random shots

very wet morning
drenched
Sammie talking to me

misty morning dew

tiny dewdrops
















intense






Yesterday walked down to the park, the flowers were all misty and pretty with dewdrops
Here are a few of my favs.

busy buzzz



























tiny drops of dew looks like diamonds

Messing with RAW setting

So I started to mess with my camera the other day. I have been used to shooting with TIFF or super fine JPEG, but decided it was time to play with RAW. Well, I LOVE IT!!
What a difference it makes and you can really work with your photos so much more!
So, here are a few pictures of the flowers out front, nothing fancy but hey I love flowers!!

On our walk the other day, I could hear this noise above me, could not see him but clicked a couple of shots where I thot this guy might be hiding. Found him!!







We walk our dogs every day along this creek path that has all kinds of folliage and wildlife, I am always looking for something to catch my eye, usually I am rewarded. It is a beautiful walk just for the peacefulness alone.






This snowy Egret is always along the creek walk, I always look for him :)















Then as I get home I see little things that catch my eye, so will share those as well

some days

Some days I wake and my world is a blur
Like someone closed the shower door
It can't be opened
It can't be cleaned.

I try so hard to focus on that flower
The word on the page
That just yesterday I could read
Today, I need to magnify

You hold my hand to show me,
Where my glass is
Where my glasses are
Where your face is.

Some days, I need you to see
Cause some days,
It closes in
God Damn this darkness

Help me to not trip
As I stubbornly hold my head high
Miss that curb
Pretend that I can see

Some days it just closes in
Sneaks up, steals more sight
Breaks my heart
Makes me need you more.

Nora K Devane

Update again and Thank you

Seems lately I have been neglecting this page. I need to get a bit more organized with my time.
Again I have had more vision loss and spent the past few days feeling very lost and sad with that fact. It came as a major shock as to how much I had really lost. Of course it is not like I had lost it over night. No, this creeps up, slowly but very steadily lately. Just being told an amount makes it seem like it is sudden. I know better but I still hurt and I still mourn the loss.
A very good friend of mine who has much less site then I do described it as a mourning and it so totally fit in to how I was feeling. She too is going through a vision loss and I also cry for her. I can relate and feel her pain just as much as I feel mine. We are not alone, yet when it hurts sometimes it feels like there is nothing and no one that can make the pain stop, the loss less scary.
So, I spent time writing, crying and talking to my wonderful friends and family to get myself through it. I always do get through but without the love and comfort of friends I know it would take so very much longer.
So this update is a thank you as well.
Today is a new day, I wrote this update without crying, so the healing has begun.
xox

Another update wow

OK, so yeah I have totally not been paying attention to this site, shame on me.
Decided I needed to sit down and do a sort of update and maybe edit some recent photo's that I have taken to post as well.
Been busy I suppose, life sometimes does get in the way. Sometimes I just don't feel like it also
I have been taking a lot of photo's as always, some good, some plain crap LOL
This past month we bought a new camera for me to go more towards the pro side of what I really want to be doing and I have been just loving it.
Learning so much on how to use the new DSLR and just loving taking pictures with it.
Now am looking at a new zoom lens as well for it. Thai is a must pf course.
Well, that is all for now, will post some pictures later
ttfn

It has been a while

Well, it has been a little while since I have been on here. So an update is in order.

For a while my eyes were just a royal pain and I was a frustrated me, but I did my best to get past it.

Started going to pre-agility classes with our Border Collie Harlee end of April and after a rough barky start I think it will be fun. Harlee is a bit fear aggressive and well she will need to be worked with. I can do that. The second class was better for Harlee but a bit more difficult for me. The lighting there is not the best for a VIP and well I have no problem asking for help, which I did. They were fine with helping me out and as we get further on in the lessons I should be able to do this without help.

Was fun, I came home tired and so did our pup.Went to eye doc the other day for a recheck and wonderful news, my edema is almost totally gone! Also the side effect from the shot is totally gone!! That is great news, so I am pleased.I have been messing around with my camera lately taking pictures of flowers ALOT! Trying different settings and just click, save or delete!

Here are a few, enjoy!!

