Ingela Bohm's Blog, page 32

Golden leaves and leaden skies

Autumn is like treasure you never knew was there. Once the trees are full on summer green, they sort of disappear into each other, but autumn, wow… it brings out each and every leaf.

Tonight the sky was perfect, too – thunderous and bright at the same time.

On the other side, the sky was an innocent blue.

This view has been kind of boring throughout summer. Not so anymore.

Found a new spot!

Golden leaves and blue skies

Autumn is like treasure you never knew was there. Once the trees are full on summer green, they sort of disappear into each other, but autumn, wow… it brings out each and every leaf.

Tonight the sky was perfect, too – thunderous and bright at the same time.

On the other side, the sky was an innocent blue.

This view has been kind of boring throughout summer. Not so anymore.

Found a new spot!

A night on the town

Which is so not what it sounds like. I strolled through the streets and the harbour to kill time before going to see the Beatles movie by Ron Howard, Eight Days a Week (which was awesome, but there’s just too much to say about it so I’ll just let it be. Ha.).

Anywayyy… I strolled through town, looking for subjects, and nothing was good. Until the sun set. Suddenly everything was pretty (as usual!).

 

 

 

 

 

After the sun set, I hurried down to the harbour again to catch some pink skies. I fidgeted like a mad woman at the traffic lights because I thought the loveliness would dissipate, but I managed to catch a few wisps of salmon clouds before twilight sunk and it was time for CINEMA.

(Serously guys. Go see it.)

 

 

Crispness!

To make up for that last post.

These damn swans

Or should I say, “This damn telezoom that’s all I could afford and that’s NOT living up to any kind of expectations”?

Weeell, never mind. Photography is more than crispness (I’m told, but…). And it’s not the lens’s fault that I stubbornly left the ISO on 100. But oh, how I would have wished this one to be sharp!

But who knows, maybe in a while, I’ll even think these are quite nice, with that Constable vibe they’ve got going.

 

Bright fall

Every photographer has to take at least one backlit picture of overblown dandelions! But at least mine stands out because of the layer of dew.

Or does it?…[image error]

If you just get close enough, and the light hits it just right, even brown leaves can be beautiful.

Morning fog

I got up early again, because I missed yesterday’s spectacular dawn with gravlax pink and gold shining through the bus window. But when I reached the hill where I’d planned to snap my pictures, I was just too foggy. Made for some atmospheric shots of the woods, though.

These are some interesting geese. They’ve been following the swans around the pond for weeks now. As soon as the swans move, so do the geese!

The sun finally rose over the misty hills. Here seen peeking at a sleeping lorry.

 

My first fox!

I really love foxes. They’re like a mixture between cats and dogs, and they’re such a beautiful red colour. This one ran straight at me for some reason, and then stopped as she heard the shutter click and stared at me for a couple of seconds before dashing off into the woods. Thanks for posing, sweetie.

Fire in the darkness

This weekend was dull – weatherwise. The sky was constantly overcast, but it was warm and we went for a drive to look for mushrooms and photo subjects. I’m not sure I’m happy with the results, but at least you can see the impossible, fiery red colour of the autumn shrubbery against the leaden background.

 

A slight mist shrouded the faraway mountains. Here and there, individual trees had turned yellow, which made them stand out from their green brethren.

 

Lower down in the forest, whole areas had turned completely golden.

I don’t know what these dark red leaves are, but they were everywhere!

They look like something out of a fantasy movie. What would they be called? Fire-leaf? With medicinal or hallucinatory properties, perhaps…

In the evening, we made a real fire and stayed outside until it was pitch black.

The Ace of Wands

That feeling… I think all authors must know about it. You empty your glass and you’re convinced that you’ll never write another word, because what is there to write about? You’ve said everything you want to say already.

And then there’s this thing – a movie, a smell, a view, something someone says – and it gets stuck on your mind like an autumn leaf clinging to a wet fence. And as it sits there, just shining brightly against the dull grey of the wood, another kind of light begins to creep up on you.

It inches closer, slowly, whistling innocently… and then BAM! You’re bathed in the light of an inner dawn.

You have to write. You have to write this new character, this laugh, this landscape, this perspective. You’ve described a hundred different smiles in your other books, but this one is different, and it needs to be set on paper. Come hell or high water. Otherwise that light will burn you up from inside.

You’re in love, and you want to shout it out to the world.

And then it ebbs. Sooner or later, it ebbs and peters out, and you look at the smile or the view or the funny dialogue, and you just go “Meh”. Because it’s done now. You’ve spent your ink again, and poured that light onto your keyboard, and there’s nothing left. Not even a couple of mixed metaphors.

You have a result: a few twinkling phrases, or a whole fragile structure with a series of flimsy, glittering strands of story clinging to it… and now comes the work. The editing, the fleshing out, the careful crafting. In Tarot terms, the spark of inspiration from the Ace of Wands have chosen a direction, gathered the input it needs and celebrated the first stage of the journey. And now the battle begins, where things will not always be so bright.

But you’ve got your flimsy strands, and look at them: they might only be lichen, but they’re beautiful.