Sleeping Travis

April 28

A Duck

April 27, 2006

Still playing with that negative stuff

April 26, 2006

Punctuation IS important

The sign reads

DANGER
Please Keep Away From Wheel
Even When Stopped
It May Start Unexpectedly
Thank You

I really hate it when stuff starts unexpectedly, even when stopped. As opposed, say, to starting unexpectedly while it is already started.

Perhaps -- Danger! Please keep away from the wheel; it may start unexpectedly. Thank you.

April 25th

Catcher Shay

This is my niece playing catcher for her High School fastpitch softball game. I am posting it because I think it is neat that you can set your depth of field deep enough and get rid of the chainlink fence.

It doesn't take much to amuse me, eh?

April 24th

Gold Fish Blue Plate

But really taken on the 25th. :)

Was going to color shift the blue to purple and enter it in complementary colors, but chose not to.

April 24, 2006

Yep, no picture. Sorry.

I went to get my daughter to sleep. Drifted off. Woke up to get son to sleep, told hubby, "Yep, I'm getting back up." Drifted off again. Woke up this morning . ..

I took a picture first thing this morning (the idea I had for last night), so I will post two on the 25th, but I missed a day. :(

Hey, 2 outta four months is pretty good, I reckon.

April 23, 2006

Forced Entry

This is my "Window Framed" dpc outtatke. I entered the more cryptic one of my two shots (nothing similar to this), that I liked better, and I am willing to bet money I put in the wrong one.

Story behind this -- this is one of the first windows my son broke by throwing something. It is my mom's house (which is like 40 some odd years old, and these were the original window panes -- yes, they need cleaning and painting). She has these little round pebbles in her sidewalk area, and he thought he would throw one. He was three at the time.

We explained to him how he was NOT supposed to do that, but I think the sound of breaking glass was too much of a draw for him because a few days later he took a rock from the driveway and busted a window in an old mobile home next to our house. That wasn't that big of a deal, because I would like to take a boulder to the mobile home and get rid of it, but it was something we saw developing that fortunately stopped before anything else was destroyed. Now, he just whacks the snot out of golf balls. :)

Hard to choose a picture for today. I was doing some experiments with my camera trying to figure out what I was doing wrong to cause all my shots to be out of focus (it IS called autofocus for a reason, ya know), so I have like 8 or 10 totally different subjects. I'm just too lazy to post process them. . .

And I think I have figured out what I was doing. With my 707, I could focus on one part of the subject then move to recompose and shoot. Once the focus was locked, you could move it whatever. With the rebel, however, I have discovered that if I move it too soon, it re-focuses for me. So, I focus, let it "lock" in, move and shoot. Of course, then I realized (with hubby's help), I could just choose a different focus point thingy on the camera. duh. And so my edu-ma-cation continues.

April 22, 2006

Senior Portrait

Just for the record(s). I hate formal shoots and I hate doing portraits. I guess 'cause I feel like I suck at both. BUT, I have a student about to finish up his diploma and wanted Sr. Portraits done. We did part of them today (the "formals") in my makeshift basement studio, and we will do some more before class on Tuesday in a more *environmental* setting.

In PaintShop the jacket looks black, but uploaded it has faded a bit. Might need to work some more on that.

April 21, 2006

Surprise!

Quite possibly one of the silliest ideas I've had to date. To be honest, this was one time I said to myself, "Why did I start that project? [referring of course to PaD]. I'm gonna skip today. BUT, myself didn't let me, so here is a shot. It was shot on a piece of royal blue posterboard, but that looked nasty in the picture, so I played with a gradient just a bit.

April 20th, 2006

Negative Image Experiment
Happy Birthday nard!!!!!

April 19, 2006

Holy Grail Idea

April 18, 2006

A window in a door

April 17, 2006

Learning to Fish

Travis informed us several weeks ago that he wanted to go fishing on a boat (his previous experience is all at local private ponds), for a long time, for largemouth bass. So, yesterday, my husband took the day off, we met my sister and her family at one of our favorite, sentimental lakes in East TN (the one I learned to fish on), and let him fish all day.

