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 -- Fall Colors

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 ~ Fall Colors

Chosen by Lew.

Well, I thought today was Wednesday...  A day late, and without further ado, here are my images, from various Chicagoland locations, all the way back to my house.

Fullersburg Woods.

McDowell Forest Preserve.

The Morton Arboretum.

My back yard.

These were all from last year, since we don't have any color here yet this year.  I'm excited and ready to go out looking for it soon, though!


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Weekly Header Challenge -- Signs of Fall

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.

Click on the other participants' blogs to see

what they've come up with!

Theme ~ Signs of Fall

Chosen by Lew.

I love this week's theme.  Then again, that was easy, since I love all things autumn, and I tend to break out my camera and go exploring in a big burst before the really cold weather hits us here in Chicagoland.

Here is the full image of my header:

Red leaves, McDowell Grove, Naperville, Illinois.

Fernando and I went for a walk at a local forest preserve.  I hadn't been there in ages, and although there wasn't a lot of color because most of the scenery is scrub trees and "natural" vegetation, there were pops here and there.

Here are more signs that it's fall.

Brown, crinkly leaves...

More opportunities to warm up the house with baking...

Pops of color along the river...

A harvest moon...

Autumn colors on the prairie...

Ladybugs congregating on our south/west windows...

And my favorite image, which I see every day for just a week or so through my kitchen window.

Jacob's tree.

This is a very special tree.  My dad gave us this little stick of a tree for Arbor Day the year Jacob was born.  We put a little plastic fence around it--actually, there were two trees but one kept getting mown over by the lawnmower!--and it grew two or three feet tall.  Then we moved, and we took the tree with us.  But, we moved to an apartment while we waited for a house to be built (or not--long story), so my parents transplanted the tree into their back yard.

We ultimately moved into our current house, and that autumn had my dad re-transplant the tree into our very own back yard.  It's a small tree for 23 years of age, but it has always been called Jacob's tree, and for a mere handful of days in autumn, it is a beautiful reminder of the glory of autumn, and of God's faithfulness to us in our family's journey together.


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Weekly Header Challenge - Nature

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 ~ Nature

Chosen by Tom W.

I'm so happy that I didn't have to dig through my image archives for this week's theme!  I've been out shooting a lot lately and have lots of new images to choose from.  This week's images are from a little over a week ago, and have never been seen in public.  Until now.  Lucky you.  ;)

I doubt my single header image of a bird will win a medal this week; there are likely far more interesting Nature images among my fellow headbangers.  However, I was excited to share not just the header, but the complete story behind this bird, which acted out an amazing display of nature a mere two feet in front of me!

Behind the Scenes

Our family went to a church picnic at a park a couple of Sundays ago, and I had two chances to wander with my camera.  On the second wandering, we (one of my "borrowed daughters" accompanied me) came across this bird as soon as we stepped off the path and onto the grass leading up to a footbridge over a road.  As we kept going, the bird kept coming closer, squawking, flapping her wings (I'm of the opinion it was the mama), even lying on her back, or so it looked.

Sarah and I wondered what in the world she was doing!  I snapped several pictures, and we continued on our walk.  On the way back, this same bird did the same thing, when it suddenly struck me--we were getting too close to her nest!  She was feigning a broken wing, tempting us to follow her to try to capture her, while leading us away from her nest.

I later learned that this bird is a killdeer, which are ground nesters, and both male and female are famous for the broken wing routine we were witnessing.  I had just never seen it up close and personal!  I prefer to think this killdeer was the mama, being a good mama by luring us away from her nest.  Sarah, younger and sharper of eye, spotted the nest first, and I'm glad she did--I never would have found it, lol.  We devised a plan wherein Sarah would follow Mama Killdeer so I could get close to the nest and snap some more pics.  Poor Mama K. was probably frantic seeing that she had split up her enemy and had lured only one away, but I was quick with the camera and she settled down as soon as we left.

Enough of the written story!  Here is the photojournalism you've been waiting for, and the story starts with the header image.  Be thankful I didn't include every image I took and kept--there are several more!  I'll let these below show the story.

Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Weekly Header Challenge - Anything Goes

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.

Click on the other participants' blogs to see

what they've come up with!

Group Theme ~ Anything Goes!

Anything Goes = I Get to Choose My Theme. Which is:

The Color of Winter

Since we've been entrenched (literally and figuratively) in winter, in this seemingly interminable January, I figured I'd make the most of it.  So, here is my header, full-shot mode:

Since there's no way I'd go out in minus-11-degree weather to snag some winter weather images, I'm sharing images from a winter walk that Fernando and I went on earlier in January.  The above header image is actually the last shot I took on our walk.  As we crossed the footbridge on our way to the parking lot, I looked to my left and saw the rocks wearing their hats of snow as the brook emptied its not-quite-frozen contents into the river beyond.  I took the shot kneeling way down to get between the floor of the bridge and the lowest rail.  The perspective was beautiful.

I love those white-capped stones, and the starkness of the trees.  I almost converted the image to black and white, but there was something about those two splashes of gold from the dormant grass that adds an extra warmth and beauty to this scene.  It was a perfect image to end our walk on.

Here are my favorite images from our visit.

At the start of our path.

