Part of what I like about macro photography is that it gives you what is actually there but by focusing on a small portion of a plant, flower, tree, you get an entirely different image than what you are able to see with the naked eye.I can almost see the flower fairies hiding inside the secret world of the secret garden. Sometimes a portion of a flower will look like rich fabric and other times like an entire enchanted kingdom, at least in my fanciful mind. Part of my problem with wide, landscape photography is I mentally add and subtract, soften here, define edges there, so when I take a shot I'm expecting what I have created in my mind without conscious thought. Then I look at the shot and of course it has nothing to do with this mental process which was happening. On the other hand, with macro shots, I get even more that I imagine and it can be a springboard for my imagination. I can create entire worlds that live within a single flower. However, I still want to get better at the wider shots. Below is the big oak which gives me shade in front of my house in the summer. I actually have three different oak trees in my front yard. The shot isn't as interesting to me as some of the macros, but I can see all the birds and squirrels which are hanging out up there when I look at the photo. However, none of them are visible in that shot except in my over developed imagination. They also are almost certainly not having the detailed conversations that I imagine. Such as, be careful, that scary lady with the weird object in her hand is trying to shoot you. Hurry, hurry, hide here.
My weekend snapshot post is below this one for any of the WS participants who are here for that. The photographs in my Melanoma Monday post are from my garden. The subject is less pleasant but hopefully contains useful information. I thought this would be a good time to discuss the E and F of skin awareness which are new categories being suggested by some dermatologists as additions to the ABCD awareness campaigns.Today is Melanoma Monday, an event created by the American Academy of Dermatology to increase awareness of melanoma. Melanoma Monday is always the first Monday in May. Euro Melanoma is a similar event which is also on the first Monday in May and included 16 different countries in 2007. Most melanoma and skin cancer awareness campaigns include the ABCDs (asymmetry, border, color, diameter) for melanoma detection but increasingly there is a call to add E and F to that group (evolutionary changes, funny looking).Melanoma isn't always easy to recognize without a biopsy because it can present in many different ways. Of course without a biopsy you never know for sure if even suspicious looking lesions are malignant. There is no reason to panic but I think information can help people know when to show something to their doctor, or to request a dermatology referral. The type of melanoma I have, nodular melanoma (NM), is often diagnosed later than other forms of cutaneous melanoma because it can be symmetrical, one color, and it may grow rapidly in thickness (under the skin) rather than having a visible growth phase on top of the skin. I am sensitive to these issues because my melanoma was dismissed as nothing, based on its symmetry and it took me a long time to go to another dermatologist who did a biopsy and diagnosed me with a deep melanoma which a surgical oncologist found had spread into the closest lymph node basin. NM accounts for about 15% of all diagnosed melanomas in the U.S. My melanoma definitely fit the E for evolutionary change and the F for funny looking. The most common form of melanoma is superficially spreading melanoma (SSM) and it accounts for about 70% of all diagnosed melanomas in the U.S. This type of melanoma can strike at any age and a typical SSM lesion has irregular borders and variations in color. Lentigo maligna melanoma (LMM) typically occurs on sun damaged skin in the middle aged and elderly and in its early stages can be mistaken for sun spots or age spots. LMM accounts for about 10 percent of all diagnosed melanomas in the U.S. The fourth form of melanoma is acral lentiginous melanoma and it accounts for about 5% of all diagnosed melanomas in the U.S. It can start as an irregular shaped spot on the palm or sole; it can develop in the mucosal membranes; it can develop under the nails. The reason this form of melanoma often carries a poor prognosis is because it is often diagnosed later than other forms. I have read articles theorizing that some of the more deadly melanomas have a similar prognosis to others, if they are caught early.Any of the hidden melanomas can be problematic regardless of which type they fall into because they are often diagnosed late. Melanomas in the scalp are often hard to see because they are hidden by hair. Mucosal melanoma can hide in the nose, mouth, female genitals, anus, urinary tract, and esophagus. Ocular melanoma arises in the lining of the eye, or on the pigmented coating of the eyeball. According to this rather comprehensive article, while melanoma accounts for roughly 4% of all skin cancers, it is responsible for more that 74% of all skin cancer deaths. One reason that awareness is so important is that when melanoma is caught in its early stages the prognosis is excellent. However, when it is caught late the treatment options are not that great or effective. People with all stages of melanoma do beat the odds and there are new treatments in clinical trials but early diagnosis greatly improves the prognosis. If anyone reading this post has melanoma or is interested in more information, a friend who I got to know through the MPIP set up a site which has both of our links on a variety of subjects pertaining to melanoma as well as organizations and sideline issues. That site is Melanoma Resources. I think part of the key to early diagnosis is when in doubt, go see an experienced doctor. Also, if you have a lesion you are concerned about (noticed changes etc.) and the first doctor you see says it's benign based on a visual exam, there is nothing wrong with getting a second opinion or even requesting a biopsy to be safe. If I had done that with my nodular melanoma, I would have been diagnosed much earlier. I'm not suggesting you shouldn't trust your doctor, I am only saying that we sometimes will have an awareness of subtle changes which send us to a doctor in the first place.
