Donna's Week 20 - Inspired

I took all of this week's pictures this week.  Sharon is such an inspiration.  It has been so great to see her.   Talking time catching up, some great food,  a thousand photo's later and we spent all rainy day Sunday watching movies and editing pictures.  A perfect weekend.

Music

When I read this topic, I was originally thinking of some tulips that I saw blowing in the wind.  The movement looked like visual music, but when I went back to photograph the tulips, the wind was gone as well as most of the petals.  I tried to find other pictures of movement, but none of them worked.  So when Sharon looked up at this tree to take a picture, I took one too!  Apparently if the branches are thick enough and the wind is strong enough, you can take a slow shutter speed shot, and only the leaves move, creating a cool musical picture, like this one.  

Leading Lines

"Leading line" is a photographic composition term that describes how the eye naturally follows lines. In theory, these lines bring the viewer into your picture and lead them to something interesting.  This is kind of a literal interpretation of the concept.

Pastel

These cool pastel picnic tables are scattered in a field at a strip mall in Niagara on the Lake.  

N

This 365 day photo project has many letters in it.  From now on all letters will be taken at the grain elevator.  While I was looking for this "N", I think I found every other letter!!!

Hooded

So there were so many options for this topic:  hooded mergansers, fume hoods at my work, hoody sweaters,  car hoods,  Caspian terns (seagull like birds with black coloured hoods),  and uncircumcised male body parts!  This hooded sprayer was the best picture I could get!!

Baby Animal

So curious, so cute!

Wild Card 1

A more or less subtle leading lines image.  The clouds point to the sun's rise location.

Wild Card 2

This little guy was making beautiful music.

Enjoy your week!

Sharon's Week 20: Dear Mrs. Speranzini

I am visiting my awesome friend Donna in Grimsby, Ontario, a town an hour outside of Niagara Falls.  We have been driving around this beautiful area taking photographs in some fairly chilly weather.  Today we are inside, watching Pride and Prejudice and editing photos while the rain falls outside.  We may or may not get out for more photography today.  I was thinking yesterday, after heading out at 5:00 am and wandering with our cameras until 2:00 pm (a full work day, if you don't want to do the math yourself), that I would never get anything done if I lived around here.  First, because I think it might be fairly easy to persuade Donna to join me on long photographic outings and second because it could take years and years to fully explore the farms and vineyards and orchards and different landscapes around here.

About my title, it comes from something we used to say all the time when we were housemates in University.  I don't remember the exact details but it had to do with Donna being maybe clumsy or prone to accidents or maybe having a tendency to perform hazardous adventurous acts.  Whatever the reason, we were always penning possible letters to her mom to explain how she met her demise...Dear Mrs. Speranzini...

All of the photos this week were all taken in this area during our our explorations over the past two days.  Here they are...

music

I have to credit Donna for the idea for this photo.  I am quite literal in my thinking most of the time.  Donna is very creative in so many ways (her mom has a PhD in creativity so I think the apple doesn't fall far from the tree).  As we were driving around and I was complaining about my lack of ideas for "music" Donna  mentioned a few really creative ones while I talked about instruments and notes and someone playing music.  After reviewing my photos and not having found such literal items, I thought about how I could apply something a little less concrete to a photo I liked.  This grackle was fishing beside us as we sat enjoying the early morning light.  At home, we have grackles nesting in our soffit (yes, I know I need to get that taken care of) and Levi and I hear their music whenever we come in or go out of the house.

leading lines

As we drove around, we were looking for orchards or vineyards whose lines lead to the distant skyline of Toronto.  I wasn't able to get exactly what I wanted although I did get a few I liked.  I am going with this photo though because I love the lines in it.  These crazy lines from the stairs are leading to the gazebo and clump of trees.  This was at Charles Daley Park in Lincoln.

pastel

I'm not sure that these are pastel colours exactly and I considered desaturating a bit but I decided not to.  A lilac in my mind, will always be pastel coloured.

N

Some beautiful forest at Beamer Memorial Conservation Area.

hooded

Again with the literal interpretation, here is Donna yesterday morning during the chilly sunrise.  Turn around, Donna, the sunrise is behind you.

baby animal

Donna took me to her friend's dairy farm and we photographed baby cows but I am going to let her show you one of them.  I will show you the baby ducks...there are 11 of them I think.

wild card

Like many weeks, I cannot decide on one so here is a selection...

First we have sunrise yesterday.

A flower at the greenhouse that Donna's in-laws own.  We went there for photographs on the busiest day of the year...we didn't stay long.

A redbud tree in Niagara on the Lake.

This blue jay landed on the apple tree we were admiring.

It was really windy and hard to photograph the lilacs.  They were at the Centennial Lilac Garden near Niagara Falls.

Here is one of the vineyard lines leading sort of towards the Toronto skyline photos.  You have to squint very hard to see the buildings.

