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It’s Day 365- I made it! Happy New Year!

I celebrated 365 days of photography today by spending the day taking photos at the Cosumnes River Preserve.  I saw more different species of birds in one place than I ever have- except for a zoo.  We will definitely be going back. Bless my husband for carrying that tripod around! I won’t be posting any of those photos today, because there are too many to go through and not enough time. I took photo # 365 this morning before I left, as a sort of tribute to Photo #1.  But this time, I used Christmas tree light bokeh instead of candles.  Tonight we celebrate the New Year by drinking the champagne!

Photography highlights of the year (in no particular order):

• Mastering manual settings- they are now my comfort zone
• Discovering that I really can find something to photograph every day
• Getting a macro lens and taking all those flower photos!
• Taking some great photos of my grandsons
• Getting my beloved Nikon D7000 , my zoom lens, and now- my speedlight (Thanks, Lonnie!!!)
• Learning Photoshop
• Learning to add textures to photos
• Getting my tripod and learning to feel comfortable with it out in the world
• Yellowstone photography- elk, bison, big horn sheep, great horned owl
• Playing with HDR
• Making photo friends all over the world- a constant source of inspiration!
• Having people read and comment on my blog and on Flickr
• Learning to see the world with new eyes!

I’ll post my photography goals for the new year tomorrow. I can’t wait to see what 2012 will bring!

 

 

 

 

As Christmas approaches,  the to do list is long, and the task of coming up with an idea, taking the photo, editing, and posting seems daunting.  Fortunately, the topic for today is BUSY, so this photo seems like the obvious choice!

f/1.8, 1/25, ISO 200, 35mm

I have been on a decluttering rampage.  I have several generations of, let us say, possessions– not exactly junk- to pare down, if my husband and I ever hope to move someday to the beautiful streamlined, low maintenance condo we envision in our future. Right now, I am looking at cabinets full of silver trays and bowls- and cut glass, lots of cut glass.  Although I LOVE china, I have never really been a huge fan of silver and cut glass- so it all tends to stay hidden away, gathering dust. Do I sell it, give it away, have a garage sale? I heard once that every bit of clutter is a decision not made- no wonder this is stressing me out!

My photo was taken in response to the topic from Our Daily Challenge- GLASS.  The image is of part of a beautiful carnival glass goblet, bought years ago at a garage sale. It is part of a set of 4 goblets and a pitcher- shades of blue, decorated in a grapes motif.  Any potential buyers reading this blog?

The topic of this post- Dark Side- not only refers to the dark side of my cluttered personality- but also to the fact that I may have crossed over to the dark side of photography with this photo.

It is underexposed.

There is only one small part in focus.

It is mostly bokeh.

But I like it so much better than the other photos I took where you can see what the goblet actually looks like.  Let’s call it ART!

 

 

 

When my husband invited me to accompany him on an insurance claim in San Francisco today, I jumped at the chance to photograph something other than my backyard and family heirlooms! Unfortunately, it was a foggy day ALL day, so my plans for a gorgeous Golden Gate Bridge shot went out the window. You could see a bridge was there, but you couldn’t easily recognize as the Golden Gate.

But, with the magic of HDR, I managed to create this shot- and, I assure you, it IS the Golden Gate!

 

 

Homework and book orders and spelling tests- oh my! I spent the morning volunteering at the school where I taught first grade for over twenty years. I stapled homework packets, tore out math and reading pages, corrected spelling tests, and tested first and third graders on reading skills.

Best of all, I visited with my former colleagues and many of my former students!  I hope to return next week and set up a regular schedule to help out my teacher friends.

So, I present The Stapler- a symbol of the mindless tasks I foisted upon many a parent helper- and which I am glad to do now, just because it IS so mindless- and because I am helping a friend or two.

f/2.5, 1/160, ISO 500, 35mm

I love my MacBook Pro.  I love my iPhone.  I expected, when I made the big switch from Windows last summer, that everything would go beautifully when it came to getting the iPhone and the MacBook to talk to each other.  Somehow that has not been the case.

I also love Google.  I became a gmail user back when you had to be INVITED or have your request APPROVED in order to use get that coveted email address.  I wasn’t invited, but eventually my request was approved. I think I only knew one other person back then that used gmail.  I eventually started using Google Calendar, which I loved (still love).  My husband has his Google calendar and I had mine, and his events could show on mine (if I wanted) and vice versa.  We could always plan our schedules certain that there were no conflicting events.

My MacBook has its own calendar and address book applications, and it took subscribing to MobileMe for $99 a year to get everything to sync. Unfortunately, I had to give up my beloved Google Calendar in order for it all to work.  It still showed up on my iPhone as an account, but didn’t sync directly with MobileMe.

