Hello from snow-and-ice-covered North Carolina! I'm documenting our winter scenery and adventures over on Instagram today. Please join me there to see more photos. Click here for more nature photography by Calm Cradle Photo & Design.
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Happy New Year! Let's talk about wood prints. They're one of my latest obsessions, and I ordered three for gifts this year. Since the photo is printed directly onto the wood, the texture and tint from the grain produce a vintage effect. It was Jeff's idea to transform the Matterhorn image above into a wood print as a wedding gift for a dear friend I studied with in Switzerland way back in the 90s. Since I took the photo on 35mm film and the 90s is quickly becoming vintage, a wood print seemed like a nice touch. Here's what it looks like from the side. A wood print seems like a natural fit for an image of an old barn, too. You may remember the photo below from this post about our friends' farm. My sister-in-law and her family recently moved, so I thought a wood print of this photo—the view from their former backyard—would make a pretty housewarming gift.
I'm still a believer in handwritten notes. Sure, email is more efficient. But most of our communications arrive electronically these days, so opening the mailbox to find a note from friends or family, instead of just stack of bills, makes my day. Do you have notes to write and people to thank this fall? I challenge you to write them by hand. You'll make someone smile. Here are a few of my favorite fall photos, which are now available as 5x7 stationery notecards (blank inside). A set of notecards would make a great gift for the host of your Thanksgiving celebration, too. (These images are also available here as prints, framed art, stretched canvases, pillows, tote bags or iPhone/iPod/iPad/laptop cases or skins.) Above: Yellow leaf against blue sky Below: Fall berries in orange Below: Let's pick apples
As November looms, I'm starting to hyperventilate. Why? Because November is National Novel Writing Month, and I'm finally planning to finish a draft of the novel I've been sketching and researching and outlining and beginning to draft for a few years now.
Though I'm a life-long writer, my work has almost exclusively rested within the realm of nonfiction. I'm not sure I'm cut out for fiction, but I've always wanted the experience of writing a novel. And I have the idea and groundwork laid out to make it happen. The obstacles to finding large blocks of time to devote to fiction writing over the last three years have been considerable: two tough pregnancies, two babies, a new blog and business and lots of travel. Oh, and procrastination and fear. Lots of fear. Fear of failure. Fear of success. What if the book is terrible? What if the book is actually good and then I have to find a publisher and do a book tour and interviews? Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself... There are always excuses, especially in this phase of life. November is about throwing those excuses out the window—letting the laundry pile up, losing more sleep than usual, imbibing too much coffee and wine—and writing intensely for a concentrated period of time. To prepare, I've spent the month of October frantically working on all the projects I would normally take on in November, including writing blogs, designing holiday cards, planning Cricket's birthday party, editing client photos and on and on. I'm also sifting through research, re-reading relevant books and learning new software to help me better organize the entire process of creating a novel. This Friday, November 1, I will embark on the small task of writing 50,000 words in 30 days—that’s an average of 1,700 words a day. Maybe 1,700 words doesn't sound too tough for a day's work—I’m a writer after all. But we'll all get sick about 10 times in those 30 days, Jeff will travel, we'll host birthday parties and Thanksgiving, and I'll get maybe an hour out of 24 to myself...Life will keep moving at a crazy pace. But I'm putting those excuses aside, accepting that this draft will be rushed and awful and confused. That's what first drafts are all about. It's officially time to write a novel. Anyone want to join me? (P.S. My sister, Erin, successfully wrote a 50,000-word novel draft last November and inspired me to give this strategy a try. Thanks, Er!) Above: One portion of the novel—I think—is set on a ranch here in the Blue River Valley, at the foot of the Gore Range in Colorado. This image is available here as a print, framed art, stretched canvas, stationery, pillow, tote bag or iPhone/iPod/iPad/laptop case or skin. Click here to visit my nature photography shop. Help! I'm buried in content and unable to dig out before we hit the road again. Oh, well. At least I can't complain that it's ever boring around here... While I'm trying to get my projects in order, I'll share a handful of photos from our recent trip with my in-laws to North Carolina's Outer Banks. (I recently posted about our visit to the wild horses.) Above: Last year I took a photo of my oldest niece with a shark tooth she found on the beach. This year her prize find was an intact clam shell. Below left: Photo taken exactly a year ago of Cricket and Jeff at Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge on the way to the Outer Banks. Below right: Cricket, Jeff and the newest walker, Nora, on this year's adventure. Life has changed quite a bit in the last year! My sandy little beach bum. Below top left: Jeff waiting for waves on a glassy day with a band of pelicans. Below top right: Jeff on a good wave day. Below bottom left: Yum. Below bottom right: Egret sighting during my 6 a.m. coffee run. One of my favorite photos of the trip: my youngest nephew. Below left: My nephew perfects his skim boarding skills. Below right: Cricket and her cousin take a break from sandcastle building to splash. Scenes from the dunes. Feeding turtles at the neighborhood pond is always a very serious endeavor. "Otherwise they'll be hungry!" Cricket told me. Apparently Nora was hungry, too. The kids had a blast catching crabs. Stay tuned for a sisterly beach photo session and highlights from a newborn session.
