Self portrait

Self portrait -
Looking into my soon-to-be studio from the outside

bike

I don't really do "urban" photography, mostly because we don't live in a very urban area, and rural photography is my preference anyway. I spied this bike sitting in front of the local Long John Silver's restaurant weeks ago, but was too shy trying to take a picture of it. The sign on the restaurant caught my eye, and that bike added something special to the whole thing. I pass this spot every Friday night when I go grocery shopping, and every time since I first noticed it weeks ago, the bike was either not there when I drove by, or there was a car parked in front of it, obstructing the shot.  Tonight it just happened to be there, so I thought I better take advantage of the situation. Several things could be better about this image, like the placement of the bike and the lighting, but sometimes you just have to work with what you have. It was a big deal for me just to stand there with my little point-and-shoot and take the picture, since I'm more of a "private" shooter, not really liking others to see me while I shoot (I imagine much the same as someone might feel self conscious being watched while they are painting).

Overall, the shot is not as awesome as I had hoped it would be, but I'm still glad I took it anyway.

Look in the mirror

Look, it's me again! Today's Picture Spring prompt was "A fresh face," meaning it's self-portrait time. I almost wanted to skip this one since I put up two self-portraits on the first day of the project, but I decided to just go with it. I really prefer, as you may have noticed, to convert my portraits into black and white or sepia - somehow that's much more flattering to skin tone and all that. Maybe I should have stepped outside of my comfort zone and posted in color instead!

Look around

Well, I didn't follow today's Picture Spring prompt, which was "The Sky is the Limit." We were supposed to take a photo of the sky, but it was pretty bland up there today, and I was already taking wildflower photos anyway, so.... here are a few of my favorite photos from today of my favorite "weed," the Dandelion.

Booked

Forget the Kindle or the iPad... I'll take a book that I can flip the pages of any day.

Icy surprise

I spent some time this past weekend at Ash Cave in the Hocking Hills region.


While I'm all for the wide-angle shots that seem to be required of something as large as this ice formation, I'm more about the macro shots as I'm sure you know by now.

Some subjects lend themselves to macro photography more than others, and ice is actually kind of tricky when it comes to macro. I had to really keep my eyes open to find something unique. Finally something caught my attention. Tiny limbs that were frozen just below the surface of the ice.


Interesting, but not terribly unique. But then I looked around and found a few more twigs under the ice, finally landing on one that was very unique.


I didn't really even fully realize what was going on with this until I looked at the pictures when I got home. The ice twig was cupped upward when it landed in this spot, and the ice grew up from the tips of each offshoot...




...giving the impression of a hand reaching out of the ice. How cool is that?


To see other icy images from this visit to Ash Cave, please visit my nature blog.

Pendants and jewels

perfection

Eyes - the window to the soul

eye of the American Bison


eye of the Persian Onager




eye of the Southern white rhinoceros

All photos taken at the Wilds, Cumberland, OH.

Frozen

From the photo archives, February 2007

In anticipation

snow and ice storm, January 2009

We have finally had our first taste of snow in southeast Ohio. We had some light accumulation on Saturday, most of which has since melted, and we had some very light flurries today. The snow and ice accumulation which produced the above image kept us stuck at home for several days, as our driveway and the rural roads were impassable for some time. That's okay, though, because when the weather gets that bad, I just want to stay home and play in the snow anyway!

Backlit

Lightbox, part II

My lightbox experiment continues. I had a theme going during my first day with the box: seed heads. The top 2 photos are of a plant that I am unable to identify at present Wingstem (thanks to Jim McCormac for help on the ID!).

The bottom 3 images are of one of my favorite autumn-blooming wildflowers : Tall Ironweed. All that remains of the vibrant purple flowers are these wild, tufty seeds.

More to come...

Upon reflection

Reflections of the sky in the rear window of my vehicle...




... and in a puddle.


Have a great weekend everyone!

Breathe

Relfections at the pier

Gad zukes! Project #2

When I harvested zucchini the other day, the other thing I had in mind for it, besides the pickles, was to make a zuke pizza. Specifically modeled off of this recipe, which just happens to involve lemon juice (which is ingenious and delicious!) from my fave new food blog, Smitten Kitchen. I love the recipes on her blog, and I love, LOVE the photography on her blog.

I'm one of those people who buys cook books (and cooking magazines) more for the pictures than the recipes. I have a couple of cookbooks (mostly about bread) that have very little in the way of photos, so they have to inspire me in a different way. But good pictures of food... wow, I love it. The Smitten Kitchen site, in fact, turned me on to a blog called Still Life With, which is solely devoted to food photography and food styling. Absolutely crazy, but I love it.

So, my point in telling you all this is that these food blogs (and others) inspire my photography. As a result, sometimes I just have to bring my camera into the kitchen and record the moment... and then share it with you! And so I give you Zuke Pizza (mostly in monochrome, because that's the kind of mood I'm in).