Lens-Artists Challenge #366 | City Mouse/Country Mouse

This week Tina starts us off with a question…

“This week we’ll start with a question – having seen the two ducks above, did you assume we’re in the city or in the country? Well you know what they say….never assume! These little feathered friends were enjoying a swim in a pond in a New York City park during our visit earlier this month. They and some of the other sights along my daily walk reminded me of the classic Aesop fable “City Mouse/Country Mouse”. If you’re unfamiliar with the story, its moral is that no matter how appealing someone else’s life may seem, there really is no place like home.“

Today on this new moon solar eclipse, also happening on a Sunday, feels like an energetic reset, a perfect day for my own interpretation of city mouse, country mouse. I am the country mouse, we live in a small town that I also grew up in, working within our family business and raising our teens, young adults. It is fun to play the city mouse every once in a while!

In April 2024 we traveled with friends to Nashville, Tennessee and had a blast! Nashville IS busy, its also an awesome experience! The people, the music, the food, the bars – wow even if you aren’t a drinker you will be in awe of the day and night life there!

Of course when in Nashville, need to check out the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum Military.

The bars were also incredible, and the views just as incredible as the music!

Incredible night life, that we enjoyed experiencing!

Finding tranquility within the busyness of the city, water will always be my calm!

We enjoyed the night life, and also equally enjoyed being in bed in good time!

A super cute, quaint near by town, reminded us of the small home town living.

And… when we are done in the city, our experience is over, its time for home… and I will always appreciate our country views and our own space! Its a blast to get away, I very much am a home girl, its my calm, my reset, my escape from the world, when I walk out into our back yard and see trees and hear the birds.

Enjoy this New Moon Eclipse and your own energetic reset, if you are spiritually aligned with this energy! 💖

Lens Artists Challenge #365 | Longing

As I am reading about the challenge I am sitting beneath tall beautiful trees, listening to the crows and nature all around us as we are camping in the woods.

Egídio introduced the theme for the week with some incredible landscape photos with a variety of locations and colour’s. Such beautiful colour’s captured.

For this challenge Egidio introduces us to the Portuguese word saudade. Wikipedia defines saudade as “an emotional state of melancholic or profoundly nostalgic longing for a beloved yet absent someone or something. It is a recollection of feelings, experiences, places, or events, often elusive, that cause a sense of separation from the exciting, pleasant, or joyous sensations they once caused.“

The closest English word to describe saudade is longing.

Its our first weekend of camping and we are loving it! A beautiful quiet campground that isn’t far from the water. With water being so calming to me, this has been like another reset. A shift from our norm.

A longing for recreating my morning, with a focus on me, which is exactly what I did this morning. I meditated and did an eft tapping exercise.

Longing to hold onto the long summer days, the outside activities, sunshine, warmth, outdoor cooking and deck life!

The Bruce Trail in Hope Bay

A longing for Peace… a longing for tranquility. Truthfully the 2020 years have been quite stressful, at times extremely stressful. 2025 was to be a year of healing, in a sense it is, that is pulling me deeper, its essential I am hearing. Longing to be heard, truly heard by my heart, truly heard by my soul. And honoring that.

A longing of trusting… prayers and trust!

That sometimes in life we need to reach, we need to stretch ourselves. It can feel awkward, even unstable, but can also end up beautiful.

Now, what are you longing for? If you join the challenge, don’t forget to use the “lens-artists” hashtag so we can easily find your post in the Reader. If you would like more information on the Lens-Artists Challenge check that out here!

Silent Sunday | Bees + Flowers

Embracing Childhood: The Joys of Being an Aunt

There is this little lady, who came into our life 3 years ago and has changed our lives in such a profound way. Its interesting to think of how life unfolds and how as a mom of teens I am truly beyond grateful to enjoy my sisters little’s as well as our cousins.

Cheers to living your best life… just like these two toddlers having an absolute blast and living their life to the fullest. As adults we could all learn something from these littles, their innocence, how pure they are, the beautiful excitement and energy, even down to the numerous questions of why… as they navigate this world my heart is so full!

I love our nieces and nephew just like my own kids and these photos are absolutely precious memories carved in stone forever! Auntie Pam always has some kind of camera on her!

Just looking at the photo, I can hear their laughter, the waves of the water, the laughter of the adults watching them and the squeals of the younger babes wanting a turn, when they are big enough!

Who also takes after her auntie and cousin, who also love shiny rocks 😉

Funny as time has gone on, my kids are older I still seem to take more photos, even with teens 😉 perhaps because I know how quickly childhood goes, how quickly it feels like, on the other side, of how they grow.

Who Are You?

This little friend I met the other weekend when we were out for a back road tour. I love that when I grab my camera, my heart just feels immense peace!

