Footbridge in snow

Day 31;

    

Blue eyes

Day 30;  
   Meet Lance.  A georgeous cat at home at Computer Magic.  I see some magic in those eyes.

Amaryllis 2

Day 29;
   I used this neon affect before.. and am using it again.  This amaryllis has beautiful large blooms.

Footbridge

Day 28;
    I'm taking a photography course.  My homework is to take 100 pictures.  I was taking pictures of this walkway when I noticed these sneakers on the walkway... had to take a picture of them.  Think they have been there several days now.

Spent Amaryllis

Day 27;
    We had a delay to get into work this morning. so I took some pictures this morning..  had a busy day.. so am posting one of those shots.  One of the amaryllises that bloomed has now finished blooming.  I was intrigued with the spent blooms with the black and white pencil drawing in the background.  It almost looks like one of the spent blooms is pouring into the cup in the drawing.  I liked the graceful look of this dying flower.
Too tired tonight to take more shots after a busy day. 

  

Cats sharing

Day 26;
    I hadn't noticed the cats snuggling up to each other in a long time.  I briefly saw them in the same cat couch this morning and tried to take a picture.. one picture had a little too much light and the other too dark.. tried to lighten it... It may still be too dark to see on this blog.

Still life

Day 25;
   
The hydrangea flowers come from a shrub near by. 

Cat

Day 24;
    Jasmine - lounging on the back of the stuffed chair.  It amazes me how cats can get into such comfortable positions, where ever they choose to curl up.

Amaryllis

Day 23;
    Another amaryllis is starting to bloom.  This one will have a pink blossom  instead of red.  I took the shot on a manual setting without flash at night... so had to add light in editing.  I like the warmth of the coloring.  I removed the one I had posted late last night and replaced with this one.  Unfortunately there is a leg of a stool also  in the picture..

Below is a closeup of this amaryllis.  I cannot get closer with my camera and not sure if I can enlarge this too much more without losing picture quality.  This was also at night, so had a lamp on near the plant to help with the lighting..

So I decided to enlarge the amaryllis and see what would happen. 

Garfield

Day 22;
   My brother has the unique opportunity of sharing a cat with his next door neighbor.
He has named this cat - Garfield.

Snow shoeing

Day 21;

    Snow shoeing today.  Down a nice wide trail to the lake.  Good company, good conversation, fun.

Exercise

  I made my second trip to the health club this morning.  Why did I take so long to do this?  Got my exercise done for the day.. feeling good.. feel more energetic to get things done.  Lets see, as the great Newton said.. "an object will stay at rest or stay in motion" - the law of inertia.  That's me, once I get going, I am productive.  If I sit around, I get more unproductive and its more difficult to get going. 
   I'm also rereading or rather listening to the book "Feel the Fear and Do it Anyways"  again.. so much positive information to pick up.  It amazes me how in rereading or re-listening to something, you can pick out things that you missed before.  We all have choices, no matter what is handed to us.  We can choose to look at things in a positive light and learn from them. I strongly recommend this book by Susan Jeffers, Ph.D.

First Workout

Day 20;
    I finally joined a health club today and did my first workout.  I walked on the treadmill and felt great afterwards. I've been thinking about doing this for quite a while.  Why did I wait so long.... thinking I would work out doing other things.   I need to workout more consistently.  This place is on my way home and will fit into my schedule perfectly I think when I cannot get together with friends to walk outside.  Must get rid of those holiday pounds :)

    I went back in this morning and decided to add an affect to my picture.  It is interesting to see how the different affects make the picture look.

Hair cut

Day 19;

Well here is a sort of self portrait at the hairdressers:) 

Bean pots

Day 18;
   I have a small collection of bean pots.  I have not made baked beans with maple syrup in a long time.  Its maybe time.

Playtime

Day 17;
     While taking pictures, I caught Jasmine reaching up with her front paws to play with the taller blossom of the amaryllis bud.  I had tried taking pictures of Molly doing same thing, but those came out blurry.   I love the eyes, eventhough they are glowing from the flash.  You can see her paws on the stem and bud. 

Poinsettia

Day 16;
   I decided to take my picture early today.  I liked the soft texture of the poinsettia in this shot and thought the red table cloth in the background tied it all together. 

