Wander Photo's "Getting to Know You"

So while getting serious about my photoblogging, I've joined a few blogging rings, including Alabama Women Bloggers. They posed the ever burning question, who are you?  So, armed with a list of provided questions, I set about trying to answer.

• 1. What part of the state do you call home?

Bright lights, big Rocket

I currently live in North Alabama, Madison County, Huntsville. I was raised in Gurley and have also lived in Birmingham. I travel whenever I can, to get more experiences and photograph them.

• 2. How long have you been blogging?
• 9. Who or what inspired you to blog?

(So I'm already breaking the rules, answering questions out of order and two at a time! Tsk, tsk. Sometimes things just work out that way. When I got to question 9, I realized I had already answered it.)
  Um...technically...I've been blogging since 2009. This year is when I've really gotten serious about it. Why? If you look at my blog archive you will see that I have no posts last year, 2013. The year started off with a lack of focus, and then quickly was shot into a hyper focus on my grandparents, when my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer in late February. I had tentative plans to move back out to Gurley with them anyway, and garden the massive plot my brother had made the year before. 

Lilacs on Keel Mountain

  I quit teaching, and for the rest of the year my life was taking care of my grandparents. I still photographed a few things, such as these lilacs, one of my grandmother's favorites. My grandmother died only 2 months after her diagnosis, and my grandfather followed her that December. I bent my grief to productivity and creation.

• 3. Why did you start blogging?

 I started blogging for two very different reasons. The first was to get my photography out there with the simple goal of making money. Unfortunately, if that's your sole goal, you aren't going to get very far...and I didn't. The second reason - the better one - I have a deep rooted desire to share what I see and how I feel. I love to go on trips and write about where I've been.
  

• 4. What do you love most about blogging?

Wade Wharton's art

 Sometimes - when I'm very lucky - someone will write me a couple of sentences about one of my posts. I suppose my real craving is to invoke feeling in others. It excites me to hear people's reactions to my photographs. 
  Shortly after the death of local Huntsville artist, Wade Wharton, I visited the Botanical Gardens to see his sculpture in the face of an uncertain future. His granddaughter tweeted me about how good it was for her to see my posts. In the wake of my own grief from my grandparents' deaths, I had the opportunity to give comfort, even in some small way, to someone who was hurting. That was the highlight of my year, and will continue to be.
  I'm very slow visiting places like museums or gardens. I like to take in the feel of a place, what it is, what it was, what it could be, inspecting it down to the minutest details. I invite others to take the journey with me, in person or in the digital reality.
 

• 5. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Well, my dream is to get enough attention to fund my photographic adventures. Whether or not this will happen...I guess we'll have to wait and see.

• 6. What is your favorite movie?

 I can never really answer this question. Since I was a child, my pat answer has been Legend. And I still love it, although nowadays my love is split between the theatrical release (for the soundtrack) and Ridley Scott's directors cut (for the missing dialogue).
  I tend to stick to the fantasy realm for my chosen movies, no dramas or crime thrillers. I get enough of real life in real life.

• 7. If you could use any actress to play you in your life, who would you choose and why?

 Still with the movies! I would probably have to go with Jennifer Connelly. I've been told I look a bit like her, especially when she was younger - I'll never lose the babyface, apparently. I also have a few autistic tendencies and she can express that fierce stoic look I often have.

• 8. Name the top 5 things on your bucket list.
  

train tickets in Chicago

 My list would be pretty much all travel related - places to visit. Every place has it's own unique feeling, even if it's a crappy roadside dinner. Traveling is not just a destination to me; it's about the journey. I love everything encompassed in the word "road-trip".

• 10. If you could be known for one thing in your life, what would it be?

volunteer work for MARF

 Obvious answer would be for my photography, but I would also hope it would be for my charity work, too, in hopes that others would be inspired to kindness.

• 11. Where is your favorite place to go on vacation?

SoWal beaches

As much as I love new experiences, I do have one favorite place: the beaches of South Walton -- Grayton Beach State Park in particular. Love the white sugar sands, and calm waters! Most of the time you have the beach to yourself at Grayton, in addition there are some great walking trails through the park, clean camp grounds, and quiet cabins.
  I also love to visit the nearby picture-perfect towns of Seaside (where they filmed The Truman Show) and Watercolor, and it's just a stones throw from the larger cities of Destin or Panama.

• 12. Describe the best moment in your life.

Oh no, we're not going to have a City Slickers moment, are we?

• 13. We’re headed to your neck of the woods for one day. What is one thing we have to do, and what restaurant we must eat at?

a Maple Hill angel

 I already know what restaurant we have to go to: Mangos Carribean Restaurant. They're locally owned, lots of options on the menu, and I've never taken anyone there that didn't like it. Mangos is very vegan friendly, having several options already on the menu and even making special orders for me. Their vegan fish is amazing, and I would probably eat their rice & peas and cabbage until my stomach exploded. Wonderful image to make you hungry, huh?
  As to places to visit or things to do, it would depend upon your tastes. If you're a history or art buff, I'd take you to The Weeden House. This small museum doesn't get the credit it deserves. It encompasses a lot of local history, as well as wonderful paintings and poems by the artist that lived there. When I taught, it was always a favorite field trip for me.
   Afterwards, we could stop by Maple Hill Cemetery, the largest and oldest in Alabama. Non-locals are a bit creeped out by the idea of visiting a cemetery for fun, but the place is beautiful. Blooming dogwoods and irises in the spring, scarlet colored maples in the fall, and wonderful statues year round, make this a great place to walk or bike. Huntsville was considered for the state capitol for a while and Maple Hill is the final resting place for many important political leaders and Civil War heroes.

  If you're a hiker, let's head to Monte Sano, one of our gorgeous mountains, either the state park or the Land Trust - I'll take my dogs.

•   14. What is a tradition you and your family have?

On the trail

No kids and no marriage, so family to me is my parents. We are very close, and we often go on trips together. Christmas is our big family time. We open our presents on Christmas Eve, a tradition that started when my brother and I were kids. My mother loves to have the X-mas lights on at night while we open the presents, and we would go up to visit my grandparents on Christmas Day.

• 15. We all love social media, share your links so we can follow you. 

I'm so glad you asked! I post a lot of pretty pictures on Facebook, often photos I'm working on for my blog before I've finished, but also some random pics that don't warrant a whole blog post, but are still entertaining. I also share links to other photography projects going on in the world. Like my page, The Wandering Photographer.

I've recently joined the ranks of Twitter and I update folks with my photographic doings. My posts are fairly similar to Facebook, with more of a local bent. I post more often, since Twits seem to like that, and I also chit chat a lot more with fellow Tweeters. Follow me @Wander_Photo

I had dismissed Instagram for so long that I finally had to get an account to grow as a photographer. Like it or not, phone photography is a big part of the future, and I can either get on board or be run over. Like all change it has bad parts and it has good parts. It can't replace SLR photography, but I have to admit it presents images in a way traditional photographers don't. I haven't produced an image I'm happy with yet, but I think it requires me to take images differently than how I usually do, hence the "growth as a photographer." Everyday, I take at least one photo with my tablet, or another handheld cheap camera and post it. Follow my great photographic experiment on Instagram @wander_photo


Thanks for reading everyone! I hope you enjoyed learning a bit more about me and my life. I love to hear from people, so drop me a note.