Weekly Header Challenge - No Fear

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Craver VII 

Fishing Guy 

Katney 

Imac 

Lew 

I'm joining in the group above for this weekly challenge.

Feel free to click on the other participants' blogs

to see what they've come up with!

Theme ~ No Fear

I'm posting rather late in the day, so fewer words with my pictures this time!  (So sorry I'm late!)

I got to choose the theme for this week.  Since Halloween tends to be about death and all things dark, and scaring the pants off people, I decided to go against the grain and challenge my colleagues to find images that show No Fear.

One day, Thomas was leaping over things.  So, we went outside (it was March) and I set up my tripod, cranked up the ISO to get a super-fast shutter speed (it was dismal and gray out), and he ran and jumped.  He almost didn't clear the glass-topped patio table.  Yikes!  But he showed no fear, and actually jumped 3-4 times.  Here's the sequence from which I pulled my header image:

Later, in a photography class I took, we had to take pictures showing motion--whether stop motion or motion blur.  So we went to a grassy area near our house and set up some sawhorses.  Danny and Thomas both jumped and had tons of fun doing it.

I love the below of Thomas, because you don't know where he jumped from, nor where he is headed.  Looks like he's flying!

Danny decided to be all acrobatic and everything, twisting in the air.  These next two shots show him traveling from right to left, spinning backwards then landing forwards.  Crazy kid.

I also loved capturing their expressions.  It truly was an art form for them.  Here's a funny:  While we were jumping and photographing, one car stopped, the driver leaned over toward the passenger window, and he took a picture of us!  Maybe he thought we were filming for a movie or something.  It was pretty hilarious.  After all the jumping, we walked across the street to Andy's, our absolute favorite ice cream (frozen custard) shop, because of course we had worked up an appetite.  ;)

My conclusion:  Teenage boys have no fear.  :)


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Weekly Header Challenge -- Who Done It?

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Craver VII 

Fishing Guy 

Katney 

Imac 

Lew 

I'm joining in the group above for this weekly challenge.

Feel free to click on the other participants' blogs

to see what they've come up with!

Theme ~ Who Done It?

I thought I'd have a hard time coming up with some images for this theme.  But, scrolling through past images helped me see that I did have a lot of images that I felt fit!  The Who Done It? question conjures up mystery, as in either "Who did what happened in this picture?" or "What is going on in this picture?"

I supposed I could've chosen any one of the below images you'll see for my header, but this first image was creepy enough for me to make it shine up top.  Basically, Danny and I were cleaning out the garage, and we came across an old VCR that Fernando put out there on his workshop counter.  Something had gone wrong with it, and he thought he'd get around to fixing it some day.  But, when we followed a trail of critter droppings we found during clean-up, it led us to the largest concentration near said VCR.  When we spotted something moving inside the VCR, we knew we were in trouble.  We suspected a mouse, so we put the VCR in a see-through Rubbermaid tote box and shined a flashlight in.  I captured the below foot, and you might be able to see the tail.  Creepy, huh?

And then through the plastic bin, the critter popped his head out to see what was up.

And that's who dunnit.  :)  Here are the rest of my themed images for this week:

Who broke my favorite tea mug?  I did, while washing it.  Grr.

Who scored the strike?  Probably my son Thomas last year, when we used to bowl with my parents on a weekly basis.

Who made the splash?  Fernando, the biggest guy in the pool.  Our friends' kids thought it was awesome.  :)

Okay, skip the fact that they're nice-looking legs.  I don't know who they are, but I took the picture at this Labor Day parade because I wanted to know Who in their right minds would walk an entire parade in those shoes?
 

It looks like Thomas is guilty of the mess, but all of us contributed it to it.  He just posed for me for extra effect.

This below was not a fun phone call.  Jacob, who had just left to drive to his first internship, took a turn a teensy wide and grazed (okay, more than grazed) the curb, blowing out the tire.  Another grr.

We came to his rescue, then made him fix it.

Who got my garden gloves all dirty?  Well, I did, of course!  They are awesome gloves and came pretty clean easily enough.

