Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Weekly Header Challenge -- Trees

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants
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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Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Weekly Header Challenge -- Selfies

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants
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 ~ Selfies

Chosen by Mac.


I'm hopping on the internet quickly today to post this, so I don't miss a third week!  I was away for a little over a week in the Adirondack Mountains, and I took lots of pictures.  Fortunately, I took a few selfies which I'm sharing here now.

Selfie -- a picture taken of me, by me.

Below is my header image, uncropped.  The fact that I'm in this photo makes it a selfie; no one said anything about other people being in the picture!  Anyway, this was my second selfie with my wireless remote shutter release.  In case you don't know, I'm the girl on the right in the front; you can see my left hand with the remote.

Family and friends piled into the back of my cousin Al's pickup truck
to make the drive up the road to my cousins Tom and Mare's house (under construction).

Below is my first selfie (via the wireless remote) with my family and friends at Lake Bonaparte.  After our traditional Sunday afternoon boat ride (Columbus Day weekend), we gather together for a group picture to show everyone we were there.  Most of us are family, and the friends are practically family, too.


Up at Tom and Mare's new house, we posed outside for another group picture, with the house and some beautiful autumn trees in the background.


Then we went inside to pose under the rafters.  Tom and Mare have great dreams for this house, and I'm sure it's going to be beautiful.  Since there was little light inside, except one bulb and whatever light came through the window, I told everyone as soon as the camera started taking pictures we'd all have to freeze.  Camera settings:  ISO 8000, f9, 1/20 second.

Tom and Mare (on the left) with family and friends in their new home!


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Weekly Header Challenge -- Tell A Story

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants
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 ~ Tell A Story

Chosen by Kathy.


For Kathy's chosen theme this week, Tell A Story, I tried to choose images that tell a story in and of themselves.  I love event photography--my favorite genre--in which I can use a series of photos to tell the story of the day.  I have plenty of those, but I wanted to challenge myself to use images where each tells its own story.

For my header, I chose a recent image I had used within a Header Challenge blog a few weeks back, but it wasn't a header.  Here is the uncropped image:


The bride and groom are the focus of the story, but there's so much more going on--from the birdseed being thrown, to the event photographer, to a few attendees with their phone cameras out, to the smiles and joy on the faces of the other attendees, to the cars--one of which is the "getaway vehicle--beyond.  I love all the details in this photo, and I think it tells a beautiful story.

Here are the rest of the images I chose this week.  I'll simply caption each image with a title, and let the image tell its own story.

Summer Vacation.

Post-Game.

Gasp!

February.

Guy in the Kitchen.


Those are my photo stories.  I'm going to keep this theme in mind as I go out and about with my camera over the next few weeks, and try to capture stories along the way!

Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Thursday, September 24, 2015

Weekly Header Challenge -- Fall Colors

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants
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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Thursday, September 17, 2015

Weekly Header Challenge -- 50

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants
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 ~ 50

Chosen by me.


Here is my uncropped header image and the reason I chose this week's theme:

This is Cake #2 made by my friend Becki--she sent it home with us after a surprise party.

I turned 50 a few days ago!  Yes, hard to believe since I still feel like I'm 16 on the inside--though my body tells me differently, lol.  Our town turned 50 this year, too, and they put up large "50" signs around town to celebrate.  I thought we'd visit one of the signs and have a photo shoot.  Although I didn't snap the shutter, I fixed all the camera settings and gave Fernando photography lessons with each pose.  This is one he did a good job on.


For my 50th, I decided I'd have more than one day to celebrate this milestone.  Here are a few treats from this past week!

Andy's Ooey-Gooey Concrete.

Here's Becki's first cake.

My friend Tressey brought these over for me.

I have more pictures of my birthday week--which isn't over yet--but I'll save those for another post.  Hope you enjoyed my birthday week sneak peek!

Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Weekly Header Challenge -- Away Day

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants
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 ~ Away Day

Chosen by Mac.


We just came off of three "away" days this past Labor Day weekend!  We had six events from Friday night through Monday, and we made it through, lol.  One of the things we did while we were away each day was to go to Super Car Saturday, a car show in our town at a local outdoor shopping area called The Promenade.  Here is my header image, uncropped.  This BMW convertible was my personal favorite.  I like blue!


I brought my Canon 60D with its 24-105mm f/4L lens, and took all my pictures with that combination since I didn't want to carry around a backpack of gear--it was hot that day!

Enjoy these highlights of our time at the car show!













Exotic, new, old, vintage, fancy--but all were expensive!  We had a fun time, and topped it off with a free lunch at Gordon Biersch Brewery/Restaurant, thanks to gift cards.  What do you do on your "away" days?  I can't wait to see!


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Weekly Header Challenge -- Recent Photos

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants
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 ~ Recent Photos

Chosen by all of us.


This week is a "bye" week, meaning that in the absence of fellow Headbanger Craver, we decided on the theme of Recent Photos.  We're guaranteed to get a wide variety of images this week, I think!

My header image was taken about ten days ago; my garden harvest has slowed down significantly even since then.


The rest of my images today have all been taken in the past week.  Here we go!


Yes, this is our car.  Yes, it is a BMW.  We purchased her in April, but since I wanted to blog about how we came to be her owner, I took these recent pictures.  If you want to read about how this classy lady came to be ours given our incredible journey these past few years, visit this post on our personal family blog.


Back to my garden harvest, my friend Becki taught me how to preserve veggies by fermenting them in Fido (pronounced fee-doh) jars; I took that newly acquired knowledge and have been "going to town" experimenting with my garden veggies!


We attended a wedding last week!  I took only a few pictures--I mostly wanted to get some pictures of Fernando and me since we were dressed up--but here are two that I took of the bride and groom.


Sending them off with birdseed!

My final images are the most recent, taken for a client just a few days ago.  I was hired to do photography for a high school football team's home games, and this was the first game of the season.  I'm sharing three images from that day; be thankful it's only three--the client gallery has 300+!!


My Danny is in the middle--the trio sang the National Anthem!

One action shot, in the rain--we're the team in the blue.

I'll be off to visit you shortly; please leave a comment for me!!

Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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