View allAll Photos Tagged bleeding
weather has been awful last few days - lots of clouds, lots of rain. but it also meant beautiful sunsets. whis was one of those sunsets that you do not see very often, sky starting off as graying blue, slowly changing to yellowish orange, then to reddish orange, then turning into blood red, before it all goes back to gray...
A macro taken for the group Macro Mondays. Theme: Three
Ok, so there are five---but only three have bloomed.
Bleeding heart or Lamprocapnos spectabilis growing in a mountain in South Korea.
I am not much of a "flower" photographer but I find these flowers to be quite unique and beautiful, and always try to find the time to photograph them each year :)
Of late, I have realized my photos have displayed how I felt currently during that situation. Not just the pose, and composition, but the lighting and tones.
In this photo, I think it's pretty easy to see what I'm feeling like. Not just by the song, but by the colors. Sort of depressional.
Sort of Inspired by Rosie Hardy
These leaves were rained on and started to bleed their color out, then it froze! =D
ask me anything www.formspring.me/meganyourface
Strobist info: Lumopro120 1/2 power behind subject and to camera right just outside of frame.
I have always liked the glowing transilluminated look for flowers and leaves. But the timing was always difficult for the sun to be in just the right spot.
I am learning more and more how to bring my own "sun" with me and MAKE the photo rather than just take it.
Bleeding Heart vine
Clerodendrum thomsoniae
Family Verbenaceae or Lamiaceae
The Rockledge Gardens, Rockledge, Florida, USA.
Intentional camera movement with these beautiful bleeding hearts. Have a great weekend !
Mouvement intentionnel avec ces beaux coeurs saignants. Passez une excellente fin de semaine !
.
THE OUTSIDER (PART NINE FINALE)
SOME SAY TRUTH IS HARDER THAN LIES
.
Have you ever noticed how a story, no matter how uncomplicated, becomes bigger and bolder as it passes from mouth to ears along a chain, crossing borders, strolling through towns and navigating frontiers, until it reaches the mouths and ears of subsequent generations. I wonder if my story will ever be told, to live on in the annals of history, a growing legend ever more elaborate and violent. Something tells me that the truth of the matter is a little less romantic than such notions of fancy, and just like my bones, my story will be blown away by the winds of time. But you are still journeying with me, awaiting the conclusion of my tale of retribution and mayhem, awaiting my fate just as I do.
I guess you could say that the end has finally come for me, and doubtless none too many of you who read my sorry tale of woe will shed a tear for the passing of one so cruel and heartless, no matter the fact that he saw the error of his ways and tried to change. I guess the old saying stands true this day, once a gun slinger always aa gun slingernd maybe tryin' to run from the reality of your standing in this life is as shallow and futile as runing from a rain cloud as the thunder clap strikes overhead, when in the end, it'll get you by it's very nature. For the killin's I committed there can be no excuses, no vindication, even though some of them sons of desert snakes got what they deserved, and now I face the moment of my death as so many have at my own hands. I wonder, can a man really hope to change his ways when a lifetime of blood and fists have shaped the very pathway on which he treads. Can a black soul truly see the light? Can a broken heart mend? Do we pay a penance for all eternity for sins omitted in this mortal life? If I had the answers to all or any of those questions, I would surely have laid down my guns long ago in exchange for paying crowds waiting on my every breath.
With Frank Curtis screaming in a world full of pain and lyin' in a river of his own blood, and the town doctor powerless to help the dying man, I feel a certain sense of satisfaction as my own life passes before me. My eyes are blurred now, and mind kinda fuzzy as recollections, fact and fiction guide me on a one way ticket to oblivion. Somewhat spoiling the ambiance of the moment, I feel the sharp connection between scuffed leather and the bones of my face as a hired hand plants a boot in the centre of my skull. Head against the wooden wheel, with neither room to move nor chance to brace against the full impact, my nose cracks like dry timber as it shatters under the pressure though strangely only the inconvenience of a faint stinging sensation troubles my dying seconds. I guess I'm beyond pain now as the cold barrel of a handgun sits three inches from my temple. My nose busted and open, blood spewing from the gaping wound like a waterfall in spring. A shaking hand thumbs the hammer as it clicks back into place with a definite resonance, my mind slipping into black and white for the very last time, slow motion as images dance like pretty town girls across my mind.