My first weekend snapshot was taken this Friday. After waiting eleven long years for the first blooms on any one of my peonies, the one below rewarded me by FINALLY blooming. I am still holding out hope for the other two who have yet to bloom. I won't say that it was quite worth the eleven year wait but it comes close. A truly beautiful flower to me. The female cardinal had a long wait for her bath on Saturday. After perching on the edge while the male cardinal bathed, a mockingbird cut in line and she had to patiently wait yet again. The female cardinal is on the right top part of the photograph below, and the mockingbird has staked out the bath in the first shot. This was after the male cardinal had a long bath and the female was already getting restless. She didn't have to wait eleven years for her bath like I did for my peony to bloom but I'm sure it seemed that long to her. I could almost hear her singing in the bathtub. Tweetdledeetweetdeldumlalalala. Monday is the official weekend snapshot post day and you can find out more at the home of Weekend Snapshot. You can also browse weekend snapshot posts on technorati Weekend Snapshot
The photohunt theme this week is time. In honor of the fact that we have had a wild time together on more than one occasion, my friend HB gave me the pillow below. Thinking about time made me think of the Simon and Garfunkel song Bookends. I found myself singing - Time it was, and what a time it was, it was - A time of innocence - A time of confidences - Long ago, it must be - I have a photograph - Preserve your memories - They're all that's left you which are the lyrics from that song. Below is a photograph me and HB (I'm singing and playing guitar, she's waiting to come in on electric violin). One wild time I shared with her involved driving to Philly in a snow storm and home in snow and ice after the show pictured below. I used another shot from that trip from the music photohunt but the one below is appropriate for a time in my life.As a bonus, although not technically part of the photohunt, I'm including a youtube video below of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel singing Old Friends which closes with Bookends for the, time it was part.
I hope that everyone has a great weekend. I also hope I will be able to visit your photohunt posts. I always do my photohunt theme in advance when I have time and I usually post on Friday afternoon since I have more time to visit early birds but also try to visit as many as I can on the official Saturday post day. My computer sounded like it was going to go off into outerspace when I started it up this morning. I have called the service guys and they said someone was coming before Wednesday. Grrrrrr, so I'm hoping that I don't go offline in the meantime. I have a work laptop but haven't used it in ages and it's not even current enough for work so I'm hoping my desktop will purr along until the techies come.
Technorati where you can find early birds and later posts - photohunt
Home of the hunt where links to photohunters are posted on Saturday PhotoHunt
Happy May Day. I always associate May day with a maypole and dancers. I also associate May with flowers and all the shots in this post are recent ones from my garden. May Day is also International Workers' Day and Mayday is a distress signal. There are many more events associated with May Day. The entire month of May is a national (U.S.) Skin Cancer and Melanoma Awareness month. One reason some campaigns say skin cancer and melanoma is because some forms of melanoma do not originate on the skin. I'll discuss that more in upcoming posts. The first Monday in May is Melanoma Monday and the origin of that was to have free skin cancer screenings. Many universities, as well as other centers offer free screenings on Melanoma Monday. There are also similar campaigns in countries besides the U.S.I recently followed a link that someone on the MPIP left about how lip gloss can invite skin cancer. I had no idea of that so I thought I'd mention it on this first day of skin cancer awareness month. “These lip glosses can make more of the light rays penetrate directly through the skin instead of getting reflected off of the skin’s surface,” says Dr. Christine Brown, a dermatologist at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas. (You're covered, however, if you wear lip gloss with SPF.) Since most of the links and information I usually post are about melanoma, the cancer I have had, I thought I'd mention that Skin Cancer Net has a lot of information about all of the skin cancers. There are many other sites which are useful but I picked one for brevity sake. I started thinking about how so many skin cancer campaigns feature blond, blue eyed, light skinned people. It is certainly true that those are the characteristics of people who are often at a higher risk for skin cancer. The problem is too often people who have darker skin tone, eyes, and hair, think they are in the clear which isn't true. I am caucasian but I thought I was at a low risk for skin cancer because I tend to tan not burn and don't have a particularly light skin tone. Below is a shot of me around 1988 and as you can see I'm not blond and my skin isn't porcelain toned but I did end up with melanoma.I didn't know until I had melanoma that an artist whose music I admired died from melanoma, Bob Marley. He had Acral Lentiginous Melanoma (ALM). Only 5 percent of all diagnosed melanomas are ALM but 50 % of melanoma which is diagnosed in Asian and people with dark skin is ALM. Of course that means that 50 percent of the people with dark skin have other forms of melanoma. I mention that because there is sometimes a misconception that the only form of melanoma or skin cancer for that matter which non caucasian people are at risk for is ALM which isn't true. For the start of Skin Cancer and Melanoma Awareness Month, I thought I'd give you the music and face of Bob Marley below. Bob Marley's melanoma began in an old soccer injury on his big toe. Part of what makes ALM so deadly is that it's often diagnosed later than other melanomas and skin cancers. I've read that if it's diagnosed when it's at the same depth as other melanomas, the prognosis is similar but too often it's diagnosed later. I'll be mentioning some of the other manifestations of skin cancer and melanoma which often have delayed diagnosis in posts here and there throughout the month.
Part of what I like about macro photography is that it gives you what is actually there but by focusing on a small portion of a plant, flower, tree, you get an entirely different image than what you are able to see with the naked eye.
I can almost see the flower fairies hiding inside the secret world of the secret garden.
Sometimes a portion of a flower will look like rich fabric and other times like an entire enchanted kingdom, at least in my fanciful mind.
Part of my problem with wide, landscape photography is I mentally add and subtract, soften here, define edges there, so when I take a shot I'm expecting what I have created in my mind without conscious thought. Then I look at the shot and of course it has nothing to do with this mental process which was happening.
On the other hand, with macro shots, I get even more that I imagine and it can be a springboard for my imagination. I can create entire worlds that live within a single flower.
However, I still want to get better at the wider shots. Below is the big oak which gives me shade in front of my house in the summer.
I actually have three different oak trees in my front yard. The shot isn't as interesting to me as some of the macros, but I can see all the birds and squirrels which are hanging out up there when I look at the photo. However, none of them are visible in that shot except in my over developed imagination. They also are almost certainly not having the detailed conversations that I imagine. Such as, be careful, that scary lady with the weird object in her hand is trying to shoot you. Hurry, hurry, hide here.
Weekend Snapshot
photohunt
