An Awesome View of Life

Stream of Light Today there has been one thunderstorm after another.  At about sunset I stood in the garage door and took a couple of shots of the most recent downpour.  The light is the reflection of my neighbors outside light. 

Funny Story When I took this photo I laughed so hard I couldn't walk.  When I looked at my camera screen I swear it looked like this plane was crashing into the building and for some reason I thought that was funny.  Funny story right?  ha!  Oh, and an awesome photo anyway!

Black and White Reflection An afternoon in the city is always a good thing in my book.  (:  I took a bunch of pictures of the street scene reflected in the window of the restaurant across the street.  The one above actually turned out to be my favorite.  The building on the right is reflected in the display case on the left.   The gentleman in the photo below did NOT know I was taking pictures of him.  There are several shots of him and his reflection.  (:  While standing at the bus stop he was tying his tie, standing in the middle of the street looking for the bus and talking on his cell phone.  This one was my favorite of him.  I like that you can still see the inside of the restaurant as well as the bus stop bench. Reflections are one of my favorite things to capture.  

Itchy eyes? This isn't exactly what I wanted but I have to get some more sewing done yet tonight.  So... this is it!

Sunset lit blossoms The wind has been blowing all day and I was afraid it would blow all of the apple blossoms off before I could get this picture.   I've been trying to get the backgrounds of my photos to look like this.  Or sort of like this.  It's close to what I wanted.  Now I just have to remember what I did to accomplish this.  ha!

This is what I love to do... Flowers and landscapes have to be my favorite thing to photograph.  Birds are fun too, a bit more of a challenge which is good.  (: These bleeding hearts were hard to shoot.  Our neighbors are building a treeless tree house right on the other side of our fence, I like to call it a deer stand.  (:  It kept getting into the background of my photos making them look a bit strange. I finally got it figured out though.  ha!

A Day at Dad's So good to be at the lake and taking photos of the birds that visit Dad's deck.  As usual I couldn't decide which photo to use so I picked the three best.  Above is a robin eating the suet.  The robins haven't visited the deck in the past.   Mr. and Mrs. Finch (I assume they are married any way but maybe they are only dating?) A female oriole.  Everyone kept scaring the male away before I could get a picture of him.  

Side Mirror This was taken on our way back to the bodybuilding competition on Saturday.  It took me awhile to remember what I had been attempting.   This is a shot into the side mirror at a sharp angle -  attempting to get the side of the car and the reflection on it of a walking bridge over the highway that was behind us.  There is a bit of the bridge reflected in the mirror.  It actually turned out better than I hoped.  Love when that happens.  ha!  

Reflective Display This is about all I had time for on Friday.  We spent all evening at a bodybuilding competition.  This is the reflection of our booth.  Not the best but... 

Seeds and Stones This one made me smile.  (:

Wish I had... cleaned the crap off the bird bath before I took this photo.  I could have cropped it out but it made the photo unbalanced so there it is. ha!  But I did create a very beautiful stone design tonight.  At least most of one.  

A Perfect Red Green Moment Once these apple blossoms are actual blossoms they will be pink not red.  Just a touch of sunset on them makes this shot perfect.

Fascination! This lone bike was parked behind the dugout at the ballpark last night.  I must have taken 20 pictures just of this bike - waiting for the light to be just right.  This one was my favorite.  It makes me smile.  A true sign of a pretty good photo in my book.  (:  

Baseball Mom (one last time) Quick comment about the photos. Two photos again. Another one below. I love baseball and I love night baseball.  Love the lights.  Love the stillness of no one on the field in this photo.  Love the line of lights in the one below.  Oh and I love baseball!  (: Today I got to be a baseball mom one last time.  An alumni game of sorts was played tonight.  It was good to see all of the "boys" and even better to see Trent take the mound.  Even if he never plays ball again this was a huge night for him and for our family.  Trent's last baseball game on July 24, 2011 ended while he was pitching and took a line drive to the side of the head.  He ended up in ICU and had surgery to repair a damaged blood vessel.  He has never played since that day. Needless to say when he took the mound tonight my heart was pounding but 4 pitches later he struck out the first batter.  Not bad for not pic...

Seriously! 53 photos of golf balls and clubs in the backyard while hubby grilled burgers.  Way too busy.  But it is what it is.  (: Awesome light.  This could be used for some kind of magazine ad.  Don't you think?  ha!

This and That. This is certainly NOT art.  Not all.  I hate being this busy.  Maybe this weekend I'll get out of here to somewhere fun and interesting? This is the inside of the garbage can in my sewing room.  Totally interesting, right?  ha!

Favorite Day of Photos Today is the 500th day of doing a photo every day.  500 days!  I'm amazed. It's been an amazing learning process.  And such a self-discovery project. This project has never been about getting compliments or praise (unlike what some people have expressed).  This has been about making a commitment, holding myself accountable and to have the courage to put myself out there for all to see.  With the hope of maybe making someone's day a bit brighter.  This has been a crazy, busy week and today was no exception.  I really had hoped to get out of here to find something spectacular to photograph but I'm working on a few VERY short deadline projects (caused by my inability to say no) and just couldn't get away.  So instead I decided to use a photo from one of my favorite days of photos.  October 20,2013 - we were on our way back from a bodybuilding competition in Milwaukee and I just kept shooting out the wi...

