Bad News

Sadly, this is the only picture I took today. I didn't even attempt multiple shots at this time. I still think it's beautiful. I still love watching the sunrise most mornings. The sun was peeking over the clouds on the horizon like it was coming over mountain tops. The end...

Soccer Banquet

Tonight was the soccer banquet. It's the end of season wrap up, awards and saying goodbye to the seniors. I didn't really focus on photography tonight, in fact I wasn't even using one of my cameras so the shots are decent event pictures but nothing extraordinary. However, this is a picture of "my" star soccer player and her fiancee at the banquet, so it is a special picture for that reason.

Patterns

Today's photo is not about the photography but rather about the design. I am working on redoing my craft room and I have a new loft bed that needs a comforter, quilt, etc. I was going to try to find one that would work in the room. Then I looked at the pattern on my curtains and thought "I can make that" and so I drew out a pattern to match. The design is just a set of squares put together, which could be made as a quilt or in this case, crochet. This week's photography assignment is on patterns so I put the two ideas together and this is the rough draft. Eventually there will be four of the maroon and blue designs surrounded in rows of the green, the main color in the room. 

Wild Goose Chase

Lubbock is a wintering spot for more than a gaggle of geese. They gather around the many playa lakes in the area. I had wanted to stop and get some shots of them since we've been in the area and finally had a chance today before leaving town. I, quite literally, went on a wild goose chase and this is my favorite shot. The colors, the placement, the moment of flight all work together in this image.

Cactus

We headed outside of Slaton today to a shooting range to learn and practice with several guns. I was thinking I would probably spend most of my time shooting photos rather than guns. I did take quite a few photos, we were out in the desert. There were some nice views and I got some shots of various plants, some of the elevation and a windmill as well as plenty of the whole gang shooting. Surprisingly, I also shot a few of the guns myself and even knocked down one of the chicken shaped silhouettes...

Yummmy

Happy Thanksgiving!
Mine was great, hope yours was too :)

West Texas

We hit the road today for Thanksgiving. Most of the view is fairly flat and boring but there are some nice scenes along the route. The nice thing about arriving around sunset is that west Texas has some great sunsets, especially when New Mexico is blowing through, as it often is and tonight was no exception. Here are a couple of shots I took heading into Lubbock today.

Flower Child

This cat loves flowers, no matter if they are real or fake. Today I was pleasantly surprised to find incredible deals on fall florals and so I picked up a bag full. No sooner had I set the bag on the couch as Sophie crawled right in and got comfortable. She loves to get into almost anything but add flowers and she's just in heaven.

Skills

I went to a 7th grade basketball game today. It's obviously not quite at the level of the college games I usually watch but it is a huge improvement over the 10u games I've been to! Despite the horrible lighting that all gyms seem to have, I was able to get a few good shots. Skills are coming along at this age and you can see the two players, offense and defense, have the same form as they make the jump to the basket. The team I was cheering for won, by nearly 40 points, not an evenly matched game, but fun to watch, at least for me.

Hello!

We were adding water to Allie's tank today and I tried for some photos of her from above. She is a challenge to photograph because of the water and glass you can't use flash without reflections but the color is washed out without the additional light. I tried a couple with and without before settling into a more traditional photo of her, looking straight through the glass. (It's safer on my fingers that way!)

Bball Tourney

Today was day two of the basketball tournament. TWU won both games this weekend. It was nice to get out and have some fun and have a built in reason for taking some pictures. It's still very dark in the arena so stop action is difficult even with my lens. This is one of the shots I really liked from this afternoon.

Little fingers

I like to get different perspectives on kids in photos. Angles and focusing on their itty bitty fingers or toes, etc. So, I just played around a bit and got this one. She's sucking her thumb on one hand and kind of holding on to her blankie with the other. Typical kid position but not so typical photo, at least hopefully.

Morning

This has been a long and difficult week. I'm not getting out to take many photos but this morning was another beautiful sunrise. I enjoyed it and even took time to actually set this one up. I was trying to get the sun in just the right spot. Hopefully I will have more time for photography again next week.

Windy

Today was so windy, I wanted to try and capture a picture. Of course the question is, how do you capture the wind? I tried some shots of tall grasses and trees blowing but they didn't show what I wanted. Flags are always a good indicator. It's not a great shot but I like the sky and I did actually get the "wind" shot...

Last Rose

As we approach the first freeze date, my roses are putting off their last set of flowers of the year. The showing isn't as good as the spring but they keep going until the end.

Upside down?

One of the nice things about today was that I got to spend some time in my newly revamped room with my kitties. They so love to explore and new things are so exciting for them. They have been interested in every single piece of the bed I put together. Today, I taught Dot how to come down stairs, she already knew how to go up, so we just had to learn how to get down. She is the queen of UP so it was an important skill. After she had made it both up and down a few times, she started to go up the backside, she only went about half way before she would turn around and start over but it was quite amusing from my angle. This is the view I had and it still makes me smile :)

Daylight

Can you believe I'm posting a sky picture that's not sunrise or sunset? This was heading into sunset but not quite and the picture is more about the dark shadows and rays of light than a typical sunset picture. Either way, I thought it was worth the shot and I don't even mind the tops of the buildings and trees as they are silhouettes to add more contrast.

