Weekly Header Challenge -- Water

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Fishing Guy 

Kathy 

Imac 

Lew

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

Visit the other participants' blogs to see their entries!

Theme ~ Water

Chosen by Tom.

I used this image below to create my header.  I took it at The Morton Arboretum, and it's the drain area of Lake Marmo.  I liked the curve of the drain contrasted with the straight logs resting on the edge, plus the reflections of the clouds and trees in the water.  There's lots to explore in this photo!

Here are my most recent photos of water.

Lake Marmo, The Morton Arboretum.

Fox River at Hudson Crossing Park, Oswego, Illinois.

Waterway at Waubonsie Lake Park, Aurora, Illinois.

Standing upon the waterway at Waubonsie Lake Park.

Life, naturally,

Christine

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Weekly Header Challenge -- Trees

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Fishing Guy 

Kathy 

Imac 

Lew

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

Click on the other participants' blogs to see

what they've come up with!

Theme ~ Trees

Chosen by me.

Picked at the last minute (because I forgot it was my turn), the theme of Trees practically jumped out of my heart and into our theme choice for us "headbangers" this week.  I've spent almost the whole month of October watching the trees turn from their usual summer green to the beautiful jewel tones of autumn.  Here is the uncropped image I chose for my header:

I chose the above image because it cropped nicely for the header.  I love the brilliant colors contrasted with the water of the lake and the white and blue of the sky.  I love the vertical lines of the white birch tree trunks, and the gently curving shoreline.

More favorites, continuing with my week-long Lake Bonaparte visit.  One day we went for a pontoon boat ride when the water was sheet-of-glass still.  Below is one of the images I captured.

Another day, Dad and Mom took me out in the Caddy (my grandpa's old aluminum boat) for a final condensed boat ride, and ended up in Mud Lake, an extension off of the main lake.  It's owned by the U.S. Army, but as long as we stay in our boat we're fine.  :)

I took the below image as we were leaving Mud Lake.  The lily pads added to the depth of beauty and color I saw, and I took the photo at just the right moment.  It's hard capturing a scene in a constantly moving boat--the scenery is always changing and I had a split second to compose the image and capture what my eye saw!

Back on land at the lake, I took an early morning 30-degree (that's -1 Celsius, Mac!) walk down Hermitage Road to the nature preserve, then back around to turn off at Hotel Road which leads toward the lake and my parents' lake home.  Below is the entrance to Hotel Road.  I love the variety in the image--some live trees, some dead, all different types of trees, and all different stages of color.  This image currently graces my computer as the screen saver.

I looked up into one tree at the corner and snapped this one.

Speaking of looking up, back at home, I took this picture looking up into the spruce trees at The Morton Arboretum.  I converted the image to black and white due to the chromatic aberration (purple fringing around the edges of the trees) I got from shooting up into bright light and sun.  These tall spruces were gently swaying in the breeze as if talking to each other, and down below where I stood was peace and quiet, most sounds muffled and muted by the needled pathway.

Other images from the arboretum are below, taken over several trips in search of autumn's glory.

Pathway along Loop 4 (one of my favorite walks), colors at their perfect peak.

I'm posting two photos I hadn't realized I had taken until I uploaded the second "peak color" one; I took them about ten days apart.  What a difference a week makes!

Yellow forest scene.

I have one last photo to share--Jake's tree, right in my own back yard.  It was at its peak color a few days ago, so I stood at the back edge of my vegetable garden and shot toward the house to get this late afternoon image with the sun at my back illuminating the colors.

I love trees, especially during that one perfect week in autumn when they show their brilliant, glorious colors, as if to remind me to soak it in before the world turns white and gray and the waiting begins for rebirth of spring color.


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Weekly Header Challenge - Bridges

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Craver VII 

Fishing Guy 

Katney 

Imac 

Lew
Tom W 

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

Click on the other participants' blogs to see

what they've come up with!

Theme ~ Bridges

Chosen by Lew.

Every week, when I delve into my archives to look for images to portray the current theme, I'm amazed that I actually have images that work.  This week was no exception--I've taken lots of pictures of bridges.

I thought I'd use this fun image of a bridge from a unique perspective--through the front window of our moving car.  (No, I was not driving.)  You get to see exactly what I saw as we followed our friends (the H. family, in that car ahead of us) toward our destination:  a beach cottage at Vero Beach, Florida.  The H's had invited us to spend the week with them in their time share in May 2011, so we did!  They told us about this bridge just five minutes from the resort, but experiencing it was truly amazing.  It really did seem as if we'd drive off the edge of the road!  You also get to see all those lovely smears of love bugs, which infest the Florida coast for about a week each spring!

Keeping to the perspective of from the car, below is another shot of us crossing the Louisville Bridge over the Ohio River, crossing from Kentucky into Indiana, on our way home from visiting friends in Georgia last year.

One final shot of a from the car image.  This was during the rains and flooding of April 20, 2013, and we were on our way to a friend's house to help them empty their basement and save as much as possible from the encroaching waters.  (Their back yard was completely flooded but the rising tide stopped just short of their basement windows!)  This below is a footbridge at a golf course, and a raging torrent of what normally is a little brook babbling way below.

Speaking of floods, here is another closed bridge from the same storm system.  This one is just a few blocks from home!  That car almost dead center got stuck and was abandoned, and there is a tree limb wedged on the side of the car.  This bridge was closed for several days until the water subsided.

On to a much prettier bridge!  I thought I'd toss in just one image of a Paris bridge; if you want to see lots, I have an entire blog post dedicated to the bridges along the Seine River in Paris.

Pont au Double, Paris, France.

Back to some bridges closer to home.  Knoch Knolls Park in Naperville has some beautiful walking and biking paths, and I frequently go there to capture images of the river, bridges, and a sunset or two.  Here is the one main walking and biking bridge from this past winter.

Here's a view of the bridge from the winter before.

This below is my favorite shot of this bridge, taken this past January.

Same bridge, autumn:

The other bridge at Knoch Knolls Park is strictly a footbrige; here's the entrance up:

It's the prettiest bridge in autumn!

Below is the bridge from the other side, on a winter afternoon:

One little footbridge at a forest preserve close to home looks like this in the winter:

And this in autumn:

One final little footbridge, at Seager Park in Naperville in the spring.

I started out with the biggest bridge, and ended with the littlest!  I can't wait to see all the bridges my fellow headbangers have posted!


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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