Random Shots

Photo Sunday - Fire

I ran across this weekly photo challenge. Love the idea. Click on the icon above for more info.  Check it out and vote for your favorite photos in this week's challenge.

This week's theme is fire.

C is For . . .

This the Cadet Chapel at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. It's a beautiful building.

B is for . . .

A is for

For some time now I've been trying to snap photos of the alphabet found in normal every day scenes - you know where a curving road makes a nice S shape or maybe an X shape found on a fence row?  That project may take forever. I haven't given up on it, but in the mean time I have given myself a new assignment.  It's still Alphabet photography, but this time I'm looking for objects that begin with the letters of the alphabet.  I know "A is for Apple" is rather cliche, but I like this one.

Any suggestions for other "A" photos?

Photo Sunday: Book

I ran across this weekly photo challenge. Love the idea. Click on the icon above for more info.  Check it out and vote for your favorite photos in this week's challenge.

This week's theme is Book.  Well, I work with books so getting a book related photo is no problem. Choosing which one to submit is the hard part.  I decided to pick a couple of my Read photos.

More Flowers

Flowers

I let the flowers that my sweet husband sent me for Valentine's dry so that I could keep the buds. Once they were dry enough (I thought) I pulled them off the stems and placed them in this beautiful plain vase.  I loved that they still had their pink color.  Well, the pink color didn't last. I realized yesterday morning that they were losing their color. In fact only the flowers on top still had any color. So I whipped out the camera  and took several quick shots so that I would at least have a picture of them before they faded.

Of course I had to play around with the final photo a little.  I rather like this one.

X Marks the Spot

On my to do list is to take photos that contain a letter of the alphabet formed by an object or objects in the picture.  It's not easy and it may take me twenty years to get all 26 letters.  Over the weekend, on my walk back from the library, I spotted a couple of X(s). I've made this walk many times, but had missed them until this last walk.

A Bookish Theme - 2

Happy Belated Birthday Dr. Seuss!

A Bookish Theme - 1

It's a new month. I've decided to help get my creative juices flowing and to help me be more consistent with this blog, I will assign myself a theme each week. The goal will be to take a photo each day and post it on whatever the theme is for that month.  Being a complete bookworm, I chose books as my theme for this week.

To Find the Perfect Photo You Need the Perfect Tools

Hopefully, once I learn how to use this wonderful new camera (Nikon D7000), my photos will be even better.

More Valentine Scavenger Photos

More things I love: My parents, reading and Pikes Peak!

More Valentine Scavenger Photos

One of the tasks was to find five photos of things you love. Well, I couldn't limit myself to just five things, so I created five collages. This is the first one: a collage of the men in my life.

Hearts

The task was to take a picture of a heart. It was Valentine's Day, so there were plenty of hearts around.  However, I noticed that the sliced strawberries I was having for lunch, looked like small hearts.

What do you think?

Valentine Sweets

Continuing with Valentine related photos - this is a picture of the wonderful desert we had on Monday. The item in color was a raspberry chocolate mousse inside a chocolate tulip. Delicious!

Pretty Posies

Love Photos

In honor of Valentine's Day, I will be posting love or Valentine's related photos. I've sponsored a Valentine's Photo Scavenger Hunt with some friends on Facebook.  The goal is to take 10 photos related to love/Valentine's - (Something pink, something with a heart, something red, a couple, flowers, five photos of things you love and as a bonus - a picture of something that you hate or maybe a Valentine Sucks photo.)  Even though we do this just for fun, the main rule is that it has to be a photo you or a friend took - you can't just collect photos off the internet.

This is the one I chose for the couple photo. My youngest son was kind enough to take the photo for me and with a little editing, I turned into a nice Valentine's Day photo.

Do you have any favorite photos you just love?

Ice

In addition to enjoying taking photos of snow, I like catching pictures of ice.  This is actually a photo of some icicles hanging off the bottom of my car. I edited a little to give it the look of a sketch instead of a photo.  I kind of like this one.

Snowscreen

I snapped this early on Tuesday, Feb 8th. It was a snow day for my school district. (One I really needed.) I should have been sleeping, but my internal clock (and my dogs) do not comprehend snow days.  This is a pattern of snow on my kitchen window.

Morning Bliss

I think this picture says it all. Without this the day just goes down hill quickly!

Flag - I Love Taking Flag Photos

I know I've been very lax about posting photos. Life is crazy. If you wonder why - check out one of my other blogs: In the Pink. Or you can just bear with me as I promise to try to be better about posting.

We've been getting a bit of snow lately.  This picture was taken out in Black Forest just before a book storm that blew in on January 31st.

The third one is the original shot. I think I like the one with the flag in color and everything else in black and white the best. What do you think?

Shoot Out at The Ok Corral - not really

My son is doing a research paper on kevlar. Of course this created the perfect excuse for Dad (and Dad's buddies) to take my son to the range and test out different fire arms on a kevlar vest. I'm not sure who had the most fun: the adults or my son.  At any rate it was a great snap shot moment.

Wine and Pears

 A friend asked me to photograph a kitchen makeover she had recently completed. You know me. Once I take the "big" picture I'm always looking for something a little different that I can play.  I'm especially fond of still lifes.  Below is the original photo.

First I cropped it.

And then I went to town with some editing . . .

Would you put this on your wall?

Saturday Snapshot - January 15th

This is a cross posting from my book blog "Booklady's Booknotes."

To participate in Saturday Snapshot meme (hosted by Alyce over At Home With Books)  post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken. Photos can be old or new, and can be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. All Alyce asks is that you don't post random photos that you find online.

This is a photo of my grandmother. I believe she is in her early twenties.  People have often said I favor her - that's one of the best ways to get on my good side.  For years I've wanted to recreate this photo with me as the subject. But over the years, when my hair was long enough I could never find anyone willing to try the hairstyle.  Finally, now when I'm way older than she is in the picture, I found someone to help me out.

In the interest of full disclosure, here is the original picture. My hair stylist did a wonderful job, but I've been recovering from a lumpectomy (and perhaps was too stubborn about going back to work when I should have waited a little longer) and you can see how tired (ok, old, I look in this photo.) So, I decided it needed a little help.

Now, if I could just edit my face for real, life would be good.

A Portrait in Blue

 

Earlier this week, my oldest son (who is now venturing into digital photography himself) asked me to take a picture of him in his hat because he thought it would be an interesting picture with the blues of the hat and the shirt. Well, the original picture didn't seem very interesting to me. And apparently he didn't think think so either.  So I played around with some editing techniques.  I turned it into a "light" pencil drawing, blurred the edges and tinted it blue.  He didn't like either picture. Go figure.

Buddies

This was a spur of the moment snapshot. Sometimes those make the best pictures. My youngest son was giving his dad a hug and I just happened to have the camera handy (big surprise, huh?).  I decided to tint it green (as well as a few other editing processes) because my husband is in the Army and green just seemed the right color.

Gabe's Gifts

I have friend (and fellow educator) who has a wonderful blog Jenbug's Story. Grabbing a cup of coffee and reading her posts is part of my morning ritual (even on Saturdays when I could be sleeping late).  Today her blog talked about Gabe's Gifts which is sponsored by Amanda at Today's Top 20. You should check out Amanda's amazing story - it takes a strong and beautiful person to take a personal tragedy and turn it into gifts for others.  Amanda is sponsoring a blanket drive.  I'm going to try to make six this year (hopefully, more but I am in the process of coming up with my own charity project. That might take away some of my crafting time. I'll have more on that later.)  I hope you will join me.  It's a wonderful way to explore your creative outlet and help others at the same time.

Thanks Jen for letting me know about this wonderful project.