Enjoying the View

Backyard Flowers

2010-06-16T18:31:00.002-04:00

I went into the backyard today to take some pictures of my puppy, Angel. While I was back there, I noticed that we had some new flowers that blossomed. Take a look.

Little Blossom

2010-06-15T11:02:00.003-04:00

For these pictures I thought I would play around and be a little more artistic. I got this idea from another picture of a little girl holding, what looked like cranberries. It was just a straight forward shot. I decided to add my own little touch and had my daughter hold a lily and made it black and white with a touch of color. The one with the pink lily, I titled "What Little Girls Are Made Of" and the one with the yellow lily I titled "Delicate Blossom, Gentle hands".

Summer Nights

2010-05-24T14:24:00.002-04:00

April Showers and May Flowers

2010-05-24T14:21:00.003-04:00

Flags and Rainbows

2010-05-10T12:36:00.005-04:00

I have a couple of pictures to share. This one is of the American flag. I took this one at Trenton City Hall during the National Day of Prayer. I call it "God Bless America"

Saturday was my sister's graduation party. After I left the party, I picked up my niece to spend the night and saw this on the way home. So I pulled up into a gas station and took a picture. I love the way the colors show up and the clouds, with their different shades of gray, make a really cool background. It certainly made up for all the rain we've been having. I call this "A Beautiful Promise"

Tiny Treasures

2010-05-05T12:14:00.003-04:00

I took my daughter to play at Elizabeth Park yesterday and to take some pictures. On our way to one of the bridges we passed by this long row of tall bushy trees. On their branches were these tiny little flowers that could easily be missed unless you were looking at them. Which is why I call this one "Tiny Treasures".

Elizabeth Park Photos at Sunset

2010-04-12T16:27:00.004-04:00

My Garden

2010-04-07T09:49:00.002-04:00

My hyacinths are in bloom. I love hyacinths. They are better than air freshener. I really like the smell they give and I love the fact that a couple of them is enough to fill the entire room.

New Pics

2010-04-06T15:52:00.007-04:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. Aside from having a sick child, we had a pretty good weekend. :) Poor Maiya had an upset tummy and vomited shortly before we were supposed to leave for church on Sunday. So Jay stayed home with her while I took the other two to church with me. She was feeling fine by the next day, but she was pretty upset about her upset tummy. On Good Friday before all of this happened, my sister and her family and me and my family went up to Elizabeth Park to take some pictures. My sister is officially graduating the first week of May and I promised that I would do her graduation pictures for her to help save her money. While we were there I also took some family photos for her and took some new shots of my girls.

Yesterday was such a beautiful day and because Maiya was feeling better, I thought it would be great to get out of the house and take the girls to the zoo. These are some of the pictures that I took while we were there.

Enjoying the Sunshine

2010-03-24T17:41:00.004-04:00

Today was such a beautiful day, I thought it would be great to get out and get some photos. Out of 64 shots, I only kept six. I am even considering entering two of them for the coming up spring photo contest for the Elizabeth park fan page on Facebook. We'll see. It greatly depends on if I get something better from now until then. Here are the pictures that I kept.

Hershey and Angel

2010-03-22T12:09:00.006-04:00

Yesterday my sister, Melissa came over for a visit. My daughter, Jordan's birthday was Saturday and she wasn't able to make it because she was scheduled to work and couldn't get out of it. So to make up for it, her and her family came over yesterday. They also decided to bring their puppy Hershey, so she can play with our puppy Angel. Hershey is a Chocolate Lab and is 5 months old. Our puppy is an American Eskimo and is 6 months old. At first, Angel wasn't too sure about sharing her backyard with another dog, but after a few minutes they were chasing each other around, having a great time. They were so cute and I thought I would go ahead and share some of the pictures that I took. Unfortunately it was a little bright out and with Angel being an all white dog, it was impossible not blowing out her fur; even with my ISO set at the lowest setting. Nevertheless, they are still nice to look at and enjoy. :)

Spring is Here

2010-03-09T12:09:00.004-05:00

OK, so not officially according to the calendar, but with the beautiful couple of days we've been having, slowly melting away the snow and the sight of robins hopping around looking for worms to eat, (I caught this one sitting in my tree yesterday) it is definitely a welcome change to the bitter cold and several inches of snow. Even though winter pictures can be really beautiful, I am definitely ready for the warmer weather to arrive. :)

I went out to roam around Heritage Park the other day. I have had a lot on my mind lately and felt to need to sort through some things. So Jay made dinner and watched the girls while I went out for a couple hours alone. Photography is relaxing to me. I love it when I capture a scene that makes people stop and say "wow" in awe and amazement. I haven't had very many of those, but I have had a few. ;) This one that I took almost looks like a painting with the colors of the sunset reflected in the water. It's not one of my best; the sky is a little blown out. But it does have that sort of quiet serene feel to it.