The doctor, all fingers and thumbs, a barrel of nerves as he fights a lost cause and bows to the inevitable, rises to his feet and pulls his spectacles from his nose, rubbing them incessantly on his shirt to clean the blood spatter away. His bearded skin turns grey as he gestures to the last men standing that their beloved boss is about to dance with the Devil, and he backs away slowly towards the undertaker who has emerged like a spider from it's lair to ascertain the gravity of the situation and ready a wooden box and a mound of earth. Such is the way of life and death in the West. As Curtis breathes his last breath, my revenge is complete and through a hazy fog of dreamlike delirium I swear I can see Elizabeth, Zac and Eli running towards me across a cornfield lush and yellow. Now ain't that just the cutest of sights, hell I must dreamin' again. I gurgle and smile, arms involuntarily stretching out as in the distance, on a tall hill there sits Grey Wolf of the Cheyenne, resplendent in al his Injun finery and daubed facial paint, atop a proud looking Wa Ka Liva who nods his head and stamps a hoof defiantly into the ground. No longer lame, and the years have shed to back in the days when he was strong and oh so beautiful. I do believe I may have a tear pooling in my eye, or maybe it's just the dust as I sit here, I don't know.
In and out of consciousness, I catch a glimpse of the kid's face who holds the ridiculously shiny forty five to my head, a bag of tremblin' nerves, affeared of the kill, gulping for air and looking around him all the while for guidance, though in truth most of the fellas he be lookin' for guidance from now lie dead all around him like dogs in a yard. You gotta hand it it to me, single shot kills all and every one of 'em, the stuff of camp-fire legend if I do say so myself. Memories flood back to my tortured mind, of that first face, the look in the eyes of the boy I killed in his ill fitting Confederate uniform on the battlefield in the great war. No more'n thirty years reached between the two of us, spouting rhetoric we little understood, fighting for principles we couldn't even spell. Families divided, brother on brother, murdering for a bunch of ideals and a handful of glory. When I shot that boy, barely recognising his dirty skin and red eyes of angry blood-lust as those of my own cousin, I unleashed forces beyond my control, and embarked upon a journey of self destruction towards the very gates of oblivion at which I now find myself standing. Killin' is killin' and blood is blood, and the false hopes and shallow deceit of war don't make it any easier to swallow. Except that in my case, I lived for the kill. The moment when the eyes of your victim glaze to a hazy white and the life done drained clean outta them, the actual second when you can see and feel their soul rise right outta their bones and drift slowly onwards to wherever it's final destination lies. To me, a form of poetry. That really does you in, don't it? That a man could enjoy killin' so. When the town preachers tells us of the precious gift of life, all the while they live in the shadow of the gun and the pockets of the corrupt who run the place. Well, I ain't lied to you so far, and I ain't about to start now.
