Odds and Ends

September Morning

As I was sitting here earlier today I happened to glance out the window and saw a beautiful sky.   I can't see the actual sunrise from where we live but boy what it was doing to the sky was gorgeous.   Now - where to find the camera (J had taken the DSLR to work last weekend and I didn't know where he'd put it when he came home).   I found the little point and shoot and ran outside - picture this I'm out there in my housecoat trying to get a picture while not being seen.   Everytime I heard a car coming I'd rush back into the house - crazy lady in her housecoat with a camera.  :)  So what got me doing that - this.

 
  

Sunsets

It’s time for 10 on the 10th, something that Shimelle brought up at the end of her Beyond Blogging for Scrapbookers class that I took this spring.  Be sure and check out Shimelle's and everyone else's 10 on the 10th blog posts here. 

As I was going through some of our digital pictures from the past year (sorting them into my highlights folders) I was struck by the sunset pictures we have and thought I'd share some of my favourite digital ones (we have some even better ones that are pre-digital that I really need to scan in).   These ones were taken on Lake Huron, the East Coast, the West Coast, the Caribbean the Baltic and even our backyard.  In our house taking sunset pictures is something we both love to do.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

10 on the 10th

Shimelle  started something called 10 things on the 10th for her "Beyond Blogging for Scrapbookers" class and today is the second time for it.  If you'd like to see everyone else's 10 on the 10th posts please check out Shimelle's blog.

Now as for mine - in going over the pictures we took while we were down in Halifax just over a week ago, I thought I'd share the 10 pictures I wish we had taken.

1) A picture of us with my sister's family that were there.  It seems we were all too busy talking and doing other things and it wasn't like there weren't cameras around.  I know we didn't take our tripod down but my BIL has one we could have very easily borrowed.

2) A picture of my sister and I.  We don't see each other too often anymore and I really would have liked one of just the 2 of us.  I mentioned it a couple of times but we didn't do it when I mentioned it thinking we'd have more time later in the trip.

3) A picture of J (my hubby) and I.  We hardly have any of those. 

4) Some pictures of J - it's like he wasn't even on the trip.  What on earth was I thinking?  I guess I was just enjoying being with family and totally forgot about the camera I always had with me.

5) Some food pictures - we had awsome food while down there, most of it cooked by my sister and BIL - especially that lobster dinner!

6) Some portrait pictures of everyone.  I really would have liked to have practiced more with doing that and coming away with pictures of the family.

7) A picture in the Pier 21 research room where I found my Mum's family's Immigration records thanks to a wonderful research assistant.  I would have loved to have seen the look on my face when the research assistant managed to find my Grandfather right away - I sure didn't have that type of luck when I was trying to find the immigration records.

8) A picture of Point Pleasant Park now that the damage from Hurricane Juan is cleared up.  That's one place that the only pictures I have of it are of the damage after Juan and that was from the road outside of the park.  Maybe instead of sleeping in on Canada Day we should have got up and gone down there with them while they walked Calloway.

9) A picture of J walking Calloway (the dog) and getting conned out of milk bones.  We were told that when you got to a certain corner she would sit and thats when you would give her a milk bone.   It worked great but Calloway must have thought - hmmm, maybe if I sit there on the way back I can get another one because that's exactly what happened. 

10) Pictures of the Canada Day fireworks down in the harbour.  It was too easy to just sit out on the deck and listen to them after our late dinner. 

Do you have pictures you wish you had taken while away or visiting family?   I'm making a list for the next time we go down there (hopefully in 2012 or 2013).

Been a Busy, Busy Week

I bet you thought I dropped off the edge of the earth.  Nope!  Just been busy and had limited computer time for other than classwork and organization (more about that later).

June is my sister & my birthday month with me first and her 6 days later.  It's a very special one this year for me  -  the government now officially sees me as old (in other words I now qualify for Old Age Pension, lol) and as it's a special one I've been celebrating for almost a week now.  

