Thinking of the Holidays

And before I forget, please go here to help make a little boy's dream come true.

Happy Holidays Y'all!

Be sure to check out my 365 Project HERE.

You Capture - Water

I had planned to do one more photo shoot for this weeks theme but ran out of time. Hope you enjoy these.

And here you have them - water in the form of drops first:

The grapes in sparkling water were inspired by two other wonderful photog friends of mine, Aimee at Greeblemonkey and Meghann at Midget Invasion so a quick shout out to two awesome friends - hey girls!

Water in a glass with grapes.

I was taking the grapes photos in the bright sunlight and was playing with stopping down and up the exposures, so they're kind of different colors. I'm not very good at photo editing yet, but I will be someday.

Hope you enjoyed my water photos. Go to I Should Be Folding Laundry-Beth's You Capture page and check out the rest of the photos!

You Capture - Fun

I'm going to do this post old school style with regular size photos.

This weeks challenge was Fun. I had a lot of fun taking pictures, and what else does fun mean except shoving a camera in my kids faces. Fun for Mama anyway.

So we went to the playground a couple times and I brought my camera. Himself loves the monkey bars. And Herself loves to walk along the top of the wall, this time she was pretending to be a lion.

Enjoy.

Go HERE and check out the rest of the photographers at Beth's site.

Thanks for playing along!

You Capture - Best Shot

Ok so its been really rainy, little to no sun, and I've been super sick for the first time in ages so haven't really been out. At all.

Now, excuses aside, I did manage to get out and snap a few shots of my rhody out front, and think this one turned out OK. Hope you enjoy it too.

Now, go to Beth's site and check out all the other great You Capture photos!

Thanks for playing along.

You Capture - DOF

Thats Depth of Field, and I chose to highlight mine with bokeh. Hope you enjoy it.

Click HERE to look at the rest of the You Capture photos.

Official DeLurker Day 2010 and a Photo

Hey there - today is a special day just for you who like to watch and look but never comment (or rarely?,) you're called a Lurker. And today is the day that YOU comment! Rude Cactus came up with this idea, and Aimee at greeblemonkey made this graphic.

Its super easy to comment, no word verification and you can sign in anonymously - so please introduce yourself just to say Hi! I promise I won't bite.

Thank you, really.

And a photo - this is my husband, a couple days after Christmas we had a string of beautiful sunny days and we took lots of walks. I love these Wayfarers.

I'm A Finalist at Greeblepix

Would you mind stopping by The Greeblemonkey site and voting for my picture if you liked it?

Winning would be a fun way to start 2010.

Hope everyone is doing well, have a safe and Happy New Year!

December Greeblepix Contest Entry

I took 36 pictures of this ornament, something I'd been planning for 3 or 4 days. Or at least thinking about it, how to set it up etc. I really wanted some nice bokeh and a warm light. I edited 6 of them, and finally decided this was the best mix of all that was desired.

And, I love this ornament. Everyone in the family gets a similar one this year, but this is my fave. I like what it says.


Anyway, this is my Greeblepix entry for this month. Go visit Aimee at Greeblemonkey and look at everyone elses entries, there are always amazing photos!

You Capture - Lines

This was fun!
Underneath the 11th Street Bridge in Tacoma.


This is outside of the EMP (experience music project in seattle) very cool sculpture.


And this is a ramp that goes down to a floating pier behind a Hotel on Ruston Way.


These are all photos so I can participate in You Capture over at I Should Be Folding Laundry. Go there and check out the rest of the photographers. Thanks Beth!

You Capture - Food. Its Right On Time.

These are my photos for this weeks You Capture over at I Should Be Folding Laundry, this weeks theme is Food.

Cooking cranberries for tomorrows dinner. Such a simple recipe, and SOO good.




And another of the banana bread I made on Monday.


Lately I've been taking pictures of the food I've cooked, just exploring a new area of photography. Its kind of fun.

More Inspiration On A Yucca

Hows that for a post title?
Reminds me a teeny bit of one of Aimee (greeblemonkey's) photos.

You Capture - Technology - A Photo Challenge

This was new technology at the time, its a sandwich press.

This is my first time taking part in the challenge over at I Should Be Folding Laundry (which IMO is one of the best blog names EVER). You can go here to check out the rest of the entires.

A Link To A Very Nice Piece Of Writing

StacyB of Apathy Lounge wrote this piece and I found it to be very moving, want to share. Click for a good read.

Flash vs. No Flash (inspired by Dr Cason)

You can totally see which one is flash vs. no flash. Using a tripod this time.

I did take both photos in color so they've been converted to Black and White, but other than correcting for whiteness using the same spot on both photos (and over looking how icky I look in the second one) I just love the contrast between the two pictures. One you can see how dark it was getting, the other looks more like what you see with the naked eye.

Anyway, just wanted to share. And to thanks Sheila who inspired me for this post.

Piles of Junk

Love that lens! Oh - and Go HERE, scroll down a bit and play DBWalkers slide show - its great.

I'm Being Interviewed!

