The Coming Light

Elayne with her compact Panasonic Lumix digital camera with macro and zoom that she can carry in a small camera bag, shoulder bag, or large pocket. Now that Elayne has an iPhone 11, she sometimes uses it for photos with friends in restaurants, in her apartment to take photos of guests, or when she doesn't have her camera.

ABOUT THIS WEBSITE

This website is dedicated to capturing, in one easy-to-view place, a lot of Elayne's favorite photos, some of which were used in her photographic PowerPoint presentations for local assisted living centers, other organizations, and friends and family. The header is called "The Coming Light" because that is the name Elayne began using in the 1980s and that she still uses for her flyers. EN-Light Photos is for her website since she also uses EN-Light in other websites (EN-Light Publications and EN-Light Arts).

FILM & SLIDE HISTORY

Elayne has always loved photography since, as they say, "a photo speaks a thousand words." When she was in Woburn Senior High School, Elayne's boyfriend at the time and some other friends organized a Photo Club with Elayne as Secretary. Not much was done in that club but it shows Elayne's passion for photography at an early age.

For years Elayne had inexpensive point-and-shoot cameras since she couldn't afford anything else. When a high school senior, a representative from a premier photography school visited her home to speak with her and her mother about the possibility of Elayne studying with them. But Elayne's destiny was to attend Bridgewater State College as a secondary English major.

In the 1980s Elayne bought a semi-professional Nikon N8008 camera with an SB-24 flash, several lenses, lots of filters, a large camera bag, several tripods of which a Bogen video was her favorite, and joined the Waltham Camera Club. When Elayne joined, in order to enter competitions she had to have slide film. Because she had no time to get film and take pictures, she had three of her photos converted to slides, entered her first competition, and, due to the quality of the conversions, got the lowest number of points on all three! After that she got Kodak slide film, and eventually Fuji, took notes from competitions about what the judges said on everyone's slides, and got good enough for lots of ribbons and a second place trophy in Class B. The next year she got a first place trophy and entered Class A where there were a lot of very good long-time photographers who also knew what low-ranking judges to stay away from so they could get higher scores. Unfortunately, Elayne didn't know this, felt frustrated, and finally quit, especially after she had moved from Waltham to Woburn to take care of her mother until she passed away.

When Elayne belonged to the Waltham Camera Club she also attended many photo shows as well as summer New England Camera Club Conferences at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. These were great weekend conferences where you stayed overnight, could work indoors and outdoors with models, attend numerous programs, and ask questions or buy materials from the most popular photography suppliers. It was at one of these conferences that she met Ronnie Poole, a retired Brockton Enterprise photographer who carried on a pen pal relationship with her for many years, attended one of her Sun Searcher seminars in Waltham, MA, invited her to lunch and Photographica in Waltham, and sent her a small camera. Elayne also made it a point of attending the annual Hunt's Photo Shows in Boston, MA where she purchased some supplies and attended workshops (Elayne was already a serious buyer of film and supplies at Hunt's Photo & Video in Melrose MA).

As Elayne accumulated slides, she bagan putting together slide programs for the Woburn Senior Center and family and friends. Some of her programs were: "King Richard's Faire" and "The Beauty and Symbolism of Mount Auburn Cemetery." She also did programs for organizations she belonged to. Her programs for Johannes Kelpius Lodge, AMORC and New England Rosicrucian regional events were assisted by her long-time friend, Richard Norley. When Elayne went digital and downsized, she gave her slides in trays to pertinent organizations, such as the Woburn Lion's Club of Halloween parades, Greater Boston Chapter #60 of the American Society of Dowsers (ASD) of ASD events, two trays to Mount Auburn Cemetery's Historic Society, and two trays to King Richard's Faire. Elayne's donation to ASD#60 included slides she took one early morning with a National Geographic photographer of three well-known water dowsers at the ASD Conference in Danville VT that included her good friend Bill Burns, who managed to get his photo in their fall water issue (it was almost an exact duplicate of one Elayne took).

When well-known National Geographic photographer Galen Rowell did an all-day workshop at Winchester High School, Elayne was fortunate enough to attend and learn from this great master. Galen understood his camera, film, lighting, and weather conditions so much he was able to anticipate a rainbow over Tibet's Potola and photograph it!