It’s getting a little fuzzy now, but I think it was because I wanted all my contacts to sync that I went to MobileMe.  And then of course I had nothing but trouble.  The contacts seemed to have a life of their own behind the scenes when the application was closed.  When I would open my MacBook address book, there would be duplicates of certain names- usually the same ones. I finally fixed it through something on Google, as I recall, and now my Google Contact list is empty, and I only have one duplicating name in the MacBook address book.

I think Google and Apple don’t like each other.

Or don’t like me.

Fast forward to now. Everything was working OK until I upgraded the MobileMe Calendar (I got a threat notice from them that all would be lost within five days if I didn’t download the new version).  I did, and now the calendars don’t sync to each other. My husband almost missed an important eye appointment today, because I entered it on my iPhone and it didn’t sync.

So- I am going to the Apple Store (one of my favorite places to go- seriously) on Friday to meet with one of the One-to-One training guys for help with Mobile Me. In the meantime, I am going to try using BUMP to send my contacts to my husband’s iPhone.  This is because the last time I got help with MobileMe,  it wiped out my contacts.

Pray for me.

Mama Hummingbird has been sitting on her nest almost nonstop for the last couple weeks. I have been wondering when something would change- and today it did!

I watched this morning as Mama Hummingbird left her nest and then stuck her beak down into the nest upon return.  Must be a baby! I set up my brand new TRIPOD (Thank you, Lonnie!) on the deck and watched her sitting on her nest (Photo 1).  After about 5 minutes or so, she took off, and I watched nervously, worried that I might have disturbed her.  After a few moments, a tiny beak appeared, opening and closing, waiting for Mama to return (Photo 2).  Finally, I spotted her high in a tree close by and waited until she landed on the nest, fed her baby, and then settled down again until it’s time for the next feeding (Photos 3,4, and 5).

All photos were taken at 300mm, f/6.3, 1/250, ISO 640

I started knitting as a child, then again as a teenager, and finally really learned how about ten years ago.  I have battled a serious wool addiction since then and am trying to avoid yarn stores as much as possible these days (knitting rivals photography as an expensive hobby. . .). My craft room is stuffed with yarn- leftovers from previous projects and works in progress,  as well as yarn for projects that have never gotten off the ground.  I use my carpal tunnel as my excuse, since I can only knit about an hour a day- but of course, if I actually worked an hour a day on all the yarn in my room, I would have a lot more projects finished!

So today is going to be a day where I do knit, since I am behind on a project that will be a gift (shhhh…).  But as I get out my knitting bag, I can’t help but admire all the yarn I have. This photo shows just the yarn I have displayed in the top part of my wonderful Lantern Moon basket that my daughter bought me for my sixtieth birthday.  She is a knitter too and loves wool in the same way I do. In the foreground is the blue yarn I used to knit my first baby blanket, and the pink multi-colored yarn was used for my first baby sweater.  Both baby items were part of my Grandma Hope Chest (actually a drawer) way before my two grandbabies were even conceived.  Miles has Blue Blankie (yes, that’s what he calls it) and sleeps with it every night. The pink sweater? Well, that’s still in the drawer . . .

f/1.8, 1/160, ISO 500, 35mm

Didn’t have much time for photography today, so I’m using a photo of Mama Hummingbird that I snapped when I checked on her this morning. I know this doesn’t look much different from my other photo- slightly different angle and very different lighting.  What IS different is that this was shot with a 35mm lens and was cropped, whereas the other was zoomed at 270mm.

Nope, I did not get my photo done this morning before life with grandbabies and company began.  I took a few random photos during the day and uploaded them- but nothing blog-worthy. So during naptime I started to- not really panic- but kind of obsess randomly, if that makes any sense.  As I was looking through the photos I did take- and rejecting them all- I saw that my friend, Carol had already posted for the day- yikes! Pressure! I needed to get going! I grabbed the camera and went outside. Wandering aimlessly around my over-photographed garden, I checked out the hummingbird in her nest and rejected that- no zoom on the camera and too lazy to change lenses. I noticed the azaleas were in bloom and quickly snapped a few photos.

As I walked back in, I started thinking- hmmm, Carol had white flowers on her blog- and I think they were azaleas!

But- I am too lazy and unfocused to figure out something else, so today I am shamelessly copying my friend. The lighting is different- it is cloudy right now and later in the day than when she made her shot. And we used different lenses- but they are pretty similar photographs.

So with apologies to Carol, here are my azaleas . . .

f/9, 1/125, ISO 2500, 35mm

Note to Carol: I also always forget to check my settings- ISO 2500? – good heavens! And I am also on continuous autofocus because of the babies. . .

Clickin Moms is sponsoring an awesome giveaway for some lucky person!  It’s a new Tamron Lens!  Read about it here– but remember-  I want to win!