Choices

Choices

A man is what he thinks about all day long.  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Something to Go Round

Going Round

I dug into the archives a little on this one.  Sometimes it takes me a bit to get back to the gazillions of photos I have taken over years.  Okay, maybe not a gazillion exactly - give or take one or two and that might be more accurate.

Back to the whole looking at things in a new way . . . I love the shadow here.  What a terrific image with the different shapes.  Throw in the texture from that tire - and voila, I'm a happy girl.

We must use what we have to invent what we desire.  ~ Adrienne Rich

See Things with New Eyes

Keep Your Eye on the Ball

I love the concentration in watching that ball to see just how many pins will actually be knocked down.  Now, if only we could get that amount of concentration to carry over to other areas. . .

So here is a good quote that not only makes me smile, but also makes me think, and feel very good inside.  Try today to look at things with "new eyes" you may learn something new, or have your heart softened to another way of thinking, or even notice the simple beauty in something you see (and pass by) every single day.  Always remember there will never be another moment just like the one you are living in right now.

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.  ~ Marcel Proust

Release and Effort

Release

The only thing you can control is your own effort.  ~ Theodora van den Beld

What A Face

What the . . .

This picture always cracks me up.  Several things come to mind here, mostly did Grandma pinch him just before the picture was taken?  No way, she would never do that - would she?

Here's a quote that my mom posted in a comment from yesterday's posting.  I really like it, so I'm sending it out tonight.  And thanks to everyone that has shared some of your favorite quotes.  I love getting them and watching my file of quotes keep on growing larger and larger.

I am not as good as I should be.
I am not as good as I could be.
But thank God I am better than I used to be.
~ Unknown

Tada!

Tada!

Helping Grandma with her knitting.  What a great helper don't you think - getting that yarn all ready.

Here is a pretty good quote for tonight, something to think on for a bit:

There is just one life for each of us:  our own.  ~ Euripides

Take a Look at Some Borders

Untitled

Having fun while waiting for our food to arrive.  I seem to pull my camera out a lot when we are out to eat.  I'm not sure if it's the texture of the food or the colors, but out it comes.  This was fun.  I really like the look of ice and the air bubbles that sometimes get trapped in the glass, not to mention the condensation that forms on a glass full of cool liquid.  And, really the bright color was what drew me to this glass to photograph.

After taking a few photos of just the glass (for example last night's photo) itself I decided to have a bit of fun.  The first thing I always tell people when they express an interest in taking better photographs - always pay attention to the borders of your image before snapping the picture.  How many of us have taken a photo only to find something very distracting in the background?  It happens all the time.  Just pull out the old family photo album and I'm pretty sure you will see photo after photo of less than stellar images.  Mostly because there is something undesirable in the image.  The best are the kids that look like they have trees or flag poles growing out of their heads.  You know what I'm talking about right?

Well, in this instance, I intentionally wanted to include the person just beyond the glass.  And by putting that person just slightly out of focus, it is not so distracting in the background.  By paying attention to my borders I was able to include more information that helps to tell a story.  I've included what I wanted to, and left out what I did not - the table of people to the left. 

So, practice shooting by only paying attention to everything you see in your image.  Don't worry about anything except those borders, until that becomes habit, and you will find that one simple step will improve your images.

The power of imagination makes us infinite.  ~ John Muir

Refreshing

Aaaah

What else is there to say about this one.  Just some good refreshment on a hot summer day - and we have had plenty of those this year.

Swing

Swing

And a near miss.  Oh well, you know what they say, practice makes perfect.  Just have fun while doing all that practice.

A person who never made a mistake never tried something new.  ~ Albert Einstein

Smiley Faces, The Green Thumb and Me Getting Lost In Photography Moments

Smiley

I believe I've mentioned before about my mom and her "green thumb".  She's able to grow just about anything - and I have to add that my dad and brother help her with her current projects.  At my parent's home there are all kinds of things growing - pecans, peaches, apples, grapes, oranges, grapefruit - not to mention all the flowers too!  It's a wonderful place to go as a photographer.  As you have seen and heard about over the past year.

Well, one day after a fun visit to a water park with my son and some out of town relatives, we headed back to my parents house and ended up sitting outside visiting.  And there was the strangest peach I've ever seen.  Just split open like this.  So, naturally I put it on the picnic table and started taking pictures.  Well, what would you do?  I didn't have any cameras with me so I used my cell phone.  Sometimes those things come in handy (although mostly they drive me crazy 'cause the quality is not so wonderful).  My family is pretty used to my weird ways because not one person asked why I was doing that.  And as far as I know none of them even gave me strange looks - but that could have been taking place when all my attention was on this peach.

To me, it looks like it's smiling at us.  Got a happy face on.  Maybe because it knows the chances anyone is going to eat it are pretty darn slim.  I'm not sure what happened to it after it's 15 minutes of fame were over.

I spend shockingly little time thinking about real world stuff.  ~ Trey Parker

Lean Into It

Got To Lean Into It

Love this picture.  If you have ever been bowling in your life, then I'm pretty sure you have done this as well.  Not sure I've ever seen anyone, at least once while bowling, lean the direction you would like the ball to go.  'Cause, you know, it really helps.

