Day 71: Blue Moon

Today is the end of a decade, and a year I'm not sad to see go.  But to welcome in the New Year & decade we have a beautiful Blue Moon.  Welcome 2010, may you bring everyone something a little better.

Manual & Images: Understanding Exposure, by Bryan Peterson

Day 70: I need light

In the dining room.

Day 69: My street

The two trees on the right and the first driveway are mine.

Day 68: Wet chain

Its been wet and dreary lately..

Day 67: A December Fire...

...in the sky.  It was such an amazingly clear sky this afternoon.  So I took off to see if I couldn't get some backlit silhouettes.  To my surprise I got some clouds that showed up at the last minute and looked like they were on fire.  You guys know my penchant for unedited photos.  The bottom one is completely untouched.  The top one just a little clarity.  With a little Civil Twilight playing in my ears, waiting for civil twilight to occur I let my mind clear and captured these.  I have 153 more if you need one.

Manual:  Page 56, Focus Point Selection

Images & Inspirations: Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson

Day 66: Safety Net

Life + Holidays = really hard to keep up with 365 project.  But I managed a quick close up today of the safety net around the trampoline.

Manual:  Page 54 & 55 focus

Images & Inspirations: Galen Rowell - Yosemite Gallery

Day 65: Christmas Angel

With a little snow on the ground, my oldest, made the perfect snow angel.

Unlike Tasra - I have taken Christmas off from my manual.

Day 64: It's a White Christmas Eve

Snow isn't a regular occurrence in Texas, well at least in my part of Texas (FYI, it was 65 yesterday).  A White Christmas in Big D hasn't happened in 80 years.  For me, it was like being a kid again and for the first time this holiday season, I haven't felt completely bah humbug.

Above with a second on the clock & a little wind I can show you some movement.  Below is snow falling from the sky with my flash - I played with the tint in Lightroom to get some festive Christmas colors.

I hope everyone has a very Happy Holiday.

I skipped the manual today and my inspiration was from the sky, literally.

Day 63: Rail Bridge

Day 62: Purple

Manual: Page 50 & 51, Recording & Viewing Movies (Live View)

Images & Inspirations:  Ansel Adams

Day 61: Gull

Manual: Page 49: Deleting Unwanted Photographs

Images & Inspirations:  Fellow 365'ers

Day 60: Father Christmas

Manual: Page 48: Basic Playback

Images & Inspirations: Viggo Mortensen's Linger - Really fabulous.

Day 59: Giddy Up

Went on another nature walk with an exercise secondary objective.  10 miles and 96 pictures later, I have found that I have an obsession with underpasses/bridges.  I think 68 of the pictures I took were of the underside of underpasses and light rail bridges.  I see a series coming....

Anyway, I did have a fun time playing leap frog with these horses.  They'd show up every mile or so on the trail - I finally decided to snap a few pics.  My husband was enamored of this one so you get this instead of some graffiti about Oliver North. 

Images & Inspiration: Nature - there is no better inspiration. 

day 58: Slimed

Today's nature walk photos surprised even me.

Images & Inspirations: Nature

Day 57: Under Walnut Hill....

I took a photo walk today, which pretty much made my day.  Almost an hour and a half of winding paths, creeks, tree roots, birds & squirrels, yet this made the photo of the day.  The creek was a color green that just didn't look real without food coloring.  The exposed tree roots along the creek were cluttered with litter, shopping carts, plastic bags hung from the tree limbs.  The problem is I still haven't got the white balance right on the camera yet - everything outside now looks odd or at least it did to me. So might need to re-adjust again.

Manual: 43-47 Framing Pictures in the Monitor (Live View)  This gets me for the next few days.

Inspirations:  My iPod.

Day 56: Look before you leap...

My little man - taking a flying leap off the front steps.  Sometimes, I wish I was 6 again.

Manual: pages 41 & 42 Creative Photography (Scene Modes)

Inspiration:  Civil Twilight's self titled album.  Sometimes its not other people's shots that inspire you.