Here's one of my calf photos.

And finally, a cute little patio in Jordan.  The wisteria was so beautiful.

That's it.  Have a happy Victoria Day.

And now we are watching The Martian.

Donna's Week 19

Happy Mother's Day

Enjoy this weeks pictures!

A "Green" "Circle"

This picture was taken at low tide in Campbell River, BC

A "Pop of Colour"

The new greenhouse at work is designed with pops of primary colour.

A sunrise shot.

A nighttime shot.

Starts with "H"

This bison is Huge!

Motherhood

Only a bad mother would let her son out into the cold without a hat!

I am the most excited mother of all, when I catch Blake making a connection with someone else!

"Multi-Coloured"

LED lights at a local greenhouse.

Wildcard

Magnolia's in Bloom

Have a Great Week!

Sharon's Week 19: A Hundred Bottles of Wine on the Wall

I have occasionally used song lyrics in my titles - not as prolifically as Pam has, but now and again a song has presented itself to me.  This week, because of Mother's Day (and I suppose the reason I put "motherhood" on the list), I can't get the Bohemian Rhapsody lyric, "Mama, just killed a man" out of my head.  I really didn't want that as a title so I went with a little ditty we all know and hate (which we may or may not have sung a bit on the wine tour bus), with a bit of a twist.

My photos are all from last Sunday (with the exception of one from my drive home Monday) while the thirteen El Grande 50ish were enjoying our second day of the Sip and Savor Festival in Traverse City.  We had a great driver and she worked with Cheryl, who has done this wine tour several times in the past, to plan our days to hit the most and nicest wineries on the tour.  We ended up visiting 18 of the 24 possibilities.  A few were just storefronts for the wineries but most were at the vineyards and the scenery was stunning.  There were several places that I would have been happy to sneak off the bus and into the home to see if I could be adopted.  One place however, was manned by a creepy dude and we hightailed it out of there as quickly as we could to avoid becoming pig feed.  Both days were beautifully sunny but Sunday was extremely cold and windy.  That didn't dampen our spirits; it only limited our ability to enjoy our wines outside on the beautiful properties.  We didn't make definitive plans about our next get-together but I suspect another wine tour might be in our future.

wild card

I am starting with my wild cards today just to show you how gorgeous the area was.  

I realize that I do not know the names of any of the wineries we visited.  I did keep the tasting cards when they were available but I could not for the life of me put one name to one place.  Sadly, I do not recall where this photo was taken.

Ditto this one.  I do know that this was the place that served the most amazing dessert:  some sort of chocolate, cherry, caramel creamy decadent brownie thing.  

Lastly, we have this awesome weeping willow on the shore of Lake Michigan.  I had been eyeing these gorgeous trees in bud on my drive but there was never a spot to pull over for a photo.  This winery was so scenic and I thought that the little hotel next door might be a place to visit in the future.  These three photos were taken at the three most beautiful vineyards that we visited and that's all I know.

a circle

On my way home, I stopped at the rest area just this side of the Mackinac Bridge.  In the parking lot was this trailer full of logs.  It had no truck with it and I wondered if it was confiscated due to the "no transporting firewood into the Upper Peninsula" rule.

a pop of colour

There were a few rhododendrons in bloom in the area.

starts with H

A house.  This is one of the houses where I would be happy to settle (if it was in Canada and I had enough money to live independently and it came with a maintenance man and someone took care of the vineyard for me...).

motherhood

I got lazy this week.  Heather pointed out this nest to me and it was sitting in such a cute little spot.  When I got home and looked at my photos, I decided that if I didn't come up with another idea, I would use this.  I didn't come up with another idea.  The nest was empty.  I have a few years before that happens to me.

multicoloured

Driving around, I noticed so many different colours:  all the different trees in bud, the lake (which was deep blue and teal), the green grass, the beginning of the dandelions, a few trillium on the roadsides, and on and on.  I tried to capture that with my camera but the photos didn't really show what I was trying to portray.  This photo does the best job of showing the variety of colour that I was admiring.

green

I couldn't decide between these two photos so I am including both.

That's it for this week.  Wishing my mom a very happy mother's day and I am so grateful that we will spend some time together tomorrow when you get home.

Donna's Week 18 - Spring

Rain is the theme of this week.  I was so excited by the 24 hours we had with no rain, that I stayed up all night, so as not to waste it.  Four of the seven pics below were taken then.  Enjoy!

Spring

A sure sign of spring, bee hives in pollinating orchards.

Long

This is the Transamerica Pyramid  building in downtown San Francisco.  I took it while moving on the open air bus.  The top is a long way up! 

With Flash

Boy I had to look hard to find a picture I shot with a flash! Then I found this beauty of Caden driving the tow motor at the greenhouse.  He is so his father's son!

