24/365
A Boy and His Treasure
My grandson found this piece of grass in the yard the other day and decided it was a treasure worth keeping. He tucked it into his pocket and every once in a while he'd pull it out to look at it or show someone. It was so cute.
Little boys and their treasures are so adorable.
23/365
Running Water
Texas experienced an unprecedented cold spell a few weeks ago. The temp went crazy low on Sunday, Feb 14. My water stopped running that day.
Backstory: The tenant beneath me left his apartment for an extended visit to CA in mid-December. When he left, he turned the thermostat off completely. When the temps went below freezing, the pipes froze.
When the pipes froze, my water stopped.
When the temps went above freezing, the pipes burst.
So many people in Texas were dealing with similar situations. Repairs took a while. Repair materials were in short supply because of the increased demand.
Anyway, 19 days later my water was finally restored. I have so many bragging rights from this experience, but I'm glad it's over.
22/365
Trees at the Lake
Back in the day when film was transitioning to digital I was very resistant to the new "digital" stuff. I loved negatives, actual prints and even the smell of developer and I didn't want to give that up.
I finally made the leap and during the following years began to appreciate the digital experience.
Today's field trip to a local state park reinforced that appreciation. It's winter, so the trees are bare, bushes have no green leaves and everything looks dead. I went to the park mainly to get out of the house hoping there would be something to photograph.
Well...hummm, nope. Not much to see & not much to photograph, but I was happy for the time outdoors in the beautiful weather (even though cloudy) and the exercise. I took 35 images. I'll be trashing 33 of them. And that's why I'm glad I have a digital camera now. I can shoot with abandon even though I still use discretion. I don't have to worry about wasting film and paying for prints that will just go in the trash.
This is just about the best of the lot and I'm not super-impressed.
It was still a good day out.
19/365
A Rose is a Rose is a Rose...
I've been displaced from my home due to the water in my town being turned off because of the extreme cold temps and the inability of the infrastructure to keep up with the frigid temps.
I'm at my daughter's and I'm bored to tears. It's too cold to go out to photograph, it's too ugly to go out and photograph and I have no inspiration to photograph. This is an image from my files from a couple of weeks ago. I made it into a double exposure and then into a "dreamscape". It could probably use a little more emphasis on the "dreamy" but this is the best I could force myself to do right now.
I'd like to go to sleep and wake up in a couple of days to an apartment with running water again. Thank God my power (stove and heat) never went off as it did in so many places in Texas. One friend hasn't had power for over 60 hours. Thankfully she has a lot of food staples and a wood burning fireplace in her living room.
18/365
A Work In Progress
Many months ago I started these squares to use for a baby blanket, with no one in mind so there's no hurry to finish it.
In the meantime I got busy with other projects and just haven't gotten my umph back to finish it. One of these days I'll get motivated. I don't need very many more squares.
Then I'll have to spend some time figuring out the color combination and I'll be wondering why I didn't just make all the squares the same color.
17/365
Reworked Image
I made this image last fall. I really like it even though everyone's back is to the camera. It was obviously a candid shot, so there's no artificial posing happening.
Last night I decided to play a little and convert it to bw with isolated color. I'm a huge fan of this kind of edit, but I had forgotten how to do it. Last night I was looking through one of my photo books that I hadn't seen in a while, and voila, there were the instructions.
It's so much easier than I remembered.
I can't wait till the weather warms up enough to start going to these events again.
15/365
Simple decor seen at a coffee shop today. Definitely proves that less is more.
I should have worked the subject more. I might go back again.
It's been really cold here for the past few days. We're expecting snow this weekend. Probably not out of the ordinary for the north, but this is West Texas. Thankfully a cold spell doesn't last long here, but still...it's weird.
It's a good thing I brought some cold weather clothes with me when I moved here. I'm not complaining~~this coming summer, when it's over 100 for weeks on end, I'll be longing for cooler temps.
13/365
Girl's Night Out
It has been such a long time since we've declared a girl's night out. Among the many reasons, people have kids who are being homeschooled, some work, schedules are difficult to coordinate.
All it takes is one to organize the night out, and in honor of several Feb birthdays, one person actually did take it upon herself to arrange the evening.
We need to do this more often.
12/365
Yesterday (Sat) was a long day. I didn't have any plans, and I didn't want to drive to get to someplace interesting but I really needed to get out of the house for a while.
There's a small man-made lake not too far from the house, with a small playground and a short walking trail. I headed there hoping against hope to see something interesting. This was about the best I could see.
When I first got there, there weren't any children, but by the time I left there were several families and their kiddos were playing on the equipment. I was glad I took the photo when I first got there.
11/365 Paint and Brushes
It was a dreary day on the heels of 3-4 other dreary days. I'm glad I'm on a roll with photographing still-life in my house. It's challenging when you don't have many props in the house, but it's great when you have friends who can loan you objects to practice with.
I didn't spend much time on this one. I should have started earlier in the afternoon, but I procrastinated a lot and only had about 40 minutes before I had to leave the house for Sunday Evening service.
Still...I'm not terribly unhappy with this image. I have a few more ideas that I'll try in the future, but this is it for today. Acrylic paint with brushes against a pale pink watercolor background.
8/365
Chess Board
Confession: I know NOTHING about chess other than that there are some very beautiful chess sets out there in chess-land. Once upon a time many, many years ago I attempted to learn the game. After leaning the absolute basics, I never pursued the game at all.
It's just not anything I'm interested in.
But...I am interested in photographing beautiful chess sets. A friend from church told me she had this set and she was willing to loan it to me for a few days. It's not over-the-top ornate, but being made out of marble it's very appealing.
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