Chillin' Great Blue Heron

~ 90 day blog challenge: day three ~

This was a 4 second exposure with my lens set at 300mm and shot through a window at about 25 feet, so not a chance of it being tack-sharp.  Still, it's a beautiful bird and I'm glad I got any shot at all in the twilight conditions. 

Birds Galore

~ 90 day blog challenge: day two ~

I don't know if it's because Spring is a late bloomer this year, or I wasn't very observant last year, but I've seen more different types of birds in my backyard this past week than I saw all of last year!

My backyard is DNR land, which includes a pond that connects to a lake.  In the last few days I've seen:  Great Blue Heron, Wood Duck, Yellow Warbler, Cardinal, Robin, Black-capped Chickadee, some others that I'm not quite sure of, and the Great Egret, pictured above.  I love birding.

Dirty Pig

It's Spring once again and I'm really feeling a drive to get back into photography.  But good intentions aren't enough.  I need discipline.  And what better way to tackle discipline than to start a daily blog challenge?  My last challenge was in 2011–30 days/30 blogs.

I can dooooo this!  Time to get down and dirty–just like my flying pig.  90 days.  90 blogs.  Starting....NOW!

I fired up my Nikon today and my flying pig was taunting me to start a challenge, so what could I do?  Start with him, of course!  I was shooting through a screen, which gave a nice soft focus effect.

Day 1 of 90 down.  Woot!

Be an original

As I was getting ready to leave work tonight, I used my phone to take a picture of my ride.

The image was very small on my phone, so I didn't get a really good look at it until I got home.  A friend pointed out that all the cars around my trike were neutral colors except for a couple.  So I cropped them out to show what you see here: an awesome trike in a sea of neutral density boringness.

I thought about cropping down to just vehicles, but I like the Richfield skyline in the background.   I also think it makes the subject a little more subtle.  I see the water tower first, and then my eyes pan down and...wait?  What?

Sunny Sunday

Last Sunday afternoon I went on a photo safari at the Sculpture Garden with friends.  It was a gorgeous day--blue skies, poofy clouds, and plenty of sun. 

But even the bright sun couldn't melt this huge metal snowman.

I also decided to work in a portrait of one of my friends.

The last time I was at the Sculpture Garden on a Sunday afternoon, I had no problems finding a place to park.  But this time it seemed like everyone and their brother was there, so I had to park up in the bluffs.  Which turned out to be a good thing, because I never would have found this lovely little park otherwise.  I stopped to rest on my hike back up to the bluffs to enjoy its beauty.