The celebrating started out with some Veuve Cliquot (sp?) champagne in the late afternoon followed by a wonderful dinner made by J (barbequed of course).   Lobster tails and filet mignon - absolutely yummy and mouth watering.  (Sorry no pictures)   Of course when J barbeques I end up having to do the veg/salad prep.   :)   So the caesar salad and cole slaw were my part of the dinner.   After dinner we headed next door where the annual street party was being held.  That was actually the first time in the 25 years we've lived here that we went to one - probably because it was right next door this time of course not being golfers is also a good reason but this year you didn't need to be a golfer to go.   I always thought it was a bit much having a so-called street party that was only for those who went to the golf but what do I know.  :)

Sunday was a day off from celebrating - stuff needed doing in both the house and the gardens plus I needed to catch up on my photography class.   The past 2 weeks we've been working on manual settings and I'm definitely needing more practice but here is one shot where I think I got it.  I was working on blurring out the background so I'm happy with that but just realized the flower needs to be more centred.   Hmmm, that will be difficult to do now as the peonies seem to be on their way out.

 
 

 

Another thing that was optional was to take a picture of a colour that symbolized an emotion to you.  I decided on yellow as that makes me think of happiness.  Ok, no flowers at this time of year that are yellow - what to do.  Then I remembered I have a yellow beach bag and thought it would be the perfect thing.   But what a lame picture - a beach bag hanging on a fence post.  :)

 See I told you it was lame - I need to come up with something more creative than that plus the yellow isn't quite right - the bag is more a really bright yellow.  Heck anything would be more creative so I haven't posted this on the class gallery.  :)

The big day arrived on Monday and it was a wonderful day - Mother Nature even co-operated.  I remember growing up my Mum used to plan picnic birthday parties for me out in the yard and every year it would rain.  It got to be a running joke.  But it didn't this year, it almost did but decided to wait till nighttime.  :)   J has been wanting me to go with him to pick out something for my birthday - he knows what but wants me to choose so we're going to do that on the weekend.  The evening ended up with lots of calls from my family on the east coast - can't wait to see them (especially little Miss K) later this month.

I've spent a lot of the week working on my photography class stuff and trying to get all my digital supplies organized so that I know whose stuff I'm using and can give proper credit when I share.  That seems to be taking forever.  I had no idea I had so much digi stuff - a lot of it as "freebies" from taking digi courses.  Right now I'm only up to the J's.  :)  Tuesday and Wednesday though I did take time out to visit with my 2 best friends.  My friend from work days and I have a little tradition that when it's one of our birthdays we go out for lunch - so that was Tuesday and it was really nice even if our favourite restaurant has closed down.    My friend from high school days (everyone should have at least one of them)  and I met up on Wednesday and had a great time talking about upcoming vacations and would you believe going over my school yearbook from the year we graduated (40+ years ago).  It was amazing both who we remembered and who we didn't.  :)

 

 

Well That Week Slipped Right On By Me

I’ve been busy doing various things this week and before I knew it bingo – it was Saturday. 

I registered for Candice Stringham’s “Oh Shoot Digital Photography” at Jessicasprague.com and we’ve just finished up the second week of it.  Between the classes, the daily e-mails, the assignments, the gallery and her twice weekly chat sessions it’s been busy.   So far we’ve discussed shutter speed and apertures in the class sessions.  Our first assignment was to take pictures that showed speed in one and then the same subject were the action was frozen.   Practically everybody seems to have small children but the option of using children in the pictures wasn’t open to me so…. I came up with this idea, well actually J is the one who suggested it.  Here’s what I submitted for my first assignment.

 
  

The neighbours must have thought we were nuts with J driving up and down the street as I snapped away when he went past. 

This past week’s assignment was to take 2 pictures where in one the background was blurred and the other where it wasn’t – again of the same thing.  I decided to take pictures of one of our peonies in bud.

 
  

Next week we go on to manual – that should be interesting.

