It'll be OK

The Trillium

Warren Woods State Park

I woke up yesterday morning to a sunny, cold, spring morning and talked myself into forgetting all of the yard work and all of the office paper work I should be doing and instead I went for a ride to the woods.

A couple of years ago I came across a hillside in that same woods that was covered with spring flowers. Those images I took that day didn't work out so well, and it's been bothering me since. I decided to look for that same hillside again and see if it was time to try again.

There weren't as many flowers this time as last, but as I looked around and climbed the sides of the hills, it just seemed like this was the place to be at this particular time. It just seemed right to be there.

Our family is going through a tough time right now and it's been difficult for the ones I love the past few weeks. A simple little walk in the woods looking for a second chance at a spring flower kept making me think of one thing.

It'll be OK.

Following Leroy

In my last blog I told of going on a workshop to northern Arizona with a group. One of the reasons I chose that workshop was the photographer who led it, Leroy DeJolie. I had seen his work in magazines and always admired the look and feel of them, but other than that I didn't know much about him at all except for one thing. Leroy is Navajo and we were going to spend all of our time on Navajo tribal land.



It's been a couple of years since then but I can still hear Leroy yelling at me as he ran off over the dunes in this image to "follow me and put your tripod where I mark the sand".
He didn't speak a whole lot, maybe because of his heritage, but when he did, you paid attention. He had a way about him.

The Yebachai and the Totem Pole

Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Land

Leroy's knowledge of photograpy and the locations we visited was only surpassed by his love of his native people and it turned a photo workshop into something more. It gave me just a brief look into what a person's family history could mean and I thank him for sharing that.