I like simplicity and symmetry. I would even go as far as to say I am a minimalist. I blame my grandmothers house for this. She is a collector of crap, just piles upon piles of clutter in every corner of her home when I was a kid. Worthless items and trinkets and paperback romance novels covered in a layer of thick dust. (I also blame her for my allergies but that is another trip to the Ear Nose and Throat specialist altogether).
I hated it as a kid, it was like chaos in a box. My grandmother is an awesome lady but a zen master of organization she is not. The woman cannot throw anything away. Her Cherokee name should be “Woman who never knows when she might need that Garfield cookie jar someday”. Her collection of nick-knacks, dishes, and worthless junk makes me itchy all over*. I figure this is why I hate crowds and doll collections and curio cabinets filled with spoons from around the world and blown glass menageries. Let’s not get started on rear car windows filled with stuffed animals, because we will be here all day. (Pay no attention to the photo below of my dog camouflaged in a sea of polar bear plushies because it’s beside the point!)
I now realize how this affects my photography. I find that it is hard for me to photograph images where there is a lot going on in the background. Hard to focus on what I am trying to capture. I tend to gravitate to blank canvases. This is why I love shooting the beaches in California back home, just lots of big open sky and an infinite horizons.
It just undoes the knots in my soul. It uncomplicates me by feeding my need to be without clutter, because a clutter-free me is a better me… have I mentioned that I hate clutter? I find that there is no shortage of wide open space here in Colorado. I can’t get enough of the sprawling rolling fields of winter’s white, spring’s green and late summer’s gold.
Just a giant blue sky and the only clutter to be found is those pesky clouds littering the sky. I can spend hours on the back of my horse with camera strapped to my back taking it all in.
…And sometimes just downloading mental pictures is all I need to cure the woes of the day.
*I still love you Grandma!
just some dish 
Beautiful!
Thank you! 🙂
Nice work:)
Thank you so much. I try…my work is always evolving. thank you for reading and commenting!
I can see your beautiful soul through your beautiful photos and through these beautiful words that made me smile ❤ have a clutter free life 😀
Thank you so much, those are really beautiful comments! 🙂 So glad you liked it.
Touching, humorous and utterly relatable!
thank you for that! what a really nice comment! makes me hopeful that I can actually translate my thoughts into words and stuff 🙂
Loved the line: Just a giant blue sky and the only clutter to be found is those pesky clouds littering the sky. Doesn’t that synchronize with life too? A few cluttering clouds that rain, give us shade, get nasty or peaceful changing our course?
Lovely post and pictures!
YES YES YES!!!! you said that much better than I did! Thank you! 🙂 – Trish
Nice read!
Personally, I’m not the most organized person in the world, and attempts to organize usually lead to me losing track of something important and having to pull everything out again to find it. As a result: clutter. Which I realize wouldn’t occur if I was just naturally organized to begin with. But then, I’ve always felt more comfortable in enclosed spaces, indoors and out. I prefer a wooded trail or a narrow stream or river to an open field or the ocean. No caves, though. That’s a little TOO enclosed.
Yes! agreed Don’t get me wrong I am not organized per say, I tend to just throw things away a lot more than I should. I just dont like piles. I dont collect anything other than dog hair.
thank you for this great comment and for reading my post! 🙂
Grandma’s are the best. You are a smart girl for seeing that. I love your dog swimming with the stuffed seals. Your pictures… I don’t know anyone personally who can do this. Thanks for letting me into you what you see. You have a knack for fragile things and natural grace, but still I get a daredevil vibe from you. And I disagree with a part in your ABOUT section: your writing is not rusty at all. Keep it up! Give me some more. You know I’ll be back.
Thank you so much and it will be people like you that will press me to keep doing this. You as well!!!
(daredevil days are further and few between but I still can surprise myself!)
Thanks Sarah!
Sidenote, but it’s going to bug me: I’m mentally subtracting the apostrophe in Grandmas haha.
HA!!!