Weekly Photo Challange: Urban

August 25, 2012 / Janna Hill / Leave a comment

Talking Trash

Busy Brick Streets

Old Men & Overalls

Breaking for a Burger

These urban snapshots are from the 2011 Bluebird Festival which is an annual celebration held in Wills Point Texas. It is a pretty big event for a population of less than four thousand. Every April for nearly twenty years now the town center is corridored off so that visitors can mosey along the red brick streets without having to watch for cars, unless they’re looking for the antique car show. Colorful tents line the boulevards with out of town/out of state vendors displaying their wares. Music bounces through the air mixing with the carnival screams one block over and every so often the church bell across town chimes in. The chattering ranges from friendly banter to crops and gossip until a hideous horn warns the crowd to hold that thought. For a moment all that can be heard is a rhythmic clanking of metal against metal. Soon the sound fades and the merriment resumes. The sweet smell of cotton candy sends small eyes searching for its origin while others seek out the delicious fatty flavors of what is considered real food. It’s a people watcher’s paradise and a lemonade stand is never far away.

Wills Point is the official Bluebird Capital of Texas and the proclaimed Gateway to Lake Tawakoni. It is located in Van Zandt County which is the bona fide Gateway to East Texas. We like gateways and wear those titles proudly.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Merge

August 18, 2012 / Janna Hill / Leave a comment

Mardi Gras Sky

For this weeks photo challenge I perched a vase filled with colorful Mardi Gras beads on a fence post and merged it with a cloudy blue sky.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Wrong

August 13, 2012 / Janna Hill / Leave a comment

This weeks photo challenge was WRONG, yet so many photographers got it right.

Go figure…

Wrong Size.

With the help of my grand daughter(who supplied the shoe) and my daughter in law who is such a better photographer than myself we managed to decide on an entry. There wasn’t much they could do to remedy ugly feet. Sorry 😦

Did I mention I can throw a rock a good ten feet or so with those wicked toes. When the foot toss is officially accepted into the Olympics I may very well win a medal.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Growth

August 4, 2012 / Janna Hill / 2 Comments

For this weeks weekly photo challenge (Growth) I chose a plant. I’ve watched this Asian Jasmine make its way up the oak tree beside my porch for some time now. This type of plant is usually considered to be an invasive species but that’s not the case for mine. Nope, my little darling has been inching its way outward and struggling upward for over twenty years now. I love the slow growing, non-blooming persistent little pest because it reminds me of myself somehow.

Old plant – New growth

Weekly Photo Challenge (Purple)

July 28, 2012 / Janna Hill / 13 Comments

A Joint Effort

The wine was my husband’s idea. When I told him what this week’s photo challenge was he promptly replied “this wine looks purple to me” and poured me a smidgen from his 32 ounce mug.

Withering Blooms & Wine

It was my idea to sit the glass on the linen napkin beneath the Crepe Myrtle tree and shake the limbs. It doesn’t matter that more blooms and twigs landed in my hair than in the photo, this was fun and something we could do together.

P.S. If you want napkins in that lovely shade of pale blue just toss them in with the next load of blue jeans.

Weekly Photo Challenge (Inside)

July 21, 2012July 23, 2012 / Janna Hill / 7 Comments

For this weeks photo challenge I went immediately to an old jewelry box and looked inside. I recall rummaging through my grandmothers costume jewelry like a pirate with precious booty.

Inside the Jewelry Box

Mine is filled with trinkets of cheap metals, faux pearls and inexpensive stones but they are treasures to me and every piece holds a dear memory of the bestower. This weeks theme also inspired me to share a prose from Interior Verse (which is free via kindle right now) titled The Chest of Hope.

The Chest of Hope

The Chest of Hope

It’s just a small brown wicker basket not built to hold much and a bit tattered from over handling.

Its beautiful warm browns have dulled and faded with age on the outside but inside the natural luster still shines. Its top is held in place by make do leather ties because the first woody hasps were worn in two and now dangle loosely without purpose.

What hands made the airy coffer? I wonder as I stroke the thin smooth fibers.

Was it one as handsome as the tight weaves frayed by time?

Though dust has long since claimed his finger prints-

I know that he was a weaver; I imagine that he was a dream weaver…

Diligently intertwining each cane thread with my hopes in mind…

A place to store my breathing dreams so that they could be kept safe and close at hand, amassed in a beautiful fibrous reminder.

A quaint little chest of hope I will one day hand down to a child, a grand child or perhaps even a great grand child when I have used up its contents.

When I have taken the dusty lid off one last time and felt deep into the corners to make certain I haven’t left any ideas untouched.

I imagine when I offer it up to him or her they will look at me like I’m crazy (and I may well be) then they’ll tear the lid off expecting to find a treasure of sorts before saying with disappointment, “It’s just an empty old basket.” It is then I will share with them the wishes and ideas that were stored and later born of that basket. How they were kept safe till I could see them come to fruition. And one more time I will imagine the handsome dark skinned man who meticulously weaved the wonderful piece…a place to store my dreams because dreams need room to breathe.

Then I will show them how to place their own aspirations into the old auburn chest with caution to keep them safe, to nurture their hopes and give them time to mature.

And if my last wish were to come true I will see them realize the birth of their visions.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Movement

July 11, 2012 / Janna Hill / Leave a comment

I’ve been perusing various blogs and looking at some pretty awesome takes on the weekly photo challenge titled Movement all the while fighting my sick sense of humor to catch someone on the toilet and post that movement. I know, ewwww. Relax, my decent side won out [thank goodness] and I chose a photo of my son tossing skeet.

Two Fisted Skeet Toss

Weekly Photo Challenge (Fleeting Moment)

July 5, 2012July 5, 2012 / Janna Hill / 3 Comments

This has got to be this worst photograph I have ever taken (at least sober anyway) yet when I saw it Fleeting Moment is exactly what I conjured. I was attempting to snap a shot of a pair of hawks that hang out at the edge of the woods. I hurried and spun the camera and well… you get the picture. I looked through fifty other photos in trying to prepare this post and kept coming back to this cull. I think it is because it says more to me than any crystal clear image could. I titled it Time.