2/23 Winter to Spring Growth

 Winter to Spring Growth - Lilac Buds

2/23 Photograph Potential

Expectation / Prepare / Growth

When I read the prompt for the day, I knew what the subject would be, but the question was,  how close I would be able to get to the buds? With all this snow and cold, spring will happen as scheduled. 

To show how much processing takes place through Lightroom 5 I included the picture to the left.  It is the original RAW file from the camera. With Lightroom, I increased the exposure and cropped the picture with changes to contrast, shadows, vibrance and clarity. The picture was then brought into  Perfect Photo Suite 9 for a glow effect. 

54/365 Cat on the Floor

We finally had a sunny day which helped melt more of the ice on the roof. As the drops of water fell on the steps, there were drops' reflections on the floor which were intriguing to Stash. I used this picture for the Flickr, Rat Eye View.

In the afternoon, I went over to my friend S's who had her two pre-teen grandchildren with her for the day. I was going to pass on the visit until I heard that a puppy was there. Her granddaughter has a 12 week mix, labrador retriever and Saint Bernard which was the runt of the litter. Cash is his name and he worships S's granddaughter and follows here everywhere, but is also very mellow. He is going to be a smart dog as he can already sit on demand, but he is going to be big!

2/22 Photo Goals

Photography Goals

2/22 Photograph Looking Forward

Goals / Progressing / Leading

The theme for this week is looking forward, not sure where it will go, however, today's instructions were to look back at the year and the photos that I have taken. In reviewing the photos, question what I want to accomplish and be proud of how much I have grown. There are so many technical photos in my year and I would like to get shots with better lighting and include more people. The quote popped up on my twitter feed today from Light Stalking and I thought it was appropriate to add it to today's photograph. 

The flickr challenge this week is going to be interesting, "Rat's Eye View" getting the camera down to ground level. This picture is of the snowboard and boots that my son was going to use last night until he changed his mind to skiing instead. Meanwhile, the snowboard and boots are still by the door.

Today, after a quick walk, I went back to watching Downton Abbey while my husband was off enjoying a wonderful morning of powder skiing. The show is addicting and I am glad that I started watching it while there are a few seasons available. 

53/365 Floor View of Snowboard and Boots

2/21 Photograph Indistinct

Blah Kind of Day to Make Soup

2/21 Photograph Indistinct

Out of Focus / Edited / Hazy

Today's email prompt included a video about using an iPhone

 app called Big Lens to bug the background and create bokeh. Fighting off a sinus headache so I made a big pot of cabbage soup. All those colorful vegetables created a subject for today's photo. I tried the app on another photo that had a finer edge and it was difficult working with the edging using my finger, but it was fun with the larger cabbage. 

We got more snow today, just as predicted and without any melting, we have huge snow banks in the yard. If we had this epic snow when the boys were younger, there would be snow tunnels and forts through out the yard. #2 and my husband went off skiing this evening to enjoy the fresh powder. After they left, I got out my knitting and restarted another cowl while making sure that I had the stitches lined up correctly. No twists occurred and I happily knitted by the fire as I started watching Downton Abbey. I watched almost the entire first season and am hooked.

For the Flickr photo, I used the iPad as a soft box for extra light with the fork reflection. Then I tried a flower which really made it bright. With all the white of winter, the vegetable colors and flowers add brightness to the blog today.

Clean roof = Happy homeowner

Snowbanks higher than the porch

Flickr 52/365 Fork Reflection

2/20 Colored Bokeh

Colored Pencil Bokeh

2/20 Photograph Colored Bokeh

Blur / Dyed / Hue

Today I worked as a "Gal Friday" helping out with copying and putting together packets for a friend. Usually, I try to get outside bokeh for bokeh/depth of field pictures but since I didn't get home till later, I pulled out the colored pencils to create a colorful background. The above is what I picked for the picture of the day. For the flickr picture, it was a cat that made it as the picture of the day.

As I was working, we hired a contractor to come over to shovel the roof. With large ice forming at the roof edge, we were worried about the forecast of heavier, wet snow in the forecast. When I got home, all the snow was off the roof and the walkways were cleaned. 

51/365 Life of a Cat

2/19 Valentine Flower Singled Out

Last of the Valentine Flowers- Outside 

2/19 Photograph Isolate It

Remove / Single Out / Detach

After another 3 inches or so of snow, it was a beautiful morning here with the sun out. The wind was blowing the snow off the branches so I took this flower and put it on top of the porch bannister. A macro lens was used to get the details of the flower with blurred white background. The picture was taken early today which was a good thing for the backlighting since the later morning became cloudy with snow flurries.The good news is that the snow is melting off the roof, the bad news is that there is plenty of snow up there. 

