The Call: When the House is Quiet, I Can Hear the Rain — Cheryl I got up earlier than most today and had plenty of time to listen to the drops hitting the leaves outside the window.

The Call: Summer on Deck — Cheryl I think I could fill entire days—wait, more accurately, nights—with the creation of abstract images in Photoshop. This particular one was made with three different multiple exposure/ICM images of my spray-painted deck, the catkins that have been blown all over the deck, and lilacs swaying in the breeze.

The Call: Lilac Time of Year — Cheryl We have one lilac bush that actually blooms. It could use some pruning, because cutting lilacs involves a lot of stretching and reaching and cutting away of flowerless twigs. I think it’s worth the effort. Not only do I appreciate the splash of purple in the living […]

The Call: Glass Smoke — Cheryl More than a decade ago, Dennis’s parents gave us a glass oil lamp that—amazingly—has survived in our raucous house. It looks and feels quite fragile. In fact, here it is: I created today’s image with four exposures in one frame, a shutter open for 2.5 seconds, and some slow, […]

The Call: Unconstrained — Cheryl I’ve started turning my walls into canvases for my art. I tape up pieces of paper, sheets of stickers, and lengths of tape. Then I shoot and shoot and shoot. Setting my camera to multiple exposure, tilting it, moving it, backing off, coming in close: all of it gives me […]

The Call: White and Red — Cheryl I chose this image from all the ME/ICM ones I took today, because it reminds me of the work of Mark Rothko and the conversations my son and I have had about Rothko’s paintings. Luke can’t stand them, judging the works to be less than art. I long […]

The Response: Bold Abode — Cheryl Tonight’s Call involved a lot of wandering. I played around with in-camera techniques, then I played around with post processing techniques, finally settling on this image. It’s an ICM photo that gets its bold color treatment from a Lightroom preset I came up with a few months ago. It […]

The Call: What Does “I Am Good Enough” Look Like? — Cheryl Acceptance is one of those words that carry a lot weight, for women more than men, I’d bet. Yes, we all want to be accepted by others, but women seem to have an especially hard time accepting themselves. Throw art into the mix, […]

The Response: As One Incapable of Her Own Distress — Cheryl I have 148 photos from today’s shooting. In looking through them initially, I starred one that really stood out, even though there were many with lots of potential. When I sat down to edit, I didn’t feel like hunting around near the end of […]

The Response: Color and Shape — Cheryl I used to be very concerned about people understanding my intentions, but I finally realized that misunderstandings occur no matter what. We bring our own experiences to our interactions. There’s simply no getting around that. Perhaps I’ve swung too far in the opposite direction, but now I’m all […]