View allAll Photos Tagged selfreflection
Photo captured from Samoa Beach in the census-designated place of Samoa. Humboldt County. Early October 2013.
I stopped along the road on my way home for the last time. Shutting off the engine on that quiet country road, all was calm. Off in the distance I could hear a beautiful and distinctive cry. I looked up just in time to see the Sandhill Cranes leaving the field where they spent the day feeding. Perhaps they were going home too.
I was tagged by the amazing Gabriela.
1. I am at my grandmother's house right now. The house I grew up in from age 2 to 22.
2. The house was built in 1947 and only one family has ever lived here.
3. Even though I moved out almost 20 years ago, I still consider it home.
4. My grandmother recently sold the house. Closing is tomorrow.
5. I can't bear the thought of another family living in our home.
6. I've been helping my grandma pack and finding all my old toys. Today I found my favorite toy airplane. On the bottom it said "from Dad with love, 1974". I cried.
7. The hardest thing was pulling up the track on my train set and packing it away. A flood of memories came back as I carefully took each car down off the shelf. I don't have room to set it up in my small apartment, but how can I part with it?
8. It is so sad knowing that I'll be leaving in a few days for the last time.
9. I love my grandma very much and she'll be well taken care of. I just hope she'll be happy.
10. Almost the whole family is mad at me. They think I'm being immature and need to just "get over it" and "move on". That lack of support just makes it even harder for me.
Photo captured via Minolta MD Zoom Rokkor-X 75-200mm f/4.5 lens at Trinidad State Beach in the city of Trinidad. Humboldt County. Early November 2013.
This Thanksgiving I have been able to finally appreciate absolutely everything that has passed through my life.
All the painful and beautiful things have brought me to this very moment.
If I was offered the chance to go back and change parts of my life,
I would refuse.
The mourning period of things past is almost complete.
I know I've changed and my chrysalis is fragmenting.
I feel like I'm waking up.
I'm thankful and greatful for ALL of it.
Copyright © 2017 Vic Bonilla All Rights Reserved.
Do not reproduce this image without expressed permission from the photographer.
Selfreflection, shot in Amsterdam. Taken with my HTC Desire using the Camera360 Android app.
One more week, and I'm back to working 4 days instead of 5, after 3 1/2 harsh, superbusy and extremely stressful months, pheeeeeeew! I've been looking forward to this more and more desperately over the weeks, telling myself 'Hang in there some, just a few more weeks, you can do it!', but it was getting harder and harder to believe myself, all the energy burned up, the futile attempts to keep myself positively motivated by reminding myself of the good things going on in my life often failing, resulting in a tired blur of images of me at work instead of me out there shooting puddles, or just chillaxing on my beloved balcony. Now all I have to do is to somehow finish this horrible week of late shifts, and finally I will regain some much needed rest, relaxation and quality of life, I feel lucky, blessed and grateful that I can afford laziness back into my world :)
Have a nice, relaxed weekend, take it easy :)
'Like' me on Facebook :)
Photo of Luffenholtz Beach captured via Nikon 50mm f/1.8 D AF Nikkor lens and in the census-designated place of Westhaven-Moonstone via Scenic Drive, County Road 4M310. Humboldt County. Mid October 2013.
Photo captured in the census-designated place of Klamath in Del Norte County. "State of Jefferson." Late January 2013.
Photo captured alongside Highway 1, the Cabrillo Highway, looking towards Ragged Point. San Luis Obispo County. Big Sur. Late May 2013.
Celebrating HALF-WAY through 52 WEEKS of themed photos! Yea!
After a MUCH needed rain in central Oklahoma, my grandson and I discovered a rain puddle on a morning walk.
(and I'm never fully dressed without my camera :)
Photo captured at the beach on the ocean side of Freshwater Lagoon. Humboldt Lagoons State Park. Humboldt County. Mid July 2013.