Vacuum

Day 15;
     Vacuuming... not my favorite thing but has to be done. I finally took down my tree today. Had to vacuum up all of the pine needles.

I just tried editing a different picture with Picnik.  Picnik was easy to use, easy to upload, but had difficulty trying to get the picture onto my blog.  Seems like I had to save it to Photbucket first.   My computer keeps losing connection this morning for some reason.  This is so frustrating!  Okay, finally got it in the right size. 

The Little Blue Chair

Day 14;
    This little blue chair belongs to the little boy next door and usually is positioned facing outward to the  right of my neighbor's door on the right.  Recently I have come home and found this chair facing my door.  Has my neighbor's son knocked on my door to invite me to join he and his mom for tea?  Has he knocked on my door and I didn't hear it?  Is he sitting and waiting for me to answer the door?   Did the chair just get moved there while cleaning the snow off the porch?  It doesn't matter, it puts a smile on my face to see this little chair angled towards my door.  I am fortunate to have such a nice family next door.
  

I have swapped this picture out a couple of times now with different variations trying to get the right focus.  This still doesn't seem to be just it, but its closer.

Sports Fan?

Day 13;

Dermatologist's office to see about a red spot..   saw this duck in the window..taken with cell phone.. not a great shot but soooooooo cute.

 

Soup

Day 12;
     Today is a good day to make turkey soup.

Shells and shadows

Day 11;

Voting

Day 10;
     While I was at the voting place, I thought I should document this for this Project.  I don't have much in the way of software for editing photographs, so I finally decided to try Photobucket.  I ended up using an effect from Photobucket.  I liked the effect on the first picture.  Second picture didn't really know what to do with it , but added an effect and posted it anyways. 
So here it is voting January,10, 2012. 

Bokeh continued

Day 9;
I think I finally understand what bokeh is.  I thought I did but after some friends e-mailed me some information about bokeh that they researched, I see that I didn't fully understand it, but think I do now.  My tree is still up with the lights on and is in the background of the picture below. I'm back to using my Kodak share bridge camera for this shot.  I think I've got the idea now.. eventually will come up with a good picture.:)

No, I haven't taken my tree down yet...still enjoying the lights.

Cats

Day 8;
Well I couldn't help myself.. cats it is again.  After reading comments, doing some more studying on photography online, I have tried some more close ups of my cats with the nikon.  I used either the close up auto scene or the portrait auto scene.  I also looked up about bokeh.  I thought bokeh had to have blurred lights in the background.  I guess  any blurring done on purpose is bokeh.  So I tried to take some cat close ups with blurred back ground.    I just got a video from a friend showing and explaining exactly what bokeh is.   http://youtu.be/uRJMisfK_-Q    If this video doesn't work, please let me know.
        My subject was too far away on some of my other cat shots, so no bokeh effect. 

Here is a bokeh type effect below.  I can see I should have gotten closer to the cat for this shot, but there is a little blurring.

Jasmine was sitting on the table in front of the TV.  No bokeh here as I took this shot as I was too far away.  However I liked the reflection that the flash caused on the TV.  Also liked the intent look on Jasmine's face. 

Early Saturday Morning

Day 7;
I got up early and had decided that I was going to catch some pre-dawn and dawn pictures, using the Nikon DSLR.  I'm finally starting to understand some of its workings and getting used to it.  It makes my point and shoot... fluff.
It was a beautiful dawn and nice that it was not freezing or below zero.  Although after awhile my fingers were really getting cold.  I am thinking about purchasing some gloves or mittens where the covering at the ends of the fingers can come off the fingers and fold back or something along those lines.  If you have some suggestions, please pass them on.

 

Molly

Day 6;
  It's Friday evening and I'm relaxing. When I first got home tonight from school, I heard a lot of birds, just happened to look up at the tree in the next yard behind my place and I saw lots of what looked like grackles seemingly roosting in the top of the tree.  By the time I decided to try taking a picture, got my camera and went back outside , there were no birds.  I did take some pictures of my cats after I got home today and I liked this one the best of Molly.  