I edited most of these in black and white mode, which I felt lent itself to the starkness of the season.  Both black (all colors) and white (the absence of color) work together to create beauty of their own, and help me to see that winter is also about shapes and mood.

I love the shape and contrast of winter trees.

Winter prairie scene.

The next image below lent itself to sepia tones.  Although I love the same image in black and white, the sepia adds a little more warmth to the scene.

On the bridge at the river.

In case you wondered, below is the same shot taken a few Octobers ago, with the same tree branch framing the shot (I knew I liked that frame!!).

I vaguely recall that we're supposed to include an image featured in a past header, so here's my header image from January 2:

Toldja we've been entrenched in winter all month!!

Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Summer Evening Walk

July began with early June weather, and Fernando and I took advantage of the beautiful temperatures by taking an evening walk at one of my favorite portrait session sites.

This bridge is located right at the parking lot, so it's a logical place to start.  There's also lots of park to the left (of this image), with fallen logs and really cool-looking trees.

Of course we stopped along the bridge to capture the river scenes.

Looking west along the DuPage River.

 Looking east along the DuPage River.

Then there's a little paved path to walk along, accompanied by bicyclists, joggers, and other walkers.

 

Without a tripod, it was a little tricky shooting in the darker interior of the woods.  I managed to get a great shot of the sun peeking through.  You can see the bridge we crossed in the extreme right of the image.

I love shooting up into trees!  It's a super cool thing to do in the winter, when there are no leaves to block the view, and the image becomes about lines and shadows against the sky.  But in summer, there are some really neat lines and shapes with branches and leaves, and the below tree was the perfect candidate for my camera lens.

We walked a ways down the path, then cut over into the field to see if we were in time to catch the sun setting.  We were.

I pretty much brought only my kit lens, which isn't the best, so I had to really work to get a good shot in the lowering light as the sun set.  Fernando was a sweetie and posed for me, too.

This one below is my favorite, since I was able to capture the sun, some rays, and some lens flare in the fields.  It looks like a nice prairie sunset!

Once the sun set, there were still opportunities for some great shots, and clouds always help make things beautiful.  They give the sky shape and form, and they do a lovely job reflecting the colors of the sun as it goes down for the night.  The below is my standard shot when the sky is really pretty like this.  I like to put the horizon low in the image to capture more of the beauty of the sky.

Note--if the sky is plain blue (which is also beautiful!), I usually put the horizon smack-dab in the middle, which isn't something you'd normally do, rule of thirds and all.  But with a plain blue sky, it can make for a very symmetrical, and therefore peaceful, image.

To change things up a bit and capture some of the foreground in my sunset image (below), I got down low to shoot.  This way, I was able to capture some of the grasses sticking up into the sky, silhouetted against the beautiful orange of the sun.  Love this shot!

Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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The Graduates, Part Two | Chicagoland Senior Portraits

Time for the sequel to our first group graduate portrait session!  Our first group session was held at a local playground and forest preserve, and was accented by rain, steadily getting worse as our session continued.  This second session started out overcast, and started to rain just at the end.  At least the overcast skies provided similar lighting in each session!  I would've hated to have had one rainy session with one blue-skies-and-sunny session.  ;)

Luke showed up early to get in some portraits he missed due to last session's rain, so I took him to my two pre-chosen spots in this particular park.  The first spot was at the footbridge--I loved the vertical and diagonal lines, and we could easily eliminate the houses that could otherwise have shown up in our prints.

 Luke, high school senior.

For the second location, we ended up under a willow tree at the edge of a large pond.  Although it was shadier, I loved how the willow branches framed the background.

Luke left and the rest of the graduates arrived, so we took care of the group portrait first.  I didn't want to run out of time, so we did a minimum of group shots and moved on to the individual poses.

HEART students, group shot.

Now that I had some group session experience under my belt, I was able to get shots off quickly, and cycle through all the graduates in a timely fashion--plus get some bonus images for each one!  That's always nice.  We started the poses at the bridge, with their caps and gowns.

Gideon, eighth-grader.

 Sophia, high school senior.

We then moved the graduates near the willow tree, where I had placed a stool for posing.  We had to contend with flat light, and a light breeze that wanted to push the girls' hair into their faces.  We dealt with it, and got some very nice shots.

 Kayla, high school senior.

 Danielle, high school senior.

 Teah, high school senior.

 Noah, high school senior.

Candid shot of Sophia.

The students were allowed to bring "props" with them to include in a special pose, if they desired.  In my mind, I was thinking of maybe a book, or a musical instrument, or flowers.  Although the students from the first session didn't bring props with them, this group delivered in spades.  I loved these images I got with them.

Lucy, high school senior and chef extraordinaire!

Gideon in camo gear, complete with Airsoft weapon.

Danielle with book and flowers.

Teah the Awesome (she was so sparkly in personality!) with iPod and earbuds.

Kayla with a pink rose.

Kayla's mom had done all the coordinating with the entire group of students and their families, scheduling portrait sessions and locations, and getting all the students together.  I was happy to get one extra post for Kayla by the bridge with her flute.

Again, with group sessions like these, the number of portraits for each student will be pretty low--maybe four or five--but a group session will fit pretty much anyone's budget.  Plus, it allows the students to have beautiful images done by their own personal, professional photographer at a location of their choice!  I think it's a win-win situation all around, and I love serving the homeschool community in this way.


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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