A Picture A Day

DAY 51 - UP HILL SWIM
I took my mother to her hair dresser appointment and because I had an hour to kill and since it was a beautiful warmer than usual day decided to do my daily 30-40 minute walking around at Leisure World. Of course, I took my camera! I thought I'd make this duck picture a little more interesting... Do you want to see what it looked like before? It's almost embarrasing to show it.





DAY 50 - REMEMBERING A FRIEND
A dear friend who moved away gave me this teacup and saucer which I have displayed on my bookshelf and everytime I walk by it, I think of her and wonder how she is doing. With the small gifts she gave came a tiny card with a simple message that I will treasure even more.

(Wow! I made it to day 50!)

DAY 49 - TRYING TO CAPTURE A RAINBOW (Do you see it?)
It is interesting to me how many pictures I actually take a day holding my breath that one may be worthy for my pic-a-day. Sometimes I am surprised, other times I shrug my shoulders and tell myself, "Maybe this is good enough" and then ocassionally I am delighted. It's all luck, I say...

DAY 48 - SHOVELING
It was nice to be inside snug and warm while taking a lot of pictures from our living room window of MRT and SRT cleaning up the five or so inches of snow. Should I have felt a little guilty? Naaahhhhh. I can't resist adding a few more fun photos...








DAY 47 - IN THE SPOTLIGHT
SRT was in the spotlight in Primary today.


DAY 46 - HELPING
I was able to find time today to help LH get her house ready to sell by spending a few hours packing and cleaning. What a fun friend to work alongside with! Here she is taking a picture of something one of her boy's made for her that needed to be preserved for memory's sake.
cute!!

DAY 45 - PUT A STOP TO WINTER BROWNS!
I'm getting tired of seeing the blah browns of winter and can't wait until spring. How about you? I'd thought I would try to capture this in a photo and at a nearby park, found a stop sign with dead brown trees in the background. In LR2, I turned the photo all brown and then with the adjustment brush colored back in the red.


DAY 44 - FLOWER
I read in a photography book that you can buy your own flowers to photograph and even spray it with water to make it look like rain. Well, this green (?) flower was still alive in my Valentine's bouquet and I grabbed our spray bottle and took several pictures. I also decided to try my hand at using the manual focus on my camera. Below is another picture cropped close to show off the water drop.






DAY 43 - LIFE OLD PLANT
When our oldest son was born twenty seven years ago, our sister-in-law gave us this plant. It is still around after all these years! Although this may not be an exciting picture, it is definitely deserves some kind of recognition! I took this photo laying down on the carpet looking up it's cascading leaves flowing over the sides of the counter. It is almost time for a plant "hair cut". Let me know if you want a start.

DAY 42 - PRE-TEEN!
In a couple of months SRT will be a teenager. She's enjoying a conversation with a friend who is making her smile.


DAY 41 - MY FAVORITE QUOTE
My sister made this plaque for us for Christmas. I think about this quote daily because it helps me put the "fun" back into everyday living. Sometimes I forget to enjoy...


DAY 40 - MEGAPIXEL CONTEST
SRT and I were taking photos with each of our cameras that had different megapixels to see if we could tell a different. (See page on my powerpoint learning lessons for results.) I told her that I was going to take a picture of her taking a picture for my one-a-day. Little did I know that she taking a picture of me too! I didn't know I scrunched up my eyes, nose and mouth when I take pictures. (I'm sure it helps to take better pictures.) Hilarious!






DAY 39 - SPORTSMANSHIP
Our young men played basketball and lost. I got to try my sports mode on my camera. The pictures were grainy of course. Can you see Mark here? He is the only one with his hooded sweatshirt under his number jersey.


DAY 38 - HOME TO FLOWERS AND BILLS
It is good to be home again in some ways...


DAY 37 - FLOWER
A group of us went down to D.C. to the botanical gardens. What a great place to take close-up pictures. This one was my favorite.


DAY 36 - TIME CAPTURED QUILT
My in-laws were given this beautiful quilt for their 50th wedding anniversary and had it hanging on the wall of the room where I slept.


DAY 35 - CLAY VEGGIE TALES
What a clever niece to make these cute figures out of clay!


DAY 34 - FATHER AND SON
Our littlest grandson six weeks old.


DAY 33 - EXPRESS SCRABBLE
What a fun game to play! Be careful when you play with JCT. He cheats! ;o)


DAY 32 - MY BEAUTIFUL GRANDAUGHTER
It is exciting to have new material to shoot! AMT was best to take pictures doing her natural thing rather than try to pose her. Every once in a while a photo doesn't quite work out but it is still saveable (is that a word?) when you jazz it up just a touch. This is an example of one.