With the sun on the roof, I went back out with the roof rake to pull even more snow off the roof since there is a wetter snow in the forecast for Sunday. I did break down

and call a contractor to come over tomorrow and shovel off our back roof. It is melting, but I am worried about the weight and ice dams.  No walk or snowshoeing for today, raking was the cardio exercise for the day. This picture doesn't do the amount of snow justice, there is about 2 feet of packed snow 3 feet from the rake. In the back yard, I can almost touch the roof of the porch from a snow pile by the back deck.

In the afternoon, I went on a job interview for a sales/customer service job for a vacation related software. If I get the job, it will be about 6 weeks of training in NH and I would be able to work from home/Florida. Would be nice to be working again, there's just so many loaves of bread I can be making each day. I don't want to say much more about it to avoid jinxing my chances. However, I would like the flexibility of the position and know that I can learn technology quickly, plus it would avoid having to work temp jobs.

By the time, I got home, I had not taken a photo for Flicker and thought first of the clementine but since I had done the salad yesterday, it was a no go. However, once I had the tea going, I thought the reflections on the tea kettle with the cup was a nice, homey shot. I liked all the lines in the picture.

50/365 Tea kettles Reflection

2/18 Photograph XOXO

No XOXO Here, Just a lot of IIII

2/18 Photograph XOXO

Tic - Tac - Toe / Love / Heart

I almost got out the Ball and Jacks that one of my sons received for Christmas, however then the picture would have just been about a set up and to get the recommended focal prompt for today's prompt. Instead, I went outside in the yard to see what I could find for depth of filed and focal point.  These pine needles are one of many that are dotting our yard right now. Because the snow is so deep, I did not have to lay on the ground to get this shot. Another choice could have been the lilac branch with buds, yes, that's right, amid all this snow there are visible buds on the branches. 

Then, I could have used this picture of Stash where he is so big while lounging that I can get his nose in focus with an out of focused paw. In all of the photos today, I used On One Perfect Suite 9 to process the photos. I am such a geek that while I was making dinner, I listened/watched a video cast on hints and tricks for the program.  It's a program that I can use to fix and enhance photos. 

Flickr 49/365 It's all about the colorful vegetables for the salad today.

2/17 Large Cup of Hot Chocolate

Large Cup of Hot Chocolate

2/17 Photograph Wide

Step Back / Expanded / Vast

This was a fun shot to do today and it was a new skill that I hadn't done before. I had a willing subject and a cute mug. There was some kitchen cleaning that went on to get the shot and then I moved to the other side of the kitchen. When I first started, I had not dropped the aperture to it's lowest and there was quite a difference from f/5.6 to f/3.5 with the background depth of field. I also noticed that once I got closer to the subject, the background blurred even more. And wasn't I lucky to have such a willing subject today?

Top picture f/5.6, 18 mm and bottom f3.5, 23 mm

#2 was home because he got rear-ended last night while trying to stop at a stop light. Of course, it's a new car, but he did great and avoided a bigger impact by pulling into the empty left lane while the person behind him was not so lucky. He did not have any visible damage, but still took it in today to have it checked out. Everything was fine and he is relieved, still kind of scary to have happen.

Went over to my friend S's today for lunch and finished knitting a cowl. Unfortunately, the stitches twisted on the needle and I now have a twisted (warm) cowl. I do have another skein and will be able to make another cowl  to go with the hat. Just crazy that I twisted the initial row and S thought I was going crazy trying to untwist it. Now that I know how easy it is to twist such lightweight yarn, I just have to pay attention to the first row without any distractions.



Dinner tonight was a new macaroni and cheese recipe that my friend T had told me about. I took her recipe and found a copy of it online, Deluxe macaroni and cheese. I lightened it by using light sour cream, 1% cottage cheese, more pasta and a head of broccoli. It was a super, simple recipe and I topped it with parmesan cheese and crushed ritz bacon flavored crackers.  Easier than the skinny taste recipe but I always have the ingredients for the skinny taste recipe on hand.  Seems like a lot of food for three, but the guys end up with lunch for two days.

48/365 Flickr - Drive way reflection #2

2/16 Flowing

Winter Sun Flare

2/16 Photograph Flowing

Smooth / Fluid / Liquid

Love this photo of Cocoa Beach 

Cold, so very cold to go out to a frozen stream/river to get a picture for today's prompt. And even though I was cleaning the shower, a photo of the shower water just wasn't going to cut it for me. The directions for the prompt was for a phone picture and this was taken yesterday while we were snow shoeing. Since I took it with an app, Camera+ that I don't use very much, I thought it would be a good picture for today's flowing. I also went into the stackablesapp to add texture and more color.  Even though I have all these water shots from last month, I have this goal of not using pictures from the same month for a daily prompt, even if some of them are "wow" pictures. 