2nd place

2010-03-07T21:08:00.005-05:00

Well, the Elizabeth Park winter photo contest has finally come to an end. As the title shows, my picture "Silent Night" came in 2nd place with 28 votes. It was a close race with the first place photo at only 30 votes. But even cooler still, even though I didn't win the photo contest, someone actually commented about buying a print. How cool is that?! Hopefully this is a start that will eventually lead me into a career as a professional photographer. Now THAT would be awesome. :)

I Won!

2010-02-27T10:55:00.002-05:00

One of the other groups that I joined on FB is a group called "Amateur Weekly Photo Contests" Every Sunday they have a theme and all the members vote for their favorite one. The one with the most votes at the end of the week get to have their photo as the profile photo for the week. And again, I know it's not really a big deal, but it's a start for me. Last Sunday's theme was for Valentine's day and we had to post a picture that had 50% pink, red, or purple in it. I submitted this one and actually won! I should have posted this last Sunday, but I only realized the other day that this might have been blog post worthy. :P So this will be one picture that I will add to my portfolio. :)

Some of my Fav's

2010-02-19T16:11:00.008-05:00

Seagull coasting on the wind.

This was taken at the Toledo Zoo during my middle daughter's field trip last year.

Sun setting behind the mountains in Colorado Springs. Taken in October when I went to the Compassion International National Advocate Conference.

My MIL, SIL, my oldest daughter and I went on a one day trip to my husband's aunt's Christmas tree farm in Alma Michigan.

My oldest daughter, Alexis.

My middle daughter, Jordan.

My youngest daughter, Maiya.

Entry #3 and some other photos

2010-02-10T13:53:00.007-05:00

Yesterday I really felt the need to get out of the house, despite our winter storm that we were having. So after Jay got home from work we went to Elizabeth Park. Even though the drive was a little slow, the mains roads really weren't too bad. I took about 150 shots and kept 11 of them. This time I wanted to get some pictures of wildlife to submit for the photo contest. This was the one I used for my third submission. I call this one "Splish Splash".

It was between this one and another one of another white duck splashing in the water. I ended up choosing this one because I really liked how the water has more of an emerald green color to it. I'm not sure exactly why this one turned out green and the rest a dark blue. It may be the lighting at the time. But I thought it made it look really pretty. The little specks you see all around are the tiny snow flakes from the snow storm we were having.

These are the other photos that I got while I was there yesterday.

This one climbed up on some nearby ice and was preening it's feathers after taking a nice dip in the water.

Not sure why, but I just really like how this one turned out. The detail in the reed is really focused and sharp and the colors in the blurred background just gave it a really nice touch.

After the ducks would take a few dips in the water they would shake off some of the water by flapping their wings. To get these shots, I had to put down my flash and put my camera on rapid shot. I got a couple of good ones. One from a side view...

...and another from a front view.

This was the other one that I was debating on using. You really need to click on this one and look at the larger version to really grasp the full details of this image. This duck was dipping into the water when I took this picture. During preening, ducks secrete oil from their preen glands and rub it onto their feathers. Which makes the water literally run off their body (which is where the term "water off a duck's back" comes from) so they are able to swim. In this shot I got the water running right off of it's body, which is the reason why the duck looks so shiny. I just thought that was so cool and why I considered entering this one in as my 3rd submission. But in the end I went with the one in the emerald looking water. I am definitely keeping it as part of my collection though.

The duck on the right is scratching an itch. My husband really got a kick out of this one because he said it looks like the duck is trying to sleep on one foot. :P

This little cutie was shaking the water after going for a dip. You can see the little drops of water coming off it's head and the water on it's back.

The first time I came to Elizabeth park was the first time I'd ever seen one of these birds. They look like a cross-breed between a turkey and a duck. They are called Muscovy Ducks. Their oil glands are underdeveloped compared to other ducks so they don't swim as much. This one flew over to me as soon as it saw me. The few times I have been to Elizabeth park, I have seen people bring bread to feed these ducks, so it was probably hoping that I had some food.

Thought this was kind of cool. I took this from one of the bridges. It's ice forming in the water.

And lastly, a pair of ducks swimming together.

Photo Entry #2

2010-02-03T10:08:00.003-05:00

Because it was snowing outside yesterday, I wanted to see what kind of pictures that I could get at Elizabeth Park. My husband came up with the idea of going after we went to small group last night. So that is what we did. I took about 48 pictures and there was one that I felt turned out really nice, so I sent it as my entry #2. I call this one "Silent Night". Feel free to let me know what you think. :)

Elizabeth Park

2010-02-02T11:01:00.005-05:00

I recently joined the Elizabeth park fan page on Facebook about a month ago. (Elizabeth Park is located in Trenton, MI.) The creator of the fan page is holding a winter photo contest. Anyone is allowed to submit up to three photos of a picture they took of Elizabeth park in the winter time throughout the month of February and people will be allowed to vote for their favorite on the first week of March. The winner gets to have their photo used for the profile photo from March 8th until April 30th. I know it's not really a big deal, but if I win it is something that I can put into my portfolio. So far I have submitted one photo. I do have others, but I'm not as impressed with them as I was with the one I submitted. So I want to wait and see what other pictures I can get before the deadline. This is the one that I submitted. I call this one "Streaming Reflections".