Remarkably enough, he fished for around 5 hours without losing patience or getting restless. Pretty good for a 4 year old, I think. He enjoyed it that much. It should be noted that he caught the first fish of the day, and the last, and caught more fish than anyone else in the boat. (I had one, and my BIL had one, neither my husband or nephew caught any). Oh yea, I had the biggest fish of the day. hehehehe.

This lake is sentimental to me because my father (who died in January, 2002, 8 days before Travis was born) used to take us there several times a year. It is where I caught my first fish, and most of the fish thereafter. Riding up and down the lake, I see something that I recognize and it triggers a memory of my dad for me. Could be sad, but I kinda like it. It helps me feel like I am teaching Travis about my daddy, because I am teaching him to enjoy the same things "Pops" did. (Not that it is that difficult.)

Below are the pictures of Travis with his "fish." OK, so they aren't wall-worthy, but this little guy was proud as punch about them, and he caught them all by himself. All the help he had was putting the bait on and getting the fish off. He cast, hooked, and reeled all by himself.

Second Fish -- Largemouth Bass

First fish

April 16, 2006

Same flower, different day

April 15, 2006

He is not here, He is Alive!!!

April 14, 2006

Hurricane Glass

Maybe for the Something Old Challenge, maybe not. There are a couple of ideas I would rather do, but I'm not sure I'll be able to . . .

April 13, 2006

Happy Easter!!!!

Yea, it is a lame picture, but I liked the color. My little boy dyed these with his grandfather.

April 12, 2006

Kristi

Kristi

April 11, 3006

An Idea whose Time Has not Yet come . ..

This was shot with the dpc chrome challenge in mind. When this bulb blew, it coated the inside with this silvery-gray stuff that looks chromish. The mirror has a plastic edge, but looks chromy whne photographed. The problem is that the bulb reflects *everything* around it. No matter how big a backdrop I used, it still showed the setups reflections -- almost like a fisheye would.

So, I took a box, lined it with black felt so that only one side was opened. Positioned the mirror, the bulb, and a flashlight in it. Then, I focused, shot with a timer, and while the timer was counting down, I "closed" the open side with the felt. In essence, the camera was in the box with the bulb, and the low light kept the reflections from showing.

Unfortunately, in post processing it looked more low key than chrome, so I didnt' enter it. However, this is one idea that will be saved for an appropriate challenge. Thus, the title of the picture.

(Sorry it wasn't more metaphorical or poetic. :) )

April 10, 2006

I Hate Laundry

April 9, 2006

A Dandelion

A Zipper

Chrome Outtake (at least I hope it is an outtake) Could've shown you my other tape dispenser shot!

Texture outtake

April 5, 2006

Tape dispenser

What? You don't have a picture of a tape dispenser backlit by your computer. Surely you need one. Maybe we'll have another "Office Supplies" challenge at dpc one of these days, and I can rework this to be a bit more dramatic. Well, as dramatic as tape dispensers can be.

April 4, 2006

Sleepy Time

So, hubby is out of town, in-laws are helping with the kids (the baby is sick -- I needed the help) and because the 'puter is in teh guest bedroom, I couldn't post last night. Actually, after a rather harrowing day, I just wanted to go to sleep. BUT, I hadn't taken my PaD yet. So, with camera on my pillow, here it is. ;)

April 3, 2006

another refraction experiment

April 2, 2006

Refraction experiment

April 1, 2006

Thinking of Home?

Actually, he is probably thinking, "Why am I standing here, and what is that stuff in my helmet?"

He was a member of a group that re-enacts (?) and educates about troops and stuff from WWII. They were giving presentations at the Tennessee Air Museum's Warbird Memorial Fly-in today. Everytime I saw this guy, he had this same expression. I didn't get too many shots of planes, as my little girl was sick, and we were keeping her in out of the wind.

March 31, 2006

Yellow and Red


Wow, another month has gone, and I'm still going. Yea for me!!!

March 9th was probably my favorite.

Can't' wait to see what April brings!!!!!!