Wait, what? I have a blog?

Okay, so clearly a photo a day isn't going to happen. So I tried for a photo a week. Well, that didn't work out so well either. One a month? Umm, no. So here it is, almost two months later and I am ready to post again.

I can't believe summer came and went without a single picture. I knew that I had been lazy, but not that lazy.

Well, today in the mail my new macro lens showed up. Total excitement! It's going to open whole new worlds of potential subjects. I should be able to shoot for days before my boring yard gets the best of me again. But until then....


A picture of Geoff's wedding ring. He told me to stop taking pictures of it because it was freaking him out.



Geoff's adorable baby dragon. I love this little creature. He sits on our mantle and it makes me smile to look at him. I don't like that I can see my reflection in his eyes, but that's part of the learning curve.

I have a few more from the backyard, but I think I'll save them for another day. Spread them out as far as I can. Maybe then I can post more than once a month.

What's wrong with this picture?

So a couple of months ago, I mentioned our little friend that was visiting our bird feeder. He brought his lady friend and they went to town. We moved the feeder. This is the result.
What's wrong with the picture," you ask? Here's a hint.
Need another one?

As for the little friend? He seems quite content with the situation.

Springtime in England

We hit the end of the spring tulip season when we were in England. All of the gardens were full of lush beds of the pretty little things. At Hampton Court, they were actually pulling out the blooms to get the beds ready for the summer plantings. It was very traumatic.

There were purple ones.


Orange ones.

White ones.


More purple ones.


Red ones.


Fields and fields of tulips.


Man, I love spring.

Elephants in London!

Our first day in London, we discovered these Elephants in Hyde Park. Little did we know that they were part of a large display all over London that were part of Elephant Parade, an exhibition to draw attention to the plight of the Asian Elephant. There are over 250 elephants all over London that have been decorated by various designers, royals, and artists.

Fortunately for my family, we didn't know how many there were, or that we could have downloaded a map of all of them. Otherwise, that would have been all I did in London.

Check back for more of the elephants I saw, including my favorite, the Born Free elephant.

Spring in California

I haven't had time to put anything up in a while because life got in the way. There was Outdoor Education camp with my fifth graders, the beginning of Star testing, then two weeks in Europe. The Europe pics will make an appearance, but first I hadto go through 1100 of them to weed out the good ones and I now have over 500 to process. I think that's going to take me awhile.

But in the meantime, a beautiful pic of the glorious, golden poppies that are "popping" up everywhere. These were on the hillside at Camp Arroyo in Livermore. A benefit to a cool spring after a wet winter is the wildflowers everywhere. In the past we have either gone to camp too early for the flowers or too late. This year was just right.

Should I be worried that I spend more time taking pictures of the flowers than the people I'm on the trip with?

Not exactly who we intended to feed

Our two cats love to watch the birds through the sliding glass door. We normally throw food onto the deck to draw them in. We call it the KES, Kittie Entertainment System. Poker likes to chatter at the birds when they come in. We decided to hang a bird feeder and see if it brought in more birds. Well, that worked. However, it also brought in a new friend. He sat there for 20 minutes chowing down on the seeds in the feeder. Geoff said when he chased him away yesterday that the squirrel went a few feet away and then scolded him. He tried to get the squirell to do it again, but I guess he was done because he ran away.
I'm sure he will be back tomorrow.

I can't think of a title!

I'm behind on my photos, so I pulled out a picture from my trip to New Orleans this November. There is this fantastic pond store just off the Quarter that my mom wanted to visit, so we stopped on the way to the airport. My camera was still new, so I didn't really know what I was doing. I just left it on auto and did the best I could. I love the lady bug and the contrast between the red and the purple. I especially love that I can see my reflection on the shell of the ladybug.

Maybe we should have checked the weather

So we got up bright and early this morning for our 2.5 hour trek to Big Trees State Park. As we were driving, I noticed the temperature dropping and dropping. It was close to 60 when we left, and I watched it go down to 46. Then I started noticing patches of snow on the ground. Mind you, the weather at home has been gorgeous the last few days. The highs around 70, bright sunny skies. A storm is coming in, so I expected the weather to change, but we weren't expecting this. When we got to the state park, the grove we wanted to visit was closed because a tree had fallen in the storm last weekend. And there was snow everywhere. Not just a little here and there, it was blanketing the ground. We decided to go for a walk anyway, figuring how bad could it be? Well, pretty muddy and snowy, that's how bad it could be. Geoff had to borrow one of my school sweatshirts that was fortunately in the car, but notice the footwear. Not really what we want to be walking around in the snow now, is it? Oh, and he's not walking on the trail edge for the picture's sake. We spent most of the walk on the edges trying to avoid the mud and snow.