Low Vision

Well, yesterday was my low vision assessment and to be honest I felt like it was a total waste of time. I know it was not totally but how I feel at the moment.
My acuity is in the toilet, and regardless of me saying to them that I think it has gotten worse, I did not want it confirmed. Silly me, still get upset by something I knew was there, obivious. Oh well. hurts just the same.
I am frustrated by the fact that the doctor has me taking this shit medicine and well somehow I feel it is NOT working. All it has done is make me puke, puke and puke some more. How is that for fun?
Thankfully in regards to the med I do have some good days where I actually get some food to stay down. How exciting. I mean like I asked Dan, what size do you go to after you hit size freakin 0?? Or do I just disappear then? HELL NO!! bring on the buckets of icecream.. or something dammit!
Do I sound sarcastic? Maybe because I am.
So, now I have to wait for more insurance crap to be approved before I can even get on with any OT. whatever...plus the whole objective of the visit to low vision clinic was to get O & M training. Something that I have fought in my head for a long time. SO when I finally get to that zone... oh gee they don't offer it. I have to go somewhere else.
Now, that zone has kind of backed off, I am leary, and I am weary.
HAHA funny me.
Well, so today I am just venting, needing to write something, yet poetry won't come.
I am sad, scared, just plain scared. Some days it is like that.
Today is that way.
Tomorrow will be better, cause I always gets past it.
Guess I will walk my dogs, clear my head, maybe take camera cause if I take a picture and I "get" it, well I always feel better.
How silly am I really?
I just know I am me, and I don't know how to be any different.

Nora

Saturday

Woke up Saturday morning, did not have a good sleep. Pain sometimes is just so annoying that sleep evades me. So, lack of sleep and then an overcast day made for a crappy eye day.

Well, regardless of pain or being able to see or not, I walk the dogs. it is a time that I so enjoy. My dogs look forward to it probably just as much as I do. We may not go as far as we used to before my hip issue, but they don't care. They are out with mom! Right now I am walking THREE dogs at one time. We have Austria visiting for a couple of weeks and she is a joy. I was not sure I would be able to walk all dogs together with my vision but have learned that I can do it with no problems.

So, we leave and the sky is overcast, hazy blah wreaking havoc on my eyes. I say to the dogs, good thing you all stop at curbs. Otherwise I am sure there would be sprains or strains on days like that.

We managed our walk, and I still had to go to store. Dropped dogs off at home and mulled over whether I should take my cane or not.. hahaha. Silly me decides NOT.

I could use it after all, bad lighting.. crappy blurry vision makes for a stressful long walk. With the dogs I have learned to trust them where they go etc. On my own it is different.

Goal... learn how to use cane AND walk dogs together... should be an interesting goal. I am lefthanded and dogs walk on left side. GRIN..will be fun, but I will do it.

So I come home, and dogs are happy to see me... I am grumpy... but dogs change my mood. I grab my camera and take some pictures.... why am I always happier with a camera and dogs as my subject?

OH well.. that was my day.. and here are some pictures.

words

Words are never easy for me
I feel so deep and fear to share
So I choose what I say
Choose what I let out

It’s hard to say I’m afraid
Hey look at me
Hold my hand
Listen to me cry

I am used to keeping it all to me
Storing it, thinking on it
Building the words
The way to say it right

To make it not about me
But about a question, a thought
Make it sound okay
That I am not really afraid

Words pound in my head
Drowning me in the sadness
If only I could open the door
Find the key to let them out.


©Nora K Devane 3-20-08

Crawling

I’m crawling out of the ashes
Trying to rise again
Undefeated
Reborn, the phoenix

Crawling through the pain
Fighting every step
Every tear,
Every horror

I’m struggling to walk
Standing tall
Head held high
Eyes clear with pride

Crawling through the ashes
Burning pain
Tearing my soul
Rebuilding my heart

Crawling, struggling
I will make my way
To the top
Spread my wings and fly

Nora K Devane
©11-01-07

This Ride

This past week has been like a ride.. going to doctor, finding out that on top of my edema becoming worse, I now have glaucoma in my right eye. I have been up in the air how I feel..

I realize I have been kind of on pause...if that makes sense. I am starting to feel overwhelmed these days. So I sit and write...

I’ve sat back for so many years
Watching this ride
Seeing the ups
Hearing all the downs

Always avoiding my turn
Thinking I will never get on
My turn would never happen
Someone else was always in front

Yet here I am, first in line
On a ride I’d rather skip
The ups I miss
The Downs I am sinking in

Never did I think I would climb aboard
Feel this hurt,
Ride through this pain
Want so bad to get off

But here I am no return ticket
Just a heart full of fear
Head full of questions
And not knowing where to start


©Nora K Devane

I am struggling

I’m struggling with this pain
The words are jumbled
They may never make sense
The pain so deep, I ache inside

You were evil, and I was so naïve
So long ago,
Yet I remember like yesterday
So much pain, so much hate
It’s all boiling up inside of me.

