Fast or Slow, Which Way to Go?

You know, it’s too bad I’m deep in the heart of NaNoWriMo right now because I could have had a lot more fun with the homework for last week’s class than I did. We learned about aperture and shutter speed, and how to take “ghost” pictures as well as high speed pictures.

I was only able to produce a couple of high speed photos, but I had a LOT of fun with the ghosting. Ghosting happens when you’re using a long exposure, like 30 seconds, and the subject moves leaving behind a ghost image. I bribed talked the grandbaby into being my model for a ghost picture, and for a 4-year-old she’s very good at taking direction. The picture turned out pretty good, but it would have been so much better if I’d had the camera on a tripod to hold it steady. Maybe next time.

For this week’s picture I did use a tripod, which was actually sitting on my desk pointed at the corner where my reading chair is. I clicked the camera, hurried over to the chair, and perched on the edge for a few seconds to get the image. Not bad for a beginner, eh?

Shades of Grey

At first glance, this is just a moth. But actually, it was a really, really big moth, and it was clinging to the door just outside my hotel when I was at Writersfest in Kingston a few weeks ago.

Believe it or not, this was a tricky picture to take. The door the moth was clinging to was an automatic sliding door, and every time I got close enough to get my shot, the door would slide open. I ended up using the action setting on my camera and just hoped for the best. LOL

Summer Project

I actually had a picture of some spider monkeys from the Riverview Zoo saved to my desktop, intending to use it as my picture of the week, but I was talking to one of my sisters earlier in the week and she was asking about our “new” back yard.

I reminded her that I did a blog post about it (actually a two part post that you can find HERE and HERE . However, when I went back and checked out these posts, I realized I never posted a picture of the finished deck, yard, and pool as a whole.

So here you go, first the pool and deck (just click on it to make it bigger):

And here’s the pond garden and back patio with the fire pit (which isn’t really a pit, but it’s not a chiminea either):

Down on the Farm

The bad news is that I still haven't found another photography course to take. The good news is that I'm still taking pictures. :-D

This week I had the opportunity to go on a trip to the farm with the granddaughter's pre-school class. It's a small farm, but perfect for pre-schoolers to visit. There were piggies to feed, baby chicks to stroke, and eggs to carefully collect from the chickens. And many, many pictures to be taken.

I chose this particular shot because of the look on the calf's face. Could anything be cuter?

Fish Pond

Well, as per the way my luck goes, my photography class was cancelled. This was the second time I've tried to take this class through the local college and it will be the last. There are other people out there who can show me how to use my camera. So, until that happens you'll have to suffer along with the pictures I've already taken.

This particular picture was taken in one of the greenhouses in the Allen Gardens in Toronto last summer. There are several greenhouses joined together, each featuring an amazing variety of flowers. But the thing that stands out most in my memory was how insanely hot it was. Greenhouses tend to be a little on the warm side at the best of times. Exploring a series of greenhouses on the hottest day of the summer was killer. :-D

Sunrise

Our town is nestled on the north shore of Lake Ontario. Which means it faces south. Which means getting a decent picture of the sunrise or sunset is pretty problematic.

The good news is, my photography course starts next week. In the meantime, I chose this picture of the sunrise on this rainy Friday morning to remind myself that the sun does really appear occasionally. Maybe it'll come out tomorrow. ;-)

These Boots Are Made For Planting

Well, it's a done deed. I signed up for my photography class. And not a moment too soon.

I took the grandbaby down to the beach after preschool yesterday, and I brought my good camera with me in case a picture taking opportunity arose. And it did. Several opportunities arose as a matter of fact. And how many pictures ended up on my camera?

None.

Not a one.

And why is that (you ask)? Because it's been so long since I used my camera that I forgot how it works. I was pressing the wrong button and couldn't figure out why it wasn't taking pictures. Can we say d'oh?

I did finally figure out what I was doing wrong, but it was after we'd left the beach and the grandbaby was down for her nap. And boy did I feel foolish!

So once again I was forced into delving into my store of previously taken pictures for my picture of the week. This one was taken last summer at the local ecology garden down by the harbor. What a cute idea for recycling!

Sweet Pea

Today's picture of the week is one I took last year on a visit to the local ecology garden. I picked it because the sweet pea is my favorite flower. Ironically, it's the one flower I've never had success with in my garden.

A couple of years ago I planted sweet pea seeds and nothing happened. But the next year I had plants spring up that took right over the small garden . . . and never bloomed. They did, however, start choking out the bedding plants I'd painstakingly planted. And boy howdy they were hard to get rid of. All attempts to pull the vines up failed. I think the roots went right down to the center of the earth. So I love sweet peas . . . as long as someone else grows them for me.

Picture This

Photography is something I was pretty serious about at one time. When I was in high school I was a member of the photo club, where I learned how to develop black and white film, I subscribed to a photography magazine, and dreamed of some day owning a Canon SLR camera. I was going to be a photo journalist and work for National Geographic.

It’s pretty obvious that neither the dream of the camera nor the dream of the career ever came to pass. I’ve owned many cameras over the years, none of which were my dream camera. I came close once with one of the early digital Canon cameras, but it wasn’t an SLR.

About a year ago when we thought we were going on an Alaskan cruise, I treated myself to a brand new camera – a Canon Rebel DSLR. I finally had my dream camera. There was only one problem though –I didn’t know how to make it work.

Laugh if you will, but my first few days with my new camera were very frustrating. The instructions that came with it might as well have been written in Chinese for all I could understand them. I got it to take one picture, but couldn’t get it to take a second one.

Fortunately, the daughter is a real photography and showed me some basics. But she already has a lot on her plate with little enough free time as it is, and I have a lot to learn. So I’m going to take a night school course in photography and hopefully have some fun while I’m learning.

I’m sure the course will include lots of practice – with a digital camera at my disposal, why not? A friend and I just finished a 52 week challenge using only pictures from our phone (if you’re curious you can find the results HERE) and I figured it might be kind of fun to share some of the photos I’ll be taking with my camera as well.

The course doesn’t start until May, so in the meantime I’ll be sharing random pictures from my camera every Friday. After the course starts I’ll post the best picture from each week’s lesson.

To start the ball rolling I have a picture of the lakeshore near where I live. It was taken in September last year. If you'd like to see a bigger version of it, just click on it.