In the midst of all that, Stacy Julian’s (Big Picture Classes) redo of Library of Memories now called Photo Freedom started up and as someone who had taken LOM I was entitled to take it for free I jumped right in on that.  It started Thursday so now I’m busy with that too – why do I seem to take more than one course at a time?  ARGH! 

So what else has kept me busy – decluttering and organizing.  Following Mel’s idea on decluttering – do something every day – I’ve been busy getting rid of old clothes.

 
 
Two bags went out to the Canadian Diabetes clothesline drive on Tuesday.  I hope someone can use the 7 pairs of jeans, 1 pair of slacks, 3 blouses, 1 suit, 1 blazer and would you believe – my going away outfit.   Boy was I ever shocked when I saw the size of the waist on that.  It was tiny compared to what it’s like now.  I’ve also got rid of numerous magazines and crossword/sudoku books that were finished (don’t know why they were still hanging around), boxes and manuals, etc. for things we don’t even have anymore.    We’ve got the old computer equipment that we’re getting rid of nicely put aside waiting for the town’s electronics drop-off day and I’m working away at an ad to place in the local paper for some items that I want to sell – like my Grandmother’s wardrobe I shared about the other day.

As for the organizing – I’ve been trying to organize my digital scrapbooking supplies in Picasa and that is a chore all on it’s own.  It seems like whenever I sit down at the computer I’m busy putting tags on everything so if I want say a patterned mainly red paper I’ll quickly be able to call up all the ones I have and so on.  So far I am only up to the C’s in that.   I’m making sure I also tag everything with where I got it from and who the designer is so that I can give credit when I share anything I make with them.   I should have been doing this all along but…..  I think this Picasa file is going to rapidly take up space on my new 1.5TB external hard drive. 

 
 And now what am I on to today – thinking about what story I’m going to share tomorrow for Sian’s Storytelling Sunday. Please come on over and check us out tomorrow sometime.

Oh Shoot Class at Jessica Sprague

Earlier this month I registered for Candice Stringham’s  “Oh Shoot! Beginning Digital SLR Photography” course over at Jessicasprague.com.    It started this past Monday so I’ve put my digi “Up & Running” class on hold at least for this week so that I can concentrate on the photography course.  Yep that’s me.  Nothing like taking 2 classes at the same time but at least the “Up & Running” one is self-paced so I can do it whenever I have some time or whenever I make the time. 

As  part of the class Candice suggested we get a 50mm 1.2, 1.4 or 1.8 lens.   After checking out the prices, I decided to go with the 1.8.  The 1.4 was almost triple the price of it and the 1.2 was out of sight for me.  I’m anxious to get going on practicing with it and doing this week’s assignment, but first I have to find something moving.  It seems most people are using their kids for that – running, jumping, swinging, etc. but I don’t have that option.  J has suggested that he drive by the house a few times and I take pictures at different shutter speeds of the car going by.   Oh I forgot to mention the topic this week is shutter speeds. 

I have taken a few pictures with the new lens on the old DSLR (Canon Rebel XT) and as soon as the battery is charged for J’s Canon 60D I’ll be using it for the class.

For a bit of a contrast here are 3 pictures I took of J – one with the 18-55mm lens that we got with the camera and two with the new 50mm lens at different shutter speeds.

 
 18-55mm lens, 55mm, shutter speed 1/60, aperture 5.6, ISO 400

 
 50mm lens, shutter speed 1/30, aperture 5.0, ISO 100

 
 50mm lens, shutter speed 1/125, aperture 2.5, ISO 100

Guess for a true comparison I should have taken one at a shutter speed of 1/60 but I’m thinking both of the pictures of J with the new lens are a lot sharper than with the “kit” lens and the background more blurred.  What do you think?  All in all so far I'm pleased with the new lens and it's nice and light and small for travelling.

 BTW, can you tell J doesn’t really like posing for pictures?  He'd much rather be behind the camera.