We can all count ourselves "the lucky ones...." to have experienced love at sometime in our lives. It fit like a perfectly tailored suit knowing what to emphasize and more importantly what NOT to. It was everything. It brought joy, those warm contented feelings of a comfortable love where as we wake each day we knew someone is there to walk with us, care about us, and share with us. It created and played out those Hallmark moments we grew up with. It even transformed some of us. We became full of pride, of place and how we fit into the larger scheme of things as expressed by our media and genetics. Love brought with it the amazing adventures and self exploration of our lustfull side. That secret taboo tucked away part we rarely share with anyone we knew. It was easier to explore it with a one night fling or fuck buddy because who cared what they thought. It was about you. Yet love allowed us to share that part of us and explore it and not worry about what the other thought. Ahhh, Love is Great! But love has a much more darker side that is rarely discussed. That part of it provided by the mere physics of nature and balance; what goes up must come down; to have happiness you have to have experienced ............. you know what Im saying. Love also brings with it a total bewilderment, a loss, devastation and ache like no other when it bids you adieu. One so big and overwhelming you just want to die because you cant imagine going on. No one ........... and I mean NO ONE .... prepares you for that part. Its kept like some dirty little family secret tucked away and never discussed. Is it some f@*ked up crazy form of initiation that society allows us to fall in love but will not tell you that the fall out of love could possibly drive you mad or kill you? Come on.........me, Mr Conservative would have thought at least twice before I jumped in with both feet. I would have jumped in anyway who am I kidding Lol ! But if youre one of the lucky ones to have survived the fall into AND out of love ....... when you least expected it to .............. and the passage of time has eased the pain, hurt, and loss and erased the resentment you once seethed with then count yourself lucky.......thats right Lucky! Call me a fool for love but I would do it all over again and again and again. My love was Paul and when I rose each day with him by my side I ruled my world. Kindness was not a virtue but mandatory in all aspects of life and I honestly was a better person not because of him but because I was with him. Will I find that again? Not a chance! I'll find other loves Im sure of it. But Paul had a special quality ...... an aura of almost magic ...........that I still cant name or put my finger on. Yet, when it illuminated my life, even after the parting of ways, through that whole messy wonderful experience called Love ........it made me find me and who I was in this journey called Life. Thank you Paul.
Selfreflection on a car in Amsterdam. Taken with my HTC Desire using the Camera360 Android app.
I've spent the last 2 months working way too much, using up all my energy and positive thoughts, now I'm just an empty shell that does nothing else but wake up, bike to the office, spend a harsh day filled with activities that require my full attention and focus, even though they don't deserve them, and that force me to erase any and all traces of a (social) life. All I get in return is more harshness, unreasonable demands, expectations as high as the freakin' Twin Towers (when they were still standing, obviously :) and little 'mistakes' at the accounting department that ensure that I'm not even getting paid a cent for having worked every freakin' Friday, my usual day off, since the beginning of February.
This is not a situation that I would wish on anybody, least of all myself, but that's what I wake up to every day, and every day I need to muster all my spirit and positivity just to make it out of bed and to work without crying like a wee little baby, needless to say that there is nothing left to put into taking pictures or spending quality time with my (Interwebs) friends, so as of now I will only post one picture a day, instead of the usual 3, until I won't even have the resources left to achieve that, hopefully that's not gonna happen, I am addicted to this shizzle :)
The good part is that soon I won't have enough energy to complain about my situation anymore, so you should not see too many of these cry-baby posts in the future, lol :D
Have a relaxed weekend!
'Like' me on Facebook :)
Photo captured at a cattle ranch alongside Old Samoa Road. City of Arcata. Humboldt County. Late August 2013.
Photo captured via Minolta MD Celtic 28mm f/2.8 Lens from Samoa Beach in the census-designated place of Samoa. Humboldt County. Late November 2013.