Reading the news

"This is such a comfortable position for reading the paper, I don't know why you think it's not!"
Kitty wins the battle of the newspaper today :)

Skylight

Today was overcast with bouts of heavy rain followed by moments of bright sunlight and then back to rain again. The storms were clearing and the cold front moved through mid afternoon so as I came out from work it was a nice chilly fall day and this was the view that greeted me.

Veteran's Day

In honor of Veteran's Day today, I decided to get a photo of a flag. Had I been thinking, I could have brought a camera to the Veteran's Day Assembly we had at school today. We had a couple dozen honorees and an Admiral speak to us. It was quite a moving event. The sky was a great background this afternoon for this photo. I have to point out that today is November 11 and next to the flag is a pole with Christmas decorations already. That drives me crazy, it is just too early!

Trophy Cat?

Does she think she's hiding and fits in here? ;)
Dot loves to be up high, if you can't find her, she's probably on top of the kitchen cabinets, the paper sorting shelves in the scrapbooking room or on top of our bed headboard. Last night, she chose the bedroom and then nearly scared me to death when she jumped down!

Fall colors

Here's a different take on the "fall colors". I'm about to leave for work as the sun starts to show it's brilliance each morning nowadays. I couldn't help myself, this was the view out my back window as I was getting ready and I had to capture it. I stepped outside and enjoyed the fall colored sky that we had. Sunset was also beautiful, but alas, I did not take any photos of it today.

Time change

Look closely, this is not something you see every day! I thought the whole perspective would make it the most fun, so I shot the whole mirror rather than zooming in on the driver's windshield.
Yesterday, we went off of daylight savings. I always hate the change, and today was no exception. I was dreading driving to work looking into the sun and not getting to see a beautiful sunrise. However, as I was lamenting this, I pulled up to a stoplight and looked up and this is what I saw in my mirror! I might not have seen that had I been enjoying my typical morning commute of darkness into sunrise.

Fuzzball

I love how my cats always help out so much when I'm doing the laundry. I can barely pull it out of the dryer and set it down on the bed before they jump right into the pile. Usually, I just pull it out from under them and disturb their moment but today I let Sophie just lay here, she looked like a super soft cuddly kitten that just belonged in the blanket. The rich background purple of the towel with a bit of the maroon shirt behind it along with her grey fur made her stand out and yet she also just blended in with her fuzziness. I let her cuddle with the warm towel for a bit, it's not like I need it to be wrinkle free.

Gazing Ball

We celebrated my dad's birthday today and one of his presents was a Fushigi ball.  I had never heard of it, but we had the best time learning all about it. It's a clever little thing, basically a small clear ball with a reflective center. So, besides the fun playing with it, I had fun with photographing it. In this shot, you can see the living room, at an angle in the middle of the ball. It's a "gravity" defying device, relying on it's reflective nature to fool the eye into seeing tricks. I think I may have to get one to play with photographing reflections!

This is the life

I am a sucker for animals, I can't help it, I've always been this way. I saw this driving home today and I just had to pull over and take a picture. I think this donkey has it pretty good, land, a  pond, a windmill, and other animal friends such as another donkey, cows and alpacas. The birds stayed on the other side of the pond but each donkey and a few of the cows came over to me, one donkey came close enough to sniff me and two of the younger cows came fairly close but the others approached but still kept their distance. This picture just looks idyllic to me, I thought it was too beautiful to pass up.

Rivalry

Every year during preseason, our two local colleges play a ladies basketball cross town rival exhibition game. The game is always fun for us as we are both UNT graduates but have been supporting the TWU team. So we go to our old basketball hang out and see friends that work with UNT athletics and then cheer for the other team. Tonight's game was just as exciting as last year's game with TWU coming out on top for the second year straight. That's not only great news for the team in general, but they are a Divison II team beating a Division I team and one of the players has a birthday today. Congratulations on the win and Happy Birthday Kayla!

Moon

If you've followed my blog at all, you've seen shots very similar to this. I have tried to get away from sharing them however this one had all these pieces. The sliver of a moon was actually my inspiration on this one. The sky had some fun colors coming up with the sun for a background and then the water looks glassy at the bottom of the shot. So the combination of getting the moon "caught" in the power lines with the silhouette trees and reflecting water all came together for something a bit more than some of my others. I wasn't able to get any other shots so I have to share this one ;)

Basketball Season

I can't believe the season is already here. I'm usually so excited I go looking for the schedule before it's out and wonder what I'll do while I'm waiting for it to begin. But this year, things have been different and busy and I sort of stumbled into it. Regardless, we have some players we are excited to see again, among them #3 who is really on fire to start the year. She has great faces and poses and I can hear it now...why did you take that picture of me? But these moments are as fun to capture as the movement shots in the game because you can see character of the person. So, this one's for you Hanna and to the whole team, have a great season!