Round and around and around and around we go......

"To the complaint, "There are no people in these photographs", I respond, "There are always two people: the photographer and the viewer."  Ansel Adams

I can't really explain my fascination with carousels. I just know that I've grown to really love them. The only place I can remember even riding one as a child was at Lincoln Park in New Bedford, Massachusetts and that place is long since gone. I may have ridden a few at the state fair but those memories have long since faded. My best guess is that is was always one of the few rides that didn't impact my fear of heights or my tendency towards motion sickness. 

Now that I'm a big kid, I indulge frequently in my carousel obsession. Carousels have two of my favorite things: bright colors and pretty animals. Next month I plan to go on a carousel hunt through Paris. I have my list and my maps ready and I'm going to see how many I can get to in 10 days. 

This is one of my favorites, the endangered species carousel at the Phoenix Zoo, which has not just animals but wild ones! Of course, my favorites are the big cats.

This one was at the AZ State Fair. It was really crowded and hard to get shots without kids in them. I finally decided to situate myself at the side of the carousel as far away as possible from the entrance. That gave me a few minutes to grab some shots before the kids swarmed all over it. 

The Paradise Valley mall also has a beautiful carousel, made all the more special by the carousel cat with a fish in his mouth. I need to get back to this one for more photos soon. 

This is only a small portion of my carousel collection. You can see many more in my  Flickr album, including a cute coin operated ride outside of the dollar store!

“If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for a moment.”

—	Georgia O’Keeffe We interrupt this trip down memory lane to bring you SPRING!

Ok, it's Phoenix, AZ....springtime is brief here and I can already feel summer nipping at her heels. Still, everything is in bloom and the desert is a beautiful place to be.

 This is from the rose bush directly outside my front door. It was already there when I moved in so now I just get to enjoy it. The roses are pale pink in the center and bright pink at the edges of the petals. Stepping out the door to roses in bloom is definitely a happy moment!

The poppies have been planted by a neighbor in an old stone fountain in the center of our courtyard. Every day I have to run outside to see if there are any new poppies blooming.

This one seems to have just woken up! I love the soft wrinkled petals, just opening up to the sun.

Of course, this post wouldn't be complete without cactus blooms! The prickly pears seem to be among the first cactus to bloom, with the saguaros following later.

Springtime also brings the butterfly exhibit to the Desert Botanical Garden. I've gone several times but got lucky enough this time to see these white peacock butterflies.

Last but not least, a weary traveler stops for a quick drink from the aloe blooms! This was not the most cooperative hummingbird so I was happy to land at least one decent photo.

© All photographs on this site are copyright Deanie Houghtaling, and may not be reproduced in any form without written permission.

My little slice of heaven.

“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”     ― Henry David Thoreau

There's a reason I haven't started a blog before now--not enough time to keep up with it! Still, bear with me and eventually I'll learn to make time for this. 

I'm still in a reminiscing mood about my favorite little Mill Pond in East Setauket, NY.  I scanned in some old photos recently and am going to share them here today.  

I loved this little house on the pond with the heart shaped wreath. I imagined what it would be like to live here, to sit watching the geese on the pond while savoring a morning cup of tea.

 The sign on the post says "Please do not remove. It may save a life."

     

 Geese!  If you've ever read The Fledgling by Jane Langton, you'll understand my love of geese and ponds. I'm always on the lookout for my Goose Prince. If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it.

Autumn at the pond--maybe my very favorite time of the year.

 This one came about as part of a photography class that I took at SUNY Stony Brook about a hundred years ago. I had just gotten my SLR and took a couple of classes to figure out how to use it. We also learned black and white film developing and printing so this photo is all mine from start to finish.

This place was heaven to me--I loved watching the flowers bloom in the spring and seeing the baby geese hatch.I loved seeing the leaves changing color in the fall. I would even go in the winter in the snow to make sure that the geese and ducks were still being fed.  I imagined living in that little house, being surrounded by nature at its finest--plants, water, animals, etc. What more could anybody want? 

Now that I'm in AZ, ponds are a bit harder to find although I have been able to locate a few and have even found some geese to photograph. In fact, I think I'm going to end this post with a recent goose photo from the pond at McCormick Ranch in Scottsdale, AZ.  I had a different subject in mind that day when I went out with my camera but when I drove past and saw the geese, I just had to stop for a while. This guy decided to show off for me. 

© All photographs on this site are Copyright Deanie Houghtaling, and may not be reproduced in any form without written permission.

Let's get this party started!

I've been planning to start a photography blog for the longest time and just haven't gotten around to it.  I'm a photographer, not a writer. I think Georgia O'Keeffe said it best when she said " I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way-things that I had no words for." So with that in mind, I'm going to let my images do most of the talking. I'll also be quoting Georgia a lot--her retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art probably inspired me more than anything else ever has. 

This is an old photo. In fact, it's a film photo taken back in the mid 80's at my favorite little mill pond in Setauket, NY.  It was my favorite hangout in those days. I would stop at Pathmark and pick up a few bags of old bread to feed to the ducks and the geese. After all of the bread was gone, I would walk around the pond taking photos. These were the years immediately after graduating from Stony Brook when I was living and working in Port Jefferson, NY. Those were great days and probably the very beginning of my love of photography. I was shooting with a Minolta Maxxum 9000 at the time, which I still have tucked away in the closet. 

Flower close ups have been and always will be one of my favorite subject. I do remember a bit about the day I took this photo. I remember that it was late in the day and the light was fading which is probably why the dark green background came out black. I like the drama that it adds to the photo, especially with the orange on black contrast. It's been 20+ years and I still love this photo.

Now that I'm feeling all nostalgic, I'm going to have to dive into my old photos and find more pics of my favorite little pond. I'll take a little trip down memory lane and share some of my first photographs.

© All photographs on this site are Copyright Deanie Houghtaling, and may not be reproduced in any form without written permission.