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.