Pictures on the Prairie

Nightscapes are dear to my heart since they tie the sky to the ground. My parents gave me a tiny plaque long ago that has these words on it "Keep your eyes on the Stars but your feet on the Ground". I love that plaque and look at it often and reflect on the words.

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How many of us look up at the stars and ask, "Are we the only ones out there?" I believe there are many of us that do. I recall Jesus saying that his Father has many rooms for all of us. When I look up into the night sky, I think about what Jesus said and I feel that I am being hugged. Also, I recite in my mind the words Mom wrote out on a tiny piece of paper and handed it to me and said, "When you're out under those stars, think of me and your father". The words she wrote down were these :

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                                                                        "Silently, one by one

                                                                         in the infinite meadows of heaven,

                                                                         Blossomed the lovely stars,

                                                                         the forget-me-nots of the angels."

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This was a phrase written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I think of those words as my eyes go to the sky watching ever so intently to see those stars silently blossoming and when I do see them, I give thanks to my parents and to the Lord.

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Only recently have I ventured into shooting nightscapes since I didn't have a wide field camera lens to shoot landscapes and the night sky above them. That all changed at the end of 2024 when I purchased a 24mm lens. I was amazed at how much ground and sky area could be captured with this lens and immediately started taking photos of our Milky Way galaxy. I have a very dear friend, Elisha Farmer who is an incredible photographer. I viewed her gallery and was just amazed at her images. I asked her to join me in this venture since she has a great "eye", and she is a superb landscape imager. So, Elisha takes the foreground shots, and I take the backgrounds. We wanted to have a logo to signify our collaboration, and my cousin, Doug Craig, came up with this brilliant and whimsical logo in a spur of the moment epiphany in my house. His logo idea was EMC2. E for Elisha, M for Mark, C for Collaboration and the 2 for the combination of the foreground and background which makes the image explode. Beneath that he wanted us to use "Far and Away" and "Far" would be for the foreground as it slides off into the distance and "Away" for a way off into space.

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Here's the link to Elisha Farmer's gallery------> Life Captured

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