Z

Ok, so I had trouble sleeping one night this week and somewhere around 4 am I decided screw this,  I am going to take pictures.  I have driven by this greenhouse all winter thinking it would be cool to try and photograph it.  The greenhouse grows herbs, mostly basil, and has been experimenting with LED lighting.  The colours are so pretty, although I am not sure I would think so if I lived next door!  I am very happy with how my shots turned out.  I have more to show you set aside for next weeks topics.  For now we are going with the fact that if you turn your head a little to the left, the roof line of the greenhouse looks like a row of "Z's"

 

Spiral

This was last fall's colours from Hiawatha in the Sault. Moving the zoom lens during a slow shutter speed makes this cool twisty, spiral effect.

Budding

These are the last of this year's peach blossoms.  I like the escarpment as a backdrop. 

Wildcard

Sunrise this past Thursday.

Have a Great Week!

Pam's Week 18: It's Been a Long Time Running, It's Been a Long Time Coming....

It really is a song lyric although I am guessing most of the people reading this would be hard pressed to figure out where it came from.  I apologize if it's somewhat obscure to anyone other than the die-hards but this week's topics were not particularly amenable to obvious song lyrics.

Anyways, spring seems to be what was on Sharon's mind for this week when she made up the list and in my opinion, it has been a long time coming!  I feel like the snow melted but the weather is all over the place.  The other thing that has felt like a long time coming is our vacation!!! And it's here now!!!  We head out tomorrow!!!

When I pulled out the list to write this post, I realized that I completely overlooked one of the assignments (the Z).  My apologies for this as well.  I have been, admittedly, otherwise distracted this week.  I will just include a couple of photos for some of the other topics to make up for it, if that's okay.  And if it isn't - too bad because I've likely done it anyways.

Spring

The choices that seem to be most at the forefront of my brain are flowers, birds, sun...I also considered finding a slinky and calling it a spring and a spiral but alas, I did not do so.  When one of the other topics is "budding" though, it makes it difficult to discern what should constitute "spring" and which photos would be more apt for "budding".

These were some daffodils we found along the side of the road.  I'm guessing they were planted by the house across the street but we stopped and took photos anyways.

Long

While walking with Sharon the other day, we noticed the entrails of this plane that flew overhead.  Last night with Duncan, a plane flew even lower but I couldn't get my camera out fast enough.

Wasn't the sky an amazing shade of blue, though?  It was a gorgeous evening.

With Flash

It wouldn't be a weekly blog post if I didn't google how to do something.  Now, I know how to turn the flash on and take a photo but I felt like Sharon was intending for something more artistic with this topic.  There were all sorts of ideas on how to use a fill flash or the slow synch flash and information on ISO and shutter speeds and flash speeds and the like.  Essentially, there were a lot of photography terms I don't think my camera or I are capable of.  I decided to try to use the flash in the daylight (or maybe the early setting sun).  I don't know that it worked out how it was supposed to but the picture is sort of pretty anyways.

Z - oopsie, didn't even notice this one!

Spiral

The other night when I was walking at, you guessed it, Whitefish Island with Riya, the beavers were super active and one was essentially taunting her.  It kept swimming close to shore and then turning around.  When I got home and checked out my photos, I realized that it's wake was spiral shaped but having not realized it at the time, I cut off part of the spiral in my photo.  Instead, I had to break out some of Duncan's shells (when he was 4, he asked for seashells for Christmas from Santa).

I converted the second one into black and white with an orange filter because I kind of liked that effect too and couldn't decide which one I actually liked better.

Budding

So these might make up for the missing "Z" in my photos.  The other day when Sharon and I went for a walk, we saw these beautiful budding trees.  I have no idea what they are but they were stunning, especially against the bright blue sky.  Sharon couldn't take pictures of them because I think it was actually last Saturday afternoon and although I am willing to cheat a little, Sharon won't so they were all mine!

The second photo was created with the help of Sharon.  I kept complaining that the colours looked more stunning through my sunglasses than in the window of the camera so Sharon held her sunglasses in front of my camera and voila!

Last night, Duncan and I went for a walk since Sharon has abandoned me to go off and drink wine with other friends.  These were some other buds that caught my eye; again, I have no idea what they are but they were interesting and pretty.

Wildcard

This is actually a photo I took on my phone of the beaver teasing Riya.  She was, surprisingly, sitting nicely and just watching the beaver.  The beaver came even closer but I didn't have a camera out then.

We also had an early, pre-vacation birthday party for Duncan the other day.  We will be away over his birthday so wanted to celebrate with my parents before we left.  Here he is blowing out 11 candles!!!  I can't believe he is 11 already (or will be in 2 weeks).  Didn't my dad do a nice job on the cake?  He decided that frosting a cake is difficult.

And that's another week done.  The next couple of weeks may be late in posting as we will be on vacation but I am hoping for a big variety in the pictures since California is way different than Whitefish Island!  Have a great May!