Photo-Heart Connection: February

March 1, 2012 by seabluelee 23 Comments

Collection=Connection

Finding the photograph from February that spoke to my heart was not an easy assignment. Due to weather, work, and various other constraints, I didn’t take many photos in February. I didn’t want to use one I’d already posted before. What was left?

This is one I took for Scavenger Hunt Sunday a few weeks ago, but didn’t use. It’s a little vignette in a corner of a bookcase, a part of what I think of as my natural history shelf. These objects speak of my love of nature and wildlife. And each of them holds other memories, as well.

The two little birds and the frog are hand-carved from found wood by an artist in Eastport, Maine. My daughter and I visited “Downeast” for a week each summer for several years, and each piece commemorates something notable about the trip when it was purchased — the summer we saw flocks of goldfinches, the year the frogs in the pond serenaded us all night long, the time the woods were full of flitting chickadees.

The two small black books are from 1920, field guides to Western Birds and Western Flowers “of the Rockies and West to the Pacific.” They belonged to my grandparents-in-law, and there are penciled notes in the margins where they recorded dates and places of sightings. I’ve even added a few of my own over the years, and those bring back memories too, of other places lived, and long-ago camping trips when my children were young.

The white shadow box in the back contains treasures from closer to home: small shells and beach pebbles, tiny pine cones, a bit of driftwood, a moth’s wing. Just junk, I suppose, but precious to me.

Whenever I look at the objects on this shelf, I am reminded of my connections — and of my need to stay connected — to nature, to family, to my history, to the wider world around me and to my own inner self . . . to my heart. And that, dear friends, is exactly why I take photographs.

Linking to Kat Sloma’s Photo-Heart Connection at Kat Eye Studio. Come check it out – and even join in!

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