Month: November 2018

I have a lot of different thoughts when I work on a project. With some projects I go into them with a theme involved and that guides the things I choose to photograph. That can make the project cohesive and the pictures seem related. The longer projects seem to be a lot different. Especially when I have periodic deadlines. When I have the freedom of time I can create and then think and then create again when I have what I think is a good idea.

What I come up with when I have short or set deadlines makes a project like this difficult. While the purpose of this is ultimately to raise money for cancer, and I think a lot about people I know who have had cancer, the disease itself and what I have that I might be able to express with a picture, what I can come up with varies greatly from day to day. Some days I lack time to do something that I want to, some days I lack ideas. My thoughts during the day make a big difference too. There are days I just don’t want to think about cancer, and some days I just want to do something fun.

Today I was thinking about how cancer really messes with our lives. It strikes everywhere and it doesn’t just affect the person with a positive diagnosis. It spreads out in random directions and touches people near and far. It wreaks havoc on people financially, physically, emotionally and in pretty much every way imaginably. So as I dropped food coloring in some water and watched as it did its thing. It took on a life of its own, starting from a single drop and then oozing out in all directions.

It summed up my thoughts fairly well.

When a kid sees a tiger and yells, “Cute!” it is hard not to say, “That there is 400 pounds of pure made to kill you.” The same goes with many other wild animals. It is tempting to call a baby leopard cute until you remember that it will grow up to be an adult leopard which would rather eat you than be cute.

Today I just though I’d post this because today people need a break from all the serious stuff for at least long enough to stop and say, “Awww.”

Oh, c’mon. I said probably.

But elephants don’t get cancer. This elephant in particular is helping with cancer research. HCI uses blood from this elephant in its research into why elephants don’t get cancer and how that can be used to help treat humans.

 

Today started out as a pretty good day. Ran with the Huntsman Heros and saw a lot of familiar faces and some new ones. At the end of the run, another runner in the park came over and wanted to say, “Thanks,” because she was going to HCI for a chemo treatment in an hour. It’s always nice to see that the fundraising you are doing is helping someone.

But the day turned grim later, when I found out that another friend got a cancer diagnosis.

Every time you hear the news it’s like a punch to the stomach and even if the prognosis is good it never gets easier to hear. So I spent the day thinking about what I could take a picture of that would adequately express or show what I have really been pondering today. I know that words are inadequate, so I fell short on the goal today. But the fact remains that there are a lot of people who feel this way and are committed to keep doing what they can until a cure is found.

Cancer sucks.

Watching the weather turn and the season change has just had me looking at the leaves. Maybe I should have just taken some panoramas or landscapes the last few days, but I have been ok with just getting some close shots of the leaves, even if they were fake that one day.

Today I thought I would do something similar to yesterday, but with paper leaves instead of real ones. I probably should have switched the two since this would have been a better Halloween costume for a tree,  but hindsight is 20/20.

With everyone dressing up today, it looks like the trees wanted to get in on the act. So I gathered up the leaves and made a picture.