day 90

The boy is snapping a pretend camera at me. We are starting him out young.

I stopped for gas tonight. When I got up to the register, I couldn't find my wallet in my purse... it was too full of junk. I began pulling everything out of my purse, and the check out girl laughed that I keep a little army guy in my purse. So I, of course, asked her to pose with the army guy! She was such a good sport! Love and funny times!

day 89

I think I'll call this first one "the road home at sunset". But I can't use it as today's picture of the day. I took it two days ago, but forgot about it until I downloaded today's pictures. I'm a purist in this 365 project. I only want to use photos I took that day for the photo of the day.
So, you get this snapshot I'll call "Blue smiling". Yes, I have forgiven him for breaking my glasses yesterday... he is just a puppy after all, and just look at that smile. (Glennys I thought you would like this one.)

Love and smiles

day 88

The big dog broke my glasses today... I'm very glad it was the glasses and not my face that was injured. We love to fly kites in this household. It is such a great family activity.

She loved having me lie on the ground for this shot, she thought it was so funny

Go fly a kite

day 87

Holy church-bat, man.

day 86

The magical floating strawberry

Photoshop love

day 85

Church steeple with lens flare. Love and flair

day 84

Revisiting the old barn... am thinking about doing a through the seasons series on this barn. for the love of re-runs

day 83

Today's mission... guarding the fluffy bunnies. Over and Out

day 82

I've been taking snapshots lately, but I liked stumbling upon this one today. So glad the weather has been nice. He fell asleep in a weird place again today... I wonder if this is a new trend.

More love'n these kiddos

day 81

We played outside today... so I shot some natural light snapshots. After coming in from playing, the boy went upstairs to big sis' room and promptly fell asleep on her bookshelf.

Love my kiddos

day 80

day 79

We took a trip to Wal-Mart. A study in yellow ensued. The giant army guy accompanied us to be sure we got our "mission accomplished".

Love and Wally World.

day 78

Self portrait evening... The all turned out pretty blurry. I will need to figure out how to compensate for that.
The self timer focuses on the background, so whatever you place in the picture after the initial push of the shutter button is not in the focus range. So I play with filters in photoshop. But I'm thinking of how to fix the issue for future shoots.

Love... myself

day 77

A photo shoot at the local lake and public area. We went to capture snow geese, but the snows were not cooperating.

I'm happy with these guys instead.

Love and Geese

day 76

I went tripping through the fields in search of green... found some snakes instead. Spring must be on the way. Since I couldn't find green, a little beer to get you in the "spirit" of St. Patty's Day.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

day 75

I went in two different directions with the power theme tonight. First are the Trees. taken from a low, close vantage point to emphasize how large and powerful the tree is. This first one is probably my favorite tree in the world. I took a photograph of it the other day. I like this new view of the same tree. I also like the smudgy look on the left side of the photo.I love how this pine fills the frame. But more than that, when I look at the limbs, I see pink fingers. The limited colors of the rest of the photo help highlight that and draw your eye around the composition.

The other direction I went with the power theme is... Altoids and their powerfully strong mint taste. They are such a well known taste that I don't have to do much with the mint to make them recognizable. I like this simple composition

Then I tried some fun stuff with shutter speed and zoom lenses. Zooming while shooting helps give this photo a sense of movement. I took so many shots with this technique that when I reviewed them, it made me a little dizzy. Stare at this shot for a while and see if you don't get the same sensation.

Love and more Power-shots

day 74

I had a hard time finding a point of interest today... so I went out and shot some compositions that I've already done to see how they compare. I didn't like any of them either... Here is the same fence line I did in January. Different vantage point, but essentially the same shot. So then... I did a shot of a light pole, there was nothing very interesting about it as a photograph.... but I liked these rusty nails so with a little help of the crop tool. You see the result.

