See the beauty

 I named my blog young-eclectic-encounters because I have many different interests and experiences to share.  Although I do tend to be easily bored and have a little ADHD you will find that there will be common threads throughout my posts.  As I mentioned in my last post I have been working on improving my health and have found this to be a fascinating subject, so there will be lots of these.  I am also a lover of good books, as I have learned much from them, both lessons from life and information to improve my life.  Most of what you will see is my artistic strivings.  I draw, paint, art journal, quilt, design my own clothes, but my first love is photography so you will be seeing lots of photos.

My description for my blog is "See the beauty- a survivors art journal" more than anything else learning photography has made me really look around to find the beauty that surrounds me.  It has kept my spirits high, fought off depression and generally kept my life hopeful and moving forward.  The photo above is a good example of seeing the beauty around me.  I saw these beautiful roses on trip just out running errands.  I enjoyed them then and am enjoying them now having captured their beauty with my camera.  But, guess where I found them?  They were part of the drive-thru at Burger King. 

How much do we miss of this beautiful world when we go about our daily lives?  Did this person in the car even notice the roses? Think about this over the next week, notice, share you observations in the comments or write a blog post about the beauty that surrounds us and share it in the comments, too.  One other thing I have found is that when we share the beauty of this world with others we help to make this world a more welcoming place and we humans much more cheerful.  So join me and encounter this world it's many beauties and pass the word.

Enjoy

Johnina

Changing my life

My world now.

The reason that I have been gone from blogging is I have been working hard to improve my health so that I can spend time with my grandchildren and get back into the world.

When I was last blogging on a regular basis (Winter 2011), I was also very incapacitated due to multiple health issues.  I was mostly sitting with the remote in my hand watching TV or with the computer on my lap, blogging.  I am so glad to have had my blog and all the internet friends that I developed.  It kept me sane and connected to the outside world.
I think I have gotten enough of my health back to attempt to rejoin the blogging world, which I enjoyed very much.

Enjoy

Johnina

Passion perspective

Everybody has a passion for something; passions in your life bring excitement, joy and in all ways enhance your life.  These Passionflowers represent two of my passions, photography and gardening.  With the advent of digital photography I have been able to grow and develop my skills simply because now I can take many pictures of the same object and experiment to my hearts content

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Just recently my Passionflowers have started to bloom and yesterday there was a particularly pretty one in bloom so I decided to take many photos of it and see how changing the angle of my camera would change the look of my photographic art.

I edited them in Picasa keeping the crop dimensions and color editing the same for each photo.  The only differences come from the camera angle.

 I was surprised when the camera angle did on occasion make a difference in the colors that showed up.

My garden and flowers brighten my day.  After I have left my home I always come back to the beauty that my family and I have created.  My garden; my other passion.

“Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel quotes (German Philosopher and Inventor, 1770-1831) Enjoy ☺☺☺Johnina☺☺☺

No place like home- Front door greeting

Welcome home rose

Having spent most of my summer in Kingsport Tn with my daughter and two grandsons, I have come to appreciate the comforts and routines of home.  While I enjoyed my visit I am glad to be home.  My husband did a great job of making my front flower garden flourish.  My roses and flowers were there to greet me.  My front garden always makes me sigh with pleasure as I pull into the driveway.

I got out my camera early one morning in order to catch the early morning dew.  Using my macro setting I was able to capture that shimmery quality that comes from the morning dew.

Early morning dew

I switched to my landscape mode to better show my roses as I approach my walkway and my front door giving an entirely different perspective on my roses and my garden.

Hope You

Enjoy

♥♥♥Johnina♥♥♥

Once in a blue moon

Blue Moon Aug 2012

Since I have not posted in a while I thought having a blue moon was a perfect time to get back in the groove of blogging again.  The saying 'Once in a blue moon' came about because of the rarity of blue moons and my blogging had indeed become a rarity.  However my life is getting a little more settled and predictable so back to blogging I come.
I researched what a blue moon is; which is two full moons in a month and they are indeed rare. The next one is July 2015.  I also found a really cool website on all things moon, where whatever you want to know can probably be found. Click here here where a photo  moon phases calendar for Sept can be found.
I experimented with my camera settings (shutter speed and aperture) and my preset settings and my zoom feature and came up with some very distinctly different photos.

Blue moon Aug 2012

Although The first photo is not the best technically, I like it best.  I was actually kind of impressed with my second photo, it was the clearest moon photo that I've been able to accomplish in a long time.  My last photo is even clearer but not as artistically rendered. Sigh.

Blue Moon Aug 2012

 Hope you enjoy
☺☺☺Johnina ☺☺☺

Back to Kingsport Tenn

Rest area on I-75
All in Bloom

Took a break from visiting my daughter to continue working on my health, but I traveled back last week during the heat wave.  I made it back to Kingsport in record time.  Last time even though I thought I left at the right time to miss Atlanta traffic it still took me 2 1/2 hours to get from Locust Grove through Atlanta to Marietta.  This time it took 45 minutes.  It always amazes me at the time difference that can occur while driving in the city. Sometimes for no apparent reason your time can double or triple.  How do those who commute everyday figure this out?

Blessed shade on a hot day

The other thing that continues to surprise me is the different personalities of the rest areas.  Each has it's own beauty.  The difference between rest areas between states is even more remarkable.  Georgia's tend to have lots of wide open spaces with minimal landscaping mostly around the main building and they are not staffed except at the main You have entered Georgia Rest Area.

Georgia rest area picnic site

Tennessee has smaller rest areas with more landscaping spread across the entire area.  They also have the bonus of being having an attendant on site.

Beauty at the rest stop
Art edit

At one of the Georgia rest areas I saw some evergreens that where in some places dead, dying, and other places growing and thriving.  I loved the textures and color combinations so I snapped a shot.

Life goes on

I have been looking at a lot of abstract photos and art lately so since I really liked the colors and textures I decided to try my hand at turning this photo into an abstract art piece.

  I edited it in Photoscape (available for free on CNET) using the swirl filter then I added a lens flare.  I added three lens flares in three different colors and turned down the opacity on the flares.

I then transferred it to Gimp and layered the edited version with the original. (Gimp is alsoavailable for free on CNET). This was my first attempt at using layers. I then cropped it to emphasize the center flare and came up with this:

What do you think?
Enjoy
☺☺☺Johnina☺☺☺

Greetings from Kingsport TN

View of the mountains from my daughters apt complex

I have recently been to see my daughter in Tennessee.  As my health increases my life expands and I am able to do more and more.  A couple of months ago a trip to Atlanta required someone else to drive me there.  About 3 weeks ago I drove  by myself from Griffin GA to Kingsport Tenn a little over 6 hours of straight driving.  I did take breaks and it took me about 8 hours but I did it.  HOORAY, HOORAY for me.

Pretty park and landscaping at Apt complex

While Laura and the boys were busy elsewhere I was able to take a walk and photograph some of the beauty of the area in which she lives.

As the subtitle to my blog says; See the Beauty; A Survivors Photo-Art Journal I still find much beauty in my everyday surroundings and continue to enjoy sharing it with you.

Another Mountain view

The only downfall to my returning health is as I am more and more active my time spent on the computer is less and less.  Hopefully I can someday soon manage both as I truly miss my online friends.

Hopefully that day will be soon.

Enjoy

☺☺☺Johnina☺☺☺