Who made this mountain of packing paper so high that her mother couldn't get into her own master bedroom of her new house on move-in day?  Ahem, no comment.  ;)

My mom.  (I was trying to make her laugh on a stressful day.  It worked.)

My sweet Joseph spent an hour flattening the paper for his grandparents.

Jacob (the 22yo tire-smashing son from above) was helping me bake Thanksgiving pies last year, and the recipe called for a stick and a half of butter, cut up.  Which is what he did.

There's a boy in those shoes!  Danny climbed in under the ping pong table (moving my parents' stuff out of our house into their new one--finally!!), in order to get stuff tied down properly for the drive.

And, that's who done it!!


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Weekly Header Challenge -- Flash Fill

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Craver VII 

Fishing Guy 

Katney 

Imac 

Lew 

I'm joining in the group above for this weekly challenge.

Feel free to click on the other participants' blogs

to see what they've come up with!

Theme ~ Flash Fill

Craver VII chose the theme for this week's header challenge.  I suppose there's a reason it's called a challenge.  I rarely use my flash, let alone use it for fill.  So a photo where I used flash would have to be an older one.  Older doesn't mean bad, however.  Some of my older ones are pretty good.  :)

I had to dig back to an event I shot a few years back in order to get an image I took with flash.  And, since I'm having issues with the catalogs in Lightroom 4, I chose the first "flash" image I could find from the first event I could find.  And then I played Minesweeper while the gallery loaded...

Here's the full image:

I really do love this image.  These girls are sisters, and I had just taken a picture of them with their mother at a mother/daughter conference in North Aurora, Illinois.  I was charged with event photography, but the conference hosts wanted to provide a digital image for each conference attendee (meaning, a mother with her daughter/s, and sometimes including another generation).  That meant more formal portraits, too.  Good thing I've done this a time or two--and at other mother/daughter events!

The two sisters were waiting while their mom was chatting with another lady, so we decided to have some fun together.  The above image is the result.  I love the black and white version.  Oh, yeah--the flash.  Okay, so seriously, I was placed in a back hallway of a school (where the event was held) with fluorescent lighting.  Bad fluorescent lighting (is there any that is good??).  I knew I'd have to use a flash.  I don't like using flash.

Fortunately, I had taken a few photography courses and one thing I learned about was bouncing the light.  So that's what I did here; no direct flash, just aiming it so it bounced off the ceiling and onto my subjects.  That's how I took every portrait at the conference.  It enabled me to set a low enough ISO to avoid grain, plus a high enough shutter speed to avoid motion blur.  And of course I used my tripod.

Okay, enough technical talk.  Here are a few other images from that conference.  Enjoy.  :)

The sisters with their mom.  Don't you love the red?

This last one is cute.  The littlest daughter did not want to let her mom go, and the mom told her, "You have to do what the photographer wants you to!"  So I went straight up to that little girl and told her, "You stay right here and hug your mom."  That made us both happy, and hopefully mom liked it, too!


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Come Fly Away With Me

On my way home from a beautiful Saturday morning sunrise, right as I was turning left onto my street, I saw this magnificent guy perched on the light pole at the gas station on the corner.  What were the odds that he'd still be there by the time I pulled into the driveway, switched lenses to telephoto, and ran out to the corner and crossed the street?  Probably slim.  But I thought I'd try anyway.  And lo and behold, as I pressed the crosswalk button to get right underneath him, he was still there!  And the morning's sun was beautifully golden, and the sky was crystal-clear blue.  What a nice bonus to my early morning sunrise session!

Red-tail hawk on a light pole.

Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Saturday Sunrise

I deliberately got up at 6:00 a.m.  On a Saturday.  For no other reason than to catch a sunrise.

6:36 a.m.

This is actually right down the street from my house, a mere 3/4 mile walk--if I had a good back.  There's also a parking lot at a storage facility just a football field's length away.  That's where I parked.  I think it's wonderful that the camera's lens is really a frame, and we can frame our photographs in such a way as to frame out what we don't want.  Which is what I did to capture the simple beauty of a sunrise along a busy suburban four-lane road, literally five steps from my tripod and camera.