Maine river and Florida Ocean - Water flowing. 

The flickr challenge for this week's 365 project is reflection and while I was cleaning the kitchen cabinets, I noticed the shadow of the flower vase on the kitchen island. Yep, cold days means I stay in and clean. 

47/365 Vase Reflection

2/15 Clean up

 Helping with Cleanup - Depth of Field and Bokeh

2/15 Photograph Depth of Field

Focus / Rule of Thirds / Bokeh

We got out to clean up after Neptune left us another 10 inches of snow and I finally got a "people" picture for the picture of the day. The prompt was for creating depth of field with the subject in the third of the photo with bokeh in the background. Since this is the second year of doing this project, I feel that I am understanding more of the technical parts of the prompt. I got it all with the picture of my son in our driveway, using a large aperture along with space between him and the background.   His face is bit out of focus, but I love how it expresses the cold of the day. We had to time the pictures in between the gusts of wind which also made snowplowing a bit tricky at times. It was hard to figure out the best side to blow the snow. Considering how much snow we have, the driveway is still wide. 

The picture for the flickr 365 project is one that shows just how much snow we have and I like how my husband is in the background with the snow flying out of the snowblower. That is a fence on the left by the bird feeder, you just can't see it under the snow. 

46/365 Flickr - Cleaning up After Neptune

The bird feeder pictures on the left show the difference from yesterday to today. So much for the cone preventing the squirrels from reaching the feeders, but even they weren't out today. 

 The predictions for this storm made it sound like we would be stuck inside today with all their storm and blizzard warnings. For us, the snow stopped by about 11A and that's when we went out to clean up. Later on we went over to a friends' house to snow shoe on trails in their back yard and then enjoy chili. It's that whole embracing winter thing, at least in the woods, the wind was not as bad.  We had fun and only encountered one snowmobiler, my friend K's husband who was out with K who we did not see. Fun to get out of the house, and get exercise that did not involve moving snow. 

Snowshoe Fun

Clean up around the house and yes, that's a hat in the bottom right picture.

2/14 Valentines Day

 Happy Valentines Day

2/14 Photograph a Valentine

Loved / Admirer / Sweet

45/365 Flickr Valentines Photo

Yea, it's Valentines day and we have another winter storm (blizzard?) forecasted for tonight. That means there are a lot of hyped up weather forecasts on tv today and we need to get some snow off our roof. The good news is that the snow on our roof is not wet, but the bad news is that there is a lot of it on the roof. We only shovel off the roof of the back porch and try to rake what we can from the rest of the roof.

After helping with the snow removal and cleaning up the driveway to get ready for "Neptune" to hit, I set up today's shot for the 365 project photos. And once, again, no people shots. I had bought the valentine hearts for photos and used them for color. I like what Jimmy Fallon said about them last night in his Thank you for the week, 

"Thank you, candy hearts you get on Valentine's Day, for being the best way to say, "I love you - now please eat chalk." #ThankYouNoteFriday"

And here we have #2 raking the roof.

My husband on the roof

This fence may be under the snow by tomorrow!

2/13 Red on the Snow

Cardinal at the Bird Feeder

2/13 Photograph Pretty in Pink

Dressed Up / Cute / Good Looking

Not pink, but definitely good looking for today's CY365 photo. It's hard to get a picture of the cardinal since he is very skittish when he senses movement from inside the house. I got this photo from the stairs in my house since I had the interior door open to let the sun in. The camera and lens are kept on top of the old ice box by the stairs so I was able to take a couple of shots until it flew off. This photo is cropped in to show more detail. Then this afternoon while I was at the sink, I noticed the cardinal again in the trees. 

Today was one of the coldest days and I had already made plans to go cross Country skiing with A in Concord. The windchill made it below zero and when we first started, I wasn't sure if I could do it with my hands being so cold. Once I took off the gloves and just had my hands in the mittens, it was better. I skied only an hour and by the time I was finished, felt warmer.

Bub was coming for dinner after taking his GMATs and I cooked one of our prime ribs from our after-Christmas sale. 4 lbs barely made it for dinner, but with mashed potatoes, strignbeans and homemade gravy and bread, it was a delicious dinner. Plus, I was able to get Bub to pose for a low-light photo which should have been darker, but I liked the hair highlights. After looking at my February pictures, I really do need to work on getting more people shots. 

44/365 Looking at Snow photos on the iPad

Cross Country Skiing shots- Even with iPhone
hard to take pictures when it was so cold!

Obligatory Cat photo- Was going to use this for low light initially.