Needless to say, no wildflowers in the area, except for the ones on the side of the highway. But I couldn't really stop to take pictures of those without danger to life and limb.

And to think we had a discussion before we left on whether it was a shorts or jeans day!

Will work for lens money

So now that I have decided I want the lens, I need to come up with the funds. I've taken pictures of every flower and week in my yard four our five times and am looking for more things to photo. This thing is awesome. A flash and a longer zoom are still higher priority, if I can manage them before our trip, otherwise, this will be the next purchase. I'm driving my husband crazy taking pictures of everything. Tomorrow we are going to Calaveras Big Trees and I will hopefully find some wildflowers to take pictures of.

I love this lens!

I decided to rent a new lens to be sure it was one I wanted to buy. With the first picture I took, the answer was a resounding YES! I have really come to love macro photography and this lens lets me take all the little pictures I want. I'm still learning, but I am having so much fun. There aren't a lot of flowers blooming in our yard right now, so I bought some daisies from a flower stall to use for my models. I bought them a week before I went out of town and fully expected them to be all wilted when I got home. Another week later, and most of them are still standing tall. I love this yellow one because of the thin, frilly petals.

Such a beach dog!

I spent the weekend with my folks in Puerto Penasco, Mexico. It's a town on the beach about 4 hours from Phoenix. My parents' dog, Jazmine, loves to run on the beach. When there aren't people around, we can let her off the leash to run and run. She loves to chase the birds, but this time, there weren't many birds to be found.

I have nothing to take pictures of

So I'm taking pictures of a weed.

I complain constantly of the lack of photo subjects where I live. DH says that his photography instructor in high school told him that there are a 1000 pictures everywhere you point your camera. I told him his instructor had obviously never been to Clyde.

We don't have children, or outside pets and the garden is in sad shape. The only thing I could find to take pictures of was a weed growing on the edge of the lawn. It was either that or the raccoon poop in the middle of the lawn.

Why I want to move

I love my house. And for the most part, I love the neighborhood I live in. We are about 10 minutes from anything we need, it is quiet, and has super easy access to the freeway and BART. But...

The view leaves a bit to be desired at times. The clouds tonight were gorgeous. Full, fluffy clouds with gorgeous touches of colors. So I grab the camera and go. But there isn't anywhere I can go to take pictures of the sky and the green hills. I didn't realize how many power lines there were in my area until I started looking through the lens of my camera. Power lines in every direction.

Across the street, there is a huge area of wetlands, but between me and the water are three chain link fences, a military installation entry road, and unused railroad tracks. Not to mention the refinery on the other side of the marsh.

I keep telling my husband that I want to move somewhere with wide open vistas. He's not going for it.

Spring!

I'm still trying to process all the photos from last weekend. I'm finding that not many of them are actually any good. The weather really played tricks on the camera.

Our hotel was on the bluffs overlooking the ocean, and their were some flowers growing along the path. Never one to pass up a pretty flower, I took this one on my way back to the room after a walk on the beach.

Happy (Belated) Valentine's Day!

We were away for the weekend in fabulous Fort Bragg, and I have over 400 photos to go through. This one will tide you over until I get the good ones done.

We were walking around the Mendocino Headlands and spotted this lovely puddle. Lovely, get it? It was obviously a remodeled puddle, but it still made me smile.

I hope everyone had a great day with whatever loved ones were gathered around. I know I did.

Water Lily

This wasn't taken today, or even this year. But it still remains one of my favorites. It was taken at my parents' pond in Arizona last October. We went to visit to celebrate my grandmother's birthday.

Maybe I should rename it

To A Photo Every Other Day. Oh well, I'm doing the best I can.

This was another of the photos I took on my "trying to learn my camera" outing. I had to get down on the ground and hold the camera upside down to get it. The park behind my house has a bunch of these popping up. I think I might have to keep an eye on them and see how many more appear. I love how disturbed the ground is where they burst on the scene. And the little bits of mulch on top.

Here it is! My first attempt at a photo a day. I'm trying to learn my camera and spent some time today taking pictures around the yard with different apertures. While I was doing that, I noticed an abundance of ladybugs on many of the plants. Huddled in the center of an agapanthus blossom from last year, I found this group of them. They intrigued me.