Day 94 - 7/13/07

Back to frustration with DOF for me!! I just don't know what I'm doing wrong, and I can't find my camera manual to look for ways to adjust anything else.

above: -1.7EV, F8.0, ISO 200

above: -2.0EV, F5.0, ISO 200

Day 93 - 7/12/07

I think I might have figured out part of my DOF problem. The auto-focus on the camera was set on "metering" - whatever that means. I switched it to "spot" and was able to get these two shots.

Settings for above photo: 0EV, F3.7, ISO 200

Settings for above photo: 0EV, F8.0, ISO 200

Day 75 - 6/24/07

My mum's aunt & uncle celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this year. Their anniversary was June 15. The celebration was today.

Not only is Black & White one of the themes for this week, I wanted a few in B&W for the vintage feel of it - all of their wedding photos are in B&W.

This is Uncle Gary & Aunt Kittie, right before they began cutting the cake.

Day 53 - 6/2/07

What happens when the action is done:


The lighting on this one is a little weird because I took it with no flash. I didn't want to use the flash or turn on any additional lights because I didn't want to wake her up. The more I look at it though, the more I like it because it has something of a dreamy look to it.

Day 51 - 5/31/07

For today's "action" shot: SLIDING.

This is a photo of my niece at the park. She just loved the slides. It was tricky to time it so I'd get her and not an empty slide because the slide was enclosed and she shot down it so fast that she nearly came right off the end every time.

Day 45 - 5/25/07

In Michigan, Spring means that the birds come back!

I took this one of a bird (maybe a female Blue Jay?) that was sitting on our cable wire when I came home from work. As I got out of the car I heard some cheeping chatter, and I looked up to see her sitting there. I went into the house and got my camera, and was pleasantly surprised to see her still there when I came back to the door. Not willing to push my luck, I took this through the door. As I was trying to set up for a second shot, she flew away - it's almost as if she was saying, "One's enough!"

Day 41- 5/21/07

Spring means flowers! These grow in our lawn if we let it go more than a week without cutting it. Whether we can do that without the grass getting too tall and our landlord complaining about it depends a lot on the weather.

Day 37 - 5/17/07

Today my photo is fairly boring. It is within the liquid theme though.

Today it's just my bottle of water. The big deal about it is that I am proud of myself for drinking this instead of soda - a big downfall of mine.

I played around with it a little bit just to make it seem a little more interesting (to myself, anyway).

Day 35 - 5/15/07

Bubbles!!

I was actually trying to get a picture of the water as it flowed in to the washing machine (it's laundry day), but none of those turned out. The washer filled up faster than I thought it would! But, there are still a lot of pretty bubbles, and bubbles are at least part liquid.

Day 34 - 5/14/07

Well, I did it. I managed to incorporate this week's theme (liquid) into what I had already planned for today (baseball).

There is a new minor league team in the next town over. This is their first season in town, and today we went to our first game there. We had a really good time. We commented that it's possible that the minor league games are more fun to attend than the major league games, because there is a lot more action and a lot more to notice and pay attention to. Plus, it gives us a chance to speculate on who will move on and who will probably stay at this level.

Sadly, our team lost 4-5.

Today's photos were taken before the game, while they were watering the dirt to keep the dust down. Aside from cropping, these are all SOOC.

I love this one - it looks as if the guy with the hose is aiming for the player squatting in shallow right field.

Another shot of the watering near second base.

Day 33 - 5/13/07

My favorite toy (and hopefully it will soon become a partial breadwinner) - my sewing machine. I love to sew. I want to create a business sewing clothes for kids, but I can't seem to find a way to get it to start. I am hoping to hit on some sort of a breakthrough soon though.

Day 32 - 5/12/07

Teddy Bear Day

These are my Build-A-Bear bears. Both of them are charity bears, which means that a portion of their purchase price went to charity. The purple one is for children's cancer, and the brown one is for children's health & wellness. There is another one I want that supports children's literacy. Can you tell I have a soft spot for children's causes?


The first photo was taken without flash with the A setting - I had lights turned on all around to get as much light as possible, and set up a stand
with a couple of boxes (one from our griddle, the other our Scattergories game) plus used the timer, since this setting caused the camera to go through a capturing process that I just could not hold still long enough for.
The below photo I used the flash for. Still on the stand (for comparison purposes I wanted the same angle on both shots). I really can't decide which I like better. Both have their merits. I think the flash photo shows truer colors, but I really prefer the lighting in the non-flash photo.

Day 31 - 5/11/07

My new favorite toy.