Love and... wood posts?

day 73

This is Sooty. She is my mom's cat. Mom adopted her from our vet when Sooty's previous owner abandoned her after treatment. The vet was going to put her down if she didn't find a forever home. That was more than 10 years ago. Sooty has been the easiest pet to care for. She is neat and tidy, she gets along with other pets, and she keeps to herself. She is a tiny ball of amazing... who almost lost her life for no good reason. If you are ever in the market for a new pet, I urge you to check out your local animal rescue league or city pound. There are more than enough good animals out there who need good homes. Don't assume they are abandoned because they were bad... many times it is the owners fault not the animal's. (sad but true.) The next shot was just a little bit of amazing walking onto the driveway. But this hawk wouldn't get out from under the car, so I don't love the picture. Next time little hawk, next time.

Love your animals.

day 72

A portrait of pretty. Love and family

day 71

I went out to lunch with some friends today. This old, rusty water tower sits on top of some nice downtown apartments, across the street from our cafe.

Love and Contrasts

day 70

I had a vision for both of today's photographs. So I stopped by the local bar to see if I could knock them out.
This one I call "Powerful Stuff" This one is "At your local bar...Speak no evil, Hear no evil, See no evil"

Love and Liquor

day 69

Ahh, the return of the little green army guys... with the addition of big green army guys.
So much fun to be had! I envisioned the little guys not trusting the new, big guys and having a Gulliver's travels sort of situation. I hope you enjoy. I also wanted to see what it would look like in black and white.

Love and Power Struggles

day 68 more power shots

I love all the textures in this old tree. The tree is hollow and twisted. The rain and snow gets inside the tree and then on the coldest, windy days of winter, you can hear the tree cracking and creaking. This tree could easily fall and destroy a lot of property, but it always remains tall and strong. I think it exudes resilience and power. This next picture is really a snapshot. It is not very well focused, but it best shows the precariousness of the the tire as it sits on its own ice pedestal. The power of a few inches of ice holding up a half ton truck.

Love and Subtle Power

day 67

DH and I had an outing today and I found SO MANY shots. I was very excited! Let me start you out with this cool little shrine we noticed in the entryway of the Chinese restaurant where we had lunch. It was very small, and tucked in the corner, almost under the giant fish tank. I did not notice it the first time I walked by. Then I had a moral dilemma... should I take a picture of this shrine? What if I'm disgracing the sacredness of it? I snapped a quick shot and left in a hurry. (I hope I didn't offend anyone.)

Next, you can imagine my excitement when I found these giant army guys at the local party store! They are packed together on a meat tray for heavens sake, you can not get any better than that! So I had to buy them, but first I pay homage to the wonderful party store for stocking such very cool stuff. Nobbies Rocks!

Also found in the Nobbies store... this incredibly cool stand up muscle man. How could you not pose yourself in the next couple photos?

Here is my dilemma with these photos. I saw the shot, and "set up" the shot... but had my husband push the shutter release. So now is it my photo? or is it his, because he did the actual capture of the shot? We debated this on the way home. He says it's mine... I can't feel good about not depressing the shutter release. I think in the end, I will be taking a Dale Chihuly stance on this one and say that I had the vision and so it is my shot. (If you are unsure of who Dale is, he is a glass artist who, after a car wreck in the 1970's, has workers do all the actual work of blowing the glass, and assembling the installations he envisions. I think if I had his money, I might pay other to do the hot dirty stuff too.) But then again, with a body like mine....

Love and Happy Finds

day 66

The theme this month is "Power". So I took a few liberties with today's photos. I used my pocket camera exclusively today, so I didn't get as creative with my composition as I usually like to. But I am still learning the camera and what it can do. I think I'm going to love it.
First, I have "The Power Meeting" "The Power of a Faith Community" (I really wish the sky would have been nice and blue, but it was overcast instead.)

"The Power of a good education" I know, I know, I'm very pro-homeschooling, but this to me is the quintessential elementary school and I think most people identify with a building for school, so here we go.

Love and Power