I joined a local photography club so I break out an try new things and see new locations. This month we went to the Cranberry Preserve and the Kensico Reservoir. It was a beautiful day followed by a beautiful sunset. I tried played around with different ISO and aperature settings.

 twoboats.jpg 

 sunsetkensico.jpg 

 rowboat3.jpg 

 rowboat2.jpg 

 rowboat.jpg 

These were all taken on a walk through Seattle using a 55-200mm lens.  All pictures are from Myrtle Edwards Park, the Sculpture Park, and various spots around Belltown.

 Dog in the city 

 Dog in the city 2 

 Seattle Streets 

 Seattle Streets 2 

 Bird in flight 

 Bird on a pole 

 Alley in Seattle 

 Alley in Seattle 2 

Enjoy!

As some may know, the south got pummeled with snow Sunday night.  It's not something we're use to.  5 inches of accumulation was the least amount in the area and where I work it was up to 8 inches. 
So I've been couped at home for the past two days (I was greeted to my first drive in to work today with the sun taunting me as I slowly made my hour long commute among still icy roads.  I could just hear it singing "Nanny nanny boo boo.  I'm out and you can't take pictures now..."  Ok.  That was probably just my imagination, but it was a cruel turn of fates nonetheless) because of the 5+ inches of snow and lack of snow removal equipment to get out to the county in a timely manner.  The weather people tried to call it the "Winter Weather Wallop" but everyone on facebook has officially deemed it the "Snowpocolypse."  All I know is I would have preferred it to come Friday night so that I could have really enjoyed it (rather than half-heartidly enjoying it because I know it's going to h-e-double hockey sticks making up all this missed time next week).

But enough of that.  I didn't get to go anywhere to take pictures (because let's face it, if I can get in the car to drive somewhere for pictures I should have tried to go to work) so I meandered around the house off and on.  I haven't come across many I like, but I do have a nice set from yesterday when the sun first made his appearance in a while for his descent behind the horizon.

1    2    3    4   

Critique them as you see fit.  It's my backyard and I'm not terribly inspired by it, but the beautiful light did wonders for it.  That much I know.

Hi all! Another post from Hawaii. Not quite as many pictures, so hopefully it's okay. (Here's the one from Kuai.)

  Angelfish - in an aquarium. Sorry, no underwater camera for me. I did do some snorkelling off another island, though.

  Waterfall. Did a little bit of climbing to get that view. It was fun. We swam in the pool of a similar one in the same area.

 Ocean. Of course I took several pictures of the ocean on each island. It's so.. blue.

 Flower and  leaves. I posted a similar picture of leaves in the last one, mentioning how the light always shines through them so prettily. :)

And lastly, I watched a sunset from start to finish. It was a little lonely, being by myself on the beach, but the sunset was amazing and I loved being able to watch the sun make that final dip from being there to - not.  Sunset1  Sunset2  Sunset3  Sunset4  Sunset5  Sunset6. :)

I captured this Autumn sunset last October on the Outer Bank's Hatteras Island, North Carolina.

 Sunset - Hatteras Island 

Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children.
~ Ancient American Indian Proverb

We haven't seen the sun much so it was nice to see a pretty sunset

 SunsetPond

Here are a few more from the elk park:

 Buffalo Laying down
 BuffaloPortrait
 PilatedWoodPecker I would love to get a shot of one of these closer up, they are very elusive.

Thanks for looking.  Have a Great afternoon!  :o)

Last night while chasing the sunset i captured this Wisconsin  corn field catching the evening rays.....

thinking >   Pink      ( this macro  inspired by our Ms Faerie)  :)

blessings, Ms Judi 

 This evening i went out to capture our amazing Wisconsin   sunset . While i was out  Doug's dad brought over some  homemade frozen  beef   enchiladas (macro)  made by his mother.   This was the first time i have ever had one and it was delicious.. sorry no pics were taken after they were baked.. we ate them too fast! lol 

Have a great evening everyone... stay warm ... blessings,Ms Judi :)

...because my husband bought me a new lens!  The Sigma 50-500mm and boy let me tell you that is one heavy sucker!! 4.1 pounds to be exact.  I've been practicing a lot to build up my muscles if anything!  Hard to hold steady but in time I think I'll be ok :)  I drove to the Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge one day-it's a drive thru Refuge and almost had the place to myself.  There were lots and lots of hawks .  I did stop at one of the ponds that has a platform and captured this coot eating slime.  Then there was this Pied-billed Grebe that did not want me going in any direction he was going what so ever.  Yesterday I stopped by a pond near my house and saw this Snowy Egret flying by.  I've never really ever done a sunset, but leaving one of the parks yesterday I did catch this sunset .

