Merry Christmas to All

The tree is up and trimmed, the mantle is decorated and it is still raining outside.  Guess we had our snow for Thanksgiving and will not have any for Christmas.  Still the spirit is here and filling the house.  May your hearts be filled with the spirit of the holiday all throughout the year.

Watson's Winter Wonderland

A greenhouse for most of the year, Watson's turns into a decorator's dream or nightmare depending on your ability to visualize color combinations and keep your decorating budget in mind as well! Imaging bin after bin of ornaments in every color of the rainbow and every size allowed - here are just a few:

Soft and Quiet - Winter covers all

The last leaves of fall are covered with the slowly falling snowflakes. One after another they pile up and soon their weight will prove too much for this leaf and it too, will fall.  Till then we are suspended in time and can enjoy the beauty of nature between seasons.  November comes to an end.

Bits and Pieces

We had a rare winter storm here and received several inches of lowland snow.  The weather turned and stayed cold for several days with some significant wind. f5.6, ISO 280, 1/350s and manual white balance.

Webs echo glass and metal

Those same spiders seemed to find a way to echo the curves of both the glass balls and the metal that holds them.

Caught between the trees

One foggy morning the spiderwebs were all covered with water and looked like lace doilies caught between the trees

Rocks in the Water

During a recent summer road trip we took a side trip out of Moab towards evening.  The road followed the river for a while and as the sun went down the rocks and the water took on a beautiful glow.

Autumn Leaves

As I worked on this image to ready it for posting I am watching tthe snow fall outside the window.  Nothing is sticking on the ground or the street, but it is more than just a flurry!  Summer is long gone and fall too is just a memory!  Winter may not "be here", but it looks like it is close.

The Glory of the Hidden Sun

Once in a while it all comes together - the sun, the fog, the right angles and wonder of wonders the light of the sun is fractured into visible rays.  And to make things even more wonderful I managed to capture it in an image.  Enjoy yourself, it is peaceful, tranquil, the birds are quiet as the fog blankets the world, including sound.

Halloween brings the end of October

I enjoy making jack-o-lanterns and usually do several.  This year we only did two of them.  We now live on a dead-end street and have no trick-or-treaters so some of the fun is gone.  But we will keep on doing them til we can no longer control the knives and saws it takes.  I remember my dad doing it with the single butcher knife we had in the kitchen!  Now they even have dremels just for pumpkins!

A living umbrella

I was intrigued by the position of these two blooms on a dogwood tree that should be blooming in the spring, not the fall. Even more interesting is that the one formed an umbrella for the other and that was the word of the week for the Longshot blog.  So here is an unusual umbrella shot at 1/180 sec, f3.8, ISO 200, 90mm, cloudy WB.  Enjoy!

Beneath the surface

A study in contrast with the water drops on the left and the moss beneath the surface of the water at Tumwater Falls Park

Chained Fan flowers

I liked the light and the golden brown hues behind the blue flower with the gray chain going diagonally across the frame.  This was done with existing natural lighting.

Tacoma's Working Waterfront Reflections

Water brings reflections as well as water drops and these I also enjoy!  I hope you do too.

Water drops

I have always been fascinated by water, perhaps because I grew up in a semi-arid  area with less than 10 inches of rain each year.  If you follow this blog you will see much water, and many water drops, some with reflections, some without.  These are actually the seed pods of some lovely flowers called Love in the Mist.

The Beginning

I first started taking pictures with a Yashika camera that you looked down into and everything was either upside down or backward.  I cannot remember which.  Then many years latter I started shooting 35mm with an OM1 film camera.  I moved to Nikon when the flap about mercury batteries heated up.  I started working with digital cameras several years ago with an early coolpix.  Now I use a D300 with a variety of Tamron lenses.

I have recently started taking a few classes in the hopes that I can produce better images and do that consistently.  I am using the images I print in cards and for gift calendars.  I like doing that , but find I am using some of the same images over and over.  Not long ago I contributed several images for a friend's web site. While waiting to see if they are used I will share some of them here.

This is probably one of the scariest things I have done. But time will tell if it was a good idea.