Have Courage

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” ~Anais Nin

She stood alone, watching the clouds move across the sky,

Glorying in the feel of the wind in her hair, the sun on her face.

A trio of ravens flew by, their ink darkness, a contrasting punctuation in the light.



The path beyond the gate stretched ahead of her, calling her to explore.

A breath, almost a sigh, blew past her lips.

Words and thoughts crowding into her throat and stuck by the lack of someone to speak the words to.

Live a life dictated and confined by your fears and you will find you have a life that is small in scope, lacking in joy. It may be a fine life, it may even be satisfying, but it will not be large.

Our time on earth is so short, barely a moment – that to spend it locked into a small box with our fears seems to be such a sad waste.

Sometimes we must do the hardest thing, defy the rules, break the bonds of our tribe to find joy and happiness, to live the fullest life. 



Your visit & comments are appreciated.

Photography & prose by Terry Rowe.

You can see my art work or photographs at www.terryrowe.photography, any photographs in my bog are available for purchase.

Exploring Digital Painting

As an artist I explore many avenues of expression - always searching, experimenting, exploring different techniques and methods to create the vision I have in mind.

My main tool for expressing my vision is a camera, and the photographs I take are often just the base of the final piece of work I present. I use the digital darkroom to modify my photographs, to tranform the image I captured into the vision I have in mind.

What follows is an example of what I do with a photograph. This is an image I took of a blooming red Camelia, surrounded by snow from a recent storm. The red flower in the snow was striking, but it also reminded me of all the color that will come with warmer weather in the spring.

Here is the original photograph.

I took this image into the digital darkroom, Adobe Photoshop, and made modifications. I used different brushes to paint in the colors of spring, layering shades of the flower's own warm red into the background. All together the working file had ten layers of enhancements and painted effects. Finally, I cropped the image into a square shape.

This image is the result.

I was looking to create a glowing picture of the beauty found in winter, and the promise of more color to come in the spring. The original image and the painted image are both beautiful, and I know some will prefer one over the other. The end result, the painted image, is the image I envisioned when I began creating.