DIGITAL HISTORY

After digital photography made an inroad, Elayne decided to downsize her $3,000 worth of Nikon camera, Kodak slide equipment, and other photographic paraphernalia. She went to Hunt's in Melrose, told them what she wanted in a digital camera, and ended up with a silver Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS8 with zoom and macro in a tight-fitting camera bag and was off and running in the digital world. Because she had no lenses, filters, tripods, and other equipment, nor costly film purchases and processing, this camera was much more cost-effective and, due to its compact size, could fit in her shoulder bag or even a large pocket. The thing she did need, however, was Photoshop Elements to touch up her photos.

As her digital photos began to accumulate, Elayne contemplated putting together photographic programs for the Woburn Senior Center and local assisted living facilties but in a PowerPoint format with text so that seniors could see as well as hear. When she retired from the corporate world in 2014, Elayne did a lot of research and ended up purchasing a MacBook Pro laptop with retina display in mid-2015. Going from the Microsoft world to the Apple/MAC world required some initial learning at Apple in the Burlington Mall as well as understanding how to do presentations with music, but eventually Elayne got good at it and developed 13 public programs as well as personalized programs for family and friends.

Around 2012 Elayne was approached by her friend Dorothea O'Regan to participate in the Porter's Art Group cable TV progams in Stoneham MA since she wrote poetry, which she did until 2018. Once Elayne began participating, she realized that along with reading one or two poems she could also show an original photograph with an artistic rendering done in Photoshop Elements. This turned out to be a popular feature. See Elayne's EN-Light Arts website for some of these renderings under Photography Art. (https://sites.google.com/view/en-light-arts)

CURRENT STATUS

Elayne's photography covers a wide range - photography of collectibles she sells on Facebook Marketplace, artwork, Circles of Light necklaces and bracelets, flowers, animals and birds, people, parties, antique cars, and all types of natural settings - whatever moves or inspires her. Elayne loves color, good composition, and lots of harmony. She is not a photographer who uses special lighting but will photograph using whatever camera settings seem appropriate and at any time of day outdoors. In fact, Elayne might be called a KISS (keep it simple stupid) photographer. The fact that people like her photography is a plus but Elayne has to like it first. She deletes whatever doesn't appeal or look right and uses cropping and exposure/brightness settings a lot. In 2021 Elayne began experimenting with more of her Photoshop Elements features including profile enhancement and erasing a busy background.

It is rare when Elayne does not photograph something, import it into her MAC's iPhotos for initial editing, then export it to a desktop folder and from there to Photoshop Elements for resizing from MB to KB and sometimes watermarking. Since Elayne creates 100MB-free Google websites to capture aspects of her life, it is imperative that photos be downsized to KB so as not to eat up its capacity.

For several years Elayne has been posting colorful photos on Facebook, generally of nature and the seasons but also meetings with friends or of ogranizational events. Beginning in 2020, she began posting many of her photos with sayings that are inspirational and uplifting on both Facebook and her second Twitter account (@returnofeagle). In 2021 she continued on Twitter with her higher consciousness images with sayings but also added gratitude slides, photos of flowers with their esoteric meanings, and lots of photos with explanations including Mount Auburn Cemetery, Canobie Lake Park, flowers, plants and decor from Mahoney's Garden Center in Winchester, travel photos, and so much more. As of 2022 Elayne has lessened her postings on @returnofeagle since she created a third Twitter account (@enlightwritings) to promote her books and correspond with other authors but ocassionally posts photos or helpful photography tips.

WEBSITE PAGES

This website has several categories - Home, PowerPoint Programs, Animals, Birds, Flowers, Places, and Potpourri and each has many subcategories. For instance, Birds has five subpages and Flowers has ten. Under the Home category is an Added & Dates pages, a Contact/More Information page as well as Honors, Publications and Write-Ups, Photo Credits, and Viewing & Other Notes.

If you happen to access this website, let Elayne know what you think. She'd appreciate your feedback.

Blessings and Love,

Elayne

Copyright 4/30/19, Updated 10/9/22