Don’t cry, don’t think, don’t breath
It won’t hurt if you don’t move
No one cares, no one ever does
Can you see them here, holding your hand?
No

“You are nobody, just do as I say
Then you won’t hurt
Then you won’t cry
Then I will be happy”
That’s what you said

Your friends can’t help you
They have their lives
They don’t need yours,
They don’t care,
“we’ll” tell them goodbye

“I don’t like how you look
Don’t like how you talk
Don’t like how you cook
Clean, or breathe
I will never love you”

You hurt me, I hate you
You made me hate me
You took my soul
You took my …I just don’t know

I am struggling
The words hurt
The memories hurt
I need to release them
I need to evict them

I am struggling
In pain, in tears
Alone I have felt this
Never to share
Cause you said
No one would care

Nora K Devane
© 10-17-07

There are many facets to me, the deepest part of me I rarely have shared with people because sometimes it just hurts far too much. Now I am slowly breaking free of that pain. With my writing and my photography that has so been encouraged by my husband I am growing.



This following poem I wrote several years ago, slowly starting to realize who I am and what I needed to do. I am still growing.




Control

Sometimes I wonder who i really am
a mold, someone elses creation
where did the me go?
where did i loose control?

So many dreams let go the wayside
So much love lost
too much pain
too many tears.

Who is this lost person?
Finally trying to gain control,
Who am I
Is this time for me?

I did everything as I was told
Looked the way you wanted
became the "perfect" ideal
Talked the "perfect" talk

Looking the other way
when hurt
Closing my eyes, my heart
to all the pain.

Now I have to gain control
Find the lost me,
Build a new and stronger soul
Take my lfe back.

©Nora K. MacDonald 12-11-02

Afraid

Afraid

How do i tell you I am afraid
what do i say, what words
I cry, and i hide the tears
how do i show you I am so scared

this strong front i have is just that
underneath there are tears
worries, heartache and fear
how can i show you I am weak

afraid of the dark
yet I could go blind
will you always be there
holding my hand, guiding me

How do i deal with this fear
how do I ask you to help me
I don't know the words,
I only know today I am afraid

Nora Kathleen Devane
©4-22-07

Yesterday

Yesterday my world became smaller
Surprising me, for I did not know
Yesterday my heart stood still
Filling with this fear and pain


Closing in was my circle of hope
The little bit I hold on to
That said I am okay
I am not going to be blind

It scared me, frustrated me,
Devastated my world
If only for a while
Yet my tears frustrated you

Frustrated you why,
Because this I should expect
Well, that angers me
Makes me very sad

Yesterday my world was caving
My heart was crying
Who do I tell?
Cause who understands

Tomorrow my world will be better
I will pick myself up
Wipe off my tears
Today, I am still angry


©Nora K Devane

An intro

Hello, Blind Eye Photographer?? what might that mean?
Simply put I am legally blind and I take pictures. I have a retinal disease called RP for short.. to learn more you can go to this link http://www.jwen.com/rp/faq/rpfaq.html

Photography is my passion, as is my family. I have the most wonderful husband a person could ask for.

He is understanding, strong, loving and my best friend. He supports me in my dreams and in my loves. He is worth every wrong step I took in life to get to him. I love him more everyday.

My two sons of course I have loved since before they tickled my tummy to let me know they were there. I adore them and will always think of them as my babies, even though they are adults with lives and loves of thier own. No matter what they do in life, I will support them as best as I can with all the love I have behind them.

Thomas, mom and Ryan... my wonderful kids

The reason there is sunshine in my life

Next.. my furkids.. three of em.. yes that is plenty to love .. or is it? Sammie is our lab/greyhound "lap" dog, she is going on 7 but has the energy of a puppy. I love her to bits. Next we have Emmie that is our longhaired domestic terrorist... kitty. She rules the house of course as cats often do. She is her dads girl and tolerates me.

Finally there is Harlee or Harlequinn as she was named for her colouring. She is just over a year old Border Collie. This pup never runs out of steam and tests my patience at the best of times. I ADORE her as well.

So here you will find a mix of who I am. My photo's and my writings, all which are a huge part of who I am.

I write to work through my past and of course to deal with the unknown future. I write because it makes me whole again. I can get past the pain or even just capture the happiness.

I take photo's because I love seeing everything and remembering every moment in time, every beautiful sunset to each and every smile on my families face. That is who I am.

Memories in every photo.