Music Monday: Jim Croce Photographs and Memories

L is so sad the 30 Day Photo Challenge is over... I think she enjoyed it as much as I did. In truth she takes her own pictures. She has H's old digital camera. It takes photos and video. She films her stuffed animals and takes pictures all the time.

She wanted to start the challenge over this month and I told her I was ready for a break. Then she insisted we think about doing a "special" picture once a week for my blog. I think I might aim towards that goal.

It is funny we went to visit friends this weekend and I did not take a single picture. I go through spells like that, where I take thousands of photos and then sometimes I go weeks without taking any. On vacation in Iceland, I took over 400.

H and I have photo albums and for a time, I did alot of scrapbooking. Anymore, I store my photos online and only develop them as gifts or if the kids need them. I recently bought a groupon, to make the kids a memory book of the trip to Iceland. I think they will like that.

Now that we have digital technology, I store things online more and more.

So what did I learn during the challenge?

I learned that having a goal in mind makes some photos easier to take and others harder. I learned that my iPhone takes a great picture. I learned how to play with photo editing, both in Instigram (which is way cool) and Photobooth. I learned that sometimes the best photo is the one you snap quickly without thinking it through and sometimes it takes many, many tries to get just the effect you are looking for!

I urge you to go check out all the participants pictures. Allie faithfully posted them. She is going to post a recap on Wednesday which I think would be worth checking out.

In college, I spent a long time studying an old house and trying to learn what I could about the man who build that house. I sifted through tax records, parish records, the sheriff sale account record.  In 1850 there weren't pictures. Now we can document every meal we eat, every outfit we wear, every move we make. I know there are photo blogs where people do a self portrait a day. Friends post endless pictures of their new baby on facebook. I felt like I got to experience a bit of a friends recent wedding and honeymoon, based on the lovely pictures which popped up in my facebook time line.

 As with so many creative projects this 30 day challenge was as much about the output - the photos as it was the process. For me it was a great process... I think in November I may try the National Novel Writing Month, it all depends on the other things happening in my life...

I should mention the music. I love Jim Croce. All of his songs are playful, thought provoking, intense and they are stories... I have to think he understood - Art is a process...

30 Day Photo Challenge: Day 30 - Me a Month Later

It's me, 30 days later. Same spot in are yarden and H snapped this one as he headed back to work. He flew home from Detroit last night, to help our babysitter with the kids, so I could go to a concert. What can I say, he loves his job and he loves me and sometimes it takes alot of juggling to make all the parts fit.

I have loved this challenge. It was fun, inspiring and it sometimes made me work hard.

While I am not going to try and repeat this challenge in October, I am toying with the idea of doing a picture a week or something... it gives the day focus, something to point my creativity towards.

I need to look back through my photos - I am not sure I have a favorite. How about you? Which photo is your favorite?

30 Day Photo Challage - Day 29 Clouds

I tried to get cloud pictures today. They either did not come out well or were full on overcast and wait, pouring down rain!

So for those of you who have been waiting for Iceland pictures. I am going with a fantastic picture of Gullfoss. The approach and the parking area are underwhelming but then, then you hear the rush of water and feel the mist and then you see views like this...

Th clouds are amazing. You can view the falls from three levels and this is mid range. I remember thinking the clouds were very low, but they weren't, we were just climbing higher and higher.

I love these kinds of clouds, followed by the angry gray violet ones you see in the spring. When I was younger I used to lay in the grass and watch the clouds and think about what they looked like. Or I would swing on the swings trying to go as high as possible, hoping to touch the clouds. One of the best things about H learning to fly a small plane, when we were first married, is the clouds. I finally got to be up close and personal with the clouds.

30 Day Photo Challenge: Day 27 - Natural Light

This is one of those once in a lifetime photos! I saw a Monarch butterfly while watching the kids play in the Kinderplatz at Oktoberfest and followed it. Then I watched and waited. I got lucky!

Full on midday sun doesn't get more natural than that.

30 Day Photo Challenge: Day 26 - Playing with Shadows

I took this shot the same day I took Day 4. It was early evening and the sun was too our backs. It makes us appear larger than life.

I tried to take our pictures yesterday, but it was middle of the day and the sun was right overhead, not a shadow to be found.

30 Day Photo Challenge: Day 25 - Anything I want

I didn't take a picture today, it was a rainy soccer game and then a long day of errands and cooking.  So I asked H - creepy or pretty and H went with creepy. Actually, this one is pretty to in its own way. I snapped this one a few weeks ago. This guy was busy building an amazing web. I like spiders. They don't bother me at all. They prey on other insects, which do bother me more.

