Daylight.

I am SO very excited that it is Daylight Savings Time again. Yay! I love that I now get to drive home in the daylight, and I love that once I am home I still have some daylight left to enjoy. In the winter I drive home in the dark and once I'm home from work I generally stay indoors because well, its dark, and its cold. But now it is light outside, and it is beginning to warm up a little bit. Slowly but surely.

 

I'm also looking foward to the fact that with some daylight still around after I get home from work in the evenings, it will be much easier to get out and take photos. I will admit, I haven't done too much photography in the past few weeks. I think in a way the break has been good, but at the same time I miss it.

 

All has not been in vain, however. While I've been inside (out of the dark and cold), I've been going through some of my older photos from some of my travels. I didn't have the most fancy camera, and I didn't always know what I was doing it... but all in all I think I took some neat photos! But then they just sat there. Lately I've been revisiting them, and am beginning to edit them. Spruce them up a tad. 

 

Below are some of the people I photographed while on a two-week backpacking trip through India. You can read more about that trip Here.  

 

 


I love people watching. Their faces, posture... it all tells such a great story. These particular photos bring back such rich memories for me of the interactions I had with the people and of the surrounding experiences. I am so glad that I had the opporunity to take that trip, and I am blessed to have met so many interesting people in my life.

You gotta be kidding me. Seriously?

Okay, I have a story about this photo.

Are you ready?

I pass by this tree when I'm walking to my car from my office. It is a beautiful, old tree. Usually I see an average of 6 squirrels and countless little birds climbing up and down and playing in the branches, at any given time. It is a popular tree among the local wildlife. I will often stop for a moment and watch the little animals scurrying around.

Yesterday, as I was walking past the tree, I looked up and saw a HUGE hawk perched on one of the low  branches. It was an absolutely beautiful creature, and so close! Since I have been participating in a 365 photos project I have been carrying my camera with me much more frequently. I felt super awesome as a whipped out my camera and started snapping away. He sat still for a while and let me indulge in photographing such a rare and beautiful sight, but then after a few minutes he flaunted his great wingspan and took flight, flying right over my head. It was breathtaking.

Once the hawk was gone I of course was anxious to look at the treasures on my camera. I hit the review button and what was displayed? Not the beautiful photos I had just taken, but a little error message reading "No Memory Card". NOOOoooooo!

Yes.... I had taken the memory card out to upload some photos, and had forgotten to put it back in. So now all I have to share with you is an empty tree.

Resolution or not, here I come.

By now you may have noticed some changes on my blog. Or maybe you've noticed a lot of changes.  Yes, over the holidays I've had a little extra time on my hands, so bit by bit I've been doing some tweaking here. I'm probably not done, but then again, will I ever be?

One of the new things you may have noticed is a tab at the top that says "365 days of Photos". If you've clicked on it, you would have read about my hair-brained idea for the new year.

I've never been big on new year's resolutions, and whether or not you call this a resolution, I have decided to embark on an adventure for the year of 2011.

I have put a lot of thought into this this idea, and I think I'm ready for the challenge.  In 2010 I stepped out of "Automatic mode" on my camera, took a beginners photography class, and even began to learn how to use my DSLR camera. So now in 2011 I want to encourage what I have already begun to grow in. I've always loved looking at photos, and I've always loved taking photos. I asked for a camera for birthdays or for Christmas for years as a child, and finally was given one on for my 21st birthday. That camera was dragged all over the world and captured countless memories from Romania, Austria, Thailand, India, and of course America. But they were pretty much all snap shots. Taking photos is something I've always enjoyed doing, but now I'm learning the art of photography.
So in order to challenge myself to keep learning and growing, I intend to pick up my camera and hit the shutter at least once every day. I intend to take the things I have learned, and to improve on them. It might not always be easy. There may be days when I need to give myself a little grace. But I'm excited to see where this adventure takes me. Literally! So check back here as usual, but also check on the "365 days of Photos" tab (and even follow that page separately from this one) to see what kind of adventures I've been on with my camera. Should be fun!

You can be looking for my first photo to be taken on January 1, 2011.

Da Bomb Dot Com.

I'm sure I am more than partial when it comes to my super-cool husband, but can I just say that I think he is da bomb dot com? For real. He's rad.

I could list a bazillion reasons why I think he's the greatest thing since sliced toast, but for now I'll just share two.

Reason One:

He's an awesome sport when it comes to my photography endeavors. There are many times when we are out at an event, park, whatever, and he would really just like to enjoy an nice afternoon with his wife. But what am I often doing? I'm on my hands and knees trying to get just the right shot. I'll say something along the lines of, "Hey, go stand over there by that pillar in front of the lighthouse." "What do you want me to do when I get there?" He'll ask. "Look suave." I'll respond. Not that its hard for him to look suave anyway. I know that posing for my camera is probably not his favorite, but he does it anyway to make me happy. And then I put my camera back in the bag, hold his hand, and enjoy the rest of the afternoon with the man I love.

Reason Two:

He's so stinkin' smart! I've been messing with Photoshop and with Blogger all day long trying to get the silly white corners on my rounded corner header image to be transparent. I tried different ways to crop the rounded corners, and I tried saving it in every file format I knew. I tried every thing I could think of and searched everywhere for information and found nothing that worked.

He fixed it in about 2 minutes. Smarty pants. :-)

Setting of the Sun.

The right lighting and a well-angled camera... Gets me thinking about what it would have been like to witness the creation of the world...

¹⁴ And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, ¹⁵ and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. ¹⁶ God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. ¹⁷ God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, ¹⁸ to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹ And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

Genesis 1:14-19