Planning your next adventure? Click here for some ideas. Introducing this new image today, Early spring berries, which is featured in my board book, Counting at the Museum.
From now through 8/11/13 you'll get free shipping on most products in the Calm Cradle Photo & Design Shop. Click on any shop link in this post to receive the discount. (You must order through one of these links to activate the discount. This offer excludes framed art prints, stretched canvases and throw pillows with inserts.) There's something magical about wild horses. I'll never forget watching them gallop between islands as the sun set and the tide rushed out more than a decade ago when I studied marine biology in Beaufort, NC. (Did that really happen? It sounds like a dream...) That summer I also had the pleasure of visiting them at Shackleford Banks. But last week was the first time I laid eyes on the wild Spanish mustangs of Corolla on the Currituck Banks. (Above: A 2-month-old colt grazes in the dunes. Image available for purchase here.) Historical records, along with plenty of shipwreck lore, indicate wild horses have lived on the Outer Banks for nearly 500 years. Development has pushed them north, and this population now resides in an 11-mile-stretch ending at the Virginia border. I imagined we'd see the horses frolicking in the surf on the beach, but that afternoon they were back in the dunes. (I shot this photo looking west towards the ocean.) Our guide told us the sea oats and other vegetation growing on the dunes aren't nutrient rich, so the horses need to spend 85% of their time foraging. You'll notice a common theme among these photos; the horses are eating in every single one. They live in family groups called harems, which include a stallion, several mares and possibly a yearling colt or filly and other non-dominant "bachelor" stallions. Despite a lack of roads at the northern end of the island, there are plenty of houses built in the dunes. The horses spend a lot of time grazing on private land (or private sand, as the case may be). The horse below is wild but taking advantage of grass growing on private property. Have you been to the Outer Banks? The dunes are breathtaking. On our next visit, I'm hoping to catch a glimpse of the horses while they're enjoying the sea breeze from atop the dunes. Planning your next adventure? Click here for some ideas.
Thanks to our high-security raised beds, I finally have my long-sought-after black-eyed Susan patch! It only took five years to outsmart those cute but conniving little bunnies. Our Asiatic lilies, planted in honor of our niece named Lily, are finally well established and just finishing their stunning blooms. I found a few surprises amidst them when I went out to take some photos. The side of the house you see when you drive into the neighborhood is bursting with color right now. Below are two varieties of hibiscus. (The burst of yellow in the background of the image immediately below is the black-eyed Susan patch.) I hope your gardens are brimming with flowers, too!
Click here for more posts from the Around the House series. I'm excited to introduce new (old) work today. I took this photo, Red paintbrush with mountain view, two years ago at Vail Pass overlooking Colorado's Tenmile Range. It's now available here as a print, framed art, stretched canvas, stationery, pillow or iPhone/iPod/iPad/laptop case or skin. As always, please contact me for custom sizing.
Now through Sunday, get FREE SHIPPING when you make a purchase from Calm Cradle Photo & Design. Last week I announced the opening of my new photo shop on Society6. I've been steadily adding photos and will be featuring some of the new additions here. This gorgeous blue morpho butterfly is one of the stars of my Counting at the Museum board book. Can you guess which number it represents? That's right: seven.
I took this photo several months ago at the Museum of Life + Science in Durham, NC, but I've got butterflies on my mind again this week; we just attended an incredible fundraiser for the museum's butterfly house. How lucky we felt to stroll around and observe such a fascinating place while it was empty of other people and we weren't chasing kiddos around. This blue morpho photo is available here as a print, framed art, stretched canvas, stationery, pillow or iPhone/iPod/iPad/laptop case or skin. As always, please contact me for custom sizing. |
My new book is out! Click to learn more about it.Hello thereI'm Julia Soplop, writer and photographer. I believe there is something profound in bearing witness to moments of joy and pain in others’ lives. My husband, three girls and I live outside of Chapel Hill, NC. You can read more about me here.
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