So there you have it, some of my better practice shots. Thanks for looking.

 Bridge A few friends decided to do a boat trip on January 1st on the Niger river. I had always missed previous occasions, so I was very happy that this group had a spot free. These boats, called 'pirogue' (lit. dug out canoe), come in all kinds of sizes and they are navigated by the Bozo people, the 'masters of the water.' Such a boat trip gives you really unique angles, such as the view of Bamako's 'New Bridge' from underneath (#1).

 Bozo steering boat  We were about ten people and it was a lovely ride, upriver on one side, coming down on the other side when the sun was already setting behind our tour guide (#2). By the time we arrived at our starting point it was dark.

Been on the road a lot and keeping busy with work The following pictures are from a few weeks back while traveling through LA. Experimented with the shutter speed and the speed of the Ferris wheel to see what patterns resulted.

 Santa Monica Pier

 Santa Monica Pier (sunglasses recommended)

 Santa Monica Pier in blue

 Santa Monica Pier wide view

Taken in  Fish Creek, WI. Located on the Green Bay Side of the Door County Peninsula.

Used 1-2 split ND's to even out the brightness of the sky. The question of the day is the placement of the horizon. The picture has been cropped and it is possible to do a different crop that moves the horizon off center to show more sky.  Is it okay to leave in center or should it be moved?

We left Las Vegas Friday morning, and stopped by the Hoover Dam, where they wanted to charge us $8 each just to enter the visitor center after charging us $7 for parking. We told them where they could put their dam fee. The line marking the border between Nevada and Arizona on the road passing over the dam has been erased. Apparently, they couldn't figure out how to charge people to see it. Or, hell, maybe they sold the dam thing. They're also building a new bridge above the dam, so the existing road will probably be next to go.

We headed south to Lake Havasu, which is known for one thing--the London Bridge, which was bought for $2.5M and then disassembled, shipped to Arizona and put back together stone by stone. It seems that the guy who bought it thought he was buying the Tower Bridge, which is the London icon. Still, it's a nice bridge.

It was very hot so we hit the pool for awhile and then went out to shoot a late afternoon storm. This may also fit in cratchet's new challenge - a lighthouse in Arizona? Not something you see everyday and something I definitely didn't expect. We also got sunset shots over the lake from a huge trailer park and a little post sunset serenity from a park down the road. Then we went back down to the bridge for a few evening shots like this one and this other one while we still had a little ambient light to work with.

Saturday morning we got up and made the drive back to Tucson, our vacation over except for the fireworks that night. Thank you for joining us in our little adventure. We had a blast taking the pictures and hope you enjoyed seeing them.

This monday we had the most spectacular sunset I've seen in a long while.  Michael and I have a very nice view from our backyard and while we were working in the garden and the sun was slowly sinking I could just tell it was going to be a good one.  I ran inside and grabbed my D200 and snapped away.  I will say that I overexposed some shots (for foreground detail) and then did a slight underexposed shot for glorious sky color.  I then place one on top of the other in photoshop and used a mask to bring the best attributes of the picture on bottom.

June Sunset

And since it's a short week and everyone's been taking off here at work, I was slightly bored yesterday and have CS4 on my computer at work, so I played with the only effect I know how to use:  Orton Effect.

Thanks for looking, comments are always appreciated.  Oh and HAPPY 4th EVERYONE!

edit:  for those who want to know how to do the orton effect, here are the instructions

Bug Light Portland Maine

 Bar Harbor Sunset 

It was a chilly 97 in Tucson today with humidity all the way up to 8% and visibility of about 100 miles.

Last night the few clouds out on the horizon looked like they had potential, so I walked down to the local park. Sure enough, I was able to get a sunset shot that I liked. While I was waiting for the colors to pop up, though, I noticed that this cholla was blooming and persuaded it to pose for me.

I went back this afternoon with a tripod to get some more cholla blooms, but they were all gone. Someone in the night had apparently absconded with them all.

But then I noticed that this hedgehog was blooming. This little fellow is about two inches tall and maybe four inches across. It makes nice flowers, even though I had to lay on my stomach to get down to its level. Notice the nasty little fish-hook barbs. You do not want those in your foot, so I strongly recommend not running barefoot through the desert, in case any of you wild and crazy people were considering  doing that.