Day 55: What you looking at?

Every time I tried to sit at the breakfast bar and talk to the cook - this little guy hopped off of his cage and coming running to attack me.  I finally gave it up and stood instead.

Manual: Page 39, Step 6: Shoot

Images: copazetic's flickr stream.

Day 54: Into the mist....

I saw a photograph of a pier in New Zealand that had the mist rolling in and I've wanted to duplicate it since I returned.  This may get blown up and hung on the wall.

Manual: Page 38, Step 5: Focus

Images:  Sally Mann, What remains.  Kinda dark but wow.

Day 53: From the rear...

I've decided that 365 days of photos is hard.  Its hard if you have a job, a family, a life of anykind.  I'm enjoying the heck out of it, but its hard.  Today we went to my husband's uncle's home (that's a mouthful) to watch the football game and then have a Hanukkah dinner - today is the 3rd night.  As I hadn't managed to take a photo yet today, I ran around their house snapping anything that looked good.  The only time I didn't have my camera a hawk flew 20' over my head - talk about luck.  Out of the 100+ photos I took the one of the backside of the pansy with the sun through the petals was what I liked the most.  Surprisingly, so did my husband.  I have added the front for your enjoyment as well.  you tell me if I chose the right photo.

BOTH ARE TOTALLY UNEDITED

Manual & Images:  I'll catch up tomorrow. I promise.

Day 52: When ya gotta go....

Tomorrow is The White Rock Marathon.  Every corner I turned this afternoon was another bank of port-o-potties.  What a fun sight, but I guess when you gotta go, you gotta go.

Manual:  Again skipped it, but I am reading Understanding Exposure  Again, so I'm getting lots of setting help.

Images:  Steve Murray

Day 51: Hi-Yo Silver, Away....

I love this ornament.  I know its not the Christmas-y type of ornament, but if you haven't figured me out yet you should know I always stray from the norm.

ALWAYS.

Manual:  I skipped today - I'll catch up tomorrow.

Images:  Spooky Rach's Cemeteries.  I love cemetery pictures.

Day 50: Science Fair

I am actually too old to have experienced a science fair, but this is the calm before the storm at my children's schools.  Shortly after this quiet scene, class by class of elementary students brought in their project boards and then it was just plain nuts.

Manual: Page 37, Step 4: Frame the Photograph

Images:  Do science fair pictures count?

Day 49: Footbridge

I have plans for this footbridge.  On the right day, with the right stuff - some bracketing and bam an HDR, this day was just not it, but I like this view.

Manual: Page 36 Step 3: Check Camera Settings

Images:  Back to Bryan Peterson & Understanding Exposure.

Day 48: Decisions, Decisions

It was a hard decision today to choose a photo, my husband and I didn't agree on which one to choose. So I posted both, maybe you'll tell me which one you like better and why.

Manual: Page 36: Step 3: Check Camera Settings

Images: A wonderful fun photographer with a great eye who does family & wedding portraits. Ashley Truckey.

Day 47 - Duck, Duck, GOOSE!

So lucky that my camera was on, the lens cap was off and it was set for high speed shots, otherwise the top shot would be the one that never was. Today was so incredibly cold, wet and dreary I almost didn't shoot anything, but braved the cold lake wind for a few (hundred) shots this afternoon. Lot of noise due to the million percent humidity, but these were my favorite shots of the day.

Manual: Page 36, Choose Shooting & Focus Modes

Images: Some of my Flickr pools. AWESOME!

Day 46: We learn from our mistakes right?

They say we learn from our mistakes. Well, I hope that is true. This is a mistake. 1) It has been raining all day long. Hard to do a lot of shooting that way. 2) It's also colder than the Arctic. Ok, that might be a slight exaggeration, but its cold. I spent about a 1/2 hour in 1000% (no that is not a typo) humidity to get this - the problem, the water content in the air which was not fog, just made a lot of noise on the exposure. I took all of 17 shots today - nothing was exciting me through the lens.