Perhaps I haven't been quite honest with you throughout my story, and maybe for getting this far with me, I owe you the truth, seein' as I'm about to die and all. See, if you're still searching for a reason for me to have turned out the way I did, if you're thinking that my upbringing had a part to play in the debauchery of my miserable life, then I guess you'd be right, though it pains me to say. A twelve year old boy fed up to the gut with a drunken father's beatings, and a mother who turned a blind eye for fear of her own life, attending church every Sunday with a swollen face and pride, placing money in the box and smiling at the preacher who turned a blind eye on account of my daddy's social standing in the town and the money he donated to church causes, and my mom still believing in the good in even the blackest of souls. And my father lived a life of two men, the one that the townsfolk new and loved, and the real man behind the mask. Tommy lee, my bestest friend when I was no more'n a nipper, well, Tommy lee was me. And his father was mine. In truth I never had no friends from my childhood, just running from the beatings my papa gave me when he wasn't running the saloon bar and acting all fancy with the townsfolk. I killed that son of a bitch one day when I found him standing over my mamma's bruised and bloodied body, laughing at her and finding amusement in her crumpled body as she cowered like a little child. He calmly turned around and told me:
" You gotta learn from this son. They will test you some, and they will push you to your limits unless you show them who is the boss, who decides what is right and what is wrong. You gotta be strong, and beat the bad right outta their hides ". Something inside'a me snapped and years of abuse at the hands of a monster came to a violent head. My mamma tried to apologise and took a hold of his bleeding hand which had inflicted so much hurt and pain, and for her efforts he began punching her with his fists, like she was a genuine threat when the reality of the situation was a woman with a kind heart the likes of which you cannot imagine. That cut me inside for all the lies she'd told to cover his guilt. I hit him with a shovel, stone cold knocked him unconscious with the first strike, though the blows continued until I was exhausted of limbs and I could no longer see nor recognise that bastards facial features. Taking his gun, it took all of my strength to cock the hammer, and fire. It was then that, for the first time in my life I truly saw a person's life fade away before me, and after that it was never so hard to kill again. And my mother, God rest her sadly deluded soul, cried at his burial and mourned his loss like a dutiful wife aoghtta, as I fled to the comforts of the civil war and violent ways which would shape my life forever more. There, now you know. Once you've killed yer own kin, a line has been crossed and there ain't no goin' back, ever. I never saw my ma again, using the civil war as cover to disappear and start a new life away from my past. I sent her money once I was earning for my violent ways, and I visited her grave where she was laid to rest next the rotting corpse of the man she still loved, the man she had always loved. Ain't that the darnedest thing you've heard? I guess I'll never understand women.
Grey wolf taught me that death was an end to life on this earth, and yet the start of life for the soul in whatever was the next world inhabited by spirits, and that the journey would be long and painful, as the soul moves Westwards along the sky path for those who have not lived a decent and righteous life. And here I am, a lifetime of sin and no prayer feathers to tie around my forehead, no yucca suds to bathe my flesh, no belongings other than my guns and the pocket watch I gave my eldest boy, no feathered prayer sticks. I look up at the kids face again, standing over me with his gun poised to put me out of my misery. Can you God damn believe it, I ain''t even got the chance to tell how I was put out of everyone else's misery by a mean son of a bitch from the hallowed legends of the wild west. I'm going to be snuffed out by a pimple faced nobody who's just about to piss his own britches on account of me being his first kilin'. Life just ain't fair now, is it? I try to lift my head and look at the kid. “ You just gotta believe in yourself boy, and squeeze that old trigger slow and gentle, like gently touching the skin on a lady. You've been with a lady haven't you boy”. He nods his head and swallows hard. He pulls his left hand round to cup the gun and steady his nerves, the barrel swinging in the breeze enough to completely miss me should he thumb that ole' trigger any time soon. I can see the impact as the trigger is pulled and the hammer strikes the shell, a flash of light igniting in the barrel as the bullet is propelled at breakneck speed. It slices through my skull, but I feel no pain. Muffled voices sound in my ears as the bullet ricochets inside my brain. My vision deserts me, replaced by a light that grows in strength and brightness, brilliant white as a soothing feeling washes over my body and I'm left standing in that cornfield with Elizabeth walking towards me. I reach out and for the first time make contact with her, able to feel her warmth, her skin and bones against mine as we embrace and kiss. She smells so sweet and fragrant, just like she always did, just like I remember.
Can a man be forgiven for the deeds of a life lived on the dark side of what's right? I truly thought I could walk away from my sins, to begin afresh and bathe in the love I shared with my family. I guess in the end we all have to pay the price, we're all accountable, and I can't expect forgiveness for what I've done. As the light burns my eyes, Wa Ka Liva strides towards me and bows his beautiful head as I climb up into the welcome leather of my favourite saddle. Gently taking the reins, I pull to the left and we are back home on the ranch, Grey wolf and my sons on the distant hill. My horse and I gallop together, roping cattle and stirring up the dust.
I am home now, I am free and my kin and me will be together always.
.
THE END OF 'THE OUTSIDER'
.
Written January 6th 2009
Photograph taken on the Halaupai ranch on the West rim of the Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA on September 24th 2008
NIKON D300 50mm 1/250s f/5.6 iso200
Nikkor AF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G ED IF. UV filter