Day 76- A (very short) walk in the rain . . .

An appointment took me across the bridge today, so I stopped at Heather Farms to take a few photos.  Taking photos from under an umbrella was somewhat challenging, but I managed to get a few, switching to aperture priority when some large birds flew overhead and settled into the pond. They look like herons, but not the great blue one I photographed at Cosumnes- so I will call upon my friend, Carol, to identify them for me. There were a few in the pond- and one in a tree (at least I think it was the same kind- I didn’t stay long to observe).

And, because it is Fence Friday, here is a shot of the fence along the walkway.

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Day 75- Still a Mom

My kids are grown up, and we are empty nesters.  However, with phones, email, cell phones, Skype, and FaceTime, we are grateful to be in constant contact with our adult children and the two grandbabies.  Today I set up my tripod, took my remote in hand, and sat down to do a self portrait in a nice spot to sit (today’s theme).  Since I am in the middle of a good book (an actual physical book, not my kindle!), I thought that would make a good prop. As is often the case, my son called- so I just kept clicking the remote while I talked to him.

 

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Day 72- Cool, man . . .

My father was cool. Or at least he was cool at one time- long before I was born.

In the 1920’s, he played in a jazz band in New Orleans and Hollywood. What could be cooler than that? He was a self taught musician who never learned to read music and paid his way through dental school at USC by playing at Hollywood parties. He continued to play music all his life, and, when our family moved to Chico,  he joined the Shrine specifically so that he could join their dance band.

He played both clarinet and sax, and I chose to photograph his clarinet for today’s topic, which is COOL.

I tried to take a photo of the whole clarinet, but didn’t like the results. So, AS USUAL, I got out my macro lens and took closeup shots. When you look at the first image, you might be able to tell it’s indeed a clarinet.

The second image is more abstract, and probably impossible to identify as a clarinet- but maybe that’s what makes it COOL. . .

Photographic note: When I use this lens I get football shaped bokeh on the edges. I know there is an explanation.

 

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Day 71- A Chore

Today’s topic is CHORE- and the first chore that came to mind is doing dishes.  For most of my life, doing dishes was my least favorite chore- and it is probably the one I do most often.  I realized a few years ago that I really don’t mind doing dishes at all now and kind of enjoy it.  I don’t, however, particularly like emptying the dishwasher, but, since it takes less than five minutes a day to do, I really can’t complain.

Here is a photo of my dish drying rack with a Blue Ridge plate (a parting gift from Nevin!) drying in it.

Photography info: I just checked my settings.  I used a 35mm lens at f/3.2, 1/50, ISO 320 (I probably should have used a faster shutter speed. . .).

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Day 69- Backyard Paparazzi

This was one of those days where I just took a few moments to wander through my backyard with my zoom lens- just following the light.

Looking up into our laurel tree. . .

 

The azaleas are in full bloom. I resisted my urge to crop this photo.

 

The next two are of our deck railings. I’m submitting the black and white for Fence Friday.  Railings are a kind of fence, right?

 

 

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Day 67- Good-bye

My Rapunzel group (minus two) met today to say good-bye to Nevin, who is moving to Southern California to be closer her daughter and family.  We know she will be back to visit, but it was hard to say good-bye. Highlights of the day were delicious food, gifts, friendship, and tears and laughter.  We’ll miss you, Nevin!

Photography note: this was taken with my speedlight, bounced behind me at about a 45 degree angle..

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Day 66- Strung

Buttons is the topic today- and I know I’ve already photographed buttons for the blog. I thought my button necklace would be a good subject, but after 20 years of calling it that, I realized today that it isn’t really made of buttons- just flat beads.  Funny what you notice with a macro lens. . .

But here it is anyway:

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Day 65- Macro Attack

Just because it’s Monday, I walked around the yard with my 85mm looking for something small to shoot up close. I noticed our pink breath of heaven plants are blooming, so took a couple photos of their tiny flowers.

When I came in the house, I randomly took a photo of the head of my mother’s tiny doll from her childhood- and decided that her dreamy look (my daughter says nightmarish. . .) expression qualifies this as the photo of the day for my Flickr group’s Dream theme.

This was textured with Kim Klassen’s bent edges.

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Day 64- Stacks- but which one?

Stacks is the topic for today.

My house is filled with photo ops- books, papers, laundry, boxes, dishes etc. etc. etc. I chose one of my more photogenic stacks- some little Japanese bowls, given to me by a student.

After I uploaded this, I decided to do a quick re-edit, to give it a matte look, really popular on the blogs and in clickin moms right now. I used an action I downloaded from the clickin moms’ forum. Every other time I have tried it, I have ended up going back to a quick, clean edit instead. This time I think I like it.

The photo below is the one with the matte edit. Which one do YOU like better?

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Day 63- Classic

When my husband and I were planning to get married (over 40 years ago), our china pattern was probably our easiest decision. We both fell in love with a classic pattern that had recently been reissued.  The pattern was 100 years old then- and that makes it over 140 years old now. It is certainly a classic (the theme for my Flickr group today)- especially paired with my grandmother’s silver, which would be about 100 years old now.  Both images have Kim Klassen’s happy heart texture added.

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Day 62- Down to Earth

Today’s topic is earth, wind, OR fire. I made things easy for myself- and took a shot of the ground outside.

And here’s a bonus photo from yesterday- my husband checking out my friend, Carol’s iPad, as her Amazon parrot, Bobo gazed lovingly in his direction.  Lonnie paid no attention to her, but she was absolutely besotted!

BTW, I finally updated my “about” page for 2012, including a photo taken of me by Carol yesterday. You can check it out by clicking on about in the top right corner of this page.

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