Nuts!

Textures Or a bit of moss grows in between the front step and walkway.  (:  Just a bit of fun once the sun finally decided to make an appearance.

Are most artists slightly mad? Or just more brilliant?  ha! Periwinkle yarn draped over a clamp light was the photo op for tonight.  I laughed the entire time I was doing this.  Draping and re-draping.  Adjusting the light.  Moving from one side to the other.  Taking a total of 25 photos of yarn draped over a light.  Mostly I laughed because if anyone saw me doing this they would for sure think I was crazy.  (:  But it was fun to do.  Since I had a busy, busy day and it was raining once again I had to come with something, right?

What we do for the sake of our art... Today is Mother's Day 2014 and instead of sleeping in I decided I should get out of my warm bed and go out and take some pictures as the sun was coming up.  It rained last night and I have wanted to get pictures of dew or rain drenched grass, flowers, etc. Above is the very first photo I took this morning while sitting on the very cold sidewalk.  I'm not sure I have a point that is actually in focus but I love it anyway. Just a close up.  It shows a bit more detail of the rain drops and the sunlight is perfect. This is the same bush from earlier in the week when there were only gray skies.  The color is so different with the morning sunlight.  And the texture is almost fuzzy, out of focus because of the moisture on the leaves.  And then there is all the spider webs.  (: By now my tush is frozen and my feet are soaked but saw this as the sun started to cover the yard. ...

A Red Green moment Not a bad shot considering this was taken through the window and BEFORE I had my cup of coffee.   Mr. AND Mrs. Cardinal paid a visit later in the day as well.  This was the best shot I got.  The morning sun was perfect and the little bit of new leaves on the tree add green to the moment.

Learning curve? The month of May is photography month so I have promised myself to learn more about my camera.  And to be more observant about what is in my photos.  Focusing on an object and taking that picture is all fine and dandy but if there is a pile of garbage that can be seen in the background -- all is not good. And yes I did see the fly on the edge of the leaf.  I tried to get closer to do a couple of closeups of the fly but it flew away.   There isn't really anything I don't like about how this turned out.  I do love the contrast of colors.

Jot in Color. Flair pens how can you not love them?  Really I love any pen that writes nice.  But all the colors of Flair pens makes jotting notes so much more fun. Actually, I could use a new pack of them but I keep forgetting to order them.  Maybe a good idea for a Mother's Day gift?  (:

Hobbits? One more photo from the nature hike in Wisconsin Dells.  To take this photo and the ones of the river bluffs, I scooted out on my tush down an slight decline to the edge of a cliff.  It was super wet and covered with leaves and pine needles.  I was just trying to avoid being in my own scene from "Romancing the Stone".  ha!  And then I crawled back up.  I DID take photos today but they were done in a hurry and are all out of focus.  ???   Today was spent working on the 90th version of the same stone design.  Ugh!  Just can't seem to get it right.  I'm taking a new tactic in the morning and keeping my fingers crossed I get my shit together on this one.  (:

In the middle. Believe it or not I worked very hard to get just the middle branch in focus.  I love how it turned out.  The photo would have been even better if there was some sunset sunshine on this.  But we've had gray skies all day. 

Threads Today I shot mostly in black and white.  Some photos were shot in color as well, more to learn what differences my eye saw while shooting in black and white. Several versions were shot of this to get as much of the different light aspects -- the windows in the background, the holes on the edge of the top of the table, the reflections on a few of the surfaces in the room and the half light, half dark of these threads.

Reflecting. A bit ticked with this photo.  It took me THIRTY shots to get what I wanted and by the time I got what I wanted with the wine glass there was no longer blue skies!  ): Another thing -- I  should have had a plain glass.  No logo.   But what I love and strove to capture was the full reflection of the background in my glass of wine with the real tree, bird feeders and fence in the background.  The reflection of the tree on the table and in the stem of the glass just adds to the layers of reflecting. So overall -- I'm quite pleased with the outcome.

A walk in the woods Three more photos from our hike into the Dells' Nature Center.   Sometimes it felt like we were surrounded by fairies and other times it was like being in Sherwood Forest.  But we didn't see any fairies and we didn't see Kevin Costner or Christian Slater.  (: Oh, I love all three of these photos.  Even without Kevin or Christian hiding here.

  Different but the same... The focal point of this nature framed photo was suppose to be the tree stump in the center.  But once the camera was up to my eye I knew the photo was about the depth of the scenery and the layers of color.   Here is a closer shot of the tree stump.  This photo was taken about 5 feet further up the path and I zoomed in a bit.  This tree stump was calling my name.  (:  Here is an extreme closeup.  The green of the moss, dried pine needles and last falls leaves.  No fairies though.  Not that I saw anyway. :) These woods were like a fairy land.  Everything was just starting to turn green, this beautiful pale green.  And there were still the colors of fall on the ground.  The contrast of colors was amazing.

A Dell's Red Green Moment Yesterday we had a couple hours of NO rain.  There is a wilderness area that I have wanted to walk into for quite some time.  We braved the mud and boggy ground to get some fabulous shots.   There still wasn't any sunshine but the sky was brighter than it had been for the past couple of days.  As we all know I LOVE my Red Green moments and this one may be one of my favorite moments. I like how the brightness of the sky created a look of sunshine on parts of this photo.  And I love the color the leaves create in the background.