I just downloaded the free trial version a few days ago because I seriously missed having the photo editing software on our computer. Now I'm so hooked that I have already warned DH that he has until the end of my free trial to find a way to get me the real thing!! :)

Hopefully we'll be able to find it cheaper than $80 though - that is definitely out of our price range.

Day 29 - 5/9/07

A couple of DH's toys. He doesn't have them properly displayed by any stretch of the imagination - these are sitting atop each other on top of a tall bookshelf. I wish we had more display room for things like this. When we finally get to own a home, I will install shelves around the perimeter of one room just for collectibles things like this. :)

Day 27 - 5/7/07

This week's theme is Toys.

This is my Cabbage Patch Kid. Not very exciting, but in a way it is. When I was a kid and CPKs were all the rage, I had one that looked almost exactly like this one. The only difference was the eyes - my childhood doll had green eyes. Her name was Emmalynn Christy. During a family move while in high school, all of my childhood toys were lost - including my CPK (which by that time was no longer played with but still displayed). While I was in college, CPK made a comeback. My roommates and I were in a store shortly before Christmas when I spotted this doll. Not only does she look almost identical to my childhood doll, but her name is Emma Lyn. I couldn't afford to buy her myself, but my roommates bought her for me for Christmas.

Right now I keep her sitting on a shelf. I feel a little selfish sometimes, but I don't let anyone play with her. Even after almost 9 years, she still has that "new CPK" smell, because she has never been played with. I have so few things that I have saved for my future children, and I decided long ago that this doll would be one of them. Fairly soon I will have to hide her away, because my niece is getting older and often asks to play with her now. I feel badly having to tell her that she can't play with this doll, but there are so many other toys in our house that she IS allowed to play with that she doesn't need this one, too.

Day 26 - 5/6/07

I finally came up with another Food entry for this week!

I'm making a jell0 salad today. I don't really consider it a salad, but that's the name of it. It's called "Ribbon Salad" and it's one of my grandma's recipes that all of her grandkids love. I don't know if DH likes it or not - he doesn't remember ever having tried it. I've been wanting to make it for a while now, so if he doesn't like it, I'll just take some in to work to share. I don't mind.

This is the cookbook that the recipe is in. Several years ago the Ladies Society at my Grandma's church put together a cookbook. All of the ladies submitted recipes and they got them organized and bound into a cookbook, which they then sold as a fundraiser. Grandma got all of her grandchildren one of these cookbooks as part of our Christmas gifts that year. The cover actually shows a drawing of the church as it is now, and the smaller drawing is the church the way it looked when it was founded. That original building still exists; it is across the street from the current building.

Day 24 - 5/4/07

Today's breakfast: Wheaties.

I had an issue with the spoon being a little too reflective, so I tried it a few different ways. I would have removed the spoon but I liked the look of the bowl with the spoon in it (and I didn't want to get milk on the counter).

This first one is the one that I think came out the best - I was using a bounce card.

This one is with no flash:

And this one is direct flash:

Day 22 - 5/2/07

Last summer, this field was full of corn. I have no idea what they're going to put in it this year, probably corn again. These are the stalks - what is left behind after the corn is harvested. The fact that there is this much stalk left behind tells some of the prosperity of the farmer (not that any farmers are truly "prosperous" any more). A farmer who has a lot of animals to support and not a lot of money to feed them would not have left such tall stalks; they would have been cut closer to the ground or possibly even dug up to make food for the animals. Cattle especially do well on corn stalks.

Day 21 - 5/1/07

This weeks theme is Food. So, in the interests of that, I present: my freezer.

Sadly, this is what it looks like about 95% of the time. We don't have nearly enough in it. But hey, we've got the staples! Bread, hotdog buns, fishsticks, and if you look in the back on the bottom left, you'll see ice cream! Yum-O!

Note the red box next to the ice cube tray - that's plastic wrap. I heard once that if you keep your plastic wrap in the freezer, it won't stick to itself. It really works!!

Day 19 - 4/29/07

I was all set to have a "shadowy" post today, but unfortunately the sun was not completely cooperative for me. So I have both shadows and silhouettes today.

First photo: front yard shadows, early morning, shortly after I arrive home from work. The second photo was supposed to be afternoon/evening shadows, right after I get up, but alas, it's cloudy this afternoon and there are no shadows in the yard.



Second photo: trees a few houses down backlit by the setting sun. I walked outside searching for where the sun might be, and this is where I found it. You can also see those pesky clouds blocking the sun from helping me with my shadow day.