6:52 a.m.

It wasn't as peaceful as it looks in the images, with the steady waves of cars swooshing by on their way to who knows where that early on a Saturday, and the occasional honk directed at me for the Lord only knows why.  But as the earth turned, and the sky became orange in preparation for the sun breaking the horizon, there was a simple peace about the scene I captured.

6:58 a.m.

And then there it was.  The beautiful rays of a late September sunrise breaking across the prairie.

Yes, I shall joyfully sing of Your lovingkindness in the morning...

Psalm 59:16b NASB

Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Tomatoes and Pancakes

Yep, it's another random post.  :)

A very cool summer day, I had a cup of tea.  And in true Christine-photographer fashion, I took some pictures of it.

And another summer morning, I made blueberry pancakes.  Thomas made the strawberry filling, and he was the one to suggest a picture.  I love my sons.  :)

And I love this image.  Yum!

Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Coneflower and Sage

Just felt like posting these images from my front garden.  I really just want to see them again.

I wait for the LORD, my soul does wait,

And in His word I do hope.

Psalm 130:5 NASB

My soul waits for the Lord

More than the watchmen for the morning;

Indeed, more than the watchmen for the morning.

Psalm 130:6 NASB

Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Header Challenge -- Macro Photos

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Craver VII 

Fishing Guy 

Katney 

Imac 

Lew 

I'm joining in the group above for this weekly challenge.

Feel free to click on the other participants' blogs

to see what they've come up with!

Theme ~ Macro Photos

Needless to say, I like macro photography.  A lot.  One of the first lenses I purchased was a 100mm f/2.8 macro lens.  Wish I could've afforded the L series that Canon puts out, but that's way beyond my meager budget.  The "poor man's" (ha!) macro lens would have to suffice.

With my macro, I love to shoot little creatures (bugs and spiders mostly!), flowers (oh, yeah!), and food.  Which is what I'm posting now.  First, my header image, which you would see more of if you go to this wonderful lady's website!

I met Channa (of HerBakery) at our farmers market, and a "market friendship" developed from year to year, weekly visit to weekly visit.  I was honored to do some food photography for her to enhance her website!  I don't bill myself as a food photographer, but it sure is fun to shoot when you have a macro lens!  It's also a great pleasure to be paid for it, when I've loved shooting it all along.  :)

Here (below) is one of the very first images I took with my macro lens.  We were on vacation, and made blueberry pancakes for breakfast.  We took some "going" strawberries and simmered them down, and one of the boys (probably Thomas) used them as filling.  He was all gung-ho for pouring the syrup while I snapped away.  :)

That one photograph started my journey.  Not only could I enjoy making food, and eating food, but I could also enjoy shooting food!  How fun!

Over on my family blog, I love to participate in various memes, one of which was Tea Time.  I always posted a picture of tea, or whatever I was drinking.  The below is one of those shots.  The bubbles are real--no soap (what food photographers use) was used in the making of this photo!!  ;)



Also on my family blog, I like to post recipes--since I have all those images of the food I make, I may as well blog about it!  So, here's one of my food creations--I made it, I shot it, I ate it.

Bacon guacamole cheddar grilled cheese with tomato soup.

Yes, the sandwich was as dee-lish (and calorie-laden!) as its name implies.  But every once in a while, you have to splurge.  The healthy homemade tomato soup balanced everything, and I'm still alive to tell the story.  ;)


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Gear Up!

I have new gear.

Four little words.  One simple sentence.  But it's huge.  Like my grin.  :D

Ellie, my Canon EOS 40D, has been my faithful friend these past few years.  She is joined by a big sister, Anna.  Anna is a Canon EOS 60D.  I'm slowly working my way up the Canon ladder, and when I make my millions (lol), I'll have the big-time camera, whatever it may be at that time.  I'll just keep on dreaming.

For now, enjoy these first images from Anna.  Of course, I put my macro lens on her and took her out.  What better way to start shooting with a new camera body, I ask?  None.

Thought I'd throw in an insect.  We've seen a lot of these around here lately.  They are amazing creatures, for sure.

Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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