Life is a series of surprises.  ~  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Just A Slight Change

Washed Away

Now this just makes me want to go to the beach.  I love the color of the water at the top.  Would you believe that this image and the one from yesterday were taken at the same time and same basic location?  It's amazing what a few little differences, such as position and lighting, can do to an image.  Fun stuff.

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living.  The world owes you nothing.  It was here first.  ~ Mark Twain

Do I Like It or Do I Not? I'm Still Not Sure

Untitled

Texture and light and abstract.  All things that I really enjoy when photographing.  I've been going back and forth on this one for quite some time.  I want to share it and then decide against it.  I like it, but find it a little distracting.  While quickly scrolling through my images that are in my "holding area", I was drawn to this one again.  And, well, that was it.  Tonight was the night I was going to quit talking myself out of sharing it and going with my initial gut instinct.  So, here it is.  Not sure what you all will think.  Is it art, is it not?  I don't really now, and honestly that is for each of you to decide.  For me, there is something about all that texture and the playful light, it just keeps pulling me in.  I'm not going to tell you what it is, at least not yet - can you tell me what it is?

I was also wondering something.  Is there anyone out there that is interested in learning some tips on taking better photos?  Not that I'm an expert by any means, but just some tips.  Let me know if you are.  I'm thinking about setting up some easy ideas to improve your photography.  Nothing technical, just very simple things.  And, I have also been asked to share how to use an SLR camera and am putting that together too.  So, if you are interested in something like that, please let me know.

All art requires courage.  ~ Anne Tucker

Oh Those Lazy Summer Days

Lazy Summer Days

Not sure what those are really, lazy summer days, since we ended up being pretty busy from beginning to end.  I can hardly believe that the summer is almost over - or at least the summer break for the kids.  Well, and that means for us adults with kids still at home too.

I took this picture from a very strange angle.  I mean, I was physically leaning and stretching to get myself into the right position.  It was not very comfortable.  All in the name of getting the shot I guess.  That is not why the angle is so crazy though - I did take several "normal" angled shots.  You know parallel to the skyline.  And then, just for fun, decided to tilt my camera.  I like that the image is not so normal.  Gives it a little zest or something.  What do you think?  Would you like to see one of the un-angled images?

I may have shared this quote before, I can't remember.  It is a good one, one that applies to this image and one that deserves a second or third reading. 

Is not amusement the very soul of life?  ~ Frances Milton Trollope

Oh and before I forget . . . so either you all are super nice and have gotten used to my lack of spell check at times, or you did not notice either.  I was expecting a correction on my title from last night.  As soon as I hit submit, I noticed that the title was misspelled.  Instead of two g's in goggles I had put two o's.  Don't worry, it was corrected last night immediately on my sight, just went out wrong on my email.  So . . . did you notice that?

The Goggles

The Goggles

Tonight will be a short one.  I hope you all had an enjoyable weekend.  And, since we are down to a few last days of late evenings, we enjoyed it at home catching up on one of our favorite TV shows.  Even though the weather might say differently, our summertime is quickly coming to an end.

I never think of the future.  It comes soon enough.  ~ Albert Einstein

I Really Had a Blast with This One

Blast

No object is mysterious.  The mystery is your eye.  ~ Elizabeth Bowen

And so looking at this image, I must say I had no idea how many sparks come out of one of these things. They do seem to go on for longer than you would expect, but wow, look at all those sparks.  And those are the ones that my camera was able to capture.  Pretty cool.  Maybe next year I will try to take some photos with the shutter open during the entire time and see what that looks like.  Too fun.

I do believe this is the end of my fireworks series for the moment.  On to new fun things in a few days.  Have a great weekend everyone.  This is our last weekend before my son starts school again.  And how does that impact you?  Well, that means we will be back on a schedule and my posting's will be a little more regular again.  That will be so nice.

Whirly & Twirly

Whirly & Twirly

I love how the camera captured this moment.  I mean, we can see those flashes of light and I think on some level we know that they are twirling around.  But to see it like this?  Pretty darn cool (in my humble opinion.)

I fell in love with photography long before I really even knew what it was.  I fell in love with photographs.  I can remember looking at old photographs of ancestors and such and just loving everything about them.  Loving the look and the feel, the image, the moment frozen in time.  I fell in love with the idea of capturing life, and all the things in it, as they happened. 

And so my journey, with a camera in hand, began.  I loved capturing things just as I saw them.  Almost documenting things as they were at that exact time.  Never once thinking about the possibility of capturing things in a new way, not exactly as I see them.  It's fun to see what "manipulating" can be done with your camera to create a new effect.  It certainly does not mean that this firework did not happen this way, it most certainly did.  It's just that my eyes could not see it that way.  Of course, there are many of you out there that would probably argue with me and tell me that I tend to show you images in a way that you had never seen it before - or had never looked at in that light or angle before.  Perspective - it's such a wonderful thing.

The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.  ~  Henry Miller

Double Fun

Double Fun

A fun evening light show.  My two boys had a great time playing around - and I had a great time behind the camera documenting it.

Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.  ~ Victor Borge

Magic

Magic

Another from a night of celebrations.  I definitely had fun shooting these ones.  And, is it just me, or does this one look somewhat wand like?

Follow your dream.  Transform your life.  ~  Unknown