Today’s weekly photo post shows off the brilliant color of the birds of paradise just beyond our pool. This photo was taken around 5pm and our property is tucked down over the hill from where the sun sets, so the lighting is all indirect and muted.
Even in the low light, these flowers shine with an inner glow.
Settings: Sony SLT-A33 • 1/160 • ƒ/4 • ISO 400 • 100 mm
Today’s weekly photo post is of one of our two almond trees which has begun to blossom. The crows tend to get all the nuts before we even have an inkling that they might be ready. Apparently, almond trees are a lot of work to harvest and require quite a bit of pampering so that the crows don’t steal all your hard work anyway. Oh well.
I love how the blossoms cluster like that.
Settings: Sony SLT-A33 • 1/500 • ƒ/5.6 • ISO 800 • 300 mm
Spring has sprung here in sunny SoCal. Today’s post for my weekly photo is just one of the many flowers that has decided that the combination of scattered showers and warm weather we’ve been having mean it’s time to poke their heads up and get their bloom on!
I was good this week and didn’t just go out with the automatic settings, but played around with several different shots on manual. Some I was happy with, others not so much. I need to plan a field trip with my camera. I have a couple places in mind, but my days have been full lately.
Settings: Sony SLT-A33 • 1/500 • ƒ/5.6 • ISO 320 • 300 mm
My pick for the weekly photo this week is one of our very silly golden retriever puppy, Olivia. She’s almost a year old and she loves exploring things, like the crevices in the couch where the kids drop all sorts of tasty treasures. She’ll get her whole head down in the cushions and our son referred to it as “scuba dogging” and the term has stuck.
The other day she discovered the fireplace in the living room. She’s tried to explore it before, but I convinced her that she’d rather do other things. Well, this time, she slipped in between the chain curtains and was nosing around the ceramic logs for a bit before I caught her in the act. Damp paper towels were not enough, but a dunk in the shower and some baby shampoo got her back to normal. Our son said, “You know, I just can’t take the dog seriously when her face is like this.”
Who knows… maybe tattoos like this will become all the rage for dogs!
Settings: iPhone 4S • 1/15 • ƒ/2.4 • ISO 400 • 4.3 mm
Today’s weekly photo is of one of two Silk Floss Trees (Chorisia speciosa) on our property. This tree is holding on to its blooms as long as it possibly can, despite the lows in the 20s and frost several mornings in a row last week.
I haven’t been able to get an interesting picture of the impressive thorns on these trees. The rejects from this weekly photo batch included some clouds, the moon out in the afternoon sky, some rather impressionistic ones of the back yard where I had the camera set completely wrong. But you know, in some ways I find those worth investigating because the effects are cool and if they could be applied in the right situations on purpose, who needs Photoshop filters!
Settings: SONY SLT-A33 • 1/500 • ƒ/5.6 • ISO 250 • 300 mm
Today’s entry for my weekly photo challenge is one of the confused Gazanias in the back yard. The temperatures this week have been unusually cooler for SoCal. The highs have been in the mid-50s and the lows have been in the upper 20s. Yes, the natives think it’s parka weather. I’m happy in shirt sleeves. Anyway, after the temperatures in the mid 70s last week, the plants are confused. They thought spring was here.
I’m probably only going to post one photo each week, but I’m hoping to take more so I have a few to choose from. If I can’t pick just one or have several I like, I’ll add them to my flickr stream. I ended up taking two batches of photos this week because I didn’t really like any of the ones from the first day.
And, yes, I promise I won’t always do flowers.
As some of you know, last year I started a 365 project where you take and post a picture for every day of the year. I stalled out in September and even though I tried to pick it up again in October, the momentum was gone. This year, I decided to take a lot of the pressure off and only require myself to post one weekly photo, although I may take lots more. Downloading my camera and posting the pictures wasn’t the hard part. Some days it was just getting outside to take a picture. Sure I had my iPhone with me, but I don’t like the picture quality as well and it felt like cheating when the whole point of the project was to learn how to use my dSLR better. And I think I made great progress toward that goal.
I hope you enjoy these posts and looking at the year to come through my lens with me!
Your Turn: What are you doing for fun, relaxation and to feed your creative muse this year?
My accountability group just kicked off a new year with new goals and are continuing with our How I Write series. This week, the question asked was, “What is one thing you’re going to do to refocus your 2013 goals that you learned in 2012?”
Each year I always seem to bite off more than I can chew. Always with the best intentions, of course. And always in the name of balance. I’ve tried several different methods of organizing my goals and what seemed to work best was a breakdown by quarters.
Last year, I had great plans to write a book along with my local RWA Chapter’s challenge participants. Life had other ideas. I’m refocusing on that book this year, but instead of just jumping in and running, I have a concrete step by step plan to see it all the way through.
Likewise, I did really well with my Project365 progress up until a certain point last year. I had worried about keeping up with such an ambitious project every day, but had settled into a comfortable routine until, it broke. This year, I will be focusing on one photo post per week, taking a lot of the pressure off.
This year, in pretty much all areas, I’m focusing on quality over quantity and approaching everything with a plan before execution, taking smaller bites. I’ve also learned that I absolutely must put my writing at a higher priority and I can’t be content to stay safe in my comfort zone.
So far, the momentum is off to a great start and I’m looking forward to keeping it building through out the year. Stay tuned, there are 51 Weeks to go!
Your Turn: What are you going to do different this year to reach your goals?
And if you’d like to read what the rest of my accountability group is changing this year based on lessons learned, you can find their blogs here:
* Alexia Reed * Kimberly Farris * Danie Ford * Emma G. Delaney
Week 42 of our 365 Photo Challenge.
I spent most of the past week in an allergy med-inuduced fog. So, I’m afraid it wasn’t a very interesting week photo-wise, but I took ’em!
What you see below are links to my flickr set for the photos I’m posting for this photo 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: Oct 14, 2012 |
 Mon: Oct 15, 2012 |
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 Tue: Oct 16, 2012 |
 Wed: Oct 17, 2012 |
 Thu: Oct 18, 2012 |
 Fri: Oct 19, 2012 |
 Sat: Oct 20, 2012 |
Week 41 of our 365 Photo Challenge.
It’s been hard getting back in the habit this past week. I’ve had to resort to using pictures from my phone and have a VERY wide variety in subjects this week. But hey, I’m hanging in there!
What you see below are links to my flickr set for the photos I’m posting for this photo 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: Oct 7, 2012 |
 Mon: Oct 8, 2012 |
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 Tue: Oct 9, 2012 |
 Wed: Oct 10, 2012 |
 Thu: Oct 11, 2012 |
 Fri: Oct 12, 2012 |
 Sat: Oct 13, 2012 |