DAY 31 - DRAPER TEMPLE OPEN HOUSE
What a great opportunity to attend a temple openhouse! I ask one of the ushers if it would be "breaking the rules" to leave my group if I stepped outside to get a picture. I decided to be a little creative and took this looking in between a branch. I actually took two -- this is one where the temple is in focused and the other one is opposite. (See Below.) Which one do you like best?


DAY 30 - FLYING HIGH
So I saw this other great picture outside my airplane window that would have been so fun to have taken a picture of. Two-thirds of the sky was brilliant sky blue and the bottom third was soft white (we were flying over the clouds) like someone had laid their fluffy quilt batting on the horizon. Far in the distance just milimeters above the white cloud was a tiny jet flying parallel to us leaving a thick line of exhaust. I tried and tried with my zoom lense to capture this but the plane began experiencing some heavy turbulance and of course, I couldn't take a clear picture. Blast!

DAY 29 - "ALL MY BAGS ARE PACKED..."
... And I'm ready to go..." Whoohoo! I get to go see my grandkids soon!

DAY 28 - CUDDLING
There is nothing greater than finding a friend to cuddle with when you come home from a long day at school.
Program mode; 1/42 sec; F/4.5; AUTO



DAY 27 - "Train up a child..." (Proverbs 22:6)
I am editing these photos on Windows Photo Gallery, by the way. It is soooooo basic but it's all I have at the moment. Picasa3 quit on me and I had to uninstall it twice then re-install it but it still didn't work so I gave up and in the meantime am still dreaming of owning LR2 someday...


DAY 26 - BE PREPARED!
We went to our ward's preparedness fair on emergency care and everyone was able to practice basic CPR on dummies... dolls, not real ones.
Program mode; 1/30 sec; F/3.2 AUTO


DAY 25 - MOTHER AND DAUGHTER
Okay, this could have been a cute picture but it came out so grainy. I had my flash up ready to go, put my camera on a tripod and set the timer to go off. But no, the camera decided it had enough light. How wrong it was!


DAY 24 - RAINBOW CONFETTI
We changed our furniture around again and noticed that as the sun begins to set, it's rays hits the crystal on our clock on the piano and delights us with little rainbows throughout the house. I captured one that fell on a doiley and found that it was making cool looking spots behind.
Program mode; 1/53 sec; F/4.5; AUTO

DAY 23 - BY THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THEM
I am adding this photo, one of many, many that I took today. For our friendly photo contest we were supposed to submit a picture of photogenic fruit. (How do you get fruit to say, "Cheese"?) With the help of MRT and SRT, they helped me pick their favorite out of three choices I gave them since I couldn't decide. This picture above is one they didn't pick but I still liked.
Program mode; 1/167sec; F/5.6; AUTO


DAY 22 - FENCED IN
"The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side of the fence. Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is watered. When crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass wherever you may be." Rober Fulghum
Program mode; 1/192; f 5.6; AUTO


DAY 21 - CAT
Cory let me take a picture of him when I went to visit my mother. I don't know if YOU can see the expression like I can, but I think his look is saying something like... "Okay, let's hurry and get this over with... I want to take my nap." (I did have to call his attention to me a couple of times when he began to nod off.)


When I came home and looked at the photo, I was a little disappointed that his left side was dark, but now that I study it, perhaps contrast makes for a more interesting picture?
Program mode; 1/59 sec; F/4.5; AUTO

DAY 20 - MED TIME
Someone left their watch on the counter next to our Tylenol bottle -- SRT has been ill this weekend with a fever and a headache and now a terrible cough. I thought I'd try to tell a story through this picture and practice depth of field in photography at the same time.
Manual mode; 1 sec; F/8.0; ISO 64

DAY 19 - A LEGO PIONEER
SRT loves legos and because MRT and I are helping with the Pioneer Trek again this year, she build this for us. Inside the wagon which you can't see is a Lego riffle and a Lego backback.
Auto mode; 120; F/4.0 ISO 64

DAY 18 - FRIENDSHIP
"A friend is one of the nicest things you can have, and one of the best things you can be. " ~Douglas Pagels
We went together as a small group of RS sisters to visit the art smithsonian downtown. It was so much fun!
Program mode: 1/30 sec; f/32; ISO 64

DAY 17 - SEEING IS BELIEVING
Okay, okay. So when you have to think of a photo to take EVERYDAY, one has to get a little creative or desperate. You get to decide which category this one is. How did I do this? I took a close-up of SRT's eye and did some touch up on Pisaca -- used the focal B&W, tightened the sharpness into a circle to fit the iris of the eye and then increased the satuation as well as added more shadow which increased the color.

