Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Today's photochallenge was "portrait". These were my (very quick) efforts. None of them will win any photo awards but I like them. This one I was trying to get a shot of him amidst his lego clutter that currently occupies their floor. He and I have spent quite a few hours in the past few days trying to fix lego ships. This one is just about cobbled together - some different colored pieces than original but it is just about right. He figured out some substitutes that work and was pretty happy about it. Unfortunately I slightly missed on focus on the eyes. I have other shots in focus but I like this expression best. See the lego manual in the background? I was shooting from their loft bed and his brother is shining a red light on his face for some reason which is just faintly visible.


This one I like as it shows him at the end of his day at basketball camp and clearly shows his environment while still obviously a shot all about him. I like the big ball in the foreground with the scrawny kid. I liked that even though camp was over he was still interested in hanging around for a few minutes and shooting hoops.


This just cracks me up. Q asked to use the camera and turn it on me -and for me to shoot some hoops. I don't think I've tried since college - and I wasn't any good then :-) but I was having fun with him and with the ball - my tongue is even hanging out for some reason! It is actually remarkable that I am in focus as I didn't set the camera up for him nor give him instructions. I'm always interested to see what photos he comes up with - sometimes they have very interesting perspectives.


I took this shot when I picked him up from his all day outside camp. Not a bad place to go to camp huh? Today was pirates day and he and a couple of other campers made this flag for their group. It was quite nice in a ratty home made sort of way (and he is king of home made projects). I like that the stick is even held together with duct tape. You can see the pride he has for it. Sadly I don't have nearly enough pics of his creations and they are usually very 3-D, large, and never last very long. It is hard to keep cardboard and soda bottle airplanes that are 3' or so wide for long in a 1400 sq ft apartment.

Monday, June 22, 2009

At Camp Mather this was a California Mountain Garter Snake I saw pass from one side of the lake, up and over a little foot path I was on, through the grass, down the side, then head off back into the water and the concealment of the lily pads. Cool. Guess that is one of the reasons the life guards wouldn't let us go near the edge of the lake. Also saw dragonflies, turtles, bull frogs (they sounded pretty funny - like mooing cows) and the kids probably caught well over a hundred tadpoles. Koi too. And there was a day the ladybugs descended upon the lake lawn by the thousands.

Friday, June 12, 2009

on a clear day from the top of the mountain (we are less than 1/2 way up) you can see Mount Shasta - over 100 miles away
friends in one of the "wind caves" at Rock City in Mount Diable State Park - a scant one hour from our house. The caves weren't carved by the wind but they sure are great for kids to play in.

Some pretty cool boulders to scramble on.

This is right by the picnic table which was right by our car. Snack time.

Poor little Julia - only3 years old and not quite big enough to climb into these caves on her own. The 2 smaller boys needed a little guidance but basically made it on their own. The two older boys didn't even wait for me to come into view before they were in the caves.

We headed over to Rock City the day after school let out. We haven't been there in a couple of years but I'd been meaning to go for a long time. The kids had a blast running around (usually out of our sight) and scrambling on rocks. We stayed within maybe a 3 minute walk of our car this whole time. One day I want to head back and actually follow one of the trails for a little way and see what else there is to see. It can be really hot over there in the summer but we're having a bit of a cool spell and it was only in the high 60's and overcast so it was comfortable. There are campsites nearby - one day I hope to spend the night on the mountain. Of course that is assume that Gov Shwartenager (no idea how to spell it!) doesn't close it... it is on the proposed closure list along with other highly used and popular state parks.

I had fun with a little macro photography the other day using "extension tubes" on my 50 mm. I loved the little tiny petal on the gerber daisy that was curly. The center stuff on the flower just seemed like a party to me - so exuberant and happy.

Monday, June 01, 2009

Just had a few minutes browsing through my photos back to the original digital ones (just after my son's birth). I haven't had all my photos on one computer in a while let alone accessible by Elements for easy browsing. What fun! I had a request to maybe provide some photos for sfkids.org to use. The downside is that most of my photos include my little blond kids - and little anglo kids only represent close to 1/3rd of the population. I've only been "tagging" my photos for about 6 months - so I have a lot of mop up work to do too. But for another day... I'm off to look at camping gear and photograph a bank of daisies I've been eyeing on the way to school the past few days...