what things look like

It was pouring this morning when I left the house to make the 1.5 hour drive to the apple orchard to meet my sister A (who I often called (and still do call) apple). It was definitely a step in faith.

By the time we made it to Jordan it was just misting. A pulled into the McD's parking lot about three minutes after we did. We had hugs all around and then ran into the restaurant for a bathroom break. We piled into Belle (C named our Toyota Highlander Belle several years ago and it has stuck) and went to the orchard. When we got there it wasn't raining at all.

We went inside the main building and wandered around. We went into the refrigerated apple-tasting room where the fan for the cooler was running. It was very loud which scared K. So we went out and found a wagon to take us out to the orchard. We picked our bags of apples and then returned. We went into the building to pay but we left immediately without buying any goodies because K was scared.

A and I decided that it would be good to call it quits (K's cold was quite bad this morning. She was a real trooper and had a blast but you could tell she was sort of out of it) so we got back in Belle and left. We ate lunch at McD's and went home. It was a short but sweet day.

The photos were taken as we left. The apple orchard is approached by this road that winds under a canopy of gold. Last year the trees were much barer because we were a week later. I had wanted to take a photo last year but didn't. This year as we left I parked across the highway and then we walked up the road so that I could get a few shots of A and the girls.

When we got out of Belle to do the photos the sun broke through the clouds and it warmed up and we had beautiful light. In the ten minutes it took us to return to the car it started misting heavily. It was sprinkling by the time we reached McD's and when we left McD's it was pouring.

God's timing and God's light. :)




Milkweed - someday I will get a photo that feels definitive these don't. Not yet.




I like this photo from a walk that we took two weekends ago. Our church is printing a photo directory so we had an Olan Mills photo sitting that day. It is frustrating for me to let other people photograph us, especially 'professionals' who are only concerned with getting a likeness. I just now realized that one of the reasons I hate studio photos is that they are so unrealistic. Have you ever looked at a loved one in light that makes them look like that? It is unnatural. We have shadows on our faces, we squint, or the light only strikes the profile. Wow! Do I feel better for realizing exactly why those photos bug me so much!!


I know grandparents like them because they want to see what the child looks like. I know some people will say that portrait looks so much like so-and-so. But it doesn't...not really. It doesn't look like them in the way you see them at any given moment. If it looks like them it is because it is a fair representation of a collection of images you hold in your head all modeled together into an image with 'perfect' light that doesn't exist in the natural world.

Afterwards we went to the park. It was over eighty degrees that Saturday.