Pops of color

I love walking around our neighborhood and looking for interesting things. Some pops of color during this dreary season.

 It helps that our little dog LOVES to walk. So much so that we can't even say the word, walk, or she goes ballistic and jumps literally 2 feet straight up in the air about ten times. It's so funny to see her get so excited.

Recently it has been so cold, that we haven't been able to go exploring. Since she is so tiny, even with a sweater she gets too cold too fast.

These photos were taken on my last solo neighborhood stroll. 

Demolished

 The city tore down an abandoned house behind our house a few days ago. Our neighborhood has been complaining for years and we are all so glad to see it go. 

As you can guess, an abandoned house really gets rundown fast. Many times there were unsavory people crawling in and out of broken windows and in and out of knocked down doors.

 Raccoon and other varmints had also been making them selves at home. Those would not have bothered us too much, except that last summer they were night thieves of our garden produce! Meme, our dog, loved to bark at them when they were up in trees behind our garage. They were bigger than she was so if they got too close she wasn't nearly as tough as she pretended.

                                        (insert phone photo of the world's most adorable dog!)

Sunday

Today, Greg and I walked along St. Anthony Main which isn't too far from our house. I love walking along the river.

Even if  it was much colder than I thought it was, it was actually a beautiful sunny day. Many people were out jogging and walking their dogs.

I googled this massive, historic Pillsbury building and according to this article it was built in 1860 and has been vacant for some time. Sounds like it will be turned into some apartments soon. That would be so cool. I would hate to see this old piece of history torn down.

My Personal Project

As a photographer I think it is really important to have personal projects. 
Many of the photographers that I know and admire, have personal photographic projects that they work on. Usually they are bigger in scope than the every day work that the photographer does. They require more time, more intense thought and a lot of passion.

Even before I became a photographer I had a passion about helping stop the stigma of mental illness in our country. That is my personal project. Having a family member with a major mental illness and on a much smaller scale, myself,  dealing with depression and anxiety, I have spent a major portion of my adult life learning about mental illness. I have seen and felt first hand the stigma. The knowing that others will feel differently about you if they know. Knowing that you will be seen as weak, strange, odd, even scary just because something is wrong with your brain is quite a bad feeling.  So, many people will try to hide their illness. They will not seek help from professionals. They will not take the medications that could be so helpful to them. All because they don't want to be judged by others. 

What causes judging and stigma? Ignorance. Sure there might be a few commercials on tv about depression or anxiety. People see them and forget them. Unless you are directly involved with it most people don't give a whole lot of thought to mental illness. Then a terrible tragedy will occur, a mass shooting or other act of violence and terms start flying around such as crazy, nuts, sicko, schizo and so many other words to describe the perpetrator. Eventually in people's minds mental illness starts to equal evil. Someone would have to be completely sick to do such horrible things. Mental illness starts to equal "less than", "worse than", all lumped together.

The fact is that simply is not true. According to NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness):

"Mental illnesses are serious medical illnesses. They cannot be overcome through "will power" and are not related to a person's "character" or intelligence. Mental illness falls along a continuum of severity. Even though mental illness is widespread in the population, the main burden of illness is concentrated in a much smaller proportion-about 6 percent, or 1 in 17 Americans-who live with a serious mental illness. The National Institute of Mental Health reports that One in four adults-approximately 57.7 million Americans-experience a mental health disorder in a given year."

So as intelligent human beings we need to learn about mental illnesses. Just as we have learned about diabetes, cancer, and many other illnesses. We need to regard mental illnesses as something that can be treated. I could talk about this all day and bore the heck out of you, but I won't. If you made it this far then you realize that I really do want to help change the stigma in this country. 

I am making it my personal project.  

2013

Most people don't like winter. I have to say that I love winter. I do get tired of the bone chilling cold sometimes and  I get anxious when I have to drive on icy roads. But for the most part? I like winter. I would much rather be cold than hot, and wear boots instead of flip flops. 

I love the challenge of outdoor photography in the winter. I appreciate a pretty flower nestled in lush green grass as much as anyone, but I love looking for beauty in the winter even more. Brown is one of my favorite colors and that fits right into winter colors. 

One of my photography teachers even mentioned once that most of my photos are on the "cool" side and when I looked through my portfolio, sure enough, he was right!

So as we start out 2013, I will try to share some of my photos with you that I find interesting and beautiful.