Saw this over at Canned Laughter - http://cannedlaffs.com/a-hotfessional-interview/ and woo-hoo!! - now Joie has chosen to interview me - (mostly because I asked her too - wink) and here it is. (And if YOU want to be interviewed - just follow the instructions at the end of this post)

1. Your photos are AMAZING! Where did you learn to take pictures?
Thank you! I have seriously been interested in photography since I was in… 4th grade I think? I got some little box camera for christmas, took a photo class at school, and just always like taking photos. I took photography for one quarter in high school – borrowed my neighbors 35 mm camera (and a couple nice lenses) and had a ton of fun even developing and printing my own photos. I got my first 35 mm camera – a Minolta SRT201 when I was 19. hmmm… a history of photo taking but not where I learned. Mostly I take photos to please myself – and when I see pictures that others have taken I try to memorize what I like most, and use that next time I’m out. If you look at this post it is based on another photo bloggers photo. I do that kind of stuff all the time. And I’m still kind of old school in that most of my shots there is a little cropping, very little color correction, sometimes I’ll change a color photo to b/w. But mostly I try to take photos that I like SOOC (straight out of camera – I had to look that one up.) I work at it all the time too, I hope I’m improving. Sometimes tho, there are so many amazing photographers out there – I wonder why I even bother. So I keep trying to do better.

2. Do you have any photography idols?
Ansel Adams – the detail and texture and composition – there is no comparison
Annie Liebowitz – I love how much personality she puts into every photo.
I really like fashion photography and could just eat a vogue a day! I’m sure there are more but my brain doesn’t work as well as it used to and I'm drawing a blank.
I am inspired by many photographers every day – Aimee at greeblemonkey, Sheila at Dr Cason’s, Dave at DBWalker , Scott at The Sartorialist to name just a few

3. Do you ever worry about your delicious photos of children falling into the wrong hands?
Yes, yes I do and it has most definitely given me pause on more than one occasion. I don’t use their names, and I try to use unique labels for the photos, so sometimes I search for the images on google but haven’t found any yet. But my blog is also pretty obscure.
I do so love to photograph my kids – the joy from capturing a moment or expression (yeah I am a major dork like that) of one of my kids, the emotions those pictures evoke in me, I Can’t Not take photos of them, and post them. Plus my Mom, Mom-In-Law and many relatives look at my blog and they seem to want to see pics of the kids.

4. Do you prefer nature photography or industrial photography?
Both are wonderful and inspiring. Sometimes I find the nature part – especially this part of the country - to be almost too easy to photograph so I have to challenge myself and seek out the more industrial areas and make it look… not exactly beautiful, but aesthetically pleasing. Black and white is great for that.

5. What prompted you to become a blogger? Is it the same reason why you are still blogging today?
I started blogging because I get compliments on my photos, and I just kind of wanted to share, to see what other people think of something that is so very personal to me, and to challenge myself – I want to post a photo at least once a day for a year. Also, I like having my own blog to link to when I’m commenting. And I’ve met some very cool people from blogging, its nice to be part of that group.
I guess I’m still blogging because yes, all the same reasons apply. And as I go from one or two comments a month to one or two comments a day – its fun. I read recently that comments are the currency of blogging – I think that’s wonderful and I try to spread the wealth around. Its gratifying to have other people, complete strangers say Hey – nice photo.

Thanks for playing and don't forget the rules:You have to link back to the original post(http://immoralmatriarch.com/questionsagain) and also to my post http://cannedlaffs.com/a-hotfessional-interview/ and include the following in your post:

OK! your turn. Want to be part of it? Follow these instructions:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

I think I Missed It - Nat'l Delurking Day...

Go ahead and expose yourself! (by commenting) erm, ah. I mean, comment if you're a lurker.

Big kisses!

Holy Cow! I Won At Dr Casons! (and some more SUMMER)

December's Friday Photo Challenge Winner - me. I'm so... humbled, I almost didn't post about it.
People voted for my photo and it won.
So cool.
So humbling.
Wow. wow.

Day to Read January 8th!- a Book, Not a Blog (and a daily photo of course)

I was looking for a bookish type photo for this post, and remembered one I had taken when I very first got my new camera, of the bookshelf in the living room. Except... turns out its mostly movies. At least there are some good ones.

Read a book, or a magazine, or a newspaper, tomorrow! No computers, no blogs, nothing electronic - go to Soccer Mom In Denial's page and read all about it, then turn off your computer for Day To Read 2009.

I am going to have withdrawl tomorrow! Ok, so my book of choice will be probably two books - "Memoirs of Hecate County" by Edmund Wilson, and 50/50 by Dean Karnazes. Need some Dean to inspire me to continue my N Y Resolutions.

August Was A Great Month

For taking photos. I needed a little blast from this past summer, and found Hot-Rod-A-Rama (actually started looking at it because I read Autumn's post and was inspired) and all sorts of fun photos. I realized too that I haven't been doing enough black and white of late. So I converted a bunch of photos to B&W to scratch that itch. But I do need to head out soon on my own winter photo safari.