H loves Halloween. Actually we all do! We are Halloween crazy here. H and I dress up for trick - r - treat! Not sure what I will do this year, but I am currently considering my options.

30 Day Photo Challenge: Day 24 - Color Scheme

L is the color queen of our house. She can mix patterns and colors and create amazing outfits that no one else would ever think of, me included.

So tonight, I mentioned I was stumped again. I really don't have a favorite or signature color and most of our house trends towards neutrals, as H is not at all into bold color.

When I was working, it was very conservative. I had a closet full of very nice, very tailored and very boring suits. Navy, black, brown, grey, navy, black, did I mention black? I could have moonlighted as an undertaker without a problem.

Now though, I can experiment with colors. I have gone a little crazy with colors lately too. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

All of these items were in my closet and while I can assure you, I would never wear them all together, I am equally confident that L would totally pull off the combination flawlessly.

30 Day Photo Challenge: Day 23 - Childhood Memory

This one stumped me. Last week I thought about paying my hometown a visit. Surly I could find a memory or two there. Last week came and went and no trip.

Tonight on the way to dance lessons I was talking to L about tomorrow's challenge and how I thought I might have to sit it out. She says, "Oh come on Mom, you have lots of stuff from your childhood. Wait, remember that strange pink doll, I have that. See even I have a piece of your childhood."

Later I was cleaning up the kitchen and the kids were snacking and L says, "So how you gonna stage today's picture?" (Stage? my 9 year old used the word stage...)

I said I hadn't decided. E volunteers, "I think it would be cool if you did it like an I Spy picture."

Bingo!

So after bed time, I rounded up some items and staged and I Spy type photo. Can you guess which items are which???

Recycled quilt, a new life to something old before even recycle was a hot shot buzz word.
Souvenir from my 1st trip to Germany
Statue from the site of a bit of France, right here in Ohio.
A high school honor
L's bit of my childhood
A weird memento with an even weirder tag
A knotty endeavour
Something made by my great-grandfather
Pink memories - Snaps before digital

I bet if I was willing to hunt and dig out more, I have more items I could have put in this picture but I think this is a good sampling and representative of a number of years of my childhood.

30 Day Photo Challenge: Day 22 Somebunny I love...

I tweeted a few days ago:

I must confess, I am in love with His Royal Hoppiness. 

That is what I call Truffles. Well among other terms of endearment anyway. He really is a great little guy. Good company, relatively easy to get along with. L does a great job of caring for him. She reads to him, carefully picking "good fit books" for him. Nothing scary, no books with dogs or attack cats. She brought home a book about rabbits from the library just for him.

When Miss T gave him up, she sent all his stuff. His brushes, blankets, treats, house, play structure and his sweaters. Yes, His Royal Hoppiness's has sweaters. It has been too warm for him to get all decked out, but as the air gets chillier, L has been dying to play dress up.

This morning, she dressed him in the better fitting sweater. While Truffles will sit still as a stone and let her dress him, between you and me, he is not a fan of his sweater. I think he thinks it is old fashioned and not nearly trendy enough for him. He is a metro kind of guy. Furthermore, his coat, is exceptionally soft and plush. He already has the pimp daddy of coats, so is a knit sweater really what he needs, probably not.

But around here, the rule is, if you have it, you need to wear it. I make L wear a dress and a skirt once a week and I guess that means His Royal Hoppiness better get used to his sweater sessions.

He is handsome, don't you think?

30 Day Photo Challenge: Day 21 Sunset

Last week there was a lovely sunset, did I take a photo, oh no, I was committed to shooting my photos in the 24 hour period. (Sometimes I have the best the ideas...)

So tonight, as we finished up dinner on the deck, I shot some pictures. It isn't sunset in the classic sense - but it will have to do. We are down hill and behind trees and it was as close to sunset as I was going to get on this partly to mostly cloudy day.

I like the effect, but I would have liked a real sunset, rich with pinks and oranges, but this challenge is about being in the moment. Here is my moment from last night.

30 Day Photo Challenge: Day 20 Anything I want

Having given myself permission to break my own rules, today I am featuring a picture I took last week at the farmers market. I drive by the cemetery and I see this riot of beautiful yellow flowers. It was rainy and overcast and this burst of color was unexpected.

I often wonder why do we associate flowers with death? Or is it that flowers at funerals or in cemeteries are there to remind us of life?

