I Heart Shadows

Fort Myers Beach

My shadow is always trying to collect things. Me? I just like taking creative photos!

Playa Hermosa

Lover's Key

Lakewood Cemetery

Ometepe Island

San Juan del Sur

Lover's Key

Playa Hermosa 

Lover's Key

Richfield Lake, Minnesota

Lover's Key.

Lover's Key. 

A beach that has grasped my heart since childhood. It keeps calling me back like a whale's echoing call. Now, I have proof my favorite beach loves me back. This photo is not photo-shopped. Although, I enhanced the red. The crimson kelp floated into a perfect heart back in November- perfect for a February post.

Happy Valentine's Day! 

The Awesome Links:

Wild Bird Wednesday

Wednesdays around the World!

Tanama Tales

Our World Tuesday

Budget Travel on Friday

Sky Watch Friday!

image-in-ing

Pictorial Tuesday

Sunday Snap

San Juan Del Sur

Welcome to San Juan Del Sur.  The official location of this season's reality T.V. show Survivor.  The island of Ometepe was another previous Survivor location.  And we were just there as well!   Plus we drove right by the location of the season in Guatemala.  That makes us feel like real adventurers.  But thank goodness we were able to dine on the best that Nicaragua had to offer.  Instead of rice and boiled water.  San Juan Del Sur is a tourist town. So where are they dropping off the new crew of survivalists?  Well, I don't know.  But there is plenty of wilderness near by.  So what does San Juan Del Sur have to offer?

A great beach!  I love soft and firm sand for walking.  And a little warm Sun and wave action doesn't hurt either.

Ouch!  I love this photo.

Beached.

Perched.

Bridging the gap.

Be sure to walk all the way to the end.

And take time to enjoy the view.

P.S.  I've created a new photo blog.  A place where I can sell photos and photo cards.  Click here to check it out.  And if you like it, please help me spread the word!  It's called My 3rd Eye. That's what my camera is to me. 

To see my ode to the toucan and Dominical, Costa Rica scroll down...

Saturday's Critters

Bird D'pot

Wild Bird Wednesday

Jump!

I did this B/W illustration for Project Open Book a couple years ago.  It was inspired by a poem where shadows come alive at night.  I have a love/hate feeling with that idea. I for one have never out grown my insane fear of things that go bump in the night.  To this day I still open my sleepy near sighted eyes and fixate on a dark shadow in the corner.  Did it just move?  Is that dark shape the dresser?  Or something else...Yikes!  The worst thing is when you forget you left some mystery object (like a clothes basket) in the middle of the floor.  Obviously it is a crouching demon.  What else would it be?  Did you notice that I don't imagine it is a kneeling intruder.  Nope.  My mind always takes a straight shot to the paranormal side. 

Unfortunately, after all this build up my illustration does not live up to all that shadowy fear.  It is not the best example of my work. You are definitely not going to find it on my website.  But the kid is jumping.  So I'm posting it for Friday the 13th.  The shadow on the left is playing with a football.  And the teddy bear shadow is stealing a pair of shoes. You can blame it on da bears every time!    

Photo Contest Loser

Clouds

Shadows
Red

Lakes

Barns

Texture

Circles

Bridges

Reflections

Birds

The letter "A" (Arenal Volcano)

Every month Joan over at www.myretirementchronicles.blogspot.com hosts a photo contest. These are all of my entries to date. Not a winner in the bunch. There are several honorable mentions every month as well. I've only had one mention. Geez. I think that the judges are some of my sorority sisters from college that thought I was a big fat loser. Or maybe the judges are some old high school classmates that thought I took the short bus. Or maybe the judge is secretly Simon Cowell. Although I haven't received any nasty comments. I bet that if Simon really visited blogs we would have a lot of comment moderation going on. Delete! And I'm convinced that one of the judges is Heidi Klum. She probably takes one look at my latest photo and declares," You're out!" So I've decided to pack up my knives because I will clearly never be Top Chef...I mean Top Photographer. I'm joking of course. I'll keep playing until Tyra Banks tells me to immediately pack up my camera and go home. Shoot.

Where Does Your Shadow Go At Night?

I have the perfect illustration for http://www.illustrationfriday.com/ I illustrated the poem,"Where Does Your Shadow Go At Night" for the charity, Project Open Book. In the poem the shadows come alive at night and steal shoes and footballs. You can blame it on the Moon I guess.

I'm not afraid of my own shadow!

This post was certainly a no brainer. In fact, it was my love of shadow photos that led me to choose the poem I illustrated in my last post. And this is my favorite shadow photo of all time. It was taken on the beach in Dominical, Costa Rica. I just love the swirl of the sand and the quiet pooled water.

I took this photo last fall on the Split Rock trail in Duluth, MN.

This photo was taken in Duluth last fall as well.

This photo was taken on a hike at Castle Mound Campground in Wisconsin.

I took this photo by lake Harriet, Minnesota.

I LOVE this photo. It was taken last October during our yearly Halloween walk through Lakewood Cemetery. The late afternoon Sun produced long shadows. And the tree creepily spreads it's shadowed branches all the way to the headstones.

This photo was taken at Jay Cooke State Park in Minnesota. It's my last shadow entry in today's post. But I could dig up many more if I was so inclined. Thanks for stopping by www.marblespark.com/blog/ to vote! If you haven't stopped by the link yet, please do. If I get enough votes my illustration could end up in a book!

Moonstruck

My illustration is up at www.marblespark.com/blog/ And you can all do me a big favor by stopping by the link and voting for my art! I illustrated the poem, "Where Does Your Shadow Go At Night?" Written by John Carey. It gave me the chance to paint in black and white for the first time. And it gave me an excuse to paint yet another Moon. Moon's have been turning up in my art more and more lately. Hmmm. I wonder what that means. The shadows have a mind of their own in John's poem. So the one on the left I depicted holding a mysterious football. And the one on the right is the shadow of the innocent teddy bear. Except that he's stealing the young boy's shoe. I decided to have a little fun and paint the boy jumping on the bed instead of sleeping. I didn't want the shadows to be having ALL the fun!

Many Moons later.