Unfortunately I also found that I lost 95% of my fragile & pretty Christmas ornaments since they've been used last. So the nasty fabric ones that the kids & cats couldn't break are on the tree. Nothing to take there. Maybe tomorrow will be more inspiring.

Day 45: Frosted Glass

It was cold last night. When my children forced me out of bed to make their breakfast this morning I noticed everything was frosted over. This is the top of a glass table that probably belongs in an old time ice cream parlor. It makes me cold just looking at it.

Manual: I skipped it tonight - I cleaned the entire house and can't find it - Oops!

Images: Some art photos that I'm not sure who to credit. Great portraits.

Day 44: On a Clear Day....

This reminds me of a song from a movie from 1970. The movie was, On A Clear Day You Can See Forever, staring: Yves Montand, Barbra Streisand, Bob Newhart, Jack Nicholson. But the words of that song always enter my mind on a day like this, it was cold too and that just added to it. By myself, thinking about any and every possibility available. Those are the days I like. The ones where you imagine anything can happen.

Because it can.

Manual: Page 34, Point & Shoot Photography Step 1: Turn on a Camera (I think I've got this down.)

Images: Daniel Beltra - amazing. I so want to get the opportunity for some arial shots. Its really too bad I'm afraid of heights.

Day 43: Trim the Tree

Day 42: Light the Night

Today I was overwhelmed by a fellow 365'er who said my photos were poetic on her blog post today. Thank you Marianna - a very talented photographer herself I might add. I have to be honest though, I did feel a little pressure to perform. We had our first snow of the season - something we don't see often in Texas and not this early in the season. I tried all morning to get a shot and nothing & I mean nothing came out right.

After a failed science project, I tried again. I took off with what will now be known as my lucky hat and my tripod. None of these has been edited, which for me make this even better, although I did crop the 2nd photo. I knew when I took the above that it was what would be posted, so I packed up and got out of the cold. I hope you enjoy them. I am very pleased with my first true night extravaganza.

Manual: Page 32, Adjust Viewfinder Focus

Images: My fellow 365'ers. You guys are awesome!

Day 41: Rain, Rain Go Away

Remember the Calgon, take me away....well, I'm there. Between a crazy work schedule today, a sick husband and science project work - no manual reading.

Enjoy!

Day 40: I was moving when I took this.

Sometimes the photos we almost didn't take are the ones that turn out well, to surprise us. I took this out the open window of the car as my husband was driving down the street. I didn't think, I didn't look at angles or lights - I saw something I liked and snapped. Sometimes that's what makes a photo worth it.

Manual: Page 31, Removing Memory Cards

Day 39: Remembrance

Do you recognize this spot? Maybe, maybe not. This was taken from the top of Dealey Plaza looking down. The underpass on the right would be where the limo went after Kennedy was shot. I've lived in Dallas for 17 years, and today was the first time I actually went there. It was a dreary grey day, misting. I snapped pictures from all angles, this was the one with the least amount of traffic - for some reason this moved me more than the traditional shot. Although it's not 11/22 - I think this year there was less of a tribute than usual, so here is mine. For some reason, today was just a B&W kind of day.

Manual: Page 30, Formatting Memory Cards

Images: I have the last half of a Sally Mann special I recorded off Ovation TV. WOW, talk about inspiration.

Day 38: Shine your light upon thee

Couldn't resist the title. The front side of this church is much more appealing with beautiful stained glass. This one moved my husband - he saw it an immediately said this was today's photo. Far be it from me to not post a photo that moves someone.

Manual: Page 29 Inserting Memory Cards

Day 37: Obstacles

I can never see that word, obstacles, without thinking of George Clooney's pronunciation in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou. Ob-Stack-les. Maybe it is my way of laughing in the face of adversity, making fun of the trials and tribulations we face. I think laughter may be the best medicine.

Manual: Page 26 Basic Set up