Category: Inspiration (Page 1 of 5)

Photo Kaleidoscope

May 2, 2025 / Hitzeman Photography

This week I’m all out of words. So I thought I’d have a little fun for nerds—using the tools in Photoshop to make a geometric design from a photograph.

Photoshop is, for me, difficult, and it’s always a surprise what the outcome will be Here, I try to imagine what it looks similar to in my mind’s eye.

Kaleidoscope #1

This image looks to me like an aerial view of a circle of 8 angels or fairies, nodding their heads toward the center, taking a bite out of a pineapple slice, with a red frog sitting between each of them. Or—lacy Christmas wreath made of LED lights. Or— the newest Mattel design for the wheels on a Barbie-mobile!

What do you see? (Love to hear about it!)

Kaleidoscope #2

This one is a bit delicate looking, like a lace-like table centerpiece, with a mysterious shadow in the center. Staring into the middle may bring up some images of your very own making in your fabulous mind.

I hope you enjoy these little mini-visualizations. They were fun for me to make, and I think I will keep playing with this idea in combination with other images.

Stay tuned….

Magician’s Secret: There’s a big spacer between here and the source photographs below that I used for these kaleidoscopes. I wanted you to use your imagination first before you saw how the sausage was made, so to speak.

If you’re ready, scroll down to see them now….

The Magician’s Secrets!

Fallen Tree Roots Green Valley County Forest Preserve

Tree to Starburst

April 18, 2025 / Hitzeman Photography

As Easter approaches, the symbolism of death-to-life (or life-to-death) transformation comes to mind. When I’m photographing living things in nature, I sometimes talk to the essence of it in my mind, befriending it, comforting it, wanting it to know I recognize and appreciate how its life (and death) on this planet has helped the lives of us fragile humans.

The tree “starburst” above has been a food source for countless forest insects. In its early life, it may have provided food for families of mushrooms.

At one point, its cousin may have been the “hero” in one of my other photos or blog posts. Like the one below…

The celebration of tree beauty fills me completely in October in Upper Michigan. It is the time of year when all the trees become giant colorful flowers.

Wow!

It’s a Tree Beauty Pageant!

Pacific Gold — Waves at sunset on Cannon Beach, Oregon

April Showers: The Connection Between Water and Emotions

April 4, 2025 / Hitzeman Photography

This month (April 2025) feels like a cloudy-er / showery-er / rainy-er April than I have seen in years. Suddenly the grass has turned green. And green shoots of daffodils, tulips, and day lilies are poking out of the ground in familiar locations.

What makes us all one is water. The average percentage of water in the human body is 60%, but it varies in different parts of the body. See the 1-minute video below.

Water is also the symbol of emotions. Our lives are full of emotions, and the tears flow more often and easily in my life as I open to life. Tears of sorrow and sadness. Tears of awe from seeing good people doing the right, kind things. Tears of joy seeing my tiny dog gazing at my face. And now in April, witnessing the tears of the clouds and sky. And our Earth providing us with ocean waves, waterfalls, lakes, river rapids, and other water phenomena.

So how about some pictures, Harry!? Here you go! 🙂 (click image to ENLARGE)

Little River Light, Great Smoky Mountains NP, October 30, 2015

Cannon Beach, Oregon

My Favorite Falls – Columbia River Gorge, Oregon

Lake Superior Sunset – Ontonagon, Michigan

Medicine Lake, Jasper National Park, Canadian Rockies

Lake Moraine Sunrise, Banff National Park, Canadian Rockies

Lake Louise, Banff National Park, Canadian Rockies

Mount Laurel at Convict Lake, Eastern Sierra, near Mammoth Lakes, California

Mossy Little River, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, TN, October 27, 2015

Mono Lake Tufa Transition

Falling to a River – Columbia River Gorge, Oregon

Sunset reflections of The Needles, Cannon Beach, Oregon

Sunset on the Oregon coast

Creativity and Changing Perspective

March 28, 2025 / Hitzeman Photography

Two months after I retired, I took a trip with a couple of friends to photograph Colorado. One of the iconic photo-ops in that state is the Maroon Bells Mountain peaks at sunrise that you see above. The sunrise lighting up the top of the mountain is the prize at this location. Many photographers compete for space along the lake shore to get the “best” perspective of this event.

The next photo below gives you some idea of the crowd size, even though I took this pic 30 minutes after the one above, when the crowd was even thicker.

I do like the so-called sunrise shot, but that scene also makes me feel separate from what I’m looking at. The mountains and lake looked huge, vast, and by comparison I felt so small and distant from it. I walked around the lakes edge until I found a different perspective. I like to capture more of the ground in front of me. It makes me feel more like I was there, and that I could walk into the photograph, the Aspen Stepping Stones.

I want to acknowledge my friend, Steve Ornberg—a master at photography trip planning, and an excellent landscape photographer. Steve has since gone on to concentrate on astro-photography and bird photography.

A Bridge Not Too Far

March 14, 2025 / Hitzeman Photography

“Through the captured imagery of light, photography allows us to hold fast to one fleeting, ever so precious, moment in time.

~ Howard Simmons. Photographer

Photographing beautiful places in nature in beautiful light has been a passion of mine all my life. These photographs capture a precious moment in time, and my brain, my emotions, also somehow capture moments in time that I did not intend to keep. They may have been hurtful. I may have misjudged people. I may have broken a meaningful relationship. And those memories are still in my mind. They are not precious.

Today, as I think back on the people I may have hurt unjustly, I also wonder whether I can repair that now. What does it mean to be a lifelong friend if I am kicking people to the curb, as if they were nothing to me then. How can I today, years later, harness the power of love—Oneness—in my heart and head?

Perhaps I can look back at those moments with different lenses or filters on my eyes? Perhaps I can change the Lighting of memories that are captured in my head and heart? Perhaps I can edit or post-process or transform the image I have of them, and forgive them, forgive myself?

Perhaps I can recreate the love between us that we used to have.

A river can stop flowing or be rerouted if we allow the stones to accumulate in it instead of working to move them out of the way. The following quote helps me to remember this, to speak about a conflict from a perspective of authenticity and compassion, even though I want to avoid conflict.

I felt angry toward my friend.

I told my wrath. My wrath did end.

I felt angry toward my foe.

I told him not. My wrath did grow.

~ William Blake

Is my former friend really a foe, or did my silence make him so?

Today’s set of photos are about bridges. Bridges as a metaphor of how I can travel on them or construct them in my heart and head, to call that former friend I have left behind.

I believe making a phone call is not a bridge too far.