Bling

Solar lights on the deck umbrella. And on top of the umbrella, those long stringy things that are falling out of the trees right now.

This is my friend...

Actually, this is the book I am reading. I have increased my reading since we moved, and I am remembering how enriching it is. I recently read something that said that reading fulfills a need to belong. I'm not sure I believe it -- they had people read Twilight and Harry Potter and then found that they were more strongly affiliated with vampires and wizards, but I guess I don't completely write off the idea, either. We do connect emotionally to the characters in our books.

Morning has Broken

It is a crisp May morning, 40 some degrees and the sun is just hitting our cul-de-sac at the bottom of a wooded hill. This rhododendron(?) is beginning to emerge, and soon its red cousin will follow. The fully bloomed flower on the left is blurrier than I would like, but I am happy with the crispness of the rear two buds. I'm trying not to overthink the photographing and just get one on the blog every day. So, for today, rhododendron.

Happy Birthday!

This is my husband's birthday "cake." He loves German chocolate, but not everyone in the house does. So I thought this year I would go trendy and do the cupcake thing with a variety of frosting options. I like the depth in this picture. And the cupcakes look pretty tasty, if I do say so myself.

Buds

I don't know what these buds are. They are on a bush in our side yard. These flowers bloomed into fragrant, white droplets. Anyone know what they are?

I like how fuzzy the background is. I know it has something to do with focal length (long) and aperture (large) but don't have the logic figured out yet.

More. That's how people learn.

Ketchup

So, it has been a while. Probably mostly because I am taking a lot of BAD pictures. I guess that is what one does to learn how to take good pictures?

I am starting to get the hang of how aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and exposure work together. Well, sort of starting to get it. It is much more scientific than I would have guessed. Fortunately, I love science. Yes, I did leave the data on the bottom of the picture. We have to do that for class. No tripod, I am surprised it isn't fuzzier.

So you have here condiments at The Counter in Reston Town Center, one of our favorite places to eat.  Build your own hamburger, awesome fries, onion strings and sweet potato fries. And right next to gelato from heaven. This week, cardamom, who would have thought?

Photoshop Elements

Wow, isn't this fun? Two of my favorite pictures of my boys - one of Tim getting ready to play the viola, and one of Jack at the beach. Downloaded Photoshop Elements 9 to try out for 30 days. I see this purchase in my future. Its facial recognition doesn't seem as good and it isn't easy to blog as far as I can tell, but I should be able to use Picasa to fill in the gaps.

Good Evening Trees

I am finding it nearly impossible to capture the way the sun bathes the trees as it sets. I'll give you this for now and keep trying. Maybe it can't be photographed?

Spring-ish Strip

When I crop in Picasa, it suggests three options or lets me pick my own. Today, it gave be the photo above. There is nothing spectacular about this photo, or the larger photo from which it came, but it struck me nonetheless because of how one photo divided into so many vertical pieces. The birdhouse, the big tree, tire swing, fence posts, small trees. I would not in a million years have cropped this photo this way myself and I don't know why Picasa did it, but I am grateful.

Backyard Hawk

Thankful for already having the telephoto on the camera. I need to look this guy up in my many guides to eastern birds. He is clearly a hawk, but I don't know what kind. He is sitting on our bird feeder and seemed to enjoy posing for me.

Update: pretty sure this is an adult male Cooper's Hawk

Viola Collage

Tim's first viola concert and my first set of shots entirely off "automatic" setting.  Used the telephoto on "A" setting.  Not bad for a beginner in a school cafeteria --meaning me, not Tim, he was fantastic.  The water fountain and the wood podium pose some background problems, but I thought the viola and Tim looked pretty good against the blue wall.  And Picasa collage helped me get three pictures in without taking up so much space.  Congratulations on a successful concert, T!

Dinner is Served

I love taking pictures of food. Tonight I made my mom's favorite chicken and biscuits as well as trying to bring the flavor of summer with tomatoes, basil and fresh mozzarella with EVOO and balsamic vinegar. One of my kids ate only biscuits and mozzarella. I took a picture of that and it was so unappetizing, I couldn't post it. Tim and I enjoyed the meal together, and it did taste like winter might come to an end.

Something to Play With

A friend from the past mailed me this beautiful gift last weekend. She is a fiber artist (and clearly a good one...) and when she heard that I was interested in knitting and felting, she said she would send me some fiber "to play with." I couldn't believe the beauty and the quantity of her gift! So now I am mulling over ideas for ways to use this amazing material and finding a whole new realm of creativity opening up for me. Should I knit? Felt? Weave? Any ideas you want to share?

Ginger Snap

This is Ginger Snap.  In the first photo, she gets her first glimpse at her new home.  In the second, she is hiding under a chair for the foreseeable future.  Her foster dad said that she did this for about two days and then started hanging out with the people in the house, sitting with them, following them around and such.  House feels like a home again.

Basmati Rice Pudding

I enjoy taking pictures of food, especially food I have cooked. A good photograph evokes a memory or an emotion or both, and I have found that food pictures often can almost tell the whole story of a vacation or event. "Eew, there is that awful pizza from Sea World; remember..." or "That rice pudding was so good that we ate it for lunch. Cooking it saved us from the boredom of the third snow day in a row..."  And it was mighty tasty.

Happy Mardi Gras. Or Epiphany. Or Something.

King Cake from Great Harvest Bread Company in Herndon. Our little early Mardi Gras. Tim got the baby. I got it last year.  I had to Google to find out what the baby means, I think the most logical answer is that the person who gets the baby has to bring the cake to the next party.  Although I would like Tim to have good luck.

Deer Infestation

So I don't love any of these photos.  The deer were in the neighbor's backyard and quite aways away and there were many obstacles in the way that made focusing the lens hard.  That and I was trying to lean against a tree.  But there were at least six deer out there, and I had just been thinking that I hadn't seen deer in a while.  My favorite thing about these photos is that in the third picture, I was trying to focus on the two deer on the left, and it wasn't until I reviewed the photos on my computer that I noticed their friend to the right.  I will have lots of opportunities to get good at photographing deer.

Freezing Rain

So this is the first photograph that is really of "everyday life." Except I hope it isn't everyday. Last night we had an ice storm, and I suspect it wasn't a very bad one, but bad enough to keep the kids home from school, much to their delight. I have been wondering if these particular plants were going to lose their leaves over the winter, now I am thinking they may just freeze off. I need to get a book about mid-Atlantic plants because it is too hard to carry the laptop around outside and, no, I don't have an ipad. I think it will be easier to tell what the trees are in the spring, when they have flowers. I don't like this ice, but I do love the trees. And on the topic of mid-Atlantic, the Washington Post says that the Washington metro area (or DMV?) is becoming less "southern." I'm going to call it solidly mid-Atlantic, with a southern twist in Virginia only.

Manassas Battlefield, Virginia

This is a replica of the Henry House at Manassas Battlefield. Mrs. Henry was an 85 year old bedridden widow who was the single civilian casualty in the battle of Bull Run, or Manassas, on July 21, 1861. Manassas was the sight of the first land battle of the Civil War, and those fighting were short term volunteers, ill prepared for their task. On the hills near the battleground, nearby residents initially brought picnics to observe, but not for long. It is also the site where "Stonewall" Jackson got his nickname: "There he stands like a stone wall." In case you didn't know, as we didn't, the Confederacy won both battles at Manassas.