I’ve spent most of winter messing around with the app but I’ve not shared much in the way of the creations or the formulas for a while. Hope you’ll forgive my selfishness as I’ve dealt with “winter stuffs.” It’s been quite a winter – warm on the outside, bitter cold and frightening on the inside. I digress…
Alas, here we are moving into spring and here are some of those formulas. Hope you’ll enjoy them.
**Please remember that blend modes of layers (and the layers themselves) may require tweaking depending on the light/style/tone of your image and they will not necessarily look exactly the same on your images as they do in the provided versions.**
If you have any questions about Mextures or using formulas, feel free to ask them in comments or via e-mail or social media/messaging.
Have a lovely day out there.
Art on, friends.
**The four following images were used with permission, via Unsplash’s free use image gallery**
Mextures Formula: NAXJIHC
Mextures Formula: BNWWATN
Mextures Formula: XRVSQLB
Mextures Formula: TCYTFKH
And here is one more, for good measure as we head into spring (from my own gallery)…
Welcome to Mextures formulas from my personal collection, blogisode #9!
As always, I hope you enjoy these formulas. Please remember that blend modes of layers (and the layers themselves) may require tweaking depending on the light/style/tone of your image and they will not necessarily look exactly the same on your images as they do in the provided versions.
If you have any questions about Mextures or using formulas, feel free to ask them in comments or via e-mail or social media/messaging. Enjoy!!
(Fall Meets Winter, Original)
Formula Code: PDZGDZK
catacosmosis 