Breakast for Molly

Day 5;
      This picture was taken early this morning..... there is Molly licking her lips and looking intently, probably checking to see where Jasmine is, as she has breakfast.  Hmmm hmmmm good.  She and Jasmine almost never eat at the same time even though there are 2 bowls.  Jasmine usually gets to the dinner table first.  I put a festive napkin on the "table" for Christmas.. my real reason was to keep the food from dropping on the floor.

   
I'm still working on Bokeh with my point and shoot.... here are a couple of results from tonight. 

This time, I noticed a reflection of the Christmas tree in the window.. and thought I would see what I could do with that.  The amaryllis is the flower on the left.. I couldn't seem to get that in focus except for the top shot and still get good Bokeh?  The other two shots remind me of a painting.  I don't like that hole in the third right section..  If I have time, I may take another go at it to see if I can get rid of that hole.  Need to get some other things done.  But this has been fun trying to get this Bokeh affect.

Dinner

Day 4;
     Wednesday is dinner out with the girls.  A get together place for food, fun and friends. 

Bokeh

Day 3;
I can see now how posting a new and different picture each day could be a little overwhelming at times.  Just went back to work today after the holiday, have a lot to do, also going to my camera club meeting and then trying to take a new and interesting shot.  Its only day 3....  A friend sent me a link about Bokeh.. well let me tell you , I spent a bit of time last night trying to get it to work on my point and shoot bridge type camera.. finally got the Bokeh effect, but no subject in the foreground.  So today, am thinking I'd like to take a picture of a different amaryllis, as it is opening  up, pictures through the stages.  See this amaryllis was a gift to another friend, but this friend is away.. sooooo I thought I would take pictures of the amaryllis as it opened up.
  Well I didn't want to do the same picture as yesterday even without the cat. so I started moving the plant around and pretty soon I had it in front of a black and white pencil drawing.  And don't you know it is in the next room, opposite the christmas tree... and while setting up the shot, I see lights on the black and white picture.. looking Bokeh like.. well I realize this is cheating but I liked the effect.. so after a dozen or so pictures and some editing below is what I ended up with..still not quite what I was wanting but best I can do for now.

Below is the Bokeh shot that I finally got using my bridge camera last night.

Amarillis

Day 2;

 I got up early this morning and took some pictures outside.  Walked around my neighborhood and enjoyed the morning quiet.    Also took some pictures inside.  As I was taking pictures of some amaryllises in front of a mirror propped up on the floor, one of my cats (Jasmine) was sniffing the stick that was there to support the plant as it grew.  I thought it a cute picture with the reflection of the plant in the mirror behind it.  I also notice now, that I like the lines of the wooden floor.
     

Day at the Beach

Day 1;
I have decided to participate in Project 360.  I took a bunch of pictures yesterday, on the first so am posting them as January 1, 2012.  I have decided that I need motivation to get me taking more pictures, to improve in my photography skills.  As always, I hesitate to do something unless I know the right way to do it, so didn't realize until today how Project 360 works.  He who hesitates is lost.. so I need to work on.. just do it...

I also may have started a new tradition for January first.  I drove up to  Kittery and York Beach, Maine.. an area where I went camping at Camp Eaton on Long Sands at York Beach for several summers.  I have wonderful memories of those times.  I was excited and happy to back to these old stomping grounds. 

While on my trek, the first place I stopped at a Kittery wharf, I saw a group of sea kayakers getting ready to start out on their adventure.  It was a beautiful sunny, warm day.  The kayaks were very colorful. Although these were sea kayaks, it was such a calm day, and the water was very calm, could I do this with my non sea kayak on a day like this.. I was almost wishing I had my kayak with me until I observed these kayakers in their wet suits and getting into kayaks where they sealed the openings up.  Could I do that and what if I tipped over, could roll out of it, did I want to learn to do that?  Something to think about. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of my day and taking pictures with the Nikon that I borrowed.  I many times, end up talking myself out of going someplace because I might not have enough time, should have started out earlier, I'll do it another time.. I was very happy that I did not listen to these inner voices and just went.  I had plenty of time for my outing.  Magically I came across these kaykers.  At Long Beach, I came across a surfer, at Nubble light I came across some other photographers and discovered they were watching a snowy owl at the light house, and other rare birds in the water. Of these birds, my camera was not strong enough to get decent pictures. But it was a most enjoyable day.  I am indeed grateful for the opportunities and friendships that have surrounded me.

December