This little dude… let me get close… this was shot with my 85mm macro lens.

Canon EOS R6m2 RF85mm F2 MACRO IS STM ƒ/5.0 85.0 mm 1/800 1250 ISO

I saw him and started further back, as you can see by the image above, he happily hung out and let me get closer. Of course talking to him and letting him know I was a friend, actually I was thanking him for letting me take photos! Both of these images were not cropped in anyway.

Perhaps he was just as curious as I was, who are you?

Can’t See the Forest for the Trees

“Can’t see the forest for the trees…”

In life this can lead us when we understand what this means.

On our Sunday tour, I suddenly spotted the cows in the trees. As we stopped and allowed ourselves to look around, we suddenly saw so many, peeking in and out from all areas. Did you see it?

We had actually turned around, as we were driving down the road, I spotted an incredible expansive garden and asked him to turn around, it was when we turned around, when we spotted them.

Sometimes in life we need these reminders, we can focus sometimes on the small things, that may feel are insurmountable, yet in the big picture it may not be.

My reminder that day, honor my heart and soul, if I see something I want to photograph, its not a big issue or deal to stop or turn around.

The Magic of Nature Photography Quiet Moments

What is your favourite thing to do that is your “silence” where time can just feel like it stands still?

For me, its my camera, in nature. Especially macro. With macro, its more than what you see when you initially look around, it goes deeper, its the details that are often missed.

This past week our family was rocked, a legend who will be dearly missed passed yesterday and already his presence is deeply missed. The irony, but nothing is a coincidence, passing on September 9th. 9-9-2025 – which this year is also a 9 year. 9 being a year of completion, ending of cycles in numerology. He actually passed on 999!

Its incredible the energy that can surround death, massively mixed emotions of incredible happy memories, and then the realization that he wont be around anymore or the heart wrenching reminder that upon his arrival in Heaven he would also be greeted by my brother, who we lost back in November. I think honestly that’s been one of the hardest parts of this. Losing someone who Ive known my entire life, who we as a family spent a lot of time with growing up, and who knew my husband before I did (well he did, my cousin, my dad, my brother LOL). Who we had a blast with through the racing and hockey years. He will be dearly, dearly missed on so many levels.

Its almost like I could hear my brothers voice, welcoming him with them in Heaven. It is like warm hug knowing our loved ones aren’t alone, but, yes of course there is a but, but they aren’t here with us. And as I typed that I heard nope we are. Humans cannot see the spirits, but when we allow ourselves to be open to the spiritual side… magic can happen. Even through the heart break!

As a beautiful reminder, from a man who truly LIVED and LOVED what he was doing. Through all the things! Something we all need to remember and embrace!

I love the magic this lens can do with macro images.

Quiet Time Calming to the Soul | Macro Bees

As I turned to get back in, I heard the familiar buzzing, and looked to my right.

Just a few moments in nature, is so calming to the soul.

A few more moments from my silent Sunday nature shoot with my Canon R6MII + my Canon RF 85mm f2.0 macro.

Do You Enjoy Quiet Moments | Macro Bees

The wordpress challenge theme of the week is ‘Quiet Moments’. One thing that brings me pure joy and 9.99% of the time is in quiet moments, is when my camera is in my hands.

Lets continue this theme for the week from a beautiful silent Sunday shoot to share for Macro Monday.

When I feel big emotions, having my camera in my hand offers me a tangible way to get my attention, to also redirect my focus to something creative to allow my mind peace and serenity. I looked at my husband after we watched a movie Sunday after brunch, and said, take me for a drive. He knew exactly what I needed and why, I went and grabbed my camera and a couple lenses.

In all the images that I captured, this was the best connection. This little bee just hung out on the flower for a few minutes allowing me to get close and capture its true beauty!

When we first pulled over, we did for the various colours of flowers – pink, blue and yellow. As I began to photograph the blue flowers I was suddenly aware of the faint buzzing around me. I knelt silently, as I looked around and saw multiple bee’s flying amongst the wild flowers. Can you buy seeds for wild flowers like this along the side of the roads? They are all so unique and beautiful, weeds or not. Big gratitude to this bee for hanging out with me. I felt the trust and said thank you multiple times. I love photographing nature!

I will share more of my silent Sunday with you over the week. Its within these quiet moments I have even deeper gratitude for photography, so very much.

For my fellow photographers, these were shot with my Canon R6MII camera with my Canon RF 85mm f2.0 STM Macro lens. I closed down my aperture, to get more of the flower and/or bee in focus. I am so grateful I did, I am used to shooting wide open with my normal lenses and can nail the focus, when I stop down the aperture I can trust my macro shots will shine!

Your Life As Art Photography by Pam

Artist & Intuitive | Pamela Zmija

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