DAY 16 - ICELAND
We woke up to a world of ice this morning. I carefully walked outside to see if I could find any worthy pictures for my one-a-day. It was pretty slick! This was taken on the super macro mode.
Program mode; 1/60 sec; F/3.5 AUTO

DAY 15- SNOW FUN
This picture says it all...
Program mode; 1/506 sec; F/4.5; AUTO

DAY 14 - "Why is thy spirit so sad?" (1 Kings 21:5)
SRT walked out of her bedroom this morning wearing my picture for today... She was even willing to look very, very sad for me, until I said something funny. (See picture below.)
Manual Mode; 1/8 sec; F/5.6; ISO 64


DAY 13 - "He hath made every thing beautiful." (Ecl. 3:11)
It's interesting to me that I am always looking for pictures to take now. I glanced out the front window and noticed around dusk that the sun hitting the tip of the trees made them look bright orange. It wasn't quite picture worthy but then decided to check out the sliding glass door in the back of the house and found this picture. I put my camera on a tripod, set the settings to SCENIC on DUSK and zoomed in to get closer to avoid housetops.
Program Mode; 1/100 sec; F/4.5 AUTO

DAY 12 - "Let us nourish it with great care..." (Alma 32:37)
SRT brought home a pot from achievement days where each girl planted four sunflower seeds. (Only three sprouted.) It has been fun watching it grow.
Manual mode; 1/8 sec; F/7.1 ISO 64

DAY 11 - WHICH END IS UP?
I thought I would trick you and post the picture on it's side. One of the birds is a reflection, but which one? ;o)
Program mode; 1/266 sec; f/5.0

DAY 10 - LIFE IS A PUZZLE -- SOLVE IT.
Whoa, I made it to day ten and still have three hundred and fifty five more days to go. Maybe this is why I decided to post this photo anyway even though I don't like it all that much. I may run out of ideas. I felt I needed to practice more using the manual mode, so...
Manual mode; 1/60 sec; F/5.6 ISO 64

DAY 9 - MALL DRAGON
I go walking at the mall on days when it is too cold outside and have learned that it is a good idea to take my camera with me incase I see I picture I want to take. I took a photo of this dragon they had displayed for the Chinese New Year. Here is what Wikipedia says about the meaning of the dragon symbol:
The Dragon ( 龍 ) is the only mythical creature in the Chinese zodiac. In China, dragons are associated with strength, health, harmony, and good luck; they are placed above doors or on the tops of roofs to banish demons and evil spirits. The Year of the Dragon is associated with the earthly branch symbol 辰.

DAY 8 - "Blessed is the nations whose God is the Lord" (Psalms 33:12)
Today our 44th President was sworn in. I remembered these nestling dolls that KWR gave to me from Valley Forge and thought it might make a good patriotic photo for my picture a day.


DAY 7 - "Children are an heritage of the Lord." (Psalms 127:3)
MR came down with her mother to visit grandma and let me take her picture. She did most of the posing herself. What a natural!
Shutter priority; 1/8 sec; F/4.5 64 WB

DAY 6 - "In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." (Genesis 12:3)
Program mode; 1//60 sec; F/32 AUTO

Day 5 - BLINDED
"The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind" (Psalms 146:8)
This idea came to me yesterday when I was sweeping the kitchen floor and noticed the light with the shadows on the wall. It is so interesting to me how as an amateur photographer, all of a sudden I begin to notice light more. So, I thought I would try to capture a willing victim in my home to show them being "blinded". (P.S. MST wasn't THAT willing but he puts up with me. SRT's comment was, "It's your turn. Mom is always asking me to pose for her.")
Program mode; 1/152 sec; F5.0 AUTO

Day 4 - "...behold the beauty of the Lord..." (Psalms 27:4)
We woke up to a very cold day this morning. It was 7 degrees outside. When I opened the blinds, I found this on our window. This was taken with the super macro setting.
Program mode; 1/89 sec; F /4.5; Exposure comp +0.7; AUTO

Day 3 - "I am their musick" (Lamentations 3: 63)
I saw this picture of JCT's photosite and thought it was so cool that I decided to try it myself. He gets the credit!
Program mode;1/123 sec; F/ 4.5; AUTO WB

DAY 2 - Search the Scriptures Diligently (Alma 17:2)
Program mode; 1/251 sec; F/6.3; AUTO WB

DAY 1 - "The good seed are the children of the kingdom..." (Matt 13:38)
This is a super macro shot of a slice of orange which I held up to the window.
Program mode; 1/76 sec; F /3.5; AUTO WB