Photo of the Santa Lucia Mountains Range taken on the Old Coast Road, more or less parallel to Highway 1 (the Cabrillo Highway), on the vast El Sur Ranch property in Big Sur. Monterey County. Early July 2012.
Jopenkerk Haarlem
Fotografie: Sitan van Sluis
Model: Hiske Eriks
Licht: Martijn Laarhoven
Make-up: Susan
Photo captured via Nikon 50mm f/1.8 D AF Nikkor lens (~f/22) from Trinidad State Beach in the city of Trinidad. Humboldt County. Mid September 2013.
Photo captured a few miles east of the city of Arcata on California Highway 299. Humboldt County. Late November 2012.
a webcam pic of me from 2003 after i performed in the woods with butoh dancers near seattle. my cam here: www.shannonkringen.com/kringcam.htm
Wide manual lenses are crazy hard to focus in the dark, with no focusing screen, on a meek weak 550D Canon. Have I done the S-M-C Takumar 28mm f/3.5 injustice (rhetoric answer is yes)?
Photo looking towards Trinidad Head captured via the HDR method of photography from the Vista Point on U.S. Highway 101 in McKinleyville. Humboldt County. Late January 2013.
Photo of the South Fork Eel River captured alongside U.S. 101, the Redwood Highway, just north of the Richardson Redwood Grove at Richardson Grove State Park via Nikon 50mm f/1.8 D AF Nikkor lens. Humboldt County. Early November 2013.
There are many times we need to simply just get away; we need to separate ourselves from whatever situation takes place during that particular moment in time. Doing such allows ourselves to the achievements of following methods: appreciating, reflecting, visualizing, improving and staying committed to life. I am no stranger to hard times, on a mental and fiscal level, but through the storm, there shines a rainbow on the other side of the clouds that shall and will grant us infinite moments of pure bliss. Photo captured from Trinidad State Beach in the city of Trinidad. Humboldt County. Early October 2013.
Today I am 40 years old. A milestone like that brings out a lot of feelings. Who am I? How the hell did I get to where I am today? Where do I go from here? My new project will attempt to answer that. This series, Childhood Memories, will consist of the places, people, and events from my life that have made me who I am. I am doing this for self discovery. I hope other people enjoy it too, but it will be fine if they don't. I decided to make this photo the first one in the series. From there I will post with no set schedule and in no particular order. More like "stream of consciousness" as things come to me.
So this is where it all began for me. My grandparent's home. My home from the time I was 2 years old until I finally got my own place with friends at 23. Even then, this was still home. I haven't lived here for nearly 20 years, but it is still home. We lost grandpa back in 2003, but his presence is still here.
Grandma is alone now in this house full of memories. After 63 years here, she says she must leave. My aunt (her daughter) and uncle have made her an offer she can't refuse, to live with them. She will be cared for, close to family, life simplified. A house is just a material thing. I understand. Still letting go is so hard. The two most important people in my life, giants in my eyes, my heroes, the greatest of the greatest generation - my grandparents took this house, this mere material thing and turned it into the greatest home anyone could ever hope to live in. My father, aunt, and uncles were all raised here. Then I came along. Barely two years old, given a second chance to have a normal childhood by grandparents nearing retirement who had already raised four children. My childhood was epic, the stuff of legend because of them.
I have told my family that I will never set foot in my hometown again. They say "aww, you don't mean that". I do. I cannot bear to see another family living in our home. Grandma says, "don't you want to see what the new owners do with the place?" No! I want to remember it just how it is. Nothing anyone can do to it could make it better. They can only mess it up. I am so lucky to still have my grandmother and I will be glad to have her near me and well taken care of, but I just want this painful transitional period over with. I guess I'm just too sentimental.
Photo captured via Nikon 50mm f/1.8 D AF Nikkor lens from Samoa Beach in the census-designated place of Samoa. Humboldt County. Early October 2013.
Photo captured at a sheep ranch, with a hint of Redwood National Park in the background, in the town of Orick. Humboldt County. Early May 2013.