But first… our moment(s) of zen. Take a deep breath and enjoy the show!
sunrise
Happy Anniversary Month to Sunrise Sunset: 52 Weeks of Awe & Gratitude!
MIAMI HERALD – one year ago!
October 26, 2014
Author interview: Kim Weiss on ‘Sunrise Sunset’
Local author’s book pairs inspirational quotes with gorgeous photos.
Sunrise, Sunset: 52 Weeks of Awe & Gratitude. Kim Weiss. Health Communications. $10.95 in paper.
Sunrise, Sunset: 52 Weeks of Awe & Gratitude. Kim Weiss. Health Communications. $10.95 in paper.
By Connie Ogle cogle@MiamiHerald.com
Gratitude is popular these days. Scroll through your Facebook feed, and chances are you’ll see some friend listing things for which they’re grateful (family, friends and chocolate tend to rank high on many lists).
“Gratitude is a hot topic,” says Kim Weiss, director of public relations for local publisher Health Communications, which specializes in self-help titles. “It’s been selling well in self-help for a while. … I think people need little reminders that kind of break them out of their busy day. Unless you’re already involved in some kind of practice that allows you to stop and smell the roses, not everybody does.”
Weiss admits that like most of us, she’s not always in a sunny mood (“I’m not exactly Pollyanna”). But she definitely has something to be grateful for these days: the publication of her book Sunrise Sunset: 52 Weeks of Awe & Gratitude (HCI, $10.95), which she’ll discuss Thursday at Books & Books in Coral Gables.
The book is a collection of her photos of sunrises and sunsets — all shot from her home in Boynton Beach; fortunately she can see east and west from her terrace. Each photo is paired with an inspirational quote.
Weiss first started taking pictures with her iPhone, then graduated to “a real camera,” she says.
Publishing a book with the company where she’s worked for 20 years has been a treat.
“I actually wrote a book that never came about, about relationships and finding love in midlife,” she says. “It just didn’t happen. But my theory is you push over here, and something pops up over there. I’m not a visual artist, and here I am doing this visual book. It’s all funny and ironic to me.”
Weiss has built a following on Facebook; others are starting to post their own sunrise and sunset photos on her page. Seeing the day begin or end isn’t something she takes for granted.
“Even if I’m in a crappy mood — which I am a lot — that moment when I go outside … how could you not be amazed?” she says. “I think, ‘How lucky am I to look at this?’”
Sunrise Sunset turns 1 with an amazing HuffPo story and continually amazing skies
Here’s the story, I’ll share more later. Meantime, sit back and enjoy the view!
September 11, 2015 – the perfect day to reflect on the beauty that is – and some special kids
Probably my most memorable experience related to the date of September 11th is getting to go to NY in 2011, to Ground Zero, with a bunch of 10-year-old kids, each one born on that tragic day in 2001. Little did I know when I was watching the fiasco on television news, something like we’ve never seen before, that so many amazing souls were being delivered to planet earth. A blessing, each one of them.
This particular group had been part of a book we published called Faces of Hope: Babies Born on 911. And, as is the tradition to reflect on the positive here at HCI , (and personally as well), working on this book proved to be cathartic for many on staff. We were proud to pass that experience along to our readers. Who knew ten years later I’d be sailing on the Circle Line with this group of “models.”
Naturally, the media wanted to follow up on these kids and see how they were doing. That included media from Europe as well as the US. These kids got photographed (again), written about, and broadcast over the airwaves all around the world. I got to be there to help coordinate their efforts. In between the spells of rain, the air that day felt palpable and my eyes stayed moist. The monument wasn’t finished yet but the cavern where it was being built exuded an odd power.
Here it is a few years later and I can’t help but feel like I gained something tremendously valuable by working with Christine Pisera Naman, the author of Faces of Hope and the mother of Trevor, one of the children born on 9/11. Lemons into lemonade is too pedestrian a term for what this project means but, I’ll settle for that expression now. Lemons are in almost every dish I prepare and turning around an unfortunate experience into a blessing is a lifelong practice, or at least ambition, of mine.
I dedicate this album of photos – which I think might be my best yet – to the souls who departed that day and to the ones that came in. And, to the rest of us in the wings, finding ours.
Catching up post spring globe trotting and pre summer plans.
Enjoy the photos and inspirational passages, for now. Back soon with more news.
Remembering mom, Mother’s Day, and the sunrise and sunset of it all…
Mother’s Day is bittersweet for me. Three years gone, it’s sill hard to believe that my mother is no longer with me. This year her day falls on May 10th. My eldest sister will have to share her birthday with all the moms of the world and I’ll be remembering mine from Paris. How she would have loved to vicariously visit the city of love with me. I would bring back photos on my iphone, sit close to her in her small kitchen, and take her on the trip I’m about to have. And, she’d meet my fiance, John. How unfair it is for her to miss these landmark events in my life. As my number one cheerleader, she embraced every adventure of mine that she wasn’t able to have herself. Sharing them with her was almost part of the experience for me.
