Long Live Imagination

In my life I have lived many different hats. Mother, daughter, wife, sister. I am always an extension to someone else and I have no one to blame for this but myself for I give to those around me and do so freely, with only so many hours in the day it is no one’s fault but my own when there is little time left when everyone else'e needs are met.

So it is with a great deal of pride when I find myself taking time to do things for myself above those around me. Greater still with the support of my family who supports and assists me in these hobbies and interests without guilt, especially a long standing one that is photography. I have had an interest in Photography since I was a child and my own Mom turned our bathroom into a darkroom so we could spend weekends developing pictures into the wee hours. 

Which is not to say I know everything about photography. I just enjoy capturing the world the way that I see it. Recently my daughter mentioned my photographs and the possibilities of submissions into a few photo contests. I have been restless in my accounting job and am feeling anxious to be known more in a creative field. Do it. Was her sixteen year old matter of putting it.

Step in fate and do it I did. 

Almost by accident I found out about a contest shortly after my angst and our conversation, so I entered a few photos into Canon and Ron Howard’s Long Live Imagination photo contest in which there are 10 themes. There will even be a movie made from the winning photos.

Well, finalist be damned. But I am among the very lucky, and I am so very proud. Check it out and hopefully you will like it and find a way to vote for it as your favorite. I want to win because it merits amongst the best of the bunch and not because of a mass blog to readers. I am proud of it, I love the comments and it’s true I do walk a little straighter, a little brighter, and I can’t wait to shoot more pictures tomorrow!  

Direct link to my finalist piece

Coffee Break by Shay Kay

Thank You, More Please

Tuolumne Meadows by Shay Kay

Reflections/ 365 Days

Tuolumne Meadows, Sept. 2011

There was a fat girl living my life and I had no idea. I am not bothered at all by that fact, what I am bothered by are the comments I receive now that she has apparently left the building (so to speak). 

Maybe I should explain…

I never knew I was overweight, I mean I knew I had a few more pounds than I needed, but those pounds were Mom pounds, easy to lose if I cared enough you know non intrusive pounds that were easily hidden and equally disguised.

I am also a liver of the life I lead so I was never wanted to be weighed down by my size. When trying on clothes I would become frustrated by the system, not my body. Its interesting that it was the clothing companies and manufacturers that I always found fault with. You know they just don’t make a Large like they used to and, wow guess XL is the new L or I’ll just get it a size larger because I like it roomy. 

When I looked in the mirror it’s not that I hated what I saw, I just saw me so it was all good- I just had no clue that who I saw wasn’t the same person everyone else saw.

Then, a year ago I started having some health issues that have nothing to do with weight or weight related issues but as a result I had to begin a daily medicine that affected my appetite. Ever so slowly my weight changed. It has altered so much that people that know me have approached me as if I had a unsightly third limb removed that everyone knew about prior but no one wanted to point out. 

Gleefully they come up beaming with pride like I broke through to some secret society that they had always wanted to invite me too but never could. To me its weird, awkward, and uncomfortable. It just seems like a fake scene that is replayed each time another person sees me or another five pounds is lost. 

Now I am not totally crazy (okay maybe I am, but that is another post), the whole thing is really how I perceived myself. I saw that my clothes fit different and I no longer blamed companies for their odd way of sizing. Its was like everything just went back to normal. Everything just made sense again when before excuses were the norm.

Tuolumne Meadows, Sept. 2012

Then this last weekend Erik and I went back to one of my favorite places just outside of Yosemite Valley and I took an almost duplicate picture from the year previous. Back home I was switching out the photos on my desk when I saw both women for the first time. 

The girl that I always saw looking back in the mirror was real for everyone at last. Its just that prior to this year I was the only one who saw her.