This is where we start, each week. At 61st and Oceanfront. Sometimes one of us arrives before the other and waits by the water, but lately we've been pulling in one right after the other and parking and walking down together. One week she brings the coffee, one week I do.

Usually we walk a good distance and then stop and sit on the sand a bit before walking some more. The day I took these pictures, I had a migraine and I'd texted to ask if we could sit instead of walk. So we brought our chairs. It's all good.

Most often, we have the wide expanse of sand all to ourselves. Can you believe that? We'll see three, maybe five people the whole time we're there. We generally see more dogs. The dogs always come up to say hello to me.

Each week is different. Some days the water is gray and white-tipped, the waves choppy. Other days it's serene and glassy blue.

Always there are dolphin. Always. This last time, when the water was still and the air so clear that the horizon stretched for miles further than we normally seem to see, there was a never ending train of dolphin trailing in front of us. Tail-slapping, leaping, slowly curling their way up and down the coastline. You get so you expect to see them, and still, it's a surprise and a delight.

To be honest, as much as I love the walking, my favorite is when we sit. The ocean changes so much in our short time on the sand. Crabs scuttle nearby and the tide creeps ever closer. The waves are constantly changing, sometimes a gentle "bloop" onto the sand and sometimes, suddenly, huge and crashing. You don't notice this as much when you walk alongside. It's a different union with the water and the shore when you're moving.

And when we go, I hate to leave. Even knowing we'll be back, I hate to leave. We never run out of things to chat about; the stories of our work, and our families, and our kids (especially our kids) change from week to week.

There's a metaphor in there, I'm sure.

pitching (not pictured: my heart in my throat)

Whew. Well. It's been an interesting couple of weeks. If I had visions of sitting around and thinking deep thoughts and, I don't know, making lists, well that didn't really happen. Still, I got a handle on some things. Others, I got a handle on, only to have them slip immediately back behind again (laundry, I'm looking at you). I think I said on Friday that things feel marginally less chaotic, and that's good, but it mostly felt good just to lay a burden down for awhile, even if it's one you like carrying.

I think of all the social media things I'm connected to, I could let everything go except this space and Instagram. I'm not sure I will (shakes fist at Twitter), but those are the two that matter the most. More and more of us seem to be taking these breaks, and just yesterday I had another friend send out a Facebook message saying "over and out" for a bit. To my mind, it can only be a good thing. Could I have checked out even more? For sure. (Baby steps, people.) But I got settled back in with my family, and I got some good creative reading done, and I opened my heart to some exciting photography projects.

I doubt Christine was planning to really inspire anyone when she started talking about black and white photography last week, but it was just the kind of mini-challenge that I needed. I think in color. So in the past I've only used black and white filters to save a "bad" picture when I'm at the editing stage. Got a somewhat chaotic lifestyle shot? Pop that baby in black and white and it'll look like you meant it. See how easy?

But with Christine's nudging, I started thinking about what I'd look for if I were shooting a black and white photograph. Texture. Lines. Contrast. All of these things in the absence of color. Those were the things I looked for. Neel's garden provided a perfect backdrop for me, but I also wanted to spend the week capturing our life in black and white.

When I took my mini-project to my photo group, we talked about these challenges (And it was my friend Barbara who pointed out the sweet irony of "Violet in black and white!"). It was fun for the food photographer of the group (that's me) to put aside one of her favorite tools (color) and concentrate in a totally different direction. We Googled black and white food photography and felt pretty meh about the results, but I was determined to marry my two genres. I have some other ideas too, so maybe you'll see a bit more black and white from me down the road. Who knows!

So was this a "What I did with my summer vacation" post? I don't know. For me, a critical component of creating/taking pictures is sharing them, so I'll never go away completely, but if a break can sharpen my eye and heal my heart a little. Then I'm all in.

wednesday walk {life}

life in black and white {life}