But loved ones come and go, and as I age, they seem to go more frequently. Many are in picture frames than glance back at me from dressers and desks and all are in my heart. Mom and Dad. Grandma Esther and Grandpa Benny. When I meditate I feel their presence as part of the particles in the atmosphere that surround me. I sometimes revel in the idea that everything that ever was still is– taking varying forms at different junctures and remaining as an integral part of the cosmos. My cosmos, when I have these visualizations, feels warm and full, comforting and hopeful.
And, the book, my book. My mother’s refrigerator wouldn’t have been large enough to pin up all the clippings its garnered. They’d have to find space around the one Miami Herald clipping that she shared with me where we were photographed together for another book story. She looked happy and proud in her denim ensemble holding tight to her body her blue leather shoulder bag. She loved books, she would have loved my book, and all because of how she loved me.
I miss you mom. I would have taken you to a fancy brunch this Sunday maybe not in Paris but some place you’d like. I would have put a special copy of my book in a basket with daisies and chocolates and written a message to you that would last a lifetime. So instead, here I write: Thank you, mom, for encouraging my creativity, supporting all my endeavors, and loving me unconditionally. I love you to the moon and back, Kim.
April, come she will (complete with spectacular color and light)
An April gallery, speechless. When the words come, here they shall appear. In the meanwhile, please enjoy!
When nature’s images and wise words are enough…
April fools and the disappearing sun
Did you know that that sun actually moves on the horizon? Disappearing so that I can no longer photograph it rising these spring mornings? April Fools! We all know from grammar school science that the Earth is doing the moving and that exquisite star just shows up in a variety of places throughout the year. But, what about us loyal photographers who begin their day shooting the first hint of light as it pops up on the horizon? The spoiled ones who stumble outside onto an elevated terrace in their bathrobes and bare feet, coffee waiting on the dresser inside? Where can I lodge my complaint?
A prisoner of my tony terrace, my alternative is to get my butt over to the beach and make like a real nature photographer. So what that I have to prepare myself for a long drive to work and feed and water all the domestic critters living with me. I’ve been doing this for nearly eight years and now that I have a book and a community on Facebook and Instagram it seems SO IMPORTANT!! What will these people who see my photos daily do without me? And, what did I do those prior years?
I’m sure that the social networking friends will survive and in fact, punt for me with their wonderful photos that pop up on my pages daily. As I’ve remarked before, this is my favorite part of this photography book journey that a community has sprouted this way. I’m pretty sure that I’m screwed until June so I’ll be searching my brain for some creative ways to use this time and space. I am meditating.
More meditation. That’s it.
Picturing a sun coming over the horizon.
Enjoy the spring, the spring holidays, and your own sliver of happiness, wherever you find it.
Spring has sprung and the sun showed off all week!
Nature is definitely toying with me. Soon the morning sun will disappear into the horizon obstructed by the building I live in and everything in front of it. I don’t remember what I did last year but I’m sure I’ll find a resourceful way to stay current in my sunrise postings. Or find a way to quell the shimmy shakes when they start to jar me for the lack of morning camera events.
Perhaps to prepare me for the troubling event of nature aka the inconvenient revolution of the Earth, I was treated to some magnificent sunrises this week. (Giving a whole new meaning to the universe revolving around oneself, no?) Whereas I awoke to predominantly gray skies, by the time I paged through morning emails and sipped the last of my Italian roast, a very pink-red sun plopped out over the sea and wooed me no end. Without killing either of my cats, I was fast enough to just catch the shots that some Facebook posters thought I’d doctored with color enhancements. Not that I’m above doing that, mind you, these shots needed almost no help. Maybe just a left-side crop to minimize the terrace balcony. I’ve included the shots in the slide show below so you can see for yourself.
The week of pink-red sunrises also leads up to the opening of a new season, spring is springing precisely today, and what we call a new moon (no moon) is begging for wishes to be made and dreams to be dreamt. I have plenty, all right, and hope who’s ever reading this does, too. Many of them are happening in real time, and my little bookie book keeps motoring along both with publicity and public events. First for Women, the mega-grocery store tabloid gave it a sweet review and a story of mine was published in Nothing But Good News magazine.(make sure you go to page 30) To round things out, I’ve been asked by a bunch of PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHERS to make a presentation on Tuesday, 3/24 at their photo salon in West Palm Beach. I was thinking of stopping at Sports Authority to pick up a catcher’s mask, but maybe they’ll go easy on me. What I’d almost prefer is to have a Q&A session with ME asking the questions. However it goes, I’m looking forward to it. (Maybe I should bring my guitar?)
As the sunrise perspective slips away I do have my sunset accessibility back and am thankful for that. Nature is so good at keeping things in balance and after work bike rides and terrace sunset shooting continues. And, my humble Facebook community of 8K + grows daily and the picture posts and the comments tickle my heart.
Wishing you a wonderful entry into the season of abundance, love, and hopefully much joy. Your roving (raving?) sun reporter saying, over and out.
Sunrise, Sunset: 52 Weeks of Awe & Gratitide 