30 Day Photo Challenge: Day 19 Landscape

One would think on a road trip I might have been able to capture a decent landscape shot, but in my defense it was a road trip with friends, all together we were 3 adults, 4 kids under the age of 10 and two vehicles. Work in a power shopping trip to IKEA. So you know, it is what it is. I have a great shot of some pillows and one slobbery baby. Landscapes, not so much.

I took a few shots when we stopped at a rest area, but they are not post worthy.

So I am breaking my rule and posting something I shot this summer, when I first had the iPhone. I love this shot. I took this picture after a meeting in German Village. I took it just because. I saw something and I took a picture. I do this alot.

As much as I love a good field, a rural landscape or even a forested one, I am always drawn to the urban green space, the edge where man made messes with natural world.

30 Day Photo Challenge: Day 18 Depicting Emotion

I enlisted a friend to take some shots. You tell me - what am I feeling?

30 Day Photo Challenge: Day 16 Street Lights

This one was a challenge. All the power lines are buried here in the burb. Our neighborhood relies on porch lights instead of street lights. If I had planned this one a little better, I could have taken a walk downtown or something but I didn't.

I was pondering my choices when as I walked home from taking the kids to school, I noticed the lights in the under the road bike tunnel. They are kinda cool. They have a cage around them and I think they are on most of the day.

30 Day Photo Challenge: Day 16 Experimenting with light

Unlike some of the challenge days, when it turned out to be a sunny day, I knew exactly where I wanted to take today's picture. We have a large ash tree in our side yard. The kids and I sit under it alot. For picnics, to read, to rest after a long bike ride.

I knew this afternoon the light would be interesting. I was right. The sky is so blue, the leaves so green to green black and the late afternoon sun making rainbow halos.

(for those wondering, I lay down in the cool grass to get the shot I wanted.)

30 Day Photo Challenge: Day 15 Anything I want

Let me start by saying these seem to be the hardest days. Anything I want. It is so daunting.

This is a dahlia from my yarden. I planted these bulbs this spring when I planted the glads. I planted them in a part of the yarden, where nothing and I mean nothing will grow. The bulbs weren't that expensive and I would like something to grow there, really I would. It took some time and I had the greens, but no buds. Then just this week - boom! We have buds and blossoms. Yeah! One last splash of summer color before fall.

30 Day Photo Challenge: Day 14 Focusing on eyes

(I took this picture using PhotoBooth on my MacAir - I did not photoshop this one at all...)

Today I have tired eyes and I took a rather long afternoon nap and now it is bed time, which is always a hectic time. I had thought about having H take some pictures of me, focusing on my eyes, but it didn't happen.

Then E reminded me I have a camera on my laptop. We took some photos of his eyes and then I decided to take some of my own.

H has dark brown eyes, as does my mother, and L and E. E's are the lightest of the brown eyes, with maybe a hint of hazel, which he gets from me. It is funny sometimes, my kids and H starring at me and it is spooky, the same brown eyes. My kiddos really do look like their father.

My eyes are well, colorful. Sometimes a grey blue, sometimes more greenish, sometimes hazel and sometimes an amazing variety of colors. They change with my mood.

Today my mood has been somber with a touch of sleepy.

I also like how this picture captures my nose ring. I love my nose ring. This picture also indicates that it is time for me to once again go have my eyebrows threaded.

30 Day Photo Challenge: Day 13 Photo Edit I Like

Unlike many of the folks in the challenge, I am not a photographer. I do not own a camera with changeable lens or one that requires film. Nor do I claim to have any photoshop skills whatsoever. None.

That said I do have an ascetic. I actually love photography as a medium. At the museum, I might well skip some classical painting in favor of some solid and artistic photography.

This is a squash/pumpkin blossom from my yarden. I just fired up the photoshop features on my new MacAir and played with it, until I liked it. Earlier to day I did the same on Instigram. I went with my photoshop picture.

I think, perhaps when the kids are older, I might well invest in a fancier camera and some photography classes. For now, I will stick with my digital point and shoot!

I love how the blue tone sets off the water and the edges and tips of the blossoms. (I must like blue, because for a time my Twitter Avatar was a picture of me with a blue wash to it. I had likewise manipulated the photo with photoshop to create an effect, which pleased me.)

30 Day Photo Challenge: Day 12 Same picture different light

It was an overcast day and this is Mr. Owlie in the late afternoon. He was cranky, cuz I woke him up but that is just the way it is.

And here he is after hours and ready to party. He was not pleased he had to wait for the evening photo opt. But again, that is just the way it is buddy.

30 day photo: Day 11 Black and White