2012 Photo Challenge: Week 16

Week 16 of our 365 Photo Challenge.

Happy Earth Day! I don’t know what draws me to photos of nature. On one hand, they can be “easy” and don’t require much thought or patience, well ok, with animals it can! On the other, they can also be just as tricky to pull off well. However, compared to people and buildings, I’m much more comfortable with flowers and landscapes. I’m sure practice is part of it and I should spend some time this year really stretching my skills.

What you see below are links to my flickr set for the photos I’m posting for this challenge. Click on any photo below to go to flickr and then you can navigate through the set with the “Previous” and “Next” arrows at the top.

Sun: Apr 015, 2012		Mon: Apr 16, 2012
Tue: Apr 17, 2012	Wed: Apr 18, 2012	Thu: Apr 19, 2012
Fri: Apr 20, 2012		Sat: Apr 21, 2012

2012 Photo Challenge: Week 15

Week 15 of our 365 Photo Challenge.

This week doesn’t offer as much variety as last week’s set, but I was playing with similar subjects but different lighting. The rain made for some very interesting clouds in the evenings as well.

Sun: Apr 08, 2012		Mon: Apr 09, 2012
Tue: Apr 10, 2012	Wed: Apr 11, 2012	Thu: Apr 12, 2012
Fri: Apr 13, 2012		Sat: Apr 14, 2012

2012 Photo Challenge: Week 14

Week 14 of our 365 Photo Challenge. This week marks the 100th photo posted for the year.

As I mentioned, we were on vacation last week for the kids’ Spring Break. We flew across the country to Maryland and stayed near where I grew up. Last year, our daughter and I did the American History tour through her school and this year, our son decided he didn’t want to do that. Our daughter is very interested in history and totally geeks out over the Civil War. And since that’s part of the next section that the boy will be studying in school, it seemed a perfect opportunity given where I grew up to steep them in it for the week.

Sunday, we snuck up on the airport and flew across the country to Baltimore, MD, where our first stop was lunch: for some good ol’ Maryland Crab Cakes.

Monday, we went to Harper’s Ferry, WVa., home of John Brown, the abolitionist’s Fort. This historic town is all of about 15 miles from the house I grew up in. We also stopped off by my old high school on the way. Lots of additions, but much of it is still the same.

Tuesday, we went to the Antietam battlefield in Sharpsburg, MD. It was the scene of the single bloodiest battle in American history with 23,000 troops killed that day. My dad was a Civil War buff and I remember Antietam as the “Land of Obelisks” because of the monuments. Turns out, there aren’t quite as many as I remember. Distance from my mom’s house: 20 miles.

Wednesday, we drove part of the way to Washington, D.C. and then took the metro the rest of the way into the city. We got off late enough we didn’t get to do a bus tour of the city to see all the monuments, but did stop in at the exhibit “The Art of Video Games” at the Smithsonian’s Museum of American Art and National Portrait Gallery. We also made a stop at the Newseum and I managed to see more of it than 2 floors this time as I wasn’t the only chaperone willing to take a bunch of 8th graders out on the observation deck overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue. About 50 miles from where I grew up. Can we say all my major school trips went there?

Thursday, we went to Gettysburg, PA and took a guided tour of the battlefield after watching a movie narrated by Morgan Freeman and experiencing the cyclorama. Another 50 miles from my mom’s house. Getting the sense that I grew up in a historically rich area? It’s funny, Gettysburg was always the “Land of Cannons” to me, but they have WAY more monuments than cannon. They’re also doing an impressive job restoring the land to the condition/uses from the time of the battle. This means clearing trees in some areas and planting new ones in others.

Friday, we took the kids down to Chestertown, MD on the Eastern Shore, across the Bay Bridge for what was probably our longest trip of the week: 116 miles. Our destination was Washington College, where my husband and I met 22 years ago. I used to make that drive every week after I graduated and my husband was still in school until I gave up and moved back to the town. I’m not sure if the kids were impressed or not, but we did get to run into a few professors and staff that were still there. Which was a good thing since we won’t be able to make it back for his 20th reunion next month.

Saturday, we pretty much didn’t do anything at all. I dropped the family off at my mom’s and drove about 6 miles to meet another writer at a small coffee shop and spent about 2 hours chatting.

Sunday, we had a lovely Easter Brunch with my mom and then drove back to Baltimore to catch our flight home.

Anyway, that’s just a little bit of the history behind these photographs.

Sun: Apr 01, 2012		Mon: Apr 02, 2012
Tue: Apr 03, 2012	Wed: Apr 04, 2012	Thu: Apr 05, 2012
Fri: Apr 06, 2012		Sat: Apr 07, 2012

2012 Photo Challenge: Week 13

Week 13 of our 365 Photo Challenge. Hard to believe 3 months have passed and the 1st quarter of 2012 is over.

Lots of bees working the flowers this week while the sun was shining. You’ll definitely want to check out the larger views of the photo from Wednesday. I was amazed at how much pollen this one bee had gathered and stuck to his leg.

The last picture in this batch, I didn’t even remember taking. It’s one of those happy accidents. It turned out so much more interesting in every way possible than any of the others I took this morning intentionally working with my camera settings.

Next week, will have some more variety! We’re taking another big field trip, so I may not get pictures posted to flickr often during the week.

Sun: Mar 25, 2012		Mon: Mar 26, 2012
Tue: Mar 27, 2012	Wed: Mar 28, 2012	Thu: Mar 29, 2012
Fri: Mar 30, 2012		Sat: Mar 31, 2012

2012 Photo Challenge: Week 12

This is the twelfth week of our 365 Photo Challenge. Time’s really flying isn’t it?

Rough week. Especially Tuesday. I caught a nasty sinus infection and spent most of that day with a 102˚F fever. I nearly forgot to take a picture that day. Luckily, I had a doctor’s appointment already scheduled for Wednesday morning and a good dose of antibiotics has helped immensely.

Today was field trip day. Nothing regularly scheduled, but DS wanted to check out a retro gaming store down in Ocean Beach. So first up, we hit a good Peruvian restaurant that we’d never been to before, and headed down to OB. I got a few other pictures other than the kid running for the water, but I haven’t posted them up on flickr yet. And I’ll apologize now, if anyone noticed a radical shift in the earth’s axis either this afternoon or this evening. I had to “fix” the horizon by about -1.8 degrees on most of my pictures from today. I’m blaming it on the congestion messing with my sense of balance! Yeah, that’s the ticket. That’s my story & I’m sticking to it!

Sun: Mar 18, 2012		Mon: Mar 19, 2012
Tue: Mar 20, 2012	Wed: Mar 21, 2012	Thu: Mar 22, 2012
Fri: Mar 23, 2012		Sat: Mar 24, 2012

2012 Photo Challenge: Week 11

This is the eleventh week of our 365 Photo Challenge.

Not a varied week subject-wise, but my favorite picture this year so far is included in this batch. I’d been playing with the white balance settings on my camera and saw a dandelion gone to seed in the grass. I decided to take a blind shot (not looking through the view finder or at the display) and took a few shots of it. I’d forgotten to change the white balance which was radically different now that I was in a shady location, so I was kinda bummed to find several nearly black images when I downloaded my camera.

Luckily, I was able to boost the exposure in iPhoto and played around a bit with the saturation levels as well and the result was the dandelion below. Serendipity plays a HUGE role sometimes. Being in the right place at the right time, having the lighting just right, being in the right mood yourself even — all will affect what you see and capture. So go ahead… take those wild shots, experiment! You may just surprise yourself.

Sun: Mar 4 26, 2012		Mon: Mar 12, 2012
Tue: Mar 13, 2012	Wed: Mar 14, 2012	Thu: Mar 15, 2012
Fri: Mar 16, 2012		Sat: Mar 17, 2012

2012 Photo Challenge: Week 10

This is the tenth week of our 365 Photo Challenge. Hard to believe it’s been 70 days already!

Sorry for the seemingly repeats of the nearly, but not quite full moon. Can you tell I didn’t take any photos during those days and needed something — Anything! — before I went to bed? At least I got ’em. Oh, but look! I don’t always favor that top right quadrant for the moon.

I also remembered to take my camera along today when we picked up my husband from the airport and had lunch at Seaport Village. So there’s at least something other than the moon and the many flowers around my house. I had a hard time picking between the kites, sailboats, various birds, the silver robotic statue guy and the crab on the rocks at the water level that we saw today. It’s been a while since I’ve been down there on a Saturday, forgot about all the street performers who come out on the weekends.

Sun: Mar 4 26, 2012		Mon: Mar 5, 2012
Tue: Mar 6, 2012	Wed: Mar 7, 2012	Thu: Mar 8, 2012
Fri: Mar 9, 2012		Sat: Mar 10, 2012

2012 Photo Challenge: Week 9

Week Nine of our 365 Photo Challenge!

Spring has definitely sprung here. Which flowers are blooming are changing and I had some wild surprises this week from daffodils I thought were completely dead last year to a lizard taking a dip in the pool. The iceplant is just starting to bloom, soon the hillside will be one giant fuschia patch of buzzing bees. The hill beyond the roses behind the pool is a riot of color as well with the gazanias and